US Politics: Portlandia

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

56 minutes ago, DMC said:

Why in the world couldn't a homeless person vote?  Hope that wasn't a serious question.  Gonna be hard to vote-by-mail though.

Human history? 

[Zorral]

A friend from Tulane has driven to Louisville twice in the last 6 weeks -- elderly, frail parents, whom the family is NOT going to put into a nursing home.

He says he's never seen in Louisville what he's seen on those two visits -- black, armed militias drilling and patrolling.

Which makes the reporting in this story both odd and not factual, since what our (white) friend witnessed were people who live in Louisville, who didn't come in from elsewhere, and the first time he saw them while driving to his parents' home, was 6 weeks ago -- yet the story claims they have come from the outside (always! the outside agitators!).  And now, this white group has arrived.

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2020/07/25/louisville-protests-nfac-three-percenters-expected-demonstrate/3288198001/

Quote

 

In response to the NFAC's announcement, the Three Percenters, a far-right militia group, announced later in the week that it will have "boots on the ground" in Louisville.

Both fulfilled their promise as a few hundred people are toting guns and facing off at Jefferson Street on Saturday morning, where LMPD is in full riot gear.

 

 

[Rorshach]

13 hours ago, S John said:

I’m not exactly sure how they do schoolin’ in Scandinavia, but this makes me wonder if younger kids don’t spread it as much in school because they are more likely to be confined to a single classroom? 

The younger a child is, the smaller their world becomes, even in normal times. In the US pre-school and elementary school kids pretty much stay with the same teacher all day while the older kids have multiple classes with different teachers and different compositions of students coming and going. In 3rd grade you sit with the same 20ish kids all day, in 11th grade you might have been in a room with 100 different people throughout the day. Surely someone more qualified than me has already thought of this? Is it possible that small children can transmit the disease just as much as anyone else they just tend to have tiny social circles?

Can only answer for Norway, but there here there is more changing of composition as you grow older, but less than the US.

13-16-years olds are with their own class in all but two subjects (4-5 schoolhours a week), but will use the same classroom as other classes for specialized subjects (gym, science, food, "makingthingswithyourhands" (brain freeze there)).

16-19 years olds will switch from their core group about half the time - maybe a bit less - and same applies re: specialized subjects.

[TrackerNeil]

2 hours ago, Triskele said:

I am amazed that Trump and the GOP appear poised to let so many people lose their benefits and get evicted this close to an election.

Yes, it's mind-boggling. I can understand why Trump would be ready to do this--he's a moron--but Mitch McConnell is an old hand at politics and should know better. If millions of Americans lose benefits at the end of July, by September most will have run through whatever meager savings they put aside and will be staring bankruptcy in the face. If you are the incumbent, is that the time you want people voting?

[DireWolfSpirit]

Holy shit this stat is staggering, in 18 weeks 53 million Americans have filed unemployment claims.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/07/23/USAT/d6bcea93-5ba9-4025-9802-4b92df05310d-072320-Jobless-ONLINE.png

 

Eta: I'm afraid the genie is not going back in the bottle for a long time. We are in the beginning of something that will be as deep and ugly as the "great recession" , possibly even worse carnage , before this pandemic and aftermath, has ran its entire course.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Yes, it's mind-boggling. I can understand why Trump would be ready to do this--he's a moron--but Mitch McConnell is an old hand at politics and should know better. If millions of Americans lose benefits at the end of July, by September most will have run through whatever meager savings they put aside and will be staring bankruptcy in the face. If you are the incumbent, is that the time you want people voting?

Part of me thinks that Mitch is pushing the "it might take weeks for Republicans to agree on a bill" as an attempted hardball tactic to win easy concessions from Democrats, but Democrats would be stupid to play ball. They control only one chamber of government and they've already staked out their starting negotiating position. Giving concessions to Republicans just so Republicans can get their shit together is stupid.

Another part thinks that the Republican caucus is just that fucking dumb, that they've drank the Trump and "drowning the government in the bathtub" stupidity for so long they've forgotten that governments are supposed to do more than just line their and their cronys' pockets.

Most of me thinks they're all just a bunch of feckless pieces of shit, and they're doing what all feckless pieces of shit do when the chips are down: wait for someone else to save them, and then try to take credit.

[Zorral]

The NFRC black militia is marching through the center of Louisville right now -- partner is watching on a journalist's live twitter feed.

The 3%s are marching somewhere else.

All these people in black armed with automatic weapons are taking the knee at the place where I'm presuming Breonna Taylor was killed.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

Yes, it's mind-boggling. I can understand why Trump would be ready to do this--he's a moron--but Mitch McConnell is an old hand at politics and should know better. If millions of Americans lose benefits at the end of July, by September most will have run through whatever meager savings they put aside and will be staring bankruptcy in the face. If you are the incumbent, is that the time you want people voting?

Ok, Doing this with the voice of the orange one.

The numbers will go down, come October, maybe November, when the weather gets colder - and people can't pay their heating bills.

8 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

It makes me think about how if Fred Trump had pulled out, with all the attendant maximal repercussions.

Ah, well, you know the saying: In for a Freddy [Jr.], in for the Don.

And then it was in for the Donnie, in for the Eric.

Always doubling down on the crazy.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Also, I'm a minority, in a sense, so I get a hall pass on the topic. 

Nope, you don't.

Stephen and Jared have waived your access to those. Sorry.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Nope, you don't.

Stephen and Jared have waived your access to those. Sorry.

Is a German seriously telling a Jew that he's lost his God given rights, dignity, integrity and freedom because two jackasses misrepresented our people? 

I'm pretty sure this logic is how a lot of us got cooked, Chef Horse.

[Lord of Rhinos]

15 hours ago, S John said:

I’m not exactly sure how they do schoolin’ in Scandinavia, but this makes me wonder if younger kids don’t spread it as much in school because they are more likely to be confined to a single classroom? 

The younger a child is, the smaller their world becomes, even in normal times. In the US pre-school and elementary school kids pretty much stay with the same teacher all day while the older kids have multiple classes with different teachers and different compositions of students coming and going. In 3rd grade you sit with the same 20ish kids all day, in 11th grade you might have been in a room with 100 different people throughout the day. Surely someone more qualified than me has already thought of this? Is it possible that small children can transmit the disease just as much as anyone else they just tend to have tiny social circles?

The theory I like best is that young children simply don't give off many virus particles.  Young children have a much lower lung capacity than adults and so are simply moving less air in and out.  Coupled with their immune response doing a much better job than adult when it comes to shutting the virus down it seems like their viral load is going to be lower which leads to them being the opposite of super-spreaders.

[Jace, Extat]

5 hours ago, DMC said:

Why in the world couldn't a homeless person vote?  Hope that wasn't a serious question.  Gonna be hard to vote-by-mail though.

Umm, the constitution I live under promises voting rights to land owning men. The fact that you believe differently is quite revealing. And more than a little sexist.

I await your apology.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Umm, the constitution I live under promises voting rights to land owning men.

Yeah, there's been a lot that's happened since then like the 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments plus the VRA.  No apology forthcoming.  That's not to say it's incredibly difficult, arguably virtually impossible, for the longterm homeless to actually be able to vote, but their right to has been clearly protected for awhile.

[Larry of the Lawn]

53 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, there's been a lot that's happened since then like the 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments plus the VRA.  No apology forthcoming.  That's not to say it's incredibly difficult, arguably virtually impossible, for the longterm homeless to actually be able to vote, but their right to has been clearly protected for awhile.

With rights like these, Gary,...

[ThinkerX]

not sure....maybe a teeny-tiny ray of sanity in the unemployment extended benefits debate?  Or maybe assorted congress-critters see lynch mobs in their near future if they don't make some sort of effort...

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-backs-partial-extension-of-jobless-benefits-through-year-s-end/ar-BB17bOmT?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR1Acu4K8YQeiKgZVRkdspB3yOHvHsPqE0VIcDxdroz1hb6yzBKPASJ_OPE

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday said that the Trump administration supports extending enhanced unemployment benefits until the end of the year in the next round of coronavirus aid, albeit at a reduced level.

[Larry of the Lawn]

35 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

not sure....maybe a teeny-tiny ray of sanity in the unemployment extended benefits debate?  Or maybe assorted congress-critters see lynch mobs in their near future if they don't make some sort of effort...

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-backs-partial-extension-of-jobless-benefits-through-year-s-end/ar-BB17bOmT?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR1Acu4K8YQeiKgZVRkdspB3yOHvHsPqE0VIcDxdroz1hb6yzBKPASJ_OPE

 

 

 

It's the threat of lynch mobs and elections.  Do the bare minimum to prevent total rioting.  Why the fuck are they even taking August off in the middle of a pandemic?  

[GrimTuesday]

35 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

not sure....maybe a teeny-tiny ray of sanity in the unemployment extended benefits debate?  Or maybe assorted congress-critters see lynch mobs in their near future if they don't make some sort of effort...

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-backs-partial-extension-of-jobless-benefits-through-year-s-end/ar-BB17bOmT?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR1Acu4K8YQeiKgZVRkdspB3yOHvHsPqE0VIcDxdroz1hb6yzBKPASJ_OPE

 

 

 

I am just so disgusted with these people. The fact that they are playing the whole moral hazard game is just so insane. Also it's kind o insane that they talking about how 2400 a month allows them to make more while not working is insane. We already know that people are working two sometimes three jobs to make ends meet, s if they are making more not working, it should probably tell you something about where their priorities are. They care more about propping up the capitalist class who actually profit from the exploitation of labor than the working class.

Also this is an example of why universality is important. As of now, we have people who are still working through the pandemic, many of whom are also working jobs that pay far too little, who see other's receiving something that they are not. This of course breeds resentment and makes it much easier to break the bonds of solidarity that we should be sharing, If we had made this program universal, the effect of the moral hazard argument would be substantially diminished and the backlash would likely be so great that the Republicans would probably be too scared to attempt to roll it back. This is not to say that it was possible to get that in this current climate, but we had a big ol' dust up over means testing a few months back now we are seeing exactly what those of us who were arguing in favor of universality over means testing were talking about.

[Fez]

Apparently Mnuchin and Meadows were on the Hill today, in talks with senate staffers. It's good that talks are continuing (though bad that we're in this position at all; so much time wasted yet again). But its a pretty terrible sign that there are so few trusted or competent staffers left at the White House that the Treasury Secretary and WH Chief of Staff need to personally be in weekend talks with senate staffers. Not senators, their staff.

I know this is not the kind of thing voters care about, but the ongoing basic lack of competence of this administration (and the countless small consequences that stem from it), should, by itself, be enough for Trump to suffer a landmark defeat in November.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Those poor legislators, they need their recess, they are just exhausted from all their super duper strenuous work. We can't expect them to get everything done with so little time, they need some nappy time and maybe a nice refreshy vacay. The pandemic can wait till they get back, they shouldn't have to make these super tuff decisions without a few more months rest.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Apparently Mnuchin and Meadows were on the Hill today, in talks with senate staffers. It's good that talks are continuing (though bad that we're in this position at all; so much time wasted yet again). But its a pretty terrible sign that there are so few trusted or competent staffers left at the White House that the Treasury Secretary and WH Chief of Staff need to personally be in weekend talks with senate staffers. Not senators, their staff.

I know this is not the kind of thing voters care about, but the ongoing basic lack of competence of this administration (and the countless small consequences that stem from it), should, by itself, be enough for Trump to suffer a landmark defeat in November.

Yeah, by the way I read a while back that Meadows was paired with Mnuchin to basically babysit him during the Coronavirus negotiations. Conservatives felt that Mnuchin gave away too much to Democrats last time and so he is there to try to drag talks as far to the right as possible.

Also, here they go again, the Cancel Culture crowd shutting down free speech...

 

Sinclair to delay segment featuring 'Plandemic' conspiracy theory
The report sparked an immediate outcry on social media, where the video has been largely banned on Facebook and YouTube.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/25/sinclair-to-delay-segment-on-plandemic-conspiracy-theories-381454

Quote

 

Sinclair Broadcasting on Saturday said it will delay its scheduled airing of a news segment featuring a viral conspiracy theory surrounding Anthony Fauci’s role in the Covid-19 pandemic.

“America This Week” host Eric Bolling was scheduled to air an interview with Judy Mikovits, a medical researcher featured in the “Plandemic” video that claims Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, was responsible for the creation of the coronavirus, Media Matters reported.

The report sparked an immediate outcry on social media, where the video has been largely banned on platforms including Facebook and YouTube.

“I recognize that this segment does need to be reworked to provide better context, and as such we are delaying the airing of the episode for one week,” Bolling said in a statement posted to his Twitter feed on Saturday afternoon.

Fauci recently has talked about becoming the target of death threats over his public comments on the coronavirus pandemic, which have often contradicted the policies of President Donald Trump and his administration.