US Politics: Portlandia

[Zorral]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/24/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?

Fauci is deeply doubtful there will be a vaccine (widely) available until several months into 2021 -- at best.

Something btw that I've never yet seen or heard mentioned by anyone who blithely says young children, if they come down with illness from Covid-19, are mild cases and don't matter.  But little kids who are sick, even if sick relatively 'mildly' need care. Who will care for them?  Why the mothers, who are supposed to be freed up now to go to work.  And little kids will be spreaders of it even if mildly ill with the close proximity to their care-givers -- including the teachers -- their siblings and their parents. Sheesh.  It's as though these people setting policy have never done any child care at all isn't it.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

28 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

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.

The most obvious problem is quite simple to understand. Just looked at all the messaging meant for adults. It's treating them like they're idiots, because, frankly, many of them are. And adults en masse still struggle to adhere to some of the most basic precautions. How are children supposed to do that? It's going to be really hard to get elementary aged kids to follow the new rules. And kids in JH and HS are going to spread this shit like crazy. Few schools are going to be able to properly administer the new rules all while needing to constantly clean everything and oh do this difficult thing called teaching. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, Galactus said:

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. 

That's the point though. Healthy young kids may not be at too high of a risk themselves if they catch it, though we're learning more and more about the longer term effects even in more mild cases, but they will still spread it like crazy. Some of the stats coming out of states with exploding infection rates are stunning. And like you said, we're not just dealing with young kids. Many places want to send older students back to school, and they are at a greater risk themselves while also being individuals who could rapidly spread the virus to their fellow students as well as older family and staff who are even more vulnerable. 

This all still feels like the mayor from Jaws is running everything.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

The most obvious problem is quite simple to understand. Just looked at all the messaging meant for adults. It's treating them like they're idiots, because, frankly, many of them are. And adults en masse still struggle to adhere to some of the most basic precautions. How are children supposed to do that? It's going to be really hard to get elementary aged kids to follow the new rules. And kids in JH and HS are going to spread this shit like crazy. Few schools are going to be able to properly administer the new rules all while needing to constantly clean everything and oh do this difficult thing called teaching. 

The state school board here voted to leave restrictions entirely to individual school districts. It's rank fucking madness. 

And you're right; what happens when all the teachers AND subs get sick? Staff? Administration? Principals and superintendents? Well...okay, they won't really be missed. But janitors, cafeteria staff; they'll all be sacrificed on Trump's re-election altar.

[Zorral]

The privatized army sent to terrorize US cities, who and why:

Quote

 

... Although the administration’s legal theory would permit it, the optics of sending one state’s National Guard forces into another state would likely be more disturbing than sending them to the nation’s capital. Moreover, governors might be more reluctant to cooperate if another state’s sovereignty were at stake.

So the administration is trying out a new end run around the Posse Comitatus Act. The Department of Homeland Security has sent dozens of agents to Portland to “restore order,” against the will of Portland’s mayor and the governor of Oregon. The official justification for the deployment is to protect federal property, which federal law enforcement agencies may do with or without local authorities’ consent. But in less scripted moments, the president has blown this cover, repeatedly declaring that he’s sending the feds to do the job of local Democratic officials because those officials are doing it so badly. “You’re supposed to wait for them to call, but they don’t call,” he complained. [....]

In any case, it’s fairly obvious that DHS agents aren’t in Portland simply to protect federal property or personnel. They’ve been recorded driving in areas far from any federal building and apprehending people who are not visibly engaged in any crime, let alone a federal one. In these cases, no charges are brought, no laws “enforced.” After holding the person for a short but terrifying period of time, the agents release them, leaving no record of the event. What they leave instead is a message of intimidation.

This isn’t the behavior of a law enforcement agency, state or federal. It’s the behavior of a lawless paramilitary force—and it’s no accident that President Trump chose DHS for the job. The department was conceived and structured as a quasi-military agency in the wake of 9/11. This origin story is reflected in its mission (which includes anti-terrorism, border security, and cybersecurity), the military-style weapons and gear it acquires directly from the defense industry, and even its inclusion of one branch of the armed forces (the Coast Guard).[....]

 

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/president-trump-private-army-is-scarier-than-you-think.html

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

45 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The state school board here voted to leave restrictions entirely to individual school districts. It's rank fucking madness. 

And you're right; what happens when all the teachers AND subs get sick? Staff? Administration? Principals and superintendents? Well...okay, they won't really be missed. But janitors, cafeteria staff; they'll all be sacrificed on Trump's re-election altar.

How do you feel about the average health and safety standards of your average bus driver? And when they all get sick?

This is just more wishful thinking that seems doomed to fail in many places.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is just more wishful thinking that seems doomed to fail in many places.

It's gonna be beautiful.  Every half-hour or so I stop and smile, thinking about an adorable southern twang talking teen. "Is it my fault mommy died, daddy?"

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

It's gonna be beautiful.  Every half-hour or so I stop and smile, thinking about an adorable southern twang talking teen. "Is it my fault mommy died, daddy?"

To be fair, mommy probably takes better care of her health than daddy.

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

To be fair, mommy probably takes better care of her health than daddy.

Yeah, and kiddo's health too.

Just think about all them rural areas where the 'emergency room' is a fucking Redi Med. First Tuesday after a full week, ambulance drivers are gonna be getting payyyyd.

(JK, ambulance drivers barely make above minimum wage most places. It's the insurance companies and dispatching hospitals that make bank.)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Yeah, and kiddo's health too.

Just think about all them rural areas where the 'emergency room' is a fucking Redi Med. First Tuesday after a full week, ambulance drivers are gonna be getting payyyyd.

(JK, ambulance drivers barely make above minimum wage most places. It's the insurance companies and dispatching hospitals that make bank.)

Never fear, those pretty sales reps working on commission are making bank pitching snake oil. 

[JGP]

5 hours 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. 

I have a morbid suspicion that years from now the data may prove otherwise in kids, at least insofar as the long term vascular inflammatory consequences. 

But... what do I know. A couple decades ago I thought prions were going to decimate teh eart.

[Martell Spy]

I've always found it strange how often Trump disparages blue states, liberal cities, and liberals and the lengths he goes to describe them as horrible and monstrous. After all, he's barely a Republican himself. He invaded that party. He's given to Democratic politicians before. Perhaps all along he's been laying the groundwork and dehumanizing American liberals so that in his second term he can start the actual white-vanning.

 

Portland, polarization, and the crisis of the Republican Party
“We are witnessing a crisis of democracy that is perfectly acceptable to a significant portion of the population — as long as it hurts their enemies.”

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/24/21335887/portland-trump-dhs-federal-polarization

Quote

 

In fact, outside of the context of a domestic insurgency like the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there is no example of state security forces being deployed under circumstances like this inside any democratic state.

“There is precedent in democracies of national police being used to deal with mass unrest,” says Daniel Ziblatt, a political scientist at Harvard and co-author of How Democracies Die. “But there is no mass unrest on a scale to justify this, and it is being done in an entirely lawless, nonconsensual away over the heads of state and local officials.”

There are, however, eerie similarities to what governments do during civil wars.

During Sri Lanka’s fight with the Tamil Tiger insurgency between 1983 and 2009, state security officials would use unmarked white vans to scoop up citizens who had run afoul of the Sri Lankan government. This sort of abduction typically ended in the detainee’s torture or disappearance; they were so common at one point that Sri Lankan citizens started using the term “white-vanning” as a shorthand. Obviously, that’s not what’s happening to protesters detained in Portland, but experts find the echoes chilling.

“In Sri Lanka, the white, unmarked van is the symbol of state terror,” says Kate Cronin-Furman, a political scientist at University College London who’s worked in that country. “As an American citizen, it’s quite shocking to see something so strongly associated with some of the world’s worst state repression of dissidents unfolding in our own cities.”

 

 

[Kalbear]

 

[Ormond]

6 hours 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. 

Children may only spread the disease less when they are still younger than eleven years old. There are studies showing Teenagers are about as likely to spread it as adults. 

[S John]

3 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Children may only spread the disease less when they are still younger than eleven years old. There are studies showing Teenagers are about as likely to spread it as adults. 

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?

[Martell Spy]

Really sad. NyTimes decides to stand with sexists for some reason. Maybe to hone their "centrist" credentials.

Also, look at a picture of Yoho. That is a bitch if I ever saw one.

Quote

 

A critical "tell" in the Times coverage — something perhaps only fellow journalists would fully appreciate at first — was that the paper had previously avoided directly quoting Yoho's particular words, but did so now:

"In front of reporters, Representative Yoho called me, and I quote: 'A fucking bitch,'" she said, punching each syllable in the vulgarity.

 

New York Times' sexist double standard: AOC coverage reeks of misogyny
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a riveting House speech Thursday. To Times reporters, it was a branding exercise

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/24/new-york-times-sexist-double-standard-aoc-coverage-reeks-of-misogyny/

[Darth Richard II]

11 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Really sad. NyTimes decides to stand with sexists for some reason. Maybe to hone their "centrist" credentials.

Also, look at a picture of Yoho. That is a bitch if I ever saw one.

Haha I read that in Samuel L Jackson’s voice.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

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

Yeah, but they were American citizens. Maybe if I married into the Kennedies, I could pull a governator 2.0 - ok, before this ventures into places, where we end up asking whether Cuomo's daughters are available, let's just skip that point.

Second, and more importantly this horse has never sat a hoof into the shithole country (to quote a famous philosopher) in question, which can't even adhere to the basic principles of social distancing in most places, it seems. So I'll leave the task of cleaning the stable to our puny pony empress.

Go Jace

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yeah, but they were American citizens. Maybe if I married into the Kennedies, I could pull a governator 2.0 - ok, before this ventures into places, where we end up asking whether Cuomo's daughters are available, let's just skip that point.

Second, and more importantly this horse has never sat a hoof into the shithole country (to quote a famous philosopher) in question, which can't even adhere to the basic principles of social distancing in most places, it seems. So I'll leave the task of cleaning the stable to our puny pony empress.

Go Jace

Who would want to be ruled by an equine?

Bipeds are the way to go. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Who would want to be ruled by an equine?

Bipeds are the way to go. 

Yes, that is working marvellous for you guys at the moment, right? Right?? RIGHT!?