US Politics: coughing for peace is like dying for the economy

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

The news broke late Friday evening, because Trump sent his letter at like 10PM to the committees -- he has fired Inspector General Atkinson, the one who (entirely properly) let the inteligence committees know that a whistleblower report had been made and had not been properly forwarded to them as was required by law. Cowardice and corruption, hand in hand.... and per the NY Times, Trump is likely to try and remove other "Deep State" inspector generals who have done nothing wrong besides execute their jobs fairly and faithfully ... but since Trump does neither of these things, they are now his enemies.

Disgusting, really, to use the pandemic crisis to cover one of the most corrupt things he's done yet.

Tip of the iceberg, mate. Watch how much of the trillions we spend find themselves in crooks' pockets. 

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

No.  Also, his own AG is releasing federal prisoners.

Thank you for this link, because I just dropped it like a load of napalm on some dingbat lady in my town Facebook group who's been agitating for a few days about how Democrats are trying to get us all killed by releasing prisoners and closing gun stores. I responded to her initial fearmongering with confusion, since our Republican governor was the one who made the decision to go against federal guidelines and mark gun shops as non-essential. She literally thinks Democrats are trying to get her dumb horse-riding ass killed, since "we're only a few miles from Lawrence" (which is where the scary brown people live).

[Zorral]

Georgia's governor is re-opening the beaches.  They are going to make Us shelter in place all summer because THEY won't.

 

[dornishpen]

11 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

They have the Supreme Court, they don't need to follow the parts of the Constitution that they find inconvenient to turning the US into a Randian wet dream. Obviously they don't have the House, but I can totally see them starting their messaging campaign in the next couple years, claiming that when the pressure was on, USPS collapsed under the weight of its bureaucracy and UPS and FedEx were able to weather the storm thanks to their corporate flexibility (or some shit like that). It will all be an obscene lie, but I bet if the Post Office has to be bailed out, that is what we are looking at in the near future.

Corporate flexibility? Ahahahaha. Have the ever dealt with corporate bureaucracy? If FedEx delivers to the wrong address you can't even speak to the local place to fix it and sometimes the customer service people can't even speak to them directly but can only pass on messages which don't always seem to happen, the customer service people won't even let you speak to fake supervisors.

@Tywin et al., @DMC That's all really OTT. Most of the bar mitzvah celebrations I've been to have been more like kiddish and often some dancing (always with the chair for the boy) after his first aliyah or maybe the Sunday after if it was a weekday. Bat mitzvah parties weren't really a thing, I mean they automatically happen when a girl turns 12, just like a boy automatically becomes bar mitzvah at 13, but usually there wasn't a big party, usually just a small family thing and obviously girls never get an aliyah in orthodox synagogues. 

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Triskele said:

Yeah, I'm still quite terrified about how Trump will use this crisis.  Still not entirely convinced we'll even have an election.

And even if we do here's some depressing reading about how Roberts' gutting of the Voting Rights Act will be made more painful by COVID.  

Regarding the article, the measures put forth look like increasingly desperate rearguard action on the part of conservatives.  

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Triskele said:

And even if we do here's some depressing reading about how Roberts' gutting of the Voting Rights Act will be made more painful by COVID. 

Beatcha by about 17 hours, get things together monkey!

 

[Raja]

Look, most press conferences with this dude are strange. But that was something else.

[Fragile Bird]

1 minute ago, Raja said:

Look, most press conferences with this dude are strange. But that was something else.

I went out out for an hour and missed most of it - what happened? I know that can be an exhausting list, but just hit the high...er...low...er...weird points.

I see on CNN that Trump must have been touting his favourite drugs again.

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

 

I don't see the relevance this had to what I said.

[Raja]

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I went out out for an hour and missed most of it - what happened? I know that can be an exhausting list, but just hit the high...er...low...er...weird points.

I see on CNN that Trump must have been touting his favourite drugs again.

He basically played Dr. Trump and it was..not good.

Here's a sample
 

I honestly never watch these, I prefer to read my news instead. Sticking to that next time!

[Argonath Diver]

I am also unable to watch his press conferences. I get a palpable sense of anxiety after just a few minutes. It's hard enough to read his direct quotes. I disliked both the Bushes, and frequently rolled my eyes at Dubya's lovable oaf conferences. Trump, though, is morbidly worse to listen to. I am daily shocked at people I know very well who still praise him as their greatest president. It baffles me.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

He basically played Dr. Trump and it was..not good.

Here's a sample
 

I honestly never watch these, I prefer to read my news instead. Sticking to that next time!

this explains some of the more bizarre posts appearing in my Facebook recently - conservative types foaming at the mouth about a 'cure' for the corona virus and getting majorly ticked off at any contrary info.   People actually follow this advice...dang we could end up with tens of thousands of additional bodies.  

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, Triskele said:

 

The shock has never gone away for me.  I am still amazed that 62 million Americans could have voted for this horrible man.  I guess I'm a little less surprised that some still support him, but I only say that because a person who thought it'd be OK to vote for him in the first place is so difficult for me to understand already that I guess I can't be surprised when they continue to act this way.  

I think the coming weeks and months are going to be where we really see what the virus hitting Trumpworld much harder does or does not do to his support.  What happens if some place like Georgia has one of the worst outbreaks in the world because they're still doing church services deep into this era where we're supposed to be distancing.  

Obviously there are some people who will support Trump until their lungs fail, but is there some portion of his support that could be shocked into awareness once Hell arrives?  

I think the coming weeks and months are going to be rough too--because Trump is encouraging governors to open back up (like in Georgia). Two nearby universities have begun talking about online courses in the fall. It's only a matter of time before my university's president hears this and joins in. I appreciate people thinking this way--this is the way the U.S. President ought to be thinking.

[Inkdaub]

13 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I am also unable to watch his press conferences. I get a palpable sense of anxiety after just a few minutes. It's hard enough to read his direct quotes. I disliked both the Bushes, and frequently rolled my eyes at Dubya's lovable oaf conferences. Trump, though, is morbidly worse to listen to. I am daily shocked at people I know very well who still praise him as their greatest president. It baffles me.

These press conferences are on every day at the time I get ready for work.  I used to enjoy having the news on but now I leave it muted and often don't turn it on at all.  Even seeing Trump standing there without sound raises my anxiety as you mention. 

You mention Dubya's 'lovable oaf' conferences and it makes me think of the time he walked into that locked door.  That was pure classic gold.  He knew it, too.  Imagine that happening to Trump?  Ten people would be fired or killed.

[Fragile Bird]

Wait - while Trump was talking about the coronavirus modeling that was done, showing the possibility of a hundred thousand to millions dead, he was cracking jokes about dating models?

[Fragile Bird]

This is lol/sob hilarious/grievous. When Rick Scott was the governor of Florida they designed an unemployment web site that would be so difficult to use it would mean many people would never qualify for unemployment, save billions in unemplyment taxes for business, and make Florida look good with low unemployment numbers. And now that the pandemic has happened, the site has crashed and nobody can apply for benefits.

Quote

The new online system was part of a series of changes designed to limit benefits. The ultimate goal — which it delivered on — was to lower unemployment taxes paid by Florida businesses. A 2011 analysis done by the Florida Legislature estimated that the changes pushed by Scott would save businesses more than $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020.

Now, as thousands of people try to get help, the system crashes or denies them access. Nearly 400,000 people have managed to file claims in the last two and half weeks. It’s not known how many have tried and failed.

Most of those who do submit applications won’t qualify for aid, and the benefits that are paid out are among the most meager in the country — a maximum of $275 a week.

“This is horrible for people. I don’t want to minimize that,” one DeSantis adviser told POLITICO. “But if we have to look past the crisis, it’s bad for the president and it’s bad for the governor.”

“Everyone we talk to in that office when we ask them what happened tells us, ‘the system was designed to fail,’” the adviser said. “That’s not a problem when unemployment is 2.8 percent, but it’s a problem now. And no system we have can handle 25,000 people a day.”

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its-a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for-trump-1271172?fbclid=IwAR21fxowhG1eTXZbOMZTxiPalLoJizxQk2-mnXiklmSe7rmTb0zidrp8kQw

[DireWolfSpirit]

The apex's hitting in prolonged and disparate waves rather than a unified nationwide event like we"d have seen from an early federal shutdown everywhere. Will needlessly prolong and deepen the suffering both healthwise and economically. The Trump response has become a lose/lose strategy.

Now instead of a singularly trough to peak to trough were going to see prolonged spike after spike after spike turning months of the country into wasteland. The Republican playbook of blathering about states rights and resistance to all things federal is on full display as the most inept and irresponsible course you could possibly conjure up. This has become Katrina on Horse steroids.

[Ormond]

On 4/3/2020 at 8:26 PM, Triskele said:

Michelle Goldberg has a piece here (NYT, limited clicks) about Kushner and how terrible he is.  

 

I hate to sound too Freudian in regard to people's romantic lives -- but that sure makes me wonder if Ivanka fell in love with Jared because his personality was so much like Daddy's.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

38 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I hate to sound too Freudian in regard to people's romantic lives -- but that sure makes me wonder if Ivanka fell in love with Jared because his personality was so much like Daddy's.

Jared's her beard, of sorts.

[ThinkerX]

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