Shoehorning Reality

Jen Psaki elegantly shuts down Peter Doocy after he claims 'unemployment benefits are so good' https://t.co/D6xWPucKIY

— Raw Story (@RawStory) May 10, 2021

"We have looked at the data," Psaki explained. "We don't see much evidence that the extra unemployment insurance is a major driver in people not rejoining the work force. We actually see the data and our analysis shows that the lack of vaccinations, the lower rate, which is why I refer to the data and the week that it was taken -- it has an impact. Child care has an impact. Schools reopening has an impact." 

"But there's also the need to pay a livable working wage," she added. "And that's one of the reasons the president will talk about that this afternoon."

Doocy disagreed: "Anybody who is making $32,000 a year is better off financially just taking the unemployment benefits. So is the White House creating an incentive just to stay home?"

Which pretty much means $32,000 a year is shit wages, because unemployment benefits are not that good. The President has announced what he will do, and it sounds pretty much like what states (well, Texas, anyway) do already:

"We're gonna make it clear that anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits" -- Biden pic.twitter.com/FzIAacnLlX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 10, 2021

Now, this is about three degrees removed from reality, to be honest.  The states offer and operate unemployment benefits because it's a good idea even the meanest state can't get away from (ahem, Texas, ahem). They also set the terms for receiving such benefits, and in Texas, as I understand it, those terms include actively looking for a job.  The amount allocated by Congress to extend unemployment benefits is not an endless benefit that will keep people at home paying their cable fees so FoxNews stays in business in perpetuity (unlike Social Security, which is indirectly subsidizing FoxNews, at least until the oldest Boomers die off).  And the President can't really tell the states how to allocate funds, except very indirectly.  By the time the message actually reaches the people on unemployment, through the machinery of government, many of them will either have returned to work (the ones with no other choice), and the rest will have gone to school or sold the house and bought an RV (yes, I actually read these stories in a WaPo by way of Anchorage Daily News report.  Probably fewer such people in the country than than there are actual transgendered students in the entire country actively involved in school athletics, but we might as well make a big deal out of every little thing, huh?), or just decided to live on their investments (again, another group out there), etc., etc.

But the people declining to take shit wages because they want something better after a year of covid shutdowns?  Piss on 'em, says FoxNews.  God be with 'em, sez I.  And the Law, and the Prophets, truth be told.

That, however, doesn't get me directly to this.

Two years before the 2020 election, the conspiracy that Donald Trump won the election was part of a plot cooked up by a Texas Republican businessman, reported a Washington Post exposé.

In a shocking report, the Post revealed Russell J. Ramsland Jr. pitched an idea that "seemed rooted in evidence."

The theory was that "voting-machine audit logs — lines of codes and timestamps that document the machines' activities — contained indications of vote manipulation." There was just one problem, they didn't have a candidate to test the theory.

How they got here from there is interesting; but the more interesting part is the "theory":

"ASOG's report claimed that audit logs for Dominion machines showed an alarming 68 percent 'error rate,'" said the Post.

While that might sound astounding, when a University of Michigan computer science professor conducted an analysis, it was revealed the audit log was "meaningless."

Pay attention; this is where the stupid comes in.  Or, as Orwell put it:  "Ignorance Is Strength."

Professor J. Alex Halderman, "who as part of the lawsuit examined the Antrim [County] results and the ASOG report at the request of the Michigan secretary of state and attorney general, wrote that audit logs record multiple lines for each ballot scanned and that many of those lines are 'benign warnings or errors' that have no bearing on the accuracy of the machines' count."

The example he gave was that ASOG was counting the warning "ballot has been reversed" to claim that votes were tampered with.

"But that entry means that a voter attempted to feed his ballot into the machine and the machine balked and spit it out — just as a vending machine often balks at a wrinkled dollar bill," said the report. Halderman's report explained that it happens "all the time."

ASOG then claimed that ballots were sent to electronic "adjudication" where officials manipulated them. Halderman's report found that Antrim County didn't even do an electronic adjudication. While ASOG may have found some security weaknesses, there was never any proof that the weaknesses were used by anyone to hack the election.

Trump is drawn to ignorant people because he understands how they think.  So he loves this pile of conspiracy theories that start with a pea under all the mattresses.  An imaginary pea under fictional mattresses, but then again, he's no princess.

But much of the objection to reality (people are making too much on unemployment; computers make records of everything they do, which must be evidence if malfeasance!) is literally an objection to:  reality.  Which is complicated and includes far more than you understand.  Maybe Peter Doocey thinks $32,000 per annum is a princely sum (I'm old enough to remember when it was, but I doubt he is).  His ignorance is not the sword and shield of rigtheousness he thinks it is.  As for computer code, I'd ask someone what it meant if I read it, just as you ask a lawyer what the statute means, because the plain language of the legislature is never black and white.

But it's easier to pretend you're that smart; and that you're that strong.