Day 431

[Amy0204 (Amy Ginsburg)]

Those census people are relentless. I believe the rule of thumb is that they have to return to an address at least 3 times to get the info, assuming you didn’t return the mailed copy. (This was shared with me by an acquaintance who used to be a census taker). And after that, they will try to get census by proxy. In other words, they’ll start talking to neighbors or other people who might know who lives at a given address. The goal is to count everybody in the U.S. I don’t know how you pull that off online, particularly with all of the hacking and potential data breeches. I would never trust that the data online would be an accurate picture of the U.S. composition. I couldn’t find anything to support the Tweeter’s claim that it was moving online. But I do agree that it’s going to be one hot mess at this rate.

Here’s some info on the process: Door-to-Door Visits Begin for 2010 Census - 2010 Census - Newsroom - U.S. Census Bureau

And they are looking for people who want to work for them right now!

How to Land a Job as a Census Taker

[Pet_Proletariat]

@SEPTGUY

I wonder about that from a space standpoint.

I’m sorry I don’t understand. What’s a space standpoint?

[SEPTGUY]

If they have enough acerage to store that many weapons? The design of handling facilities to store weapons like that takes a lot of acerage.

[Pet_Proletariat]

They have the space, that’s one of the ports where they decommission aircraft carriers. In fact there was talk of building a floating bridge out of the decommissioned carriers. That base is massive!

Turning Old Aircraft Carriers Into a Bridge Is a Bad Idea

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

don’t worry, there’s hundreds of thousands of acres in the canal and sound to store nuclear weapons. fuck the fish.

[Pet_Proletariat]

Welcome to Sea-town, home to more than just good coffee.

[elaphe (Lynn)]

@Keaton_James

How is this guy still a top executive in the RNC? Any other organization would have booted him weeks ago when the first serious allegations surfaced.

That’s just one of many reasons I think that most of the GOP is “dirty”.

[SEPTGUY]

One of my fav cities.

[Keaton_James]

Yes, it is deeply disturbing. The integrity of our democracy depends on the accuracy of the census and that, in turn, depends on the willing participation of Americans. If we start including questions in the census that ask people to “fess up” about something that could be considered a “strike against them,” no matter what that might be, then Americans are going to start slamming their doors in the census takers’ faces.

Once the census bureau adds a self-incriminating question like “are you in the country illegally?” (which is basically what the “citizenship question” is aimed at finding out), that opens the flood gates to other questions like “have you ever been arrested?”, “do you have a criminal record?”, “have you declared bankruptcy?”, etc., etc. Even people who would answer “no” to all of these questions are going to become very suspicious of the census process and are going to stop cooperating – this will make the census a farce and open it up to political manipulation so that the results will unfairly favor one party or the other.

What’s also disturbing is that Trump’s first choice to head the census was a guy who wrote a book subtitled “Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America” – his research into how to “game” redistricting efforts was used by the GOP to implement the shameful gerrymandering that is helping keep them in power. Although public outcry forced Trump to abandon this choice, he clearly played his hand, showing he has every intention of politicizing the census to benefit the Republicans.

And one last thing to consider: Wilbur Ross, who is forcing the addition of the citizenship question, is up to his eyeballs along with Trump in the Russia scandal. Make of that what you will.

[Amy0204 (Amy Ginsburg)]

Also the home of Bezos and Alexa. Maybe that’s part of Amazon’s motivation to open a second headquarters. Unless their yet to be announced location will focus on non- retail activities, it makes no sense to have senior executives traveling back and forth. I’ve often wondered whether they will eventually move to the second location but wasn’t sure what was motivating this. Distancing themselves from any threats in Seattle could be a reason. They’ve been silent about where and when the new headquarters will open.

[Pet_Proletariat]

Um, what are you talking about? Amazon’s motivation will always be money.

[gordo (Gord)]

On Trump’s edict to not renew status on the Liberians: let us hope that as president, Trump allows them on deck and without chains on their return.

[dragonfly9]

Longish response to census, voting restrictions, swamp kings and Wilbur Ross

Yes, all that you describe as part of the citizen screening component of the census are a bunch of intimidating questions which would repel any body - immigrant, those who have gone bankrupt, or homeless. All would avoid any confrontation having to do with authorities. Especially knowing that this administration has gone back on it’s word to protect DACA recipients and does not value their potential citizenship by way of getting ICE on their families. A bit of silver lining though, fortunately the courts are protecting DACA recipients as of now. This is a data sensitive era as we see now, and people get exploited for saying too much.

We see it as a clear objective by agenda driven R’s to Introduce ways to cull out the herd, whose only objective is to not have people of color or immigrants part of the country, voter base and system.

We see it through T’s awful appointees and cabinet choices and we should be making a lot of noise about this. That was a terrible choice on who was leading the census…(good article) and who was spearheading the R fight to get fair elections who eventually resigned.(name begins with a K) That guy was a number 1 idiot.

R’s hope to change the voting laws…House moves to eliminate commission overseeing voting system security – TechCrunch

But here’s what the R’s really want to do…get the majority of voters outside of the urban centers, where those citizen questions might be ignored.

Potential citizenship question in 2020 Census could shift power to rural America

Read here…another article by Ari Berman https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gop-rigs-elections-gerrymandering-voter-id-laws-dark-money-w515664

And how WIlbur Ross’ as a power broker is deeply in with these swamp kings as reported in the Paradise papers…Explore The Influencers: US president Donald Trump's allies in the Paradise Papers

Ross is involved in all the Russian Oligarchy and as a former director of the Bank of Cypress he has been more than welcoming Trump's commerce secretary oversaw Russia deal while at Bank of Cyprus | US news | The Guardian

But poor WIlbur he is up to his eyeballs in catnaps…he falls asleep at lot of meetings.

Swamp deep 'r us.

[dragonfly9]

Not sure that the census process is online…it is still a door-to-door operation. Eventually it will be housed data…that could be used to intimidate potential voters and cull out who the R’s don’t feel are appropriate citizens.

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

@Amy0204

Amazon’s motivation to open a second headquarters

…is about Seattle (and Washington state) not playing ball with their demands any longer. Amazon has made plenty of thinly-veiled threats over the years to leave if the metro didn’t do more to invest and improve transportation, taxation, zoning, provide construction credits/breaks, etc, etc, etc. The company, meanwhile, has refused to invest in the city itself, making the relationship a bit, uhm, lopsided. No different than Boeing in ~2001.

I digress… this is off topic.

[Amy0204 (Amy Ginsburg)]

@Pet_Proletariat

Amazon’s motivation will always be money.

That’s not totally accurate. Amazon got started in 1995 and went public in 1997. They have somehow convinced Wall Street investors to invest but it’s always be viewed as a unique phenomena because Amazon does not make money.

The perception is that Amazon is all about profits. In actuality, they are all about sales revenues. But that doesn’t necessarily equate to the bottom line. Check out this article and in particular, the first line graph. You’ll note a huge increase in sales revenue from when the company started while profits started have remained relatively flat all of these years. What does Amazon do? A guide to understanding the e-commerce giant — Quartz

Whatever money that is coming in is being revinvested. Amazon’s stock has soared ever since the company went public, despite the low profitability. Bezos’s wealth comes from the percentage of stock he owns in the company, not because of his salary. The article above covers many of Amazon’s new interests - Logistics, AI and Robotics, Cloud Service capable of saving huge datasets, and a number of unusual ventures on the side. When people think of Amazon, they think about e-commerce, but it really is a technology organization. Most of us who shop online don’t realize that because much of the technology is targeted at businesses.

Ultimately, Bezos’s vision is to turn Amazon into the most customer-centric organization in this world and beyond (and yes, he has his sites on space exploration some day). So, I would have to respectfully take issue with your comment.

I believe that Amazon is all about people - what people need and want now and what they may need and want in the future. He’s hard on his employees, but he wants the best for them, too. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that he’s going to prolong this quest for a new headquarters until he can find a place with good housing, education, and infrastruction and people with technology skills. I’m not sure if those 40.000 folks that work in Seattle will be offered a chance to relocate. The new location is rumored to employ 50,000, and will contribute to the local economy in a similar fashion as Seattle ($38 million between 2010 and 2016) so the competition has been fierce to attract Amazon. I know it’s down to 20 cities with plans to announce sometime in 2018. No firm date has been given and there have been all sorts of theories based on references in advertising, visits to cities, code names and an active rumor mill. A lot of people think Amazon could end up in the DC area for a number of reasons. That might make for some interesting dynamics because Bezos is no friend of Trump’s.

So sorry to all for going off task, but I have a special interest in Amazon for a number of reasons. But as one who teaches business courses, I know how misunderstood the company is. People seem to think that it makes oodles of money. But it doesn’t. Whenever I have the opportunity to enlighten people about it, I jump on it.

So now, back to your originally scheduled program…

[Keaton_James]

A newly filed court document reveals that former Trump aide and now government witness, Rick Gates, had substantive conversations with a Russian intelligence officer in 2016 during the campaign – and Gates knew his contact was indeed an officer in the GRU.

Former Trump aide Rick Gates was having ‘substantive’ conversations with...

To use Trump’s own lingo: This is huge! So far, I have only found it reported in Raw Story, but as other news outlets pick it up, I’ll post the links here.

UPDATE: As expected, other news outlets are now reporting on this. Here’s an excellent in-depth article with many remarkable details that the WaPo posted just a few minutes ago. We are getting so close to seeing the “smoking gun.” Mueller is probably already there.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-associate-had-russian-intelligence-ties-during-2016-campaign-prosecutors-say/2018/03/28/473228e8-3231-11e8-8bdd-cdb33a5eef83_story.html?utm_term=.da329b6db3f3

A link to the full court document is below – it’s worth skimming through since it contains additional revelations about Gates. Note that it’s actually a document related to the sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan, the lawyer whose clients included Gates and Manafort; he pleaded guilty to lying to the Special Counsel about his work for Gates and Manafort. This document describes his initial lies along with the truths that he eventually admitted to.

3-27-18-US-Sentencing-Memo-Van-Der-Zwaan.pdf

Here’s a stunning excerpt from the court document (the Person A referred to is the Russian intelligence officer Gates was communicating with):

“In van der Zwaan’s recorded conversation with Person A, in Russian, Person A suggested that ‘there were additional payments,’ that ‘[t]he official contract was only a part of the iceberg,’ and that the story may become a blow for ‘you and me personally.’”

It’s difficult to parse the full implications of this exchange, but it would seem to indicate that the Russian intelligence officer was fully aware that Gates was hiding the payments he was receiving and that the activities they were all engaged in together were illegal. I’m sure we’ll find out more during Manafort’s trial.

[Pet_Proletariat]

@Amy0204 How does a person go from talking about the expulsion of Russian spies to talking about Amazon’s net sales? These things are not connected! Please stay on topic.

[matt (Matt Kiser)]

off topic. closing.