Dissident Politics: Back by popular demand -- News Bits!: A paperwork boo-boo; The real DJT re-exposed (barf);

Etiquette

DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Back by popular demand -- News Bits!: A paperwork boo-boo; The real DJT re-exposed (barf);

Business Insider reports that (i) DJT's trial will be decided by the judge, not a jury, and (ii) it was a paperwork mistake to not ask for a jury trial. BI writes:

Trump isn't getting a jury in his $250 million civil fraud trial
because his lawyers failed to ask for one

Former President Donald Trump was entitled to receive a jury trial in his New York civil fraud case. And while he himself wanted a trial by jury, his attorneys didn't correctly fill out court paperwork. Instead, Trump is set to receive a bench trial solely decided by a judge he's repeatedly attacked.

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CNN reports that Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly has confirmed some naughty bits about DJT:

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”

That's just for the record to refresh some mildly stale, disgusting memories.

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Here's an interesting bit from everyone's favorite coffee table magazine, PSRM (Political Science Research and Methods): Democrats won the 2020 election by mobilizing new voters and getting some 2016 Trump and Jill Stein voters to switch to Biden. If the 2020 electorate had only consisted of "standpatters" (individuals who vote in all elections and consistently affiliate with one party), Trump would have won.

DJT could easily win re-election in 2024.

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AI update: The WaPo reports:

ChatGPT provided better customer service than his staff.
He fired them.

Suumit Shah never liked his company’s customer service team. His agents gave generic responses to clients’ issues. Faced with difficult problems, they often sounded stumped, he said.

But when Shah saw that ChatGPT could respond to questions with intricate, lifelike responses, he knew it could fix the customer service hotline of his India-based e-commerce platform, Dukaan.

Shah used the software to improve his in-house customer service chatbot Lina, training it largely on his company’s help center content. In December 2022, he let the ChatGPT-powered bot field nearly all messages and found his customers were largely happy.

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Other bits!