Horse race
Bernie Sanders is a good man with a good heart. He’s fought for the people more than any politician we know. This was his time to be president! But he’s a good man with bad judgement of folks to listen to. Your biggest hater could be your closest friend, people pretend well.
— Ja’Mal Green (@JaymalGreen) April 28, 2020
My question here is, to what extent does it now matter whether @BernieSanders “is a good man?”
He has endorsed a warmongering #neoliberal rapist suffering from dementia, saying @JoeBiden is the candidate we need now. I mean, really? REALLY?#NeverBiden https://t.co/lebvVZqzPv
— David Benfell, Ph.D. (@n4rky) April 30, 2020
So how does a potential vice presidential candidate credibly claim to believe Christine Blasey Ford, whose accusation rocked Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, and not Tara Reade, who alleges rape against Joe Biden?[1] I guess it helps to be a politician:
“‘Believe the woman’ didn’t mean believe all women, all the time. But this is an era of slogans and we’re paying the price for that,” said an adviser to one of the women under consideration [for the vice presidential nomination], noting Reade’s story changed over the time.[2]
Because you know I know some other folks whose stories have “changed over the time.”
Marc Caputo, “Tara Reade allegations rattle Biden’s VP search,” Politico, April 30, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/30/tara-reade-biden-vice-president-224945
Pandemic
So Donald Trump ordered meat plants back into operation after they had become hotspots for COVID-19 and started shutting down.[3] Some meat plant workers say they won’t show up.[4]
Ann Colwell and Rob McLean, “Meat plant workers to Trump: Employees aren’t going to show up,” CNN, April 29, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/business/meat-processing-plant-workers-reaction-executive-order/index.html
Recession
A lot of state unemployment insurance systems still run on COBOL,[5] a programming language I eschewed in the 1970s because I saw the load even a single COBOL compile put on a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/70 RSTS/e system and judged the cost of its verbose syntax to be much too high.
The language has, since then, been routinely derided as obsolete and programming technique has gone through at least two iterations of evolution, since then, away from the spaghetti code that was the norm in COBOL’s heyday. Which, of course, helps to explain the shortage of COBOL programmers needed to fix state unemployment insurance systems.[6] Most of them have long since retired or died and I can’t imagine anyone seeing this as a project they would particularly want to take on. It’d be difficult work even if (a pretty big if given that many, if not most, programmers burn out at around the five-year mark) your head is still in this kind of space.
But there are a lot of ‘legacy’ systems, both in and out of government, still running COBOL. And unemployment insurance systems are crumbling under the load.[7] I heard from a passenger just yesterday that she was still trying to navigate the system in Pennsylvania. So I’m pretty clear that even as some 30 million folks have managed to navigate those systems,[8] we still don’t have a complete picture.
Sarah Chaney and Kate King, “Over 3.8 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week as States Struggle With Coronavirus Claims Surge,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-struggle-with-coronavirus-unemployment-claims-surge-11588239004
Anneken Tappe, “30 million Americans have filed initial unemployment claims since mid-March,” CNN, April 30, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html
- [1]Marc Caputo, “Tara Reade allegations rattle Biden’s VP search,” Politico, April 30, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/30/tara-reade-biden-vice-president-224945↩
- [2]Marc Caputo, “Tara Reade allegations rattle Biden’s VP search,” Politico, April 30, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/30/tara-reade-biden-vice-president-224945↩
- [3]Taylor Telford and Kimberly Kindy, “Trump to order meat plants to stay open in pandemic, person familiar with action says,” Washington Post, April 28, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/28/trump-meat-plants-dpa/↩
- [4]Ann Colwell and Rob McLean, “Meat plant workers to Trump: Employees aren’t going to show up,” CNN, April 29, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/business/meat-processing-plant-workers-reaction-executive-order/index.html↩
- [5]Sarah Chaney and Kate King, “Over 3.8 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week as States Struggle With Coronavirus Claims Surge,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-struggle-with-coronavirus-unemployment-claims-surge-11588239004↩
- [6]Sarah Chaney and Kate King, “Over 3.8 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week as States Struggle With Coronavirus Claims Surge,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-struggle-with-coronavirus-unemployment-claims-surge-11588239004↩
- [7]Sarah Chaney and Kate King, “Over 3.8 Million Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits Last Week as States Struggle With Coronavirus Claims Surge,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/states-struggle-with-coronavirus-unemployment-claims-surge-11588239004↩
- [8]Anneken Tappe, “30 million Americans have filed initial unemployment claims since mid-March,” CNN, April 30, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/economy/unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html↩