Orwellian
However, GOP Rejects Two Resolutions Affirming Support For U.S. Intelligence Community, they still will not do a damn thing. They can’t even back any US Agency findings, let alone do something about making sure we don’t have a repeat.
1 Like
In my 45+ years in IT we tested on every platform we could get our hands on. We never asked our clients to submit problem tickets before we started on any issue that creeped up. For something like a Bad Gateway error there should have been automatic notification to administrators of the issue. Over a few days time admins could see how bad it was/is getting and assign proper priorities and level of support staff. At this point, at least 2 weeks in, there should have been a front page notification to users of the issue. That notification should have been updated at least twice daily. That is just common sense and common courtesy to your user community.
As a retired COO, once this is solved, I would conduct an investigation about my teams response. Heads would roll if for nothing else than lack of information and lack of sense of urgency. The heads in question would not be the lowest rung by any means.
2 Likes
As a former CIO myself, I hear you, ljb860! And the Bad Gateway issue has reared its head here multiple times over many months, even years. It usually coincides with massive amounts of traffic but that hasn’t been the case this week.
Suffice it to say that tech is not TPM’s strong suit but I don’t mind sending them trouble tickets when I encounter a problem. Yesterday, I hit on a bug I hadn’t seen before so I took a screen grab and sent it in while also informing them that we’d been seeing the 502 Bad Gateway error again.
The last thing I want is to see TPM comments go the way of Think Progress or HuffPo and simply adopting Facebook commenting.
But you’re right, point by point…
1 Like
This. I was feeling hopeful after I wrote to them yesterday and got back a note fairly quickly saying that they were looking into it. Things seemed to have stabilized after that, so I assumed they’d restarted a gorf’ed server or otherwise found something amiss to fix, but sadly, the errors are back today (although at least here in SoCal they seem to be not as bad as yesterday).
I did look through their staff list during my poke around yesterday and was saddened (but not surprised) to see that all the tech staff seem to be web devs, graphic designers, etc. From what we’re seeing, the problem is a backend server or comm problem, triggered by higher traffic levels so what they need is a sysadmin type familiar with their setup. At this point, i’d pay a second Prime subscription to get a peek at their log files.
I really do dread the day the next round of indictments come out, sure to grind this poor place to its knees.
Why now more traffic than they experienced during the election cycle? I don’t fully buy it. Unless they had leased capacity that they then gave back and went to nickel/diming the servers. Even then I find it hard to believe capacity issues as even back in the early 00s we had servers available that automatically adjusted based on demands.
What I believe is occurring is a typical scatter shoot approach to the issue rather than stepping through each process. Yes, taking the slow approach can take longer but then the problem is solved. Scattered approach just treats the symptom and usually means at some future date more work is required. If you are a consultant, scatter is your go to as it ultimately means money in your pocket.
1 Like
Maltrumpian.
My nightmares are becoming reality.
2 Likes
This this this this this. A thousand times, this.
Also this. Talk is cheap, and so are non-binding resolutions, Jeff, you smiling, simpering, lying sack of shit.
I’m not sure what pisses me off more, those Rs who simply slavishly defend and parrot everything Trumpty Dumpty says and does, or those who clutch their pearls and talk all concerned. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Both groups are enablers, pure and simple. Fuck 'em.
1 Like
That’s exactly what it is, but no Republican is ever, ever going to admit that. Not even “former Republicans”. Not Steve Schmidt, not Joe Scarborough, not Jeff Flake, certainly not John McCain. Trumpism is a direct, linear outgrowth of the last 30-40 years of Republicanism.
Lee Atwater, Republican operative who ran Bush I’s campaign, complete with the Willie Horton ad:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
“And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.”’
He said that in 1981. Thirty-seven years ago. The quote (although reproduced in many places) is from Bob Herbert’s 2005 NYT column “Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant.” Herbert was discussing the then-recent quote from Bill Bennett that “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could – if that were your sole purpose – you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”
This is the modern Republican Party. It’s been this way since the Southern Strategy was imagined and implemented. A toxic mix of racism, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, jingoism, and supply-side/Laffer voodoo, all in the service of further enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor.
The rot goes back to Nixon. At least. No Republican, and probably no former Republican (at least not the recent defectors) is ever, ever going to face that.
1 Like
He’s banking that in 2020 or 2024, or anytime really, he’ll be able to play the role of the “sane Republican” (hint: he isn’t) and get bear-hugged by the compliant media desperate for a “normal Republican” to catapult into the WH to show that there Really Are Two Sane Parties in the country and that Trump and Trumpism were a Temporary Aberration instead of the rot at the core of the Republican Party finally becoming so blatant as to be impossible to ignore.
Damn.
I was, like, that Time magazine cover isn’t for realz. Is it?
It is.
1 Like
Albeit in a year when the Republican nominee had less chance than a snowball in Hell.
I don’t disagree. My question would be this - does it go back to Nixon because of what he did, or does it go back to Nixon because the perception amongst the self-martyr class was that “the Left” got a rightwing scalp (Nixon’s) and therefore payback was in order?
1 Like
Both.
I think the Nixon campaign was the first in which the Southern Strategy was actually deployed – as it must have been, since it was the first following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Pretty sure they did it in '68; damn sure they did in '72. It was the time when the religious RW was gaining steam, the “Moral Majority” was being founded, and the televangelists were beginning to show strength. Meanwhile we had Paul Weyrich just beginning to work on voter suppression. He got his political start in '61 (Racine Young Republicans). Sometime between '66 and '71 he met Joseph Coors’s aide Jack Wilson, and in '71 they founded one of the first RW think tanks (that one, um, tanked). By '73 he got Coors to fund the startup of the Heritage Foundation. Meanwhile the Powell Memo had galvanized a lot more RWers and generally big corporate money to pump money into all sorts of RW causes.
By 1980 we had this:
… and it’s only gotten worse since then. Gingrich kicked it up several more notches in '94, and neither he nor they have let up since then.
So yes, Nixon was on board with the Southern Strategy, and the former Dixiecrats fled into the arms of the Republican Party. And then, once Nixon was toppled through his own malfeasance, the righwingers were out for blood, and they haven’t stopped since.