US Politics: Portlandia

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Everything kinda hinges on Biden winning and hitting the ground running for the first couple years, dosen't it?  If Biden and the Democrats do what needs to be done, it becomes that much harder for the likes of a Junior or Ivanka to try running, no?  A real politico using Trumpian ways?  Maybe, but if the Trump is ground down through good graces this year, maybe they'll just go away...?

It's historically very difficult to unseat an incumbent, which is why before COVID hit the fan most anti-Trump people were resigning themselves to a 2nd Trump term. It really is major catastrophes that cause presidents to lose out on their second term. So the bar for Biden's first term is really "no fuck ups" and he should get a second go. He's probably more likely to die in office as the way he doesn't get a second term.

I guess there has to be some kind of perverse respect paid to the right for them sticking to their anti-science guns with COVID-19, when playing to the middle and actually following the science advice would have given Trump an easy win in November. But instead they stuck to the ideological and partisan ways and in doing so made it so much easier for the Democrats to take the White House, secure the HoR and potentially even grab the Senate. Of course there is still the chance that the Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. So Biden supporters should not get complacent.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Martell Spy said:

So, it's unacceptable to have Republicans gather in Florida and spread the virus, but a death march for Florida school children is apparently quite acceptable to the President. I guess we see who is valued here.

 

Trump warns of 'greater mortality' if schools don't reopen
The CDC warned Thursday that outbreaks at a particular school could force parents to keep their child at home for a two-week quarantine.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/trump-mortality-schools-380939

 

Schools could have opened safely in autumn if the sate and federal govts had done things differently between, say, February and June. The principal reason there is reluctance towards school openings is because of brain dead decisions being made in the first half of the year.

The cult of Trump among the far right is so strong that whatever he said was necessary for the USA would have been accepted as gospel. When the person who is at the centre of a cult of personality actually makes good decisions the cult can actually achieve some good. The problem is the person at the centre of a cult of personality is normally a nut job, or is a puppet of an aevil cabal that has no desire to do good for anyone but themselves.

[Martell Spy]

15 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Schools could have opened safely in autumn if the sate and federal govts had done things differently between, say, February and June. The principal reason there is reluctance towards school openings is because of brain dead decisions being made in the first half of the year.

The cult of Trump among the far right is so strong that whatever he said was necessary for the USA would have been accepted as gospel. When the person who is at the centre of a cult of personality actually makes good decisions the cult can actually achieve some good. The problem is the person at the centre of a cult of personality is normally a nut job, or is a puppet of an aevil cabal that has no desire to do good for anyone but themselves.

Trump is the dumbest President in living memory. I mean, senile late years Reagan was probably smarter. I know Republicans like to say Democrats always trot this out for R Presidents, but we keep having these massive disasters inflicted on us by well below average children of privilege selected by the Republicans to rule over us. And they continue to lecture to us about the meritocracy!!!

[Zorral]

I love it; I am not sane because suggest that persons who don't understand what the 1619 Project is should actually, you know, read it, look at it, instead of lemming to white righters hating it -- again, without reading it or looking at it. 

Nor have the lemmings read those who demanded it be pulled, be apologized for and thrown into the garbage.

Very white of you all!

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

I love it; I am not sane because suggest that persons who don't understand what the 1619 Project is should actually, you know, read it, look at it, instead of lemming to white righters hating it -- again, without reading it or looking at it. 

Nor have the lemmings read those who demanded it be pulled, be apologized for and thrown into the garbage.

Very white of you all!

You just walked right into that one. 

[Mudguard]

The one thing that could potentially give Trump a big boost right before the election is a successful coronavirus vaccine.  Results from the first set of phase 3 studies might come in around October, and if any of the vaccines that the Trump administration dumped money into pans out, he'll claim credit for defeating the virus.  And the vaccine doesn't even have to work very well for Trump to claim victory.  The influenza vaccine can have an efficacy as low as roughly 10% in an off year, and we still recommend that people get the influenza vaccine.  If there are no other alternatives at that time, I could see the CDC, NIH, FDA, etc and all their experts like Fauci and Birx getting behind it, even if the efficacy is low or mediocre.

With the bar set so low and with so many vaccine candidates under development, there's probably a reasonable chance that at least one will exceed at least the low 10% threshold, and it's possible it could actually work well.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

The one thing that could potentially give Trump a big boost right before the election is a successful coronavirus vaccine.  Results from the first set of phase 3 studies might come in around October, and if any of the vaccines that the Trump administration dumped money into pans out, he'll claim credit for defeating the virus.  And the vaccine doesn't even have to work very well for Trump to claim victory.  The influenza vaccine can have an efficacy as low as roughly 10% in an off year, and we still recommend that people get the influenza vaccine.  If there are no other alternatives at that time, I could see the CDC, NIH, FDA, etc and all their experts like Fauci and Birx getting behind it, even if the efficacy is low or mediocre.

With the bar set so low and with so many vaccine candidates under development, there's probably a reasonable chance that at least one will exceed at least the low 10% threshold, and it's possible it could actually work well.  

Doubtful on multiple fronts. That kind of speed for a vaccine, even a piss poor one, is somewhat unrealistic, and regardless if something masquerading as a vaccine come out on that timeline, it still probably won't be enough to help Trump even if he got the lion's share of the credit, which he would not. 

There's one thing and one thing only that can save Trump: massive voter suppression. That's the only way Trump can win. 

[TrackerNeil]

4 hours ago, Mudguard said:

The one thing that could potentially give Trump a big boost right before the election is a successful coronavirus vaccine. 

I'm not so sure. That might be true if Trump were seen as leading the charge against COVID-19, but the polls demonstrate pretty convincingly that he is not. He is seen as the opposite of leading the charge. So it is entirely possible that, even if a vaccine were available in October, voters would't credit Trump for concocting it.

Also, even if a vaccine materialized today, the economy is going to be in the tank for quite some time, and voters almost always blame the president for a failing economy. In this case, they are right to do so; if Trump had acted like a public servant instead of a petty banana republic dictator, the US might not have four million cases of COVID and half the nation's business closed.

So I'm not sure anything that would be likely to happen will save Trump. Maybe lightning will strike twice for him, but I wouldn't bank on it.

EDITED: Let me append my statement--If lightning were ever to strike twice, 2020 would be the year in which it happens.

[Fez]

It seems to be getting memory-holed now, but remember that Biden was winning before COVID-19 became a major issue in the US. His national average over Trump was +5.4 on February 1, and that was during the primary still; when it was most likely that supporters of other candidates would say they wouldn't support him.

So even if there was a vaccine in October, and the people who turned on Trump during the pandemic gave him credit and came back to him, Biden would still be up big.

[OldGimletEye]

Trump nominates literally about the biggest moron he can find to the FED. I've read Shelton's malarky over the years. What a quack.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/5/18652025/judy-shelton-nomination-federal-reserve-board-trump

Quote

Judy Shelton has been approved by the Senate Banking Committee and seems likely to be confirmed by the full Senate to fill one of two vacancies on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

 

Quote

And Shelton — who spent the Barack Obama years railing against the Federal Reserve’s efforts at economic stimulus but now says she favors low interest rates to stimulate the economy — very much seems to be cut from that cloth.

Well, not surprising.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just look how far a six time bankrupted man who speaks with the vernacular of an eight year old and looks like a busted up clown got. Imagine what a slick looking, smooth talking mother fucker could get away with if the right is willing to accept what we have today.

I fear I am not eligible.

Anyway, the vulgar jackass personality is probably what's so appealing to those dingbats. As in he's talking like one of them, or as the favorite moron phrase goes: He tells like it is. Well, and that and his jackassery paired with this cultivated media image of a successful guy.

So I don't think a smooth talking mother fucker, would be as appealing for them. And he would need years of groundwork to get into collective minds of the public.

6 hours ago, Mudguard said:

The one thing that could potentially give Trump a big boost right before the election is a successful coronavirus vaccine.  Results from the first set of phase 3 studies might come in around October, and if any of the vaccines that the Trump administration dumped money into pans out, he'll claim credit for defeating the virus.  And the vaccine doesn't even have to work very well for Trump to claim victory.  The influenza vaccine can have an efficacy as low as roughly 10% in an off year, and we still recommend that people get the influenza vaccine.  If there are no other alternatives at that time, I could see the CDC, NIH, FDA, etc and all their experts like Fauci and Birx getting behind it, even if the efficacy is low or mediocre.

Doubtful. Biden is not Hillary. So the anti-Hillary voting motivation isn't there. There were probably quite a few, who jus theld their nose and voted for what they perceived as the lesser evil. Biden is just vanilla in that sense. And they had over three long years of that horrorshow.

So right now, I'd be cautiously optimistic about defending the house and retaking the senate on top of the presidency.

[Galactus]

18 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Schools could have opened safely in autumn if the sate and federal govts had done things differently between, say, February and June. The principal reason there is reluctance towards school openings is because of brain dead decisions being made in the first half of the year.

The cult of Trump among the far right is so strong that whatever he said was necessary for the USA would have been accepted as gospel. When the person who is at the centre of a cult of personality actually makes good decisions the cult can actually achieve some good. The problem is the person at the centre of a cult of personality is normally a nut job, or is a puppet of an aevil cabal that has no desire to do good for anyone but themselves.

Just a minor point: Schoolchildren are probably going to be fairly safe. It's their teachers that are going to die. Children are not immune, but they have very low infection rates and tend to have very mild symptoms. They also seem to spread the disease less than adults, though they still do spread it. 

[Guest]

If it really takes Senate Republicans weeks (WaPo limited clicks) to put out a new stimulus bill, Republicans can say goodbye to the Presidency and the Senate outside of massive and blatant election stealing.

Quote

With days to go before enhanced jobless benefits expire, the White House and Senate Republicans are struggling to design a way to scale back the program without overwhelming state unemployment agencies and imperiling aid to more than 20 million Americans.

The hang-up has led to an abrupt delay in the introduction of the GOP’s $1 trillion stimulus package. The White House and Democrats have said they want a deal by the end of the month, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested Friday that reaching an agreement could take several weeks, a timeline that could leave many unemployed Americans severely exposed.

“Hopefully we can come together behind some package we can agree on in the next few weeks,” McConnell said at an event in Ashland, Ky.

McConnell outfoxed himself on this one. He bought in to the "wait and see how the other stimulus plays out" crowd to cozy up to donors and fuckstain ideologues. Meanwhile, average Americans are going to get fucked, and Democrats can spend the rest of the election season hammering them on this abject stupidity.

The stupid fucks are still arguing about how to get the benefits to people, with some dumbshit faction trying to get state unemployment systems to calculate 70% of an unemployed worker's pay. Good fucking luck you stupid shits. These antiquated state systems couldn't even handle a massive spike in claims, do they really think they'll be able to perform all sorts of additional calculations and verifications all of a sudden? In fucking Florida?? 

Feckless fucking assholes.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I fear I am not eligible.

Anyway, the vulgar jackass personality is probably what's so appealing to those dingbats. As in he's talking like one of them, or as the favorite moron phrase goes: He tells like it is. Well, and that and his jackassery paired with this cultivated media image of a successful guy.

I think we could spend a long time discussing how many of Trump's seemingly negative traits actually aided him in 2016, and how society's bigotry fed into them to elect an unqualified dipshit. 

And never say never. Ted Cruz and Romney's father both ran for the presidency despite not being born here. Dream on!!!

Quote

So I don't think a smooth talking mother fucker, would be as appealing for them. And he would need years of groundwork to get into collective minds of the public.

It's almost like a man didn't go from starring in a panned movie with a monkey to becoming one of the more popular modern presidents largely due to being a slick talker who lied flagrantly to stimulate the right wing base.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Galactus said:

Just a minor point: Schoolchildren are probably going to be fairly safe. It's their teachers that are going to die. Children are not immune, but they have very low infection rates and tend to have very mild symptoms. They also seem to spread the disease less than adults, though they still do spread it. 

They've also been home in many cases. Good luck when you have >30 kids in a classroom and >1,000 kids in a school. And that only magnifies as the grade levels increase.  

[Zorral]

Our major cities are being systematically fortified with 'federal' troops. They'll be in the street a lot between now and especially on election day.

O, it's nothing but a propaganda image to convince the faux noosers that cities are exploding in violence, say the la-la-la won't hear you mainstreams. But these are actual combat-armed troops, behaving brutally, planting their boots on the ground to start up operation fuhrer t...p. Wish I thought I was being melodramatic coz -- "It Can't Happen HERE!"

Yet, while federal jackboots invade US cities, New York State legislature:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/nyregion/progressive-primaries-ny-legislature.html

Quote

 

A slew of progressive challengers upset entrenched incumbents in the New York Legislature in the recent Democratic primary, cementing their movement’s influence in Albany and making it likely that the state government will become one of the most liberal in the nation.

The results, held up for weeks because of delays caused by the coronavirus outbreak, set up potential clashes between an emboldened Legislature eager to push the priorities of the left and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a moderate Democrat who generally favors a get-it-done philosophy.

The most resonant symbol of the new wave was its defeat of Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol of Brooklyn, a Democratic stalwart and chair of the powerful codes committee, who had served 24 terms after first being elected in 1972. Mr. Lentol, 77, conceded on Wednesday to Emily Gallagher, 36, a community activist in Greenpoint.
[....]

 

More news regarding Them punishment-targeting NYC -- which They are doing to Portland and Chicago right this minute:

https://gothamist.com/news/trump-administration-now-admits-nys-trusted-traveler-lockout-was-mistake

Quote

 

Federal government officials admitted making “inaccurate” and “misleading” statements when the Department of Homeland Security enacted a policy in earlier this year that barred New York residents from enrolling in trusted traveler programs—a policy widely criticized at the time as a move to punish New York for protecting data on undocumented immigrants from federal agencies.

New York state and the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the DHS over the policy, and in a court filing Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said the federal government agencies “deeply regret the foregoing inaccurate or misleading statements and apologize to the court and (New York) for the need to make these corrections at this late stage,” according to reports.
[....]

 

 

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

They've also been home in many cases. Good luck when you have >30 kids in a classroom and >1,000 kids in a school. And that only magnifies as the grade levels increase.  

I am extremely wary of the general consensus on kids and schools. Kids in the U.S. will be returning to schools with massively higher infection rates, and U.S. kids are way more unhealthy than their counterparts in other first world nations. 

Trump is using our fucking children as fucking cannon fodder.

[Darth Richard II]

35 minutes ago, Galactus said:

Just a minor point: Schoolchildren are probably going to be fairly safe. It's their teachers that are going to die. Children are not immune, but they have very low infection rates and tend to have very mild symptoms. They also seem to spread the disease less than adults, though they still do spread it. 

..? You have any actual data for this, cause it's goes against every single thing I've been hearing for the past few months.

[Galactus]

7 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

..? You have any actual data for this, cause it's goes against every single thing I've been hearing for the past few months.

Pretty much all the data? The number of dead children is a handful (all of which had various levels of underlying conditions) Sweden has had a ton of deaths but only a handful of children dying. (to the point where it's probably more dangerous for children to travel to and from school than the risk of infection). Italy had 25k+ deaths and 20 under-20 deaths. Not 20 thousand, twenty. 

[Galactus]

43 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

They've also been home in many cases. Good luck when you have >30 kids in a classroom and >1,000 kids in a school. And that only magnifies as the grade levels increase.  

There is definitely a point re: Higher education and possibly high school. And of course one has to consider the health of teachers as well as students, but children are probably not going to be the major ones dying: I'd be more worried about kids catching it and spreading it to parents/grandparents.