US Politics: Get Tested or Get Bested

[Larry of the Lawn]

32 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Is Reade's allegation really any less credible than Ford's accusation against Kavanaugh?  

No, I don't think so.  Not surprised though that it hasn't gotten much attention.  I known back in the fall many people mentioned a revelation like this as a concern for Biden's candidacy, including a bunch of people on this forum.  

 

[Zorral]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

???

Tywin brain not work so well right now after having to write an eight paragraph email to my boss about the offices total lack of implementing social distancing. 

Time to go have and have stiff drink.

Gads - Tywin absolutely need to have a stiff drink.

I just got email from bro who has his daughter, her husband, their baby, and husband's two kids from ex wife living with him.  He's 'essential' since his aeronautics corp does military work, and he's the chief engineer for all the electrical work -- he's 70 tomorrow.  He goes back and forth from home to work -- and the kids are going back-and-forth between his house and their birth mother's house. "We only have four cases in R." WTF ARE THEY THINKING?  They just don't get it.  I don't know what to do with these people.  Particularly their attitude that because it's so bad where I am, it means they are pretty much safe. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Hereward said:

Nice to see you, too. It's been a looooooong time!

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of long time posters who stopped posting have returned.

Where the fuck is @TrackerNeil!!!

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

Is Reade's allegation really any less credible than Ford's accusation against Kavanaugh?  Many democrats weighed in on Ford's allegation, including Biden himself who stated:

Many Democrats are convinced that Kavanaugh assaulted Ford.  How many of these people are convinced that Biden assaulted Reade?  Right now, the coronavirus coverage is drowning out everything else, but this story will certainly blow up eventually.  

I'll take my side's rapist. It's one thing to have treated governing a state as a zero-sum exercise of political gamesmanship but Republicans literally set the decency bar at 0.

Joe could rape ten women this month and as long as he looks moderately ashamed of himself when questioned, he's my guy.

[Kalbear]

26 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

No, I don't think so.  Not surprised though that it hasn't gotten much attention.  I known back in the fall many people mentioned a revelation like this as a concern for Biden's candidacy, including a bunch of people on this forum. 



I think it probably is a bit less credible, in that she is a person who was active in political support and has been very pro-Putin in the past. That isn't slamming her in any way - it's simply pointing out that she has credible motives to actually want him to fail in some way, whereas Ford was a complete nobody who isn't particularly affected by Kavanaugh. 

In addition, to my knowledge there's no contemporaneous or other history of her talking about this in the past, unlike Ford. There are no others coming forward to corroborate it or her study. Again, I would 100% believe that Biden did this without any real issue, but she isn't quite as easily credible. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, DMC said:

If it blows up in early October and many prominent Democrats call on Biden to drop out of the race, then he'll be a shoo-in to win the election.

Jokes aside, and I can't remember if I asked this before or not, what happens if a nominee drops out after the convention? It's not an area I recall studying much as an undergrad. 

6 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I'll take my side's rapist. It's one thing to have treated governing a state as a zero-sum game of political gamesmanship but Republicans literally set the decency bar at 0.

Joe could rape ten women this month and as long as he looks moderately ashamed of himself when questioned, he's my guy.

Best quote in American political history goes like this:

Quote

"The only way I can lose this election is if they catch me in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy"

 

[HexMachina]

53 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

???

Tywin brain not work so well right now after having to write an eight paragraph email to my boss about the offices total lack of implementing social distancing. 

Time to go have and have stiff drink.

Its a witticism/play on words because you wrote ballet instead of ballot.

gave an extra drink

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Jokes aside, and I can't remember if I asked this before or not, what happens if a nominee drops out after the convention? It's not an area I recall studying much as an undergrad. 

The new nominee would be decided by the national committees.  In all likelihood, they would choose the VP nominee unless she was embroiled in scandal as well - so really the only interesting thing is who would be the new VP nominee, and they'd probably defer to the previous VP nominee's preference in that regard.  Here's a more detailed explanation:

Quote

Nobody can force them to do so — only the nominees can make the decision to give up their position as their party’s presidential candidate, according to Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. (Of course, a candidate could also die, forcing the parties onto the same track as if he or she had dropped out.)

But if a candidate did decide to voluntarily step aside, he or she wouldn’t be allowed to pick a replacement. Instead, either party would use a system a little like the Democratic Party’s superdelegates, but on steroids. The members of the parties’ national committees would get together to vote for whomever they want. The candidate with the majority of votes from the national party committees — which consist of 350 people for the DNC and 150 people for the RNC — would then become the presidential nominee. [...]

The full DNC consists of about 350 officials, according to Kamarck. Two hundred of them are chosen by the state parties, with each state party getting a number of representatives in proportion to its population. (So New York has far more than Rhode Island, for instance.)

The other 150 or so consist of an odd mishmash of party leaders — for instance, all of the chairs of each state’s Democratic Party organization, the head of the national College Democrats, leaders of various unions tied to the Democratic Party, and other party stakeholders. (You can find the full list at the bottom of page three here.)

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Its a witticism/play on words because you wrote ballet instead of ballot.

gave an extra drink

Lol, mistakes were made. I feel so overwhelmed at work, and it's nothing compared to what the front line staff must be going through. We're so not ready for something like what NYC is dealing with.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

The new nominee would be decided by the national committees.  In all likelihood, they would choose the VP nominee unless she was embroiled in scandal as well - so really the only interesting thing is who would be the new VP nominee, and they'd probably defer to the previous VP nominee's preference in that regard.  Here's a more detailed explanation:

 

Interesting. Appreciate it.

I think the VP would be the pick in a generic instance, but I wouldn't rule out Cuomo swooping in, especially if said VP would retain her status.

[Fragile Bird]

One never knows what thread to post in...

Last week at this time there were 18,000 coronavirus cases in the US. There are over 100,000 today. 18+18=36, 36+36=72, 72+28=100,000. 72 x .4=28

If this continues at a pace, 100+100=200, 200+200=400, 400+160=560,000. 400 x .4=160

That's going to cause some serious political problems.

 

[ThinkerX]

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

One never knows what thread to post in...

Last week at this time there were 18,000 coronavirus cases in the US. There are over 100,000 today. 18+18=36, 36+36=72, 72+28=100,000. 72 x .4=28

If this continues at a pace, 100+100=200, 200+200=400, 400+160=560,000. 400 x .4=160

That's going to cause some serious political problems.

 

There are a slew of right wing posters on my Facebook gleefully pointing out the infection rate seems to be leveling out - for which they give Trump full credit. Most of that lot believes this will be over soon.  They don't handle even mild criticism well.

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Most of that lot believes this will be over soon. 

It will be over soon for many Americans...

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

There are a slew of right wing posters on my Facebook gleefully pointing out the infection rate seems to be leveling out - for which they give Trump full credit. Most of that lot believes this will be over soon.  They don't handle even mild criticism well.

Levelling out? Levelling out?

[ThinkerX]

Trump being Trump?  Another NYT article (behind a paywall) mentions how Trump apparently personally nixed a deal that might have helped involving the auto companies doing some retooling

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/27/trump-ventilators-coronavirus-cuomo-new-york

Trump told Hannity: “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

The president’s comments appeared to be in response to New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, who had called for 30,000 ventilators, explaining that state hospitals had only 4,000 in the system at the beginning of the outbreak.

Many states across the US are scrambling to buy ventilators, often at inflated rates.

In New York state, hospitals are struggling to keep up with a spike in patients. As of Friday, 44,635 cases had been confirmed in the state, resulting in 519 deaths, Cuomo said.

[ThinkerX]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Levelling out? Levelling out?

they don't appear to grasp the concept of 'near exponential growth.'  I tried explaining this to one of my conservative coworkers a few pages ago; his reaction was much the same as these people 'huh? that can't be right.'

Also (again linked to a page or three back) is a right wing article pointing out the COVID 19 numbers are all wrong; according to them we are on the downside of the curve because the true CV pandemic was over the holidaze.  (and because a lot of people were deathly ill in that time frame, the claim garners a bit of traction)

[ThinkerX]

This potentially adds a whole new dimension to the misery (has Jace gotten around to selecting her apocalypse outfit yet?).  Not mentioned is that many of the endangered workers in question are almost certainly not in the US legally.  Which presumably means Team Trumps first response will be to deport as many as possible, regardless of consequences to the nations food supply.   

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-workers-who-supply-the-worlds-food-are-starting-to-get-sick/ar-BB11Mhmr?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=msnclassic

 

In all likelihood, the number of cases will keep going up at meat plants, farms, warehouses and packaging factories across the globe.

The infections speak to a growing threat to the world’s food supplies. Massive operations where workers pick berries together, cut meat side-by-side on a production line or load warehouse trucks in sometimes close proximity risk slowing down. Some facilities may have to shutter for cleaning and worker quarantines. Produce could end up rotting in fields if there aren’t enough healthy workers.

“If we can’t flatten the curve, then that is going to affect farmers and farm laborers -- and then we have to make choices about which crops we harvest and which ones we don’t,” said Al Stehly, who operates a farm-management business in California’s North San Diego County, growing about 250 acres of citrus crops, 250 acres of organic avocados and 60 acres of wine grapes. “We hope no one gets sick. But I would expect some of us are going to get the virus.”

To be clear, the food from a plant where infection pops up doesn’t pose health concerns because by all accounts Covid-19 isn’t a food-borne illness. Supplies from a farm or a production plant with a confirmed case can still be sent out for distribution.

And it’s important to note that so far there’s been no major interruptions to food supplies. Inventories are still ample, and major bottlenecks have not yet developed in the supply chains, which tend to react quickly to changing situations.

 

[Martell Spy]

Red April
What happens on the first of the month when residents, restaurants, and retail stores don’t pay rent?

https://slate.com/business/2020/03/coronavirus-rent-landlords-strike-unemployment.html

Quote

 

Residents alone owe $40 billion for the month. Retail and restaurants owe something on the same scale. April 1 will bring contract chaos when thousands of leaseholders decide not to pay, pushing a tide of unpaid debts from lessees to owners to banks—and sometime soon, a flood of litigation back from banks to owners to lessees.

Weirdly enough, the April rent strike is being led by Bolshevik institutions like Mattress Firm, Subway, and the Cheesecake Factory. On March 18, Cheesecake Factory CEO David Overton asked landlords for patience and help—and announced the restaurant would not be paying rent in April. Mattress Firm has told its landlords the same. And Subway declared the pandemic a force majeure, a legal term for an unforeseen event that voids contract obligations.

Commercial landlords perceive chains as credit-worthy and dependable partners, to the extent that a lease with Citibank or CVS can boost a building’s sale price vs. a mom-and-pop toy store paying the same amount. Pandemic surprise: When it comes to contract-breaking and collective action, chains are lawyered up and ready for Red April.

 

 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

[From the link] Weirdly enough, the April rent strike is being led by Bolshevik institutions like Mattress Firm, Subway, and the Cheesecake Factory.

Heh.  Sounds like at least one Slate journalist if full of smartass today.

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

they don't appear to grasp the concept of 'near exponential growth.'  I tried explaining this to one of my conservative coworkers a few pages ago; his reaction was much the same as these people 'huh? that can't be right.'

Also (again linked to a page or three back) is a right wing article pointing out the COVID 19 numbers are all wrong; according to them we are on the downside of the curve because the true CV pandemic was over the holidaze.  (and because a lot of people were deathly ill in that time frame, the claim garners a bit of traction)

I remember back in highschool math classes,  pandemic infections were one of the main examples used to illustrate exponential growth.  Is that not the case for Americans?