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I've been laid off. The end of my notice period is at the end of this month. Yes I get severance, but it won't last long.
The West Coast is burning, but the Federal government under Trump doesn't give a shit. Multiple hurricanes are threatening the South, and my mother lives in Florida. Schools are opening for in person instruction in spite of advice from medical experts so we're sacrificing our youth for political appearances.
Every fucking day, more and more malfeasance by Trump, his appointees and surrogates surfaces, but with the complicit GOP, corrupt Barr in the DoJ and the traitor McConnell having a stranglehold on the Senate none of this shit will be brought to justice or corrected.
Worse, even if the Dems win in November, they will probably just all sing Kumbaya and sweep it under the rug as "history", and there will be no accounting for the corruption and crime of this administration. IMO, it's the mistake that they made after Watergate that helped set the stage for the current corruption of the once loyal GOP.
To say that I'm feeling cynical and depressed is putting it mildly. It seems like there will be no end to the right-wing shit-storm that is enveloping our nation, and that a Dem admin will have to spend all of it's time once again fixing the godawful mess that the GOP left, rather than moving our nation ahead into the 21st century. Every time the GOP gets into power they sabotage our institutions, shit on our ideals, and then pretend like it is patriotic or something. Each time is worse than the last.
It will be a cold day in hell before I knowingly vote for a Republican again, even on a local level. They have lost all claim to patriotism and loyalty to American ideals.
The West Coast is burning, but the Federal government under Trump doesn't give a shit. Multiple hurricanes are threatening the South, and my mother lives in Florida. Schools are opening for in person instruction in spite of advice from medical experts so we're sacrificing our youth for political appearances.
Every fucking day, more and more malfeasance by Trump, his appointees and surrogates surfaces, but with the complicit GOP, corrupt Barr in the DoJ and the traitor McConnell having a stranglehold on the Senate none of this shit will be brought to justice or corrected.
Worse, even if the Dems win in November, they will probably just all sing Kumbaya and sweep it under the rug as "history", and there will be no accounting for the corruption and crime of this administration. IMO, it's the mistake that they made after Watergate that helped set the stage for the current corruption of the once loyal GOP.
To say that I'm feeling cynical and depressed is putting it mildly. It seems like there will be no end to the right-wing shit-storm that is enveloping our nation, and that a Dem admin will have to spend all of it's time once again fixing the godawful mess that the GOP left, rather than moving our nation ahead into the 21st century. Every time the GOP gets into power they sabotage our institutions, shit on our ideals, and then pretend like it is patriotic or something. Each time is worse than the last.
It will be a cold day in hell before I knowingly vote for a Republican again, even on a local level. They have lost all claim to patriotism and loyalty to American ideals.
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Bold of you to assume there will even be an election in November, or that the Dems will be allowed to win.
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I hope you can find another job soon, even if it's the fucking WMF. (You'd be their first capable employee.)
M
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Re: the current state of the country, you're preaching to the choir. I've even seen a YouTube feed called "Republicans against Trump" that has hard-core Republicans saying they need to get their party back. The Republicans for Biden feed is similar.
I've mostly been watching lightweight stuff like food channels and cute animals.
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Indeed and most of the others spend all their time trying to sell me "premium membership" that wont really help me.
I also note that most of the boards are just scraping each other.
So far, Linked In is my choice for number one.
What Im seeing in demand (You really need ALL of these):
Python
Go
Ansible
Docker
Kubernetes
Web AWS OR GCP OR Azure
VMWare
On to the other stuff:
Its a little frustrating reading all these posts from people who have not studied Political Science.
While i was forced to take a course in it, I ended up loving it and took more.
This has given me a better understanding than most people have, including others who replied to your post.
Yes, there will be an election in Nov
Its a crapshoot which way it will go because 2 of the largest voting blocks are Evangelical Christians and non college educated white males.
The Dems took the "Archie Bunkers" for granted but didnt do squat for them for decades.
Trumps election was predictable.
The military is not fond of Trump.
There are a lot of people in the military who would LOVE to drag the "Toddler in Chief" out the door on inauguration day.
They do NOT like being used as the presidents private goon squad.
Thats why we have DHS in Portland in stead of the Army.
The Pentagon simply refused to beat or shoot protesters.
The military learned ALOT from VietNam.
DHS has a lot to fear in a Dem victory in Nov.
DHS risks being torn to shreds for their involvement as Trumps "storm troopers"
Hilary GAVE Trump the election because of a severely flawed campaign.
Space here does not allow to break her failures down.
Hilary also shares one characteristic in her staffing with Trump.
Neither tolerates dissention in their staffs.
Its is VERY important to ALWAYS have a "Devils Advocate".
"Mr President/Madam Secretary, you are about to shoot youself in the foot with a cannon and I cannot allow you to comit political suicide"
Neither staff tolerates this. Both staffs were crammed with "Yes people"
Why did the pious Evengelicals throw in with Trump?
Simple, Trump promised them an anti abortion Supreme Court.
So, if Trump loses, expect a thorough sabotage that will take Biden months to repair before he is able to roll out a vaccine when it finally gets approved.
Even if he manages to pardon all his goons on the way out, his pardon only works on Fed charges.
The state of NY will eventually get their hands on him and they will rip him to shreds.
So far, the FDA has been able to refuse the rushing of the vaccine.
The Moderna is pretty safe
(I do have a bio medical engineering background and I HAVE read the patents)
In the old days a vaccine was a vaccine. No longer.
Each one works slightly differently and it wont be long before you have to research WHICH cvaccine you want for a given ailment.
Imagine reading consumer reports for vaccines.
I highly doubt the Moderna CAN hurt anyone because of the way it works.
Its biggest problem is whether it is 50% or more effective.
If I had money, I would have bought stock in Moderna.
Pandemics are followed by civil unrest. Umemployment brings unrest.
All the hot spots in the world are related to unemployment.
Palestine? Syria? etc, All have very high unemployment.
Many things in the US need to be fixed.
There is a protest, promises are made, everything gets forgotten when the news cycle moves on.
This time, with high unemployment, the unrest was bigger and changes are being made.
Bad cops are being fired, bad politicians are actually getting busted etc.
This is because people are not working.
We have about 6 months of political chaos ahead.
Trump was incredibly lucky in that he got the magic bingo card combination that gave him the Electoral College, allowing him to win without the popular.
The Electoral College was originally tasked with 2 things.
It was to make it less likely that more populist states would totally steamroller smaller states.
There was also a populist push to establish a king of the US.
Remember, the average American wasnt too bright then or now.
The Electoral College was smarter and better educated than most of the country at the time and it was hoped that it would help quash the whole King of the US thing.
It is faintly possible, that Trump could once again win the Electoral, but he does not have all his former support, so it will be VERY close.
If the Electoral cant make a decision, then on Jan 6, the congress takes over, with the newly seated.
The house chooses the president and the Senate choses the Veep.
Heres where it gets interesting:
The Dems need a minimum of 3 Senate seats to pick up.
They have one Dem seat in danger, so they really need to add 4.
If the Dems pick up 5 Senate seats, they can overide a Trump presidency and impeach.
If they only pick up 4 and Biden wins, they are still OK.
In the House, even with the Dems in command, it does not mean the House will choose Biden as in the house States have multiple seats, but in choosing President, each state only gets one vote.
It is theoretically that a Democratic House could STILL choose Trump.
It is possible that we could also end up with a Biden-Pence or more hysterically funny, a Trump-Harris.
Think about the latter for a moment.
Wouldnt that just RUIN Trumps day if he got reelected, but got both houses in Dem hands AND a DEM Veep ?
One of the risks of a Trump second term is that the statute of limitations may run out on some of his past deeds.
It is possible that the only reason he has stuck around for the abuse he has rightiously earned, is to run out the clock.
His postmaster general is heading for real trouble on the state level.
The legal profession is so outraged at Barr, that he probably wont be able to practice law after his time on the DoJ is over.
Trump demands loyalty above all else, but gives no loyalty in return.
When the states start going after him and his family, he wont be able to daangle
pardons for state level crimes, so his goons will turn on him like a rabid dog.
It will take a while, but somewhere around 2023, if hes still alive, hes going to get hauled into court and hes going to get shredded.
One last point is about sweeping things under the rug.
We were upset that Obama was prevented from nominating judges in his last term.
Where did that precedent come from?
Biden
Yup, Biden was warned when he did it to the Republicans that it might come back to
haunt him and sure enough it came back to bite his running mate.
The obstruction caused by "Mitch the SChnorer" ?
Nancy Pelosi did that one first.
A few terms ago, she announced the first 100 days of a congress session where they
were going to steamroller HER agenda and they were going to totally freeze out the Republicans.
So, years later, Mitch did the same thing to HER party.
Someone paying attention, should have been able to predict this.
So what about sweeping this under the rug?
They HAVE to sweep it under the rug if there is ANY chance of dialing things back in DC.
If they go on a tear and fry every Trump micreant, you can expect things to get even worse (yes its possible)
I revile Trump, but I cant feel too sorry for the Dems,
as they brought alot of this on themselves.
No matter what happens, its going to get a lot more ugly than it is now.
Possibly armed insurrection in the streets.
Its possible that the insurrection act will be called and the military refuses to act.
At some point, the winners need to give some thought how they treat the losers.
In fast, the way the winners have treated the losers is all about how we go tto where we are right now.
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I'm exhausted, and close to non-functional, today, so this is likely not going to be the most coherent reply. Apologies.
I'm incredibly sorry to hear this is your last month on that job. You've been there before. I've been there before. We all have, in IT, but that doesn't make it a whit easier, and every year we get older, IT's glass ceiling with regard to age makes it harder to find a new job. I've personally given up on IT, but I'm lucky enough that I can manage to do that.
I'm intensely worried about the folks I know, Out West, who are in the smoke-and-fire areas. I've been worried about you, as well, and watching their proximity to your area, even though I haven't contacted you about it. (Figured you didn't need the bother of me nattering at you in worry.) For my part, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad I didn't move back, at this point. With my asthma, I'd likely be dead. Lori's okay but cranky about it, up in Salem, BTW.
As to politics - I agree with much of what![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
texxgadget has said, in this comment thread, so I won't get into it all, again, nor will I nitpick about it. Yeah, it's a shitshow. So we shovel. I can't think of anything else to do, and even if one doubts there'll be an election (I don't, BTW,) or that it'll be interfered with by foreign nations (that's a higher possibility, in my book,) we've nothing to lose and everything, potentially, to gain, by going through the motions anyhow.
But yeah. It sucks. And it doesn't help that we're still coming down off of the end-of-the-millennium religious zealotry that spikes at the end of each century and massively spikes at the end of each millennium.
I'm not sure whether it'll all get swept under. One good thing about Biden being the age he is, is that he'll remember what happened to Ford, when Ford pardoned Nixon. So there's that to consider, in the mix.
As to voting for GOP: I've been registered as an Independent, since I've been old enough to vote, and have no intention of changing that status. Oddly enough, I have voted GOP for one candidate, within the past couple of years. The reason is that, Florida being Florida, one of the candidates running under the Dem. ticket was...absolutely and utterly batshit. They were running against an old-school Republican. The Democrat was batshit enough that I actually voted for the GOP candidate to prevent her getting into office. All I can say is that it's...Florida. It was truly impressive.
I know you're smoked-out, cranky, and cynical. None of this response is meant to lecture or nag. I"m just...yeah. I really, really hope that you can find a new job, soonest, and that your situation improves. If we can do anything, or if it would even help to have someone out of your usual loop to bitch to, by all means feel free to contact me. One thing I have, these days, is time.