US Politics: Veni, Vidi, Virus

[Zorral]

Plus, my bil was hospitalized with covid-19 back in September, and everyone in the family hid that news from me, because "Z's so full of manure about this covid hoax."  Until now, because he's still in hospital, and yesterday his wife tested positive too.  This, in the southeast county that insists there is no covid there, and certainly nobody has died of it here!  Nobody around there is wearing masks and never have because "we don't need to."  Also, no hospital closer than 80 miles away.

Even the governor has expressed the opinion that Sturgis played a big role in ND's surge, as it has in neighboring states.

Anyway, I get emails from everybody out there last night, asking what they should do about "this virus thing."  I guess I should laugh, but somehow, I can't.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

OF COURSE *I've* been paying attention to this...

And yes, they are beating him up like a pinata (love that phrase and will steal it) and it's getting lost in the noise, but the noise is the noise of "he is irresponsible on covid" which is frankly more relatable to the average person, sadly. There are too many people who would say "this just means he's a smart businessman"  while it takes fewer brain cells to see "he got covid, got the best medical care in the world, literally, and my grandma over there is dying from it."

I used to work in public accounting helping those poor micro-business owner saps that believe that do their tax returns so I feel your pain.

I can even play the discussion in my mind:

Me: You know when I told you that you can't deduct your entire property taxes for your office comprising 15% of the square footage of your home? This is like that x 100,000.

Them: I know! Such a great businessman!

Me: It's illegal. If you did that you'd go to prison!

Them: Isn't it great how he can hire lawyers to stick it to the man?!?! He's drawn out his audit for like 6 years!

Me: 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah but you get to sleep with the president's daughter.

Hoorray, you got to be sloppy-second-in-command, and your reward is to look into the dead eyes of Ivanka?

 

[DMC]

Just now, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Hoorray, you got to be sloppy-second-in-command, and your reward is to look into the dead eyes of Ivanka?

 

Well, Zoey was the youngest, so I guess it'd be Tiffany.  Tough break but them's the rules.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, Zoey was the youngest, so I guess it'd be Tiffany.  Tough break but them's the rules.

In that case....

Nah, still pass. At this point, I think they are spreading a brain and soul eating bacteria through sexual transmission. Would you want to be running around as the hollow shell of a human being, and getting called Jared, and worse.

[Fragile Bird]

Oh wow! I just saw a shot of the crowd of people lined up to enter the South Lawn at the WH for Trump’s event.

They’re almost all black people. It’s a conservative, “you don’t have to vote Democrat” event.

It does seem like a lot of them are a lot smarter than the white people who went to the Rose Garden, though, many appear to be wearing masks.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

Hell, at this point, if it works, then it works. I think canceling the debates is the right move.

Glad to see you're being more rational. Everything is about winning. Pound the table about your complaints after the fucking job is done and oaths are taken.

[DanteGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Oh wow! I just saw a shot of the crowd of people lined up to enter the South Lawn at the WH for Trump’s event.

They’re almost all black people. It’s a conservative, “you don’t have to vote Democrat” event.

It does seem like a lot of them are a lot smarter than the white people who went to the Rose Garden, though, many appear to be wearing masks.

 

That seems pretty sinister to me. "Vote Republican, then go and infect members of your Dem-voting community."

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, DanteGabriel said:

That seems pretty sinister to me. "Vote Republican, then go and infect members of your Dem-voting community."

My first thought as well. To refute the bird's generous interpretation of these souls, at least the people at Barrett's party didn't knowingly walk into a house of death.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

40 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

OF COURSE *I've* been paying attention to this...

And yes, they are beating him up like a pinata (love that phrase and will steal it) and it's getting lost in the noise, but the noise is the noise of "he is irresponsible on covid" which is frankly more relatable to the average person, sadly. There are too many people who would say "this just means he's a smart businessman"  while it takes fewer brain cells to see "he got covid, got the best medical care in the world, literally, and my grandma over there is dying from it."

1., Idk, people hate rich tax cheats. Will it cost him millions of votes? No, of course not. But could it cost him 100k votes across WI, MI and PA? Sure, and that's all Hillary needed.

2. Flip it.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

1., Idk, people hate rich tax cheats. Will it cost him millions of votes? No, of course not. But could it cost him 100k votes across WI, MI and PA? Sure, and that's all Hillary needed.

2. Flip it.

I share chataya's more cynical view (surprise!). They assume that's just what all the rich do. As long as they perceive that jackass as one of them for whatever reason, this new tax bombshell won't cost him a single vote. It's just more ammunition for the NY AG, after he is hopefully out of office.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

My first thought as well. To refute the bird's generous interpretation of these souls, at least the people at Barrett's party didn't knowingly walk into a house of death.

Sure they did, Miss Jace. They just didn't think it would harm them. Moscow Mitch knew better. So once they realized that it did, why not hurt the token minorities? They're just props, after all.

[Jace, Extat]

Yeah, the taxes thing is irrelevant. Republican voters like being less powerful than their daddy representatives. It reinforces their barbarian understanding of civilization.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Yeah, the taxes thing is irrelevant. Republican voters like being less powerful than their daddy representatives. It reinforces their barbarian understanding of civilization.

If there are barbarians, say roaming hordes of barbarians, than of course I must have all the guns. Equal and/or greater force and what not.

Also, everyone knows you get to add a centimetre down below per gun you own, so the more the merrier! 

[Ran]

Politico has a piece on Senate GOP being angry about the framework for a deal the White House and Pelosi are working out and this struck me:

Quote

This would be “the deal knell for our majority if Pelosi gets this win,” warned Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), according to one source. Both she and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) warned Republicans could lose support in the election if they accepted this.

Does anyone know of any polling on whether more stimulus is popular with Republican voters or not? Because I suspect it is, and Lee and Blackburn are living in Bizzaro World.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

Does anyone know of any polling on whether more stimulus is popular with Republican voters or not? Because I suspect it is, and Lee and Blackburn are living in Bizzaro World.

It's called Utah. Bizarro World is racist.

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

It's called Utah. Bizarro World is racist.

True, but hardly a state likely to decide the Senate's future...

Speaking of states, a Trump-appointed federal judge, J. Nicholas Ranjan, just smacked the Trump campaign down hard on its attempt to introduce more security at drop-boxes in Pennyslvania, both for a lack of standing and a lack of merit to their arguments. 

[Lollygag]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

While I generally agree with your argument, I want to play devil's advocate with the two bloded statements. First, I don't think he actually knows what he wants Barr to do. He bounces between thoughts so quickly, hence there's no real plan. But I can see a scenario in which he decides he really does want to try to arrest them, especially if he gets egged on to do so by Faux.

Second, no, Trump is not playing some three dimensional chess by using mind games to get what he wants. He just annoys the shit out of people until they do what he wants, or at least they'll tell him they will do something. Dumbass probably forgets an hour later anyways. 

No, Trump isn't playing 3 dimensional chess. He's a breathtaking idiot.

There are different types of intelligence and part of the base's gripe with the left is that "elites" only value a certain type of educated intelligence. But when it comes to cold-blooded, "killer", lizard-brained, one in foot still in the evolutionary swamp and likes it that way predator, "alpha", survive at all cost behavior, Trump's brilliant. Look at what he's done with his business. He won a crowded primary. He won the White House. He turned his base into a cult. Utterly obliterated the entire Republican party and made it into the Trump party in just a few years. No chess. but something worse and we've seen enough by now to know better than to discount it.

[A Prince of Dorne]

So Franklin County, an area of Ohio that includes Columbus and will be going heavily for Biden in this election, mailed out 50,000 incorrect ballots. My guess is that many of these people will fill out the first ballot they received and mail it back in (why would anyone assume they got the wrong ballot?), but won't do anything with the subsequent ballot that is sent out. My question then is, will their votes be counted? Because if not, that's going to be thousands of Biden votes discarded through no fault of the voters.

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/922305790/50-000-ohio-voters-to-receive-new-absentee-ballots-after-error-found

[Lollygag]

So I was talking about conditional racism some threads ago and it confused some folks. Graham displays it here.

Basically, being the wrong race/gender/whatever is a defect that is overlooked and excused as long as you're useful. But when you're not useful, these qualities become defects which are often attacked first. It doesn't register as racist at all to them.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/watch-lindsey-graham-says-black-people-immigrants-can-go-anywhere-in-sc-you-just-need-to-be-conservative-not-liberal/