Dave Kamper 🌹
@dskamper
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Vying for title of labor's cool uncle. Uxorious husband, cat dad. He/his. Works at @EconomicPolicy, member @NonprofitUnion but tweets here entirely personal.
Minnesota
Joined February 2016
Some personal news: I'm writing a book! Tentative title: "It Doesn't Have to Be This Way: The Resurgence of Organized Labor". Incredibly excited. To my surprise, I've become an optimist about the labor movement, and the book will show some of the many reasons for my optimism.
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A "malfunction" that apparently included installing a coffee machine THAT CAN TAKE PICTURES.
An Amazon worker at a Maple Grove warehouse accidentally discovered that a touchscreen on a coffee vending machine had taken photos of the breakroom. An Amazon spokesperson said a malfunction caused the camera to take photos.
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I’ll remind folks of what I’ve posted before: in 1960 you could pay for a full year at the University of Minnesota with SIX WEEKS at a minimum wage job. Student debt is a consequence of the systematic defunding of higher education, not bad borrower decisions. #CancelStudentDebt.
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If you're new to the movement, understand: this is without parallel in American labor history.
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So, here's my question. Why wasn't there a plan in a drawer? You've known an anti-Roe decision was coming at least since Coney Barrett was seated. Why wasn't there a whole plan in place to roll out the moment it happened?. Quick story from my own experience:. 1/.
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Nobody in 1900 thought factory jobs were the path to a better life. They were what you took because you needed work and it’s what was available. Factory jobs became desirable because of unions. That’s the whole reason.
THIS. Auto jobs aren't somehow "inherently" better jobs than jobs in other industries. In fact, they used to be terrible. UNIONS made auto jobs good, safe, family supporting jobs. This strike is about regaining that.
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President Drescher's speech demonstrates something I've seen time and again: what drives workers to action, so often, isn't just the issues on the table. It's the disrespect. I've been in negotiations where labor and management were miles apart on *fundamental* issues, but. .
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@MPRnews An investigation was done by law enforcement in 2017, but they didn't bother to interview the accused. Yep, sounds about right. And men wonder why women don't come forward. Good reporting on sad topic by @bbierschbach.
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All right, I've noticed a non-zero correlation between: a) people's level of knowledge of DNC delegate allocation rules and convention procedures, and; b) their accusations of "stealing" the nomination from Bernie, so let me offer this refresher thread for any who need it. 1/.
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@MAPEmn is a scrappy little union of 15,000 people, with a staff of 20, but we knew what was going to happen and planned for it. How can the entire Democratic Party apparatus, in comparison, be caught so flat-footed by something they *knew* was going to happen?. Stunned. 8/end.
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Tip: when visiting a picket line to support, pretty good chance they have all the donuts and water they need. Think proteins, or fruit/veg. Also: little warmie things for gloves or shoes. And EVERY picket line will have a use for duct tape.
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Your regular reminder that the ENTIRETY of the business model of Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc., is: "violate labor law to reduce costs, and use deep-pocketed venture capitalist $$ to fight efforts to hold us accountable.". That's the whole thing. Don't pretend otherwise.
BREAKING: The U.S. Labor Department has issued a final rule that will force companies to treat more workers as employees rather than "independent contractors.". This will mean higher wages and overtime pay for millions of workers in gig jobs, health care, construction, and more.
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The excuse is that the camera is there for credit card purchases, but, like, there’s technology for credit card purchases and none of it includes a camera, so not buying it.
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Also, the worker found it by clicking “Gallery” on the vending screen, so if it WAS there for credit card purchases, it means any person walking up to the vending machine can get all the credit card numbers by clicking “Gallery”.
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When the day came, we were absolutely ready. Our preparation and planning paid off - our membership numbers went up by five or six percent in the few weeks after the decision, because we'd done the work. No mass wave of drops. A stronger union. It was good work. 7/.
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This is so important to understand. If a company illegally fires someone because of their race or gender they face significant financial penalties. If they fire someone for exercising their legal right to organize, the only penalty to the employer is back wages.
Starbucks has mounted the biggest, fiercest union-busting campaign in decades. This points to huge flaws in the nation's labor laws. Sbucks can't be fined even one cent for firing pro-union baristas. The union says Sbucks has fired 200 pro-union baristas.
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@RalphNader @AOC I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. You got 2.74% of the votes in a presidential election TWENTY YEARS ago and yet have the temerity to demand that AOC respond to you. Get a grip and calm the hell down.
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The moment Trump won in 2016, the union I was working for, @MAPEmn, knew SCOTUS was going to make all public employee unions right-to-work. We didn't yet know which case (Janus) or when (summer 2018), but we *knew* it was going to happen. So we began to plan. 2/.
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@magsrdoherty Because it's coded as women's work, and women's work is treated as unskilled labor. I really don't think it's much more complicated than that. Basic structural gender inequity.
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It is **illegal** for public employees in Michigan to strike, yet a judge has just refused to issue an injunction against @geo3550's strike . What's going on?. One of my biggest hobbyhorses is that labor folks should get the words "can" and "can't" out of their vocabulary. 1/.
INJUNCTION DENIED.
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We set up a task force that looked at every angle we could. We revamped our data systems to make sure we could track potential membership drops in the wake of the decision. We created flowcharts for all kinds of eventualities. 3/.
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We held special trainings for all staff, and all-day trainings for leaders across the union, to prepare them for the decision, to prime them for the anti-union arguments we *knew* we would hear. Once Janus was heard at SCOTUS, we went into high gear. 4/.
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Months before we knew what date the decision would be issued we had letters and emails written and ready to send, web content ready to posts, meeting agendas already created. On days that SCOTUS was scheduled. 5/.
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. to issue decisions, me and a colleague were tasked to follow SCOTUSblog and call the Executive Director the moment the decision came out. All staff then had very specific assignments for that day, and we all knew what we were going to do. 6/.
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"I don't always eat catnip. But when I do, I make sure it's grown by unionized farmworkers.".
Periodic reminder that workers are the ones actually getting stuff done, and we WAY outnumber bosses
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I'm becoming concerned that if the Teamsters settle the UPS contract without walking off the job, a lot of labor peeps are going to call it a sellout because the workers didn't go on strike. That's a dangerous attitude to have.
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I feel like we’re not talking enough about how the house of one of the most prominent labor leaders in the country was set on fire this week under circumstances law enforcement are describing as suspicious.
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. management was putting time and effort into good faith negotiations, was making an honest effort to understand the union's demands, and was treating those demands with the respect they deserved. Those negotiations never ended with militancy. Conversely,.
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I've seen negotiations where the two parties were millimeters apart on the last few issues, but management's refusal to treat the process as legitimate, their condescension and disrespect (not to negotiators but to the membership as a whole), causes things to boil over.
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@zackbeauchamp @DKThomp Sorry, I'm not sure which responses you find tedious. Do you mean the many responses highlighting policy areas where young voters were led to believe action would be taken and it hasn't been? What about that is tedious?.
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Heard news from my prior job. Employee fired in 2018 finally got their chance in grievance arbitration, and WON! . **Five years** of back pay and full reinstatement. Unions, amirite?.
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For folks expressing outrage or surprise that the federal government can impose a contract on a railroad workers’ union, let me introduce you to public employee labor relations at the state and local level.
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@adamm0rgan My wife and I were packing boxes and we found a note that someone had written me (when I was single) when I left a job for another state. At the time I thought it was just friendly, but we re-read it and my wife was like, wow, she was hitting on you. Had. No. Idea.
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@ToniGilpin I can't think of an equivalent example of a group of workers, on their own, organizing a union in such a large shop against such a huge, anti-union company.
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We oft forget that state governments literally have the power to close businesses down. They absolutely should use that power to protect workers from wage theft.
THREAD: New York lawmakers have introduced three bills that would make it almost impossible for businesses to operate in the state if they steal workers’ wages. If these bills become law, any boss that steals over $1,000 from workers could be forced to shut down.
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I’m an inactive DSA member so I don’t engage in most of its debates, but I want to jump in and say that it’s not helpful to describe *outcomes you want to achieve* as “strategy.”. “Building a mass working-class movement” is a desired outcome, not a viable way to get there.
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One of the most critical questions to ask about the economy is, "who decides?". Why should the boss be the one to decide whether you have to go to work when a fucking hurricane is bearing down on you?. Workers should have legal protection to make their own decision.
I wrote about Impact Plastics. Eleven workers were trapped at the company’s factory on Friday when Hurricane Helene hit, two are now dead, and four remain missing. Several of those who survived say the company didn’t let them leave until it was too late.
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Would watch the heck out of that cartoon.
“Jean, what do you want to do tomorrow?” I asked. “Same thing we do every day, Jorts. Try to organize the world.”
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Historically, a good example (though with a very bad outcome) was the PATCO strike in 1981. The air traffic controllers actually got a pretty decent contract from Reagan, but his people were so dismissive of the union that the members wouldn't take it.
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In that case, as I noted, it's likely the Reagan admin wanted the strike, and goaded the air traffic controllers into it, but generally even terrible bosses would prefer to avoid a strike. Basic decency goes a long way.
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Interesting and promising strategy here from @UAW. A few thoughts on what #StandUpUAW might be and why they're doing it. The sit-down strike tactics that worked in Flint in 1936-37 are now illegal (when workers come up with good ways to fight, they get made illegal). 1/.
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@Yascha_Mounk End legacy admissions, restore tenure-track jobs, completely wall off donors from any influence on curriculum or hiring, close any institutes that are funded by private dollars without proper oversight, and end the exploitation of college athletes.
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You can talk all you want to about gerrymandering and the Senate, but the most important pro-Republican bias in our system is that the GOP no longer pretends to care about democratic legitimacy, while Dem leaders are, even now, too scared to call SCOTUS a purely political body.
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Let me add, before I get to the Convention itself, that nothing in this tweet is meant to argue that the current system is good or special or anything, just that it IS the system we have right now, and it's not being changed this year, so you need to know it. 11/.
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Heavily reported?. Sargon has a pipefitter claiming they can’t say the word “nipple”, but the word appears in the actual language of some pipefitter union contracts. This took me like five minutes to find. Did Sargon even find a second pipefitter to back up this one dude’s story?
Is the Woke Cultural Agenda of Union Leaders Undermining Support For Unions? . A heavily reported and very interesting article to the Outside Voice of our Substack by @bungarsargon:.
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Shocked, shocked, that unions educating their members on the stakes in the presidential race has the capacity to change their minds. Can't help but think there MUST be a union, someplace, that could stand to learn that lesson.
NEW: UAW Poll Shows Member Support for Harris Growing Significantly in Battleground States. Union members in key swing states—MI, PA, WI, NC, GA, AZ, & NV—Harris leads by 22 points. White UAW members w/o a college degree—Harris now holds a 5-point lead.
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A fundamental mistake of pieces like this is acting like anti-LGBT efforts are a reaction to the growing visibility of LGBT folks. This isn’t what’s happening. Hate against marginalized groups has never been based on objective circumstances.
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@beyerstein @j_n_foster Yes, that's absolutely true. I was speaking of the political response from the Democrats, but I could have been clearer.
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Back in the day, when universities had whole departments devoted to "Industrial and Labor Relations," the scholarship suggested that if union density in an industry reach 30-35%, the gains would flow to the whole industry. UAW is at about 15% - punching above its weight.
Tesla just announced raises for all 11,000 workers at its Berlin Gigafactory amid an aggressive unionization drive. They also won bonuses and a promise from Elon Musk that the next-gen Tesla will be built at the factory. This is what worker organizing can achieve.
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I encourage folks to resist narratives that call the Bucks’ strike “spontaneous.” This took organizing, planning, and commitment. We didn’t see it, but it was there. Calling it spontaneous diminishes the work and solidarity that was involved.
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Not my take (I don't know enough about how or why it happened to have a take), but my reaction, just up in @ForgeOrganizing:
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@CLMalloy @MPRnews @bbierschbach Story doesn't make it clear that's what happened, but even so, is the message here that prosecutors won't pursue a case if the accused lawyers up and refuses to answer their questions? Hell, that's maybe even worse.
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get crushed in other districts and statewide, so they might get 8% statewide and still earn delegates, while someone else who gets 12% everywhere will not earn any delegates at all. That will look very odd if it happens, but it's not a coup or a conspiracy. 5/.
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@queenozymandias My vet wife: probably. Dogs are very good at reading expressions and body language in people.
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I'd like to remind the smug, "I did my job and got vaccinated so I'm safe, and people who get COVID now are to blame for their own problems" people that, in addition to all the ways that is a morally troubling position, it's also a huge understatement of your own risk. Brief 🧵.
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So, pending further research, @gradworkersofBU's win today appears to be the most lopsided NLRB election win **ever** by a bargaining unit more than 1000 people. I said it before and I'll say it again: DAMN.
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The two MN marijuana-legalization parties appear to have won enough votes in key districts to deny the DFL the State Senate, thus making marijuana legalization highly unlikely.
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Headlines we haven't seen:. "Biden visits Planned Parenthood clinic in [purple state]. 'We have your back,' President vows.". "Speaker Pelosi asks Attorney General for legal opinion on whether Gorsuch, Kavanagh, Coney Barrett committed perjury in Roe testimony.".
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A few quick notes on what this means, since the media will likely get some of this wrong (not through malice, but through unfamiliarity):. First, this deal does not force any worker to unionize, or force them to unionize only with @CWAUnion. 1/.
NEWS: Microsoft inks agreement with a big union, CWA, to stay neutral in union elections at Activision, the gaming company it's acquiring for $70 billion. Could pave the way for 1,000s of gaming workers to unionize. w/@KYWeise.
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I love naps, the workers, and have a super smart partner named J(ean)oanne to explain the complicated things to me. I frequently get stuck in places and can’t figure out how I got there. I am @JortsTheCat . #IamJorts 🐈.
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Actions like this aren’t just ways for the workers to show each other solidarity. At scale, they can absolutely have an impact. As I’ve noted before, the way management gets to sleep at night is that they tell themselves union leaders are radical outliers.
UPS Teamsters from Local 25 turn their backs on supervisors during a prework communication meeting in Norwood, Massachusetts today. Workers are fed up with management harassment.
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Understand what this means: the business model of Uber and Lyft IS low wages. It's not incidental to what they do, it is at the core of their operations.
Uber, Lyft threaten to pull out of Minneapolis if council approves proposed ordinance. By: @GalvanReports .
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They didn’t have a union back then, is what you mean.
Ty Cobb had his tonsils removed in the morning and played in a baseball game the same afternoon -- and every game over the next 3 weeks while still bleeding. They were built different back then
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@jonathanchait Didn't stop you from breathlessly reporting on the supposed whistleblower's clearly absurd claims in the first place. Your journalistic caution now is just you trying to avoid admitting you got played.
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It has happened before many times. That, in and of itself, is not a conspiracy or a coup. It is the way the system was designed and has operated for 48 years. Don't call foul if the system works as designed. Please. 22/end.
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@RepDeanPhillips Representative, the problem is not a lack of laws. The problem is an unwillingness to enforce the ones we have. This was already a Hatch Act violation. You voted him billions to fund the storm troopers who came to Portland. That was your moment to hold him accountable.
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In response to a particularly uninformed claim that this system was designed to prevent another McGovern, worth mentioning that much of the present system, particularly the proportional allocation of delegates, was created by a commission McGovern himself headed.
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Even labor people who say this rarely consider how true it is. “Weekend” is a neologism, coined barely a hundred years ago. When workers marched in the first May Day parades in Chicago for an eight-hour day in 1886, they were marching for a FORTY-EIGHT HOUR week.
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Embarrassing for @ModeledBehavior and @ezraklein to implicate unions in delays in residential construction - that sector of the construction industry is overwhelmingly nonunion. Wage theft and abuse of day laborers is rampant there, though, if you're looking to blame something.
Excellent realism from @ezraklein. I’ve been waiting for this from supply side liberalism, more to come hopefully
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Under Democratic Party rules in place (in largely the same form) since 1972, delegates to the Democratic convention must be allocated proportionately in each state. Delegates are allocated both at the congressional district level AND statewide. The threshold is 15%. 2/.
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"What will happen if we go on strike?". Two important things about that question, as opposed to asking a can/can't question:. 1) It gives the union agency - we have the power to influence what happens!. 2) It moves the question away from absolutes. 3/.
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Famous movies about union organizing (eg, Norma Rae, Bread & Roses) understandably highlight people power and public actions. But I would buy all the tickets for a movie about union organizing in the spy/thriller genre. Could easily be done.
If you don’t know what a “salt” is, is basically being a badass spy who works undercover to organize workplaces. It’s usually portrayed as paid organizers who infiltrate a workplace but it’s mostly volunteers just being cool. (Bosses pay people big bucks to union bust, right?).
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This is a staggeringly incoherent argument. "Once a polity has made a decision, any future attempts to change that decision harm the common good." What???
There is a moral obligation to obey the original meaning of the Constitution | Opinion by J. Joel Alicea
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This is almost certainly what he's doing. Like, for real. He has trouble telling women apart.
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Some months ago we labor peeps on here were half-joking that unions should mail union cards to every worker in the country. I'm maybe thinking this is now absolutely the right thing to do.
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Wow. Very exciting news. Banking and finance has almost no union presence.
BREAKING: Wells Fargo workers in New Mexico and Alaska have filed for union elections. If they win they'll be the only big bank workers in the country to have a union.
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have voted for someone other than the person who got the most votes, but that candidate will get ALL the delegates. This exact scenario feels unlikely, but you get my point: it would look fishy as heck, but it won't be a conspiracy. 7/.
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A sad moment tonight we long knew was coming… the 1,000 square foot mega-roll of Costco aluminum foil, which has been in our house for lo these many years, is no more. Its service is complete, and now it goes to its final rest in the recycling bin.
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because they found a reason to change their mind, that is not a conspiracy or a coup. Some people have different opinions than you. That process could easily lead to the person who was in front after the first ballot nonetheless not winning a majority of delegates. 21/.
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@haleymlotek About 15 minutes into the opening of "Saving Private Ryan," an elderly man in front of me said, "that's exactly what it was like," and I almost threw up.
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Those delegates will not be idiots or pawns. They will be inundated with poll numbers and arguments from all sides about who the best nominee should be. Arguments and poll numbers do not a conspiracy make. If delegates are persuaded to back someone you don't like. 20/.
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So, a candidate who gets 15% of the vote in either a congressional district or statewide gets delegates, and they are allocated proportionately among all those who meet that threshold. So, right away, here is a place where results COULD look fishy but aren't. 3/.
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A candidate might get below 15% statewide, but could get above 15% in a congressional district, and could therefore still pick up delegates. With candidates on the bubble, you might see this happen a lot - they get 16% in a district amenable to their campaign, and. 4/.
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Union shifts on immigration over the last 25 years or so, however incomplete and halting in places, is one of the underappreciated good things that has happened to the US labor movement.
We stand in support of HR 2920. Working families must be UNITED!.
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@profmusgrave A skilled piano player and singer stays loyal to his boss even when forced to flee his cosmopolitan home for a desert backwater, only to have his boss abandon him for a life of crime when the boss's old girlfriend shows up.
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so-called superdelegates do not vote. Starting with round 2, they can vote. Note that there are only 771 superdelegates and approximately 3,979 pledged delegates, so superdelegates (even if completely united, which they are not) will not be the primary deciding force. 18/.
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One final note: the first day on the picket line is categorically different than the tenth. Please keep your support going throughout a strike. It can get a little lonely.
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There is no requirement for delegates to dance with them what brung 'em, so to speak. They can jump ship. You may not like this rule, but it's not remotely new. A majority of delegate votes cast at the convention decides the nominee. On the first ballot,. 17/.
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who really support the candidate they're ostensibly a delegate for. Campaigns need to pay close attention to the process of selecting who a delegate is. Falling asleep at that switch isn't a conspiracy by others; it's malpractice by yourself. 14/.
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You also might have situations where only one candidate breaks the 15% threshold in a district or state, yet gets all the delegates because no one else got to 15%. Imagine a district vote breakdown of 45/14/13/12/10/6 for 6 candidates. The majority in that district will. 6/.
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affect their statewide allocation) so it's highly possible that the candidate's vote totals across a whole state will not match the share of delegates they get. Indeed, that's nearly certain to happen in some states. It's not a conspiracy. 10/.
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