Patterico's Pontifications

5/7/2021

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:21 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Hello! Here are a few news items for you to chew on. Please feel free to post anything that you think might interest readers. Make sure you include links.

First news item

Staggering, but sadly unsurprising:

Over the first few months of 2021, threats to members of Congress have more than doubled year-over-year and are only expected to go up from here, according to a release issued Friday by the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP). “This year alone, there has been a 107% increase in threats against Members compared to 2020,” says the document, which is a response to a set of security recommendations made by the USCP inspector general (IG). “Provided the unique threat environment we currently live in, the Department is confident the number of cases will continue to increase.”

Second news item

Expect to see more of this:

The owner of a Northern California bar was arrested on suspicion of selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards to several undercover state agents for $20 each.

After receiving a tip, undercover agents with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control went to Old Corner Saloon in the city of Clements several times in April and bought fake laminated vaccination cards, officials said.

Third news item

Hundreds of bodies being kept in cold storage in NY:

The city still has the bodies of about 750 New Yorkers who died during the pandemic in refrigerated trucks at Brooklyn’s 39th Street Pier, with no timetable for when their remains will be moved to Hart Island or elsewhere, officials disclosed this week.

The city will try to reduce the number of bodies being held on the Sunset Park pier “in the near future” and let families know about the transfers, Dina Maniotis, a deputy commissioner with the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, told a City Council committee Wednesday.

Hundreds of bodies have been stored in trucks since April 2020, fluctuating between 500 and nearly 800, according to various medical examiner estimates compiled over the past 13 months…

Most of the families of those in cold storage have told the city they would prefer to have their loved ones moved to Hart Island, the city’s potter’s field — or they have stopped “engaging” with officials entirely…

Fourth news item

Liz Cheney would like to have a word with you, Elise:

Rep. Elise Stefanik is on the verge of ascending to the House GOP’s No. 3 spot thanks in part to a personal mission: boosting other Republican women.

Stefanik’s efforts to promote GOP women have not only added to her star power, but also made her particularly appealing to fellow House Republicans as they move closer to replacing embattled Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in leadership.

*Getting on my soapbox. Buckle up.*

This is absolute bullshit. Stefanik is on the verge of ascending to the No. 3 spot because she is willing to stab an honorable woman in the back to advance her own political career. Don’t tell me she is on a mission to boost other Republican women because at this very moment Stefanik is busily working to boost a Republican woman from her position because she wants her job. This is not how women lift up other women – Republican or otherwise.

Fifth news item

Still?? What is wrong with you people?!:

President Biden took office more than three months ago, but Republicans are not any closer to accepting his victory now than they were then. The latest CNN/SSRS survey, released on April 30, found that 70 percent of Republicans believed the false allegation that Biden did not legitimately defeat former President Trump; just 23 percent said Biden legitimately won. Meanwhile, Democrats (97-3 percent) and independents (69-27 percent) said Biden had won fairly. These numbers are very similar to what CNN/SSRS found in mid-January, just before Biden’s inauguration. And this lack of movement is really the story, as polling over the past few months has consistently shown that a solid majority of Republicans do not think Biden won fairly, despite the lack of evidence suggesting otherwise.

Sixth news item

Ah:

Seventh news item

Oh:

The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials.

In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters…the Justice Department wrote they were “hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.” The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period.

Cameron Barr, The Post’s acting executive editor, said: “We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment.”

…William Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general for nearly all of that year, before departing Dec. 23, declined to comment.

The Justice Department defended its decision…”While rare, the Department follows the established procedures within its media guidelines policy when seeking legal process to obtain telephone toll records and non-content email records from media members as part of a criminal investigation into unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Justice Department. “The targets of these investigations are not the news media recipients but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required.”.

Eighth news item

Golden state blues:

California’s population dropped in 2020 for the first time in the state’s recorded history.

The Golden State lost 182,083 people in 2020, according to data from the state Department of Finance. State officials attributed the decline to a combination of COVID-19 deaths, a decreasing birth rate, and a reduction in immigration while announcing the figure on Friday

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau announced California would lose a congressional seat because of the unprecedented low growth rate.

The high tax burden, regulation, cost of living, housing prices, and homelessness have been cited as the problems motivating many to flee the state. Until now, California’s population outflow was offset by immigration and births…The top tax rate for California’s highest earners sits at 13.3 percent, the highest state rate in the country.

Miscellaneous

Happy 90th, Willie Mays!

“Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.”

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

333 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Happy Friday night!

    Dana (fd537d)

  2. Chinese firecracker:

    https://www.satview.org/?sat_id=48275U

    “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down; that’s not my department, says Wernher Von Braun…” – Tom Lehrer

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  3. Stefanik is on the verge of ascending to the No. 3 spot because she is willing to stab an honorable woman in the back to advance her own political career. Don’t tell me she is on a mission to boost other Republican women because at this very moment Stefanik is busily working to boost a Republican woman from her position because she wants her job. This is not how women lift up other women – Republican or otherwise.

    Back stabbing? LOL Politics ain’t beanbag. Men do this to each other every day.

    “That’s life; that’s what all the people say; you’re ridin’ high in April, shot down in May…” -Frank Sinatra

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  4. I don’t have many retirees in my social circle, so it may be different for that group, but everyone I know who leaves is leaving due to housing costs. $2000+ p/m for a small 2 bedroom apartment? minimum of roughly $400,000 for a house in most places. Bay area 600,000 for a condo. It just costs too much.

    Nic (896fdf)

  5. It just costs too much.

    To the extent that the high price of housing, reflecting the fact that demand is outstripping supply, encourages people to look elsewhere, it costs the right amount…

    🙂

    Dave (1bb933)

  6. Up until a few years ago republicans were leaving california and moving to arizona. Now democrats are joining them but still vote democrat turning az purple. Also 100 hispanics turn 18 every day in az (if your count dreamers it 130 a day) which will turn az blue.

    asset (209caf)

  7. Foxmania, etc. Doesn’t seem too far off from the Twinkie defense. Which worked.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  8. CA Republicans should move to New Mexico.

    1. No gun laws to speak of. No registration. You do have to get a permit to concealed.
    2. ABQ is 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix. Low humidity.
    3. Water, electrictiy and gas (natural and otherwise) is considerably cheaper.
    4. The state is a net energy producer.
    5. Houses are free.
    6. Property owners have wide freedoms in what to do with their property.
    7. There are only 2 million people, so it won’t take all that much to flip the state.
    8. There is a sizable Libertarian contingent.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  9. The harem eunuchs are always replacing the concubines who have fallen out of favor with younger, fresher ones (green eyes a plus) (seriously). At least Liz won’t be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the Sea of Marmara.

    nk (1d9030)

  10. It baffles me that people would go to the trouble, and legal liability, of faking a vaccination card when actually getting vaccinated is so easy. And in some places gets you a free beer.

    Victor (4959fb)

  11. @5 except that outside of academia price isn’t quite the awesome indicator of value or societal cost

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/san-francisco-children.html

    have had numerous offers to move back for more money, but turned them all down as california is impractical for families

    tens of thousands make this same calculation every year

    the poor from parts unknown and the childless don’t seem to mind though

    JF (e1156d)

  12. It’s too bad we didn’t know about Covid-sniffing bees before the CDC botched their development of tests.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  13. You know there’s something wrong with a GOP when their own pollsters lie by omission to their own House members.

    When staff from the National Republican Congressional Committee rose to explain the party’s latest polling in core battleground districts, they left out a key finding about Trump’s weakness, declining to divulge the information even when directly questioned about Trump’s support by a member of Congress, according to two people familiar with what transpired.

    Trump’s unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ones in the core districts, according to the full polling results, which were later obtained by The Washington Post. Nearly twice as many voters had a strongly unfavorable view of the former president as had a strongly favorable one.

    Cheney was alarmed, she later told others, in part because Republican campaign officials had also left out bad Trump polling news at a March retreat for ranking committee chairs. Both instances, she concluded, demonstrated that party leadership was willing to hide information from their own members to avoid the truth about Trump and the possible damage he could do to Republican House members, even though the NRCC denied any such agenda.

    In other words, Trump will be a drag on the GOP in 2022, in districts where it counts.
    Dan McLaughlin came out with a piece about how to deal with Trump going forward, and it’s basically ignore the guy as the “least-bad Republican approach”. The question is, how did that work for his primary opponents in 2016? McLaughlin’s “solution” isn’t enough because, despite being removed from Twitter, an ex-POTUS won’t be ignored by the media when he spouts off, and Trump won’t let the media ignore him. He’s too vain, self-centered and attention-seeking.
    IMO, the GOP needs a radical Trumpectomy. It’ll hurt in the short term but will keep the party viable over the long haul, but I doubt it will happen because there isn’t a critical mass of prominent Republicans with the stones to throw him under the bus, which means my party will stay divided and on the side of defeat. My two cents.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  14. Here is a link to the IHME excess mortality study.

    Key finding:

    In addition, in many high-income countries, deaths from COVID-19 in older individuals, especially in long-term care facilities, went unrecorded in the first few months of the pandemic. In other countries, such as Ecuador, Peru, and the Russian Federation, the discrepancy between reported deaths and analyses of death rates compared to expected death rates, sometimes referred to as “excess mortality,” suggests that the total COVID-19 death rate is many multiples larger than official reports.

    If they are right, the world death toll is about twice as high as officially reported; if they are right, the death toll in the US is about 1.5 times as high. And so far, I haven’t seen anything that would suggest that their numbers aren’t roughly right.

    (No, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I just found the link — and I will read it all, within the next day or two.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  15. https://thefederalist.com/2021/05/04/fbis-failed-ron-johnson-set-up-a-case-study-in-how-agencies-use-corrupt-reporters-to-peddle-lies-hurt-their-american-enemies/

    The Washington Post gave its readers a clear-eyed view this weekend of how American intel agencies work with sympathetic reporters to smear and discredit political opponents, ignoring a specific explanation from one of the article’s targets of how reporters were being used, and leading to embarrassing corrections in multiple articles (as well as in The New York Times and at NBC News).

    The story targeted Rudy Giuliani and Wisconsin’s Sen. Ron Johnson, excitedly reporting that they were the targets of Russian disinformation campaigns and had been warned of this by the FBI. Sound familiar? Unsurprisingly, there were a number of problems.

    First, powerful people across the planet are often the targets of foreign disinformation campaigns; this is normal. Second, powerful intel agencies have a history of conducting briefings solely to create records that can then be leaked to sympathetic reporters in order to generate stories about said threats. Third, there were no actionable specifics in the Johnson briefing, as the senator explained to the Post, generating strong evidence for his suspicion the FBI was setting him up. And fourth, well, the big Giuliani briefing didn’t actually happen at all.

    Let’s begin with how powerful people are often the targets of foreign disinformation campaigns. Since the early 20th century the Russians have sought to influence reporters, politicians, entertainers, public intellectuals, and other powerful people around the planet. It isn’t new, it’s well-documented, and it isn’t partisan.

    Johnson explained this pattern to The Washington Post, but the publication decided to not include this important portion of his explanation. It is being printed for the first time at The Federalist:

    Read the rest.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  16. https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/05/08/i-thought-i-was-going-to-die-man-held-at-gunpoint-and-beaten-by-portlands-antifa-blm-terrorists-talks-from-hospital-trauma-center-n1445448

    Joe Hall is a former Marine and handyman, who currently lays his head in a Portland hospital trauma unit. He’s laid up with broken ribs, four fractured vertebrae, a dislocated shoulder, a partially collapsed lung, and a broken eye socket from when he was kicked in the face while he was down.

    As PJ Media reported there is video of Hall getting the stuffing beaten out of him by BLM and antifa “security” thugs who boxed in his vehicle and then surrounded him with their AR15s and AK-style weapons at him. His wasn’t the only car stopped by the militants at gunpoint. See the other video of the incident below.

    His offense? He got cut off in traffic by a moped, flipped off the moped driver, and the next thing he knew he was surrounded and blocked by drivers providing cover for a Black Lives Matter march. He didn’t drive through a crowd. It appears that his only offense was to try to drive on the one side of the street where there were no protesters. He later told me that didn’t even know there was a march going on.

    Hall told Portland’s Lars Larson Radio Show on Friday that when the mob surrounded him with guns, they began yelling racist epithets, calling him a racist and a Nazi. Why? There was the matter of the Trump and U.S. Marine stickers on his red truck as well. Oh, and he’s white. That’s a killing offense in these parts apparently.

    “All of a sudden I heard a thump like I hit somebody. And I look up and there’s a guy standing with an AR-15 in front of me, one to the right, two to the left. I decided at that point that my life was in danger. I got out. I needed to clear the way to get my vehicle out of the area. So, I just bought a non-lethal device and told them I was going to use it. His non lethal device were pepper balls he bought off Amazon.

    These are the left’s modern day brownshirts.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  17. https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/brown-u-professor-teaching-identity-politics-is-a-criminal-abdication-of-our-responsibilities/

    Brown University Professor Glenn Loury is speaking out against identity politics education and speaking the truth about today’s academic environment.

    “To teach people they are this, is criminal in my opinion, okay? We are to challenge them. They come in telling me that they are this or they are genitalia. That’s how they get to me at 18-years-old. They think they are these things. They haven’t read anything. They haven’t been anywhere. They haven’t done anything. I’m a teacher. My job is not to reaffirm them and their preconceptions. It’s to challenge them to outgrow them, their preconceptions,” Loury said.

    “We are entrusted to shepherd young minds into their maturity and to jump on a bandwagon and to fill their heads with slogans rather than challenging them with the best that human beings of any color have thought through the ages is a criminal abdication.”

    Obviously true, but he’s heavily outnumbered by the radical groupthink that has taken over what was formerly know as academia.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  18. RIP Paul Van Doren (90). Cofounder of Vans shoes.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  19. NARAL now thinks “birthing people” is a thing. Where did they get this type of dehumanizing language?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  20. https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/05/07/the-economy-surprises-the-experts-again/

    It happens nearly every time, almost like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Why are they called “experts”? Well, they’re expert at predicting what the left wishes will happen, and then they’re expert at being perpetually astonished at what actually does happen:

    The April jobs report showed the U.S. added only 266,000 jobs during the month and the unemployment ticked up to 6.1%.

    Economists are usually off the mark, but holy cow. They predicted 978,000 job growth and unemployment of 5.8%. I have never seen such a huge difference between prediction and numbers.

    Miserable considering the U.S. started to see some growth at the end of former President Donald Trump’s term.

    And the NY Times, for example, headlines an article about the report this way: “The Jobs Report: The Boom That Wasn’t/April’s anemic job creation was so out of line with what other indicators have suggested that it will take some time to unravel the mystery.”

    Such a mystery! Such a puzzlement! Not only are people demoralized and worn out, not only are many people in blue cities frightened that the police won’t be allowed to protect them against, rioters and looters, but many people are still being paid to not work.

    When you hand people money not to work and then act surprised when they don’t. They’re destroying this nation by detaching work ethic from sustenance and success. Instead they’re breeding more people who expect to be on the dole from birth till death. Remember Obama’s “Life of ” series?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  21. Here are four other stories to add to Dana’s* open thread, from Tyler Cowen. The Belarus-Russia convergence is interesting.

    * Who I assume is a birthing person, a phrase that is just as bad as Janet Napolitano’s description of terrorist attacks as “man-caused disasters“.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  22. “the GOP needs a radical Trumpectomy”

    Conservative media has to be on board…..but Trump was in large measure their creation…their sugar daddy of ratings. There’s precious little incentive…at this point…to stop talking about Trump, let alone run a counter-insurgency against him. What exactly fills that void…or possibly more important, WHO exactly fills that void? Sure DeSantis is positioning…and Tim Scott and Nikki Haley can be normal candidates….but can any of them excite a media and base that is only interested in owning the libs…and wanting their anger reflected back at them?

    One would think January 6th would have sobered people up….but there’s psychology at play here….where it’s not about what Trump does (or says), but how he makes people feel….that they just can’t let go of. No one wants to admit making a poor decision about Trump…so everything is rationalized….with the chief excuse being that the other side is worse….and evil to boot. But this is where media has taken us….politics is about tribal entertainment now. We serially link to every bad moment from the other side so that we rarely…if ever….see any good moments any more. Are Hannity, Igraham, Tucker, et al ready to give up the influence they won through Trump? It’s hard to imagine….and so how exactly do challengers work around those gate keepers? The masses don’t read NR….they watch Tucker and listen to Hannity.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  23. The Federalist is being disingenuous, Rob. Giuliani and Johnson consorted with a guy who literally attended a Russian KGB-backed spy school. The one thing they got right, and the MSM got wrong, is that Giuliani wasn’t briefed by the FBI for his exchanges with pro-Russian disinformers.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  24. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 5/8/2021 @ 1:51 am:

    No beach. My house is two blocks from the beach and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  25. @22 thank heavens nobody had this exact same take 15 years ago during the bush years, no way

    somehow it always works out that if you’re anywhere right of hard left you’re a threat

    let’s do some deep thinking and figure out why that is

    JF (6fba59)

  26. Conservative media has to be on board…..but Trump was in large measure their creation…their sugar daddy of ratings

    No. Trump is a Reagan Creation; the Frankenstein spawned and nurtured in the cesspool of Ronnie’s gilded, glittered, gaudy, recklessly excessive go-go 1980s, when life on a credit-card ruled, image over substance celebrated and conspicuous consumption championed. He is the GOP’s ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’… the monster w/all the foibles and flaws of the Reagan era, hidden away in the Fifth Avenue tower, until he got loose and devoured his masters. Don’t shift blame to a reflective media; Trump is GOP… he is “you.”

    “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams…” – Robin Leach ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ 1984

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  27. Ransomware attack leads to shutdown of major U.S. pipeline system
    ……..
    The attack on Colonial Pipeline, which carries almost half of the gasoline, diesel and other fuels used on the East Coast, appears to have been carried out by an Eastern European based criminal gang — DarkSide.
    ……….
    Colonial Pipeline said in a statement on Friday that it had temporarily shut down all its pipeline operations after being hit by a cyber attack. It said it had notified law enforcement and other federal agencies.

    Colonial’s 5,500 miles of pipelines carry fuel from refineries on the Gulf Coast to customers in the southern and eastern United States. It says it transports 45 percent of the fuel consumed on the East Coast, reaching 50 million Americans.
    ………
    Though there is as yet no known foreign government nexus to the Colonial Pipeline incident, the U.S. government has in the past asserted links between Russian spy services and ransomware rings. Last month, the Treasury Department stated that the Russian internal security service, FSB, “cultivates and co-opts criminal hackers, including” a group called Evil Corp., “enabling them to engage in disruptive ransomware attacks.” Treasury sanctioned Evil Corp. in late 2019.
    ……..
    Prices for refined oil products are slumping on the Gulf Coast because of the shutdown. Analysts say that depending on how long the pipelines are out of service, prices for gasoline and jet fuel could rise in the New York area, as they did in 2017 when a hurricane forced a shutdown. As of now, with demand down and storage capacity around New York fairly full, analysts do not expect an immediate impact.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  28. https://www.city-journal.org/racial-politics-at-disney?wallit_nosession=1

    I have obtained a trove of whistleblower documents related to Disney’s “diversity and inclusion” program, called “Reimagine Tomorrow,” which paints a disturbing picture of the company’s embrace of racial politics. Multiple Disney employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, told me that the Reimagine Tomorrow program, though perhaps noble in intent, has become deeply politicized and engulfed parts of the company in racial conflict.

    The core of Disney’s racial program is a series of training modules on “antiracism.” In one, called “Allyship for Race Consciousness,” the company tells employees that they must “take ownership of educating [themselves] about structural anti-Black racism” and that they should “not rely on [their] Black colleagues to educate [them],” because it is “emotionally taxing.” The United States, the document claims, has a “long history of systemic racism and transphobia,” and white employees, in particular, must “work through feelings of guilt, shame, and defensiveness to understand what is beneath them and what needs to be healed.” Disney recommends that employees atone by “challeng[ing] colorblind ideologies and rhetoric” such as “All Lives Matter” and “I don’t see color”; they must “listen with empathy [to] Black colleagues” and must “not question or debate Black colleagues’ lived experience.”

    In another module, called “What Can I Do About Racism?,” Disney tells employees that they should reject “equality,” with a focus on “equal treatment and access to opportunities,” and instead strive for “equity,” with a focus on “the equality of outcome.” The training also includes a series of lessons on “implicit biases,” “microaggressions,” and “becoming an antiracist.” The company tells employees that they must “reflect” on America’s “racist infrastructure” and “think carefully about whether or not your wealth, income, treatment by the criminal justice system, employment, access to housing, health care, political power, and education might be different if you were of a different race.”

    In order to put these ideas into action, Disney sponsored the creation of the “21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge” in partnership with the YWCA and included the program in its recommended resources for employees. The challenge begins with information on “systemic racism” and asks participants to accept that they have “all been raised in a society that elevates white culture over others.” Participants then learn about their “white privilege” and are asked to fill out a white privilege “checklist,” with options including: “I am white,” I am heterosexual,” “I am a man,” “I still identity as the gender I was born in,” “I have never been raped,” “I don’t rely on public transportation,” and “I have never been called a terrorist.”

    Next, participants learn about “white fragility” and are asked to complete an exercise called “How to Tell If You Have White Fragility.” The program interprets beliefs such as “I am a good person, I can’t be racist” and “I was taught to treat everyone the same” as evidence of the participant’s internalized racism and white fragility. Finally, at the conclusion of the 21-day challenge, participants are told that they must learn how to “pivot” from “white dominant culture” to “something different.” The document claims that “competition,” power hoarding,” “comfort with predominantly white leadership,” “individualism,” “timeliness,” and “comprehensiveness” are “white dominant” values that “perpetuate white supremacy culture”—and must be rejected.

    This disgusting racism and twisted indoctrination must be fought against as aggressively as possible and Disney must be shamed for this anti-American attitude.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  29. No beach. My house is two blocks from the beach and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87) — 5/8/2021 @ 10:55 am

    I love the beach and California weather, but there is a price point at which I can do without them.

    norcal (01e272)

  30. “Trumpectomy”

    An absolute must.

    Dana (fd537d)

  31. $100 as Incentive to Get a Shot? Experiment Suggests It Can Pay Off
    ………

    …….[R]esearchers randomly assigned unvaccinated respondents to see messages about financial incentives. Some people were asked about the chances they would get a vaccine if it came with a $25 cash payment; other people were asked about receiving $50 or $100.

    Roughly a third of the unvaccinated population said a cash payment would make them more likely to get a shot. The benefits were largest for those in the group getting $100, which increased willingness (34 percent said they would get vaccinated) by six points over the $25 group.

    The effect was greatest for unvaccinated Democrats, 48 percent of whom said they would be more likely to get vaccinated if it came with a $100 payment.
    ……….

    The incentive to stop wearing a mask and social-distancing in public also had a strong result. On average, relaxing the mask and social distancing guidelines increased vaccine uptake likelihood by 13 points. The largest gains came from Republicans, who reported an 18-point increase in willingness to get vaccinated.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  32. Johnson has not only been dishonest about his pro-Putin propaganda against Ukraine, he’s also channeling Tucker Carlson in his dishonesty about vaccine-related deaths. He’s doing more than “just asking the questions”, he’s engaging in scaremongering and disinformation about a vaccine that is safe and effective.
    For those who refuse to click on the Enemy of the People, NR made pretty much the same case.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  33. Jonah had an entertaining take-down of “birthing person” the other day.

    Birthing-person-of-pearl! (Or for those of a certain faith, Holy Birthing Person of God!) This is a seamless disco ball of absurdity, radiating inanity from every angle. If one of the core tenets of the new Great Awokening is that the term “mother” is divisive or bigoted, then the Great Awokening is doomed (and deservedly so). Don’t tell me conservatives are too obsessed with silly and divisive culture war “distractions,” if in the next breath you’re going to lecture me on the need to erase the term “mother” from the English language.

    One of the most interesting divides on the left is between socialists and critical race theorists. Some of the best pushback on the execrable 1619 Project came from socialists who think making race, as opposed to class, the focal point of the progressive project is counterproductive. It’s a fresh opening of a fascinating old divide that had once been central to the left when Marxism was taken more seriously by serious people. Anything that distracts from the class struggle is a gift to what Randi Weingarten calls the “ownership class.” This argument was applied to everything from Mickey Mouse to the welfare state to slavery reparations.

    My point isn’t that mom-erasure sets back the class struggle, my point is that mom-erasure sets back the transgender cause, and virtually every other left-wing cause as well. People aren’t going to stop calling their mothers “mother” or “mom” or anything of the sort. Kids aren’t going to fall off a swing at the playground and shout, “Birthing person! I have an ouchie!” (And before you accuse me of perpetuating gender stereotypes, if dad is at the playground, they’re not going to shout, “Non-birthing person! I have an ouchie!” either.) And it’s absurd to ask them to, not just because it’s wrong on the merits, but because it’s an utterly doomed project that will invite 100 times more backlash against their cause.

    Read the whole thing.

    Dave (1bb933)

  34. For those who refuse to click on the Enemy of the People, NR made pretty much the same case.

    For Trump supporters, that includes NR.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  35. Re: Trumpectomy

    Interesting thought experiment. Suppose the depraved orange lunatic were to drop dead tomorrow. What would happen:

    1) A significant number of so-called Republicans stop parroting his lies and the party begins to return to sanity.

    2) The 2024 QOP primaries devolve into a contest to become the next alternative-reality cult figure.

    #2 looks about a hundred times more likely to me.

    Dave (1bb933)

  36. @NJRob@28 Mostly I think it’s laughable. There are legit race issues out there (I bet Disney has a heck of a lot of them) but basically all they’ve done here is corporate image-polishing. They saw a popular social cause and instead of actually looking at themselves to see if there were problems and/or changing any company policies that were problems, or even consulting with their staff to see if there were issues, they’ve held a training full of the race equivalent of “synergy” and “next-gen” and “incentivize.” Iconic corporate method of not solving a problem that they don’t know exists.

    Nic (896fdf)

  37. “he Frankenstein spawned and nurtured in the cesspool of Ronnie’s gilded, glittered, gaudy, recklessly excessive go-go 1980s”

    DCSCA, it’s just a stupid…ideologically-motivated…caricature. You hate conservatism…so you impotently attack its most successful politician with a gassy trolling smear…that should…for the 90th time…just be ignored but its silliness needs to be countered. I suspect most people who visit this site don’t share your dystopian view of the 80’s…given that the man did get re-elected with a massive 525 electoral vote count….and his VP won a de facto 3rd term by a decisive 315 electoral vote margin. Some dystopian backlash!

    Yes, Reagan cut taxes….but an honest historical narrative would also admit that he raised them 11 times, including eliminating the preference for the capital gains in 1986. He also closed loop holes that the rich could use to shield themselves from the high rates of the 70’s. As governor of California, Reagan signed the then biggest tax hike in state history. Reagan’s willingness to get a half of loaf with legislative deal making….his massive amnesty…his backing of the Brady Act…his backing of the elimination of ozone depleting chemicals…..all would make it difficult for him to get out of a current GOP primary….and not be pilloried by FNC.

    The fact that Conservatism achieved ascendancy in 1980….and has subsequently morphed…and then been corrupted…..does not fall at the feet of Reagan…..or any of us Trump-skeptical conservatives. Reagan would be mortified by Trump’s willingness to crudely disparage fellow Republicans, his attack on McCain’s service, his depiction of illegals trying to better their lives, his embrace and admiration for tyrants and illiberal regimes…notably Russia, and his disdain for laws, Constitutional norms, and a robust 1st amendment. Trump is more perfectly cast as the anti-Reagan….created by a right-wing media complex that substituted Reagan’s optimism…with an over-amplified and corrosive hatred of liberals…and foreigners. Tax cuts and de-regulation didn’t pave the way for Trump….any more than they paved the way for Steve Forbes, Ross Perot, or Mitt Romney. The culture of the GOP profoundly started changing in 2008…and untethered desperation and rage incubated Trump. Everything else is just your mind playing games.

    Sorry Noel.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  38. they’ve held a training full of the race equivalent of “synergy” and “next-gen” and “incentivize.” Iconic corporate method of not solving a problem that they don’t know exists.

    I think it’s a lot worse than that. It isn’t something that every employee is supposed to learn. Rather, it’s an attack on one group of employees, telling them they are congenitally guilty and can’t ever really do enough to atone for their original sin — while another group of employees are naturally innocent and always right in any dispute.
    Saying that white people must “not question or debate Black colleagues’ lived experience” might sound nice, but it really means that whatever any black person perceives as racist must necessarily be considered racist. Meanwhile, any white person’s “lived experience” must be constantly interrogated and labeled racist to the core.

    Then there’s the Orwellian notion that treating people equally is racist:

    “I was taught to treat everyone the same” as evidence of the participant’s internalized racism and white fragility

    This is noxious stuff. It’s divisive, and it’s meant to be divisive.

    Radegunda (aea52f)

  39. @Ragegunda@38 I mean, yes, it’s targeted at one group (for now) but it’s also so superficial and yet they are probably very proud of themselves.

    Nic (896fdf)

  40. Great comment, AJ_Liberty, as usual. I doubt it gives DCSCA a moment’s pause. His thoughts on Reagan might as well be etched in stone.

    Don’t worry about Noel. In case you haven’t noticed, he is very scarce these days. I have a theory about him. He said he considered e-mailing Patterico, but then decided to take his gripe straight to the comment section. I suspect the reason he did so is because he feared he wouldn’t get anywhere with Patterico, and subsequently it would have been in very bad form to bring it up on the blog.

    norcal (01e272)

  41. AJ – If I may add a little to what you said: Ronald Reagan proposed NAFTA and began the long diplomatic process of getting it negotiated. (George H. W. Bush completed the negotiations, and Bill Clinton got it ratified.)

    Reagan despised tyrants like Putin; as we all know Trump loves Putin (and Kim!).

    Reagan strengthened NATO; Trump did what he could to weaken it.

    Whatever he may have been like as a young actor, there is every reason to believe that Reagan was faithful to Nancy. (And she to him.)

    Reagan was loyal to his friends and supporters, perhaps too much so at times.

    Reagan believed in the 11th commandment, and mostly practiced it.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  42. AJ – And two more thoughts: You may want to give Les Moonves and company some credit for creating Trump.

    Reagan told some good jokes about himself; if Trump has ever told a joke about himself, I have missed it.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  43. @42 Trump doesn’t need to tell jokes because he is a joke!

    norcal (01e272)

  44. The thing is that DCSCA reveres Pitchfork Pat (who is certainly no Reagan) and whose preferred “America first” policies were embodied by none other than Trump, so it’s fairly ridiculous and wholly false when he asserted that Trump is a product of Reagan.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  45. “Don’t worry about Noel”

    It was a bit tongue in cheek. I get Noel’s point…I just don’t think this should devolve to Twitter….and it’s just too easy to skip comments you’re not in the mood to peruse. If Pat wants more brevity…..he’s certainly free to suggest it or mandate it…it’s his blog and we’re guests.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  46. @37. It’s hardly a ‘stupid’ caricature, AJ. It’s reality.

    Denial of same is the ‘stupidity;’– Trump is a wholly Reagan Creation. Accept it. And hate? Careful, AJ. My own late mother was a die-hard Goldwater girl, so the family knows ‘conservatism’ better and more intimately than you may believe, beyond Birchers, water fluoridation and anti-science tirades.

    “The fact that Conservatism achieved ascendancy in 1980….and has subsequently morphed…and then been corrupted…..does not fall at the feet of Reagan…..”

    Except it does. Own it. Reagan created the cesspool that spawned Trump. He is the GOP’s Dorian Gray; he is “you.” Now your party has thankfully swopped ends on you; just like in 1964. The candidate with the guts to say ‘voodoo economics’ was a fatal flaw is your next POTUS nominee. THe desperate one who shout ‘Reagan’– are doomed.

    @40. More like on Ronnie’s tombstone; run up debt, die, leave it to the kids to clean up. Trying to make the 1980s like the 1960s– on a credit card no less, when America was the lone colossus, was his failure; turning America from a creditor nation to a debtor nation his legacy, along w/t 1987 crash. Reaganomics. Own it. The speed and ease of the collapse of the modern ideological conservative movement at the hands of Trump is a triumph.

    Glorious.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  47. Told ya, AJ_Liberty. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  48. @41./@42.Yes, keep clinging to Reagan; who voted for FDR– four times; who left office over 32 years ago.

    That should appeal to the young.

    Recall many Dems shouting ‘FDR’ in 1977?

    Nope.

    _________

    @44. Uh, Buchanan worked for Reagan, Paul:

    Patrick Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan… In 2000, he was the Reform Party’s presidential nominee. His campaign centered on non-interventionism, illegal immigration, and opposition to free trade…

    He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause… His political positions can generally be described as paleoconservative and many of his views, particularly his opposition to American imperialism and the managerial state, echo those of the Old Right Republicans of the first half of the 20th century.‘ -source, wikitrashbinofhistory.org

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  49. @47. 1+1 = 2, not 11.

    ‘Reaganomics.’ 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  50. @44. …so it’s fairly ridiculous and wholly false when he [DCSCA] asserted that Trump is a product of Reagan

    Except it’s not. But do keep denying it. It only serves to marginalize modern ideological conservatism and the neocons further. The ‘Big Lie’ is not realizing that’s really what’s behind jettisoning Daughter Darth by the powers that be. She once was a paid Fox commentator- doubt she’d get hired back these days.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  51. Summarized DCSCA: “It’s reality….Accept it…Own it…he is “you.””

    Well I guess that evidence-rich analysis definitively persuades me…finally…thanks for clarifying. Reagan and I now have to get to the gym.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  52. “1+1 = 2, not 11”

    Except that in binary, 1 + 1 is actually 10 if you carry forward….so there’s always that.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  53. Buchanan worked for Reagan, Paul

    That doesn’t mean anything, DCSCA. Buchanan is his own man with his own views.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  54. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 5/8/2021 @ 3:03 pm

    Shsshh! Grown-ups are talking!

    Go to your room and play with Buzz Lightyear…

    Dave (1bb933)

  55. Stefanik working it:

    The New York Republican is telling her GOP colleagues that she intends to finish out the rest of this current cycle as conference chair if she is ultimately elevated to the No. 3 leadership position, according to multiple Republican lawmakers familiar with the conversations.

    Then, in the new Congress, she intends to seek the top job on the House Education and Labor Committee, those sources said, a longtime priority for her…

    Stefanik, a moderate turned Trump ally, is also vowing to toe the party line and not buck leadership whenever they are whipping for or against something — a promise intended to assuage colleagues that she will not rock the boat like Cheney.

    She is ambitious and knows how to play the game to win.

    Dana (fd537d)

  56. @52. ‘Voodoo economics, AJ.

    @53. ROFLMAOPIP… how Emily Litella of you.

    @54. Davey, Davey, Davey… personal attacks are frown upon– to infinity and beyond.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  57. ‘She is ambitious and knows how to play the game to win.’

    More power to her, then.

    Literally.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  58. Reagan and I now have to get to the gym.

    He hasn’t moved a mussle in years… so exercise caution. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  59. ^muscle — though he likely digged Clams Casino on the half shell. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  60. @42. You may want to give Les Moonves and company some credit for creating Trump

    You may want to give the NY Post, the Daily Nooz, Page Six, Citibank and chums– and Reagan’s NYC of the 1980s more credit than lil’ol Les Moonves, who, BTW, was a failed actor who guest starred on ABC’s Six-Million Dollar Man before moving on to the once Tiffany Network.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  61. personal attacks are frown upon

    People who live in glass houses…

    Trump is GOP… he is “you.”

    Dave (1bb933)

  62. Here’s the deal. One thing that’s not going to happen: Liz Cheney is not going to whine that Elise (you know that’s the same name, right?) stole the election. And one thing that will keep happening: Liz Cheney will still be a U.S. Representative until 2003.

    nk (1d9030)

  63. She is ambitious and knows how to play the game to win.

    Time to dust off the A Man for All Seasons quotes…

    “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?”

    Apparently Elise thinks it profits a woman to give her soul for the Education and Labor Committee…

    Dave (1bb933)

  64. @61. Nice try. Weak reading comprehension skills is nothing to be ashamed of, Davey. But avoid libraries; stick to short burst twitter text.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  65. Trump is like a giant fly strip for crazy people.

    norcal (01e272)

  66. Cromwell: I know a man who wants to change his woman.

    nk (1d9030)

  67. You know what the difference is between Stefanik bumping Neocon Cheney and the Goldwater Birchers bumping a Rockefeller Republican?

    Nothing.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  68. @65. Crazy people? Dissing 74-plus million is not the way for a minority wing of the party to gain favor.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  69. @68 Fervent Trump supporters were the “minority wing” of those 74 million. The rest were just being pragmatic.

    norcal (01e272)

  70. @69. Which explains the high number of primary challengers he had: zero. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  71. More: I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

    Dave (1bb933)

  72. RIP Bo, the Obama family’s dog.

    Dave (1bb933)

  73. @70 What primary challenger would want to face Trump’s Twitter assaults and insurrectionary mobs?

    norcal (01e272)

  74. R.I.P. Tawny Kitaen, 59

    Video killed the radio star…

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  75. @73. Nelson Rocefeller. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  76. ^Rockefeller

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  77. @74 Chuck Finley no longer has to live in terror. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  78. There’s more than one layer to the Šunkafleky. Not only the orange ego.

    Lobbyist: Senator Cruz, my principals could use your support on the upcoming military appropriations bill.
    Cruz: What have you done for me, lately?
    Lobbyist: $3.6 million in campaign contributions to date.
    Cruz: That’s dandy, just dandy, but I wonder if your principals could also hold their next conference at a Trump facility and invite President Trump to be the speaker for, let’s say, a $1 million speaking fee?
    Lobbyist: How is that doing anything for you, Senator?
    Cruz: He’ll say nice things about me to dipwiddles whose money and votes I need.

    nk (1d9030)

  79. There were primary challengers.

    Weld won a delegate in Iowa, and candidates other than Trump won over 15% of the vote in New Hampshire.

    Dave (1bb933)

  80. @73 lol if you can withstand mean tweets surely china, isis and the mullahs are a cakewalk

    JF (e1156d)

  81. Now, Cruz all by himself might not have the political muscle to pull that off, but the chairperson of the party leadership conference …?

    nk (1d9030)

  82. Philly DA Candidate Forced to Address Paralegal Found Dead in His Mansion

    On first look, the campaign website for Charles Peruto Jr., a bombastic Republican attorney running to oust progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, seems fairly standard, similar to those of many conservative candidates.
    ………
    ………[T]hen, there is a section, titled “The Girl in my Bathtub,” in which he has to explain the death of a woman at his mansion in 2013.

    “There shouldn’t have to be a section for this on anyone’s campaign site,” the candidate begins on the page, first reported by Raw Story, “but because some people will not let this go away, I must address it.”

    Peruto, who has spent 40 years in criminal defense law, has local name recognition for his record of representing high-profile defendants, including a slew of alleged mob bosses like Joey Merlino and Nicodemo Scarfo, and his dad, Chuck Peruto Sr.—whom Philadelphia Magazine described as “one of the most esteemed lawyers in Philadelphia history.”

    ……… Peruto has become more notorious for another reason: In 2013, a woman named Julia Law was found dead in his mansion in Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood. A maintenance man discovered her body, naked and facedown in a full bathtub of water. At the time, Peruto had been with family on the Jersey Shore, according to a report from the time by NBC 10.

    The 26-year-old had been a paralegal in Peruto’s law office, where they struck up a romantic relationship. This was something of a pattern for the 66-year-old lawyer. ……..
    ……..
    The renewed scrutiny of Law’s death is just the latest twist in what has been an eventful and bitter race for Philadelphia’s District Attorney. Larry Krasner, the current DA, won the seat in 2017 on a platform of progressive criminal justice reform. After taking office in 2018, he dramatically changed the DA’s Office, firing 31 prosecutors from the former regime.

    Krasner faces a primary challenge from Democrat Carlos Vega, one of the prosecutors he fired, who secured the local Democratic endorsement and that of Protect Our Police, the pro-cop PAC largely funded by the Fraternal Order of Police.

    On Wednesday, during a televised debate between the two, Krasner pointed to Vega’s track record in the DA’s office, having worked to re-try a man named Anthony Wright for rape and murder charges, in spite of exonerating DNA evidence that pointed to another man. ………
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  83. @80 Apples and watermelons. Foreigners were not the ones storming the Capitol building on January 6th seeking to hang Mike Pence.

    norcal (01e272)

  84. “The Girl in my Bathtub”

    Somebody should secure the movie rights.

    norcal (01e272)

  85. Carlos Vega and Eric Adams would be good first steps in the other side’s Heal Thyself.

    urbanleftbehind (760d6e)

  86. 83, not the swarthy kind we’ve fought for 30+ years, but perhaps we have become nothing more than Rockem Sockem Robots for other kinds:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/05/04/proud-boys-chinese-americans-community-support-donations/7343111002/

    urbanleftbehind (760d6e)

  87. Like the drummer for Spinal Tap, the No. 3 in GOP leadership does not usually last long
    ………
    The chair of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 spot in the hierarchy, has served to either end political careers or force lawmakers to abandon the leadership ladder to reinvent their résumé in other offices.

    No Republican has ascended directly upward in leadership ranks since Rep. Richard K. Armey (Tex.), after a brief stint as conference chairman, did so more than 26 years ago following a wave election that swept the GOP into the House majority.

    Democrats have a similar ceiling from the equivalent position in their ranks, known as chair of the Democratic Caucus.
    ………
    ……… Republicans have a knack for blaming their conference chair when things go wrong, as senior members of leadership deflect blame and let the rank and file take out their anger on a lower-level member of leadership.
    ……..
    If she wins, (Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). (R-Insurrectionist) would become the sixth GOP conference chair in 13 years — a turnover rate that rivals the drummer for Spinal Tap.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  88. Eliminating the wench auction from Pirates of the Caribbean was more disturbing.

    /sarc

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  89. Apples and watermelons. Foreigners were not the ones storming the Capitol building on January 6th seeking to hang Mike Pence.

    Nor facing off against Redcoats on the greens of Lexington and Concord; subjects of the Crown all.

    This has been building for years; they rage against the Royalists; the proletariat podium protectors; what gender, race and rank was the Capitol cop who shot and killed white woman and veteran, Ashli Babbitt? What’s to hide.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  90. Ashli Babbitt, a modern-day George Washington

    norcal (01e272)

  91. Technically, more of a Crispus Attucks.

    urbanleftbehind (760d6e)

  92. RIP Lloyd Price (88). R&B singer and songwriter of Stagger Lee and Lawdy Miss Clawdy.

    ……..
    ……… (Lawdy Miss Clawdy) topped the R&B charts for seven weeks, attracted a huge White audience (Mr. Price was Black) and over decades became a standard covered by dozens of performers, including Elvis Presley, Little Richard and — in their 1970 concert film “Let It Be” — the Beatles.

    In 1954, at the peak of his success with “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Mr. Price saw his career interrupted by the draft. His music, he often said, was a threat to segregated society because Black and White kids alike were dancing to it.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  93. Yes, UBL, a sacrificial lamb participating in a noble and righteous cause!

    norcal (01e272)

  94. 90.Ashli Babbitt, a modern-day George Washington

    He had a Brown Bess and expense account; she has no musket– and didn’t need no powdered wig.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  95. Norwegian threatens to pull cruise ships from Florida over DeSantis vaccine passport ban
    ……..
    Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has said it intends to require 100 percent of passengers and crew to be fully vaccinated to sail. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order in March barring businesses from requiring proof of vaccinations. He signed that order into state law on Monday.

    “That’s an issue,” Norwegian CEO Frank Del Rio said during an earnings call this week. He said the company has been in talks with the governor’s office, and his legal experts believe the vaccination requirement falls under federal and not state law.

    “But at the end of the day, cruise ships have motors, propellers and rudders, and god forbid we can’t operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from,” he said. “And we can operate from the Caribbean for ships that otherwise would’ve gone to Florida.”
    ……..
    …….. As part of their plans to start cruising again, either from the United States when permitted or from other countries, cruise lines including Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Virgin, Crystal and Norwegian’s brands have said they will require everyone on board or every adult on board to be fully vaccinated.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  96. @94 An even greater hero than George Washington!

    norcal (01e272)

  97. Nathan Hale. “I regret that I have but one brain cell to give for my orange fetish.”

    nk (1d9030)

  98. nk,

    That is up there among the loudest laughs I’ve had from patterico.com!

    norcal (01e272)

  99. No beach. My house is two blocks from the beach and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Lots of sand though. I’ve lived in places like that (e.g. Balboa) but you have to put up with an awful lot in return.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  100. Is there a WordPress plugin which prevents named users from using certain words? LIke, oh, say, “Reagan” for a random example?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  101. You make some good arguments for NM, Kevin, but you can’t beat Nevada’s lack of state income tax!

    norcal (01e272)

  102. Technically, more of a Crispus Attucks.

    John Birch is even closer.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  103. @100 Why don’t you use the blocking script?

    norcal (01e272)

  104. ABQ sounds appealing, Kevin, but I’ve never lived more than a couple miles from ocean, sound, or Lake Washington. When we visited Montagu Jr. in the Denver area, we found ourselves looking for water bodies to hang out at.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  105. Here’s an item that ought to be added:

    [Los Angeles County] Prosecutors will no longer seek death penalty in the Anthony Avalos torture case

    Prosecutors will no longer seek the death penalty for the mother of Anthony Avalos and her boyfriend, who are accused of torturing the 10-year-old Lancaster boy for days before his death in 2018, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office confirmed Saturday.

    A grand jury indicted Heather Maxine Barron, 31, and Kareem Ernesto Leiva, 35, in October 2018 on charges that they murdered the boy and abused two other children in the household.

    Barron and Leiva are being held without bail. Both have pleaded not guilty.

    Prosecutors have said the couple poured hot sauce on Anthony’s face and mouth, whipped the boy with a looped cord and belt, and held him upside down and dropped him on his head repeatedly. They also alleged that the couple alternately withheld food and force-fed him, slammed him into furniture and the floor, denied access to the bathroom, and enlisted other children in the home to inflict pain.

    Anthony’s wounds stretched from head to toe as bruises, abrasions, red dots, scabs, cuts and a traumatic brain injury, prosecutors have said. In addition to the injuries suffered by Anthony that resulted in his June 21 death, prosecutors have said that Leiva previously struck one of his brothers so hard that the boy required a trip to the hospital and staples on his head.

    The decision not to seek capital punishment came as a shift from the strategy pursued by the office of Gascón’s predecessor, former Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. Prosecutors had announced in court in 2019 that they would pursue the death penalty against Barron and Leiva.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  106. Paul,

    I don’t disagree, but I found that it was not worth a million dollars of inedible equity to me. I lived in SoCal for 65 years, mostly a mile or less from the water, but a rational look at retirement told me it wasn’t going to work for long enough.

    In any event, the contrast was to moving to AZ or NM, not staying at the beach. I’ve been to Phoenix in July. Once.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  107. The lessons of a popular early pandemic hit stream series detailing a similar tragedy appear to have been wasted.

    urbanleftbehind (760d6e)

  108. Don’t tell me she is on a mission to boost other Republican women

    She was on a mission to boost the percentage of House Republicans who were women, probably because this idea helped her.

    She said all the new members of Congress who got elected who were Republican was either a woman, a veteran or a minority. She claims to be an expert in candidate recruitment.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  109. Victor (4959fb) — 5/8/2021 @ 5:20 am

    It baffles me that people would go to the trouble, and legal liability, of faking a vaccination card when actually getting vaccinated is so easy. And in some places gets you a free beer.

    It became so common, that the state of Israel refuses to accept any vaccination that was not done in Israel.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  110. The DOJ’s Abusive Indictment of the Police Who Killed George Floyd

    At best, the Justice Department’s indictment of Derek Chauvin and the three other former Minneapolis cops involved in George Floyd’s killing nearly a year ago is overkill. At worst, it is an exercise in political zeal that could undermine the accountability being achieved by state prosecutions. In the meantime, it is abusive — ironically so given that the charges are brought under the guise of upholding civil rights, though it obviously has not dawned on the Civil Rights Division’s social-justice warriors that police have civil rights, too.
    …………
    In addition to the inexplicable timing, one must ask why the Justice Department is filing these charges.
    Chauvin stands convicted and will spend most, if not all, of the rest of his life in prison. The due-process issues on appeal are serious, but Minnesota’s appellate courts are likely to uphold the convictions, reasoning that the evidence was sufficiently strong that even exemplary due process would not have changed the outcome. In the unlikely event reviewing courts were persuaded by Chauvin’s claims, the most that would happen is he’d get a new trial, during which state prosecutors (and federal prosecutors on the sidelines) would presumably take their obligations more seriously. The immensely high probability is that Chauvin would again be convicted and sentenced severely.
    Furthermore, it is highly likely that the other three ex-cops will be convicted — at least on manslaughter, and likely on murder. As I explained during Chauvin’s trial, the testimony of the state’s highly persuasive expert pulmonologist, Martin Tobin, makes the state’s case stronger against the other defendants, particularly Lane and Kueng.

    It does not make enforcement sense for the federal government to prosecute these defendants after they are convicted and sentenced to hard time by the state, based on the exact same conduct. The feds are also separately charging Chauvin based on a second alleged incident of excessive force. ……
    …….
    ……..Trying a person two times for the same offense understandably strikes Americans as unfair, even if it is technically constitutional. As a result, the Justice Department permits a second prosecution only sparingly: when the failure to prosecute would result in a grievous miscarriage of justice — generally because the state proceedings were somehow flawed, or because, absent prosecution, some important federal interest will not be vindicated.
    …….
    As a law-enforcement matter, the federal prosecution is not defensible. It is a needlessly redundant expenditure of federal resources to achieve a result that will already have been achieved by the state prosecutions. It puts defendants in jeopardy a second time for the same wrongful actions. Convictions would not advance accountability, but there is a significant risk of acquittals that would undermine accountability. And, under the guise of prosecuting an abuse of civil rights, the Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division are quite intentionally violating the civil rights of the defendants to fair criminal proceedings in the state court.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  111. It baffles me that people would go to the trouble, and legal liability, of faking a vaccination card when actually getting vaccinated is so easy. And in some places gets you a free beer.

    It may be as simple as people are afraid of needles.

    My friend was diagnosed with diabetes. The doctor told him to shoot insulin. He couldn’t do it, so now he’s on oral medication. I hope it’s enough.

    norcal (01e272)

  112. The lessons of a popular early pandemic hit stream series detailing a similar tragedy appear to have been wasted.

    urbanleftbehind (760d6e) — 5/8/2021 @ 6:52 pm

    I thought of this series.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  113. urbanleftbehind (760d6e) — 5/8/2021 @ 6:52 pm-

    My comment on your post is irrelevant, though the pandemic did make me think of it.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  114. @84-

    “The Girl in my Bathtub”

    Somebody should secure the movie rights.

    norcal (01e272) — 5/8/2021 @ 5:32 pm

    It was a Lifetime movie in n 2018.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  115. @114 Ahaha! I guess I should start watching Lifetime.

    norcal (01e272)

  116. BTW, your link at 110 doesn’t work, Rip.

    norcal (01e272)

  117. As a law-enforcement matter, the federal prosecution is not defensible. It is a needlessly redundant expenditure of federal resources to achieve a result that will already have been achieved by the state prosecutions.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87) — 5/8/2021 @ 7:19 pm

    As my uncle said when I suggested hunting deer with a 7mm Remington Magnum, “You can only kill them so dead.”

    norcal (01e272)

  118. BTW, your link at 110 doesn’t work, Rip.

    norcal (01e272) — 5/8/2021 @ 7:53 pm

    Thanks. See below.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-dojs-abusive-indictment-of-the-police-who-killed-george-floyd/

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  119. Breaking news: Elon Musk has a real, live mother.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  120. Chinese rocket free-fall live: The rocket is down, Exclusive visuals surface online (Watch)

    Quoting insiders at the United States Space Force, Jonathan McDowell revealed that the Chinese free-falling rocket is down

    https://www.ibtimes.co.in/chinese-rocket-free-fall-live-physicist-says-debris-could-have-landed-somewhere-between-middle-836104

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  121. https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1391131194637553664

    Anti-Christian fascism happening north of the border. Coming soon to America if we don’t stop it now.

    Yes, this is the same polish pastor from a few weeks ago.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  122. By now I assume most of you have looked at that IHME report that I linked to above, but just in case you haven’t, here are some numbers (rounded off):

    US total death toll because of COVID: 905,000 (reported, 574,000)
    Russia total death toll: 594,000 (reported, 109,000)

    Russia has less than half the population of the US (about 146 million versus about 333 million). Donald’s friend Vladimir failed even worse than Donald did.

    Incidentally, this report confirms my tentative conclusion, formed months ago, that Russia was lying about COVID. (Their numbers were implausibly regular.)

    Sadly, there is no real data on China in the report. (China has been delaying the release of its 2020 census report.)

    And a map explains something that has puzzled me for months, why Kentucky had so much lower COVID death rates than its neighbor, Tennessee. (Answer, it doesn’t.)

    We – and I include myself in that — have failed badly in our response to COVID. We should learn from our mistakes. And almost all those not vaccinated should get vaccinated, promptly.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  123. The much nicer Dana cited:

    The owner of a Northern California bar was arrested on suspicion of selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards to several undercover state agents for $20 each.

    The only reason that there could be a market for fake China virus vaccine cards is if the government of businesses mandate them. We should not patronize any business than mandates such, and do everything we can to get rid of government officials who push such. F(ornicate) them all!

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  124. “We should not patronize any business than mandates such”

    Isn’t it mainly for travel abroad…..though I suppose it could be used for large indoor events like concerts too. Where are you hearing that general businesses are requiring it or that government officials are mandating anything? Are you afraid to get vaccinated?

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  125. owner of a Northern California bar was arrested on suspicion

    Perspective –

    CA EDD admits paying as much as $31 billion in unemployment funds to criminals
    https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-scam-insurance/10011810/

    Not all laws deserve enforcement in California.

    BillPasadena (5b0401)

  126. Coming soon to America if we don’t stop it now.

    The US Supreme Court already ruled, Rob, more than once, so I’ll take your comment as fearmongering.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  127. You should not patronize concerts, cruises, cabarets, and other crowded or confined congregations of people, whether they require proof of vaccination or not.

    nk (1d9030)

  128. Or Florida.

    nk (1d9030)

  129. The Seattle Mariners have an interesting compromise:

    The Seattle Mariners announced Friday fully vaccinated fans will be able to purchase tickets to vaccine-only sections and receive special rewards to fans that show proof of full vaccination.

    I’m not sure that would satisfy our friend Dana in Kentucky, though.

    (I assume everyone understands that the Mariners have a strong financial interest in having vaccinated fans, since they can sell more tickets to them. Similarly, a restaurant would be able to seat more people, and so on.)

    As for me, I think the Golden Rule applies: I am better off if everyone I meet is vaccinated, so I got vaccinated myself, as soon as I could.

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  130. That’s just a general rule to live by, nk, but they have a direct vein tap for the Brazilian strain.

    Meanwhile, AT & T Stadium told Churchill Downs to hold its julep.

    urbanleftbehind (23baaa)

  131. Paul,

    Yet you keep having leftists like Newsom keep trying to do it over and over again. It’s not fearmongering. It’s the truth.

    The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

    We are always only one generation from having our freedoms taken away. That’s clearer now more than ever.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  132. Yet you keep having leftists like Newsom keep trying to do it over and over again. It’s not fearmongering. It’s the truth.

    And all it takes is a lower-court judge to slap him down, hence my comment about the USSC. There are bigger things to be scared about.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  133. There are bigger things to be scared about.

    Yes, but the space under the bed is limited.

    Dave (1bb933)

  134. “Philly DA Candidate Forced to Address Paralegal Found Dead in His Mansion”

    What’s the point of addressing her if she’s already dead?

    “Norwegian threatens to pull cruise ships from Florida over DeSantis vaccine passport ban”

    I’d like to see the muscles on that Norwegian.

    Radegunda (aea52f)

  135. Kentucky Derby Winner Medina Spirit Fails Drug Test
    ………
    The colt cannot be disqualified until a split sample confirms the result. Baffert will then have an opportunity to appeal. If disqualified, Medina Spirit would be stripped of the Derby title and the winning purse.

    In a news conference Sunday morning outside of his barn at Churchill Downs, Baffert said neither he nor anyone on his team administered the drug betamethasone to Medina Spirit.

    “I was totally shocked when I heard this news,” Baffert said. “I’m still trying to absorb it. I am the most scrutinized trainer. And I am okay with that. The last thing I want to do is something that would jeopardize the greatest sport.”…….We didn’t do it.”
    ……..
    Medina Spirit tested positive for betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling. It is the same substance found last year in Baffert’s Gamine after the filly finished third in the Kentucky Oaks. Gamine was disqualified and her owners were denied the purse for her third place finish. Baffert was fined $1,500.

    Baffert has gained the enmity of rivals who believe that he has persistently cheated, suspicions fueled by 30 drug tests failed by his horses over four decades, including five in a little more than a year.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  136. 134 and 135:
    This turned into Readers Digest real quick.

    urbanleftbehind (23baaa)

  137. Mr Liberty wrote:

    “We should not patronize any business than mandates such”

    Isn’t it mainly for travel abroad…..though I suppose it could be used for large indoor events like concerts too. Where are you hearing that general businesses are requiring it or that government officials are mandating anything? Are you afraid to get vaccinated?

    If there isn’t someone requiring it, why would there be a black market for faked vaccination cards?

    But, humorously enough for someone styling himself A J Liberty, you took the path of vaccine shaming with “Are you afraid to get vaccinated?” In fact, I have been vaccinated, humorously enough getting my two doses of the Moderna vaccine on April Fool’s Day and Cinco de Mayo. My point is your last name: liberty! We should not be requiring people to prove that they have been vaccinated. “Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen” isn’t a good look.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  138. 104. Paul Montagu (26e0d1) — 5/8/2021 @ 6:39 pm

    ABQ sounds appealing, Kevin, but I’ve never lived more than a couple miles from ocean, sound, or Lake Washington.

    Albuquerque is on the Rio Grande. Of course, I suppose it isn’t very grand over there – sort of like the way that Minneapolis is on the Mississippi.

    One thing, if there is anybody you know that’s emotionally disturbed, or perhaps has epilepsy or something that could cause them to faint, don’t go there – don’t let them even stop off at the airport. Albuquerque, New Mexico has probably the worst record of police shootings of emotionally disturbed people in the country. The police union used to or maybe still does give abonus to every policeman who shoots someone.

    From 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/payments-to-albuquerque-officers-involved-in-shootings-called-bounty-system.html

    When we visited Montagu Jr. in the Denver area, we found ourselves looking for water bodies to hang out at.

    Denver is on the South Platte River. Of course I don’t know how accessible it is.

    Practically every substantially sized city that existed in 1900 – or maybe I should make that about 1835 – is on or near a body of water.

    Floating on water used to be the only way to transport things long distances easily. Atlanta maybe is the biggest exception. It was a railroad hub – and now it’s a hub for airplanes.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  139. If a business finds that requiring a vaccine card gives them an advantage of some kind, they will keep doing it. If it doesn’t, they’ll stop. It’s just market forces.

    Nic (896fdf)

  140. 83. norcal (01e272) — 5/8/2021 @ 5:18 pm

    Foreigners were not the ones storming the Capitol building on January 6th seeking to hang Mike Pence.

    They’re investigating (and finally offering plea bargains)

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/21/us/capitol-riot-attack-militants.html

    and they may yet find a connection to the Russian Imperial Movement, orfr maybe the base (al Qada for Christians) based in St. Petersburg Russia. And to the anti-vaxxers (who were most of the speakers at the Stop the Steal rally held outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021.)

    https://www.facingsouth.org/2021/02/far-right-accelerationists-hope-spark-next-us-civil-war

    Documents filed as part of recent criminal prosecutions of people involved in The Base and Atomwaffen Division — accelerationist hate groups with headquarters or other operations in the U.S. South — reveal disturbing trends, including ties to foreign intelligence services and deep penetration of the U.S. military. Taken together with what happened at the U.S. Capitol, they show that accelerationist ideology is no longer lurking in the nation’s basement but has arrived on its most public of stages….

    ….The Base was started by New Jersey native Rinaldo Nazzaro, a Villanova alum with an elite prep-school education and a background in intelligence. The group has boasted cells in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, Australia, and Canada. Its U.S. presence includes a 105-acre farm in rural Silver Creek, Georgia, which served as a live-fire training center and safe house for members evading law enforcement. But Nazzaro himself operates from his home in Russia.

    So far, nothing strong connecting this to the Capitol riot.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  141. Transcript: Rep. Adam Kinzinger on “Face the Nation,” May 9, 2021
    ………
    REP. KINZINGER: Yeah, look, it’s incredible. So Liz Cheney is saying exactly what Kevin McCarthy said the day of the insurrection. She’s just consistently been saying it. And a few weeks later, Kevin McCarthy changed to attacking other people. And so I think what the reality is, is as a party, we have to have an internal look and a full accounting as to what led to January 6th.

    I mean, right now, it’s basically the- the Titanic. We’re like, you know, in this in the middle of this slow sink, we have a band playing on the deck telling everybody it’s fine. And meanwhile, as I’ve said, you know, Donald Trump’s running around trying to find women’s clothing and get on the first lifeboat. And I think there’s a few of us that are just saying, guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country.

    We’re four months after January 6th, an insurrection, something that was unthinkable in this country. And the message from the people that want to get rid of Liz Cheney is to say it’s just time to focus on the future and move on, like this was 10 years ago and we’ve been obsessed about it since. It’s been four months. And we have so many people, including our leadership in the party, that has not admitted that this is what it is,–….. which was an insurrection led by the president of the United States, well deserving of a full accounting from Republicans.
    ……….
    …….Right now- and we have to look and understand why, yes, 70% of the base believes that the election was stolen because they’ve been told it was. They’ve been told by the president of the United States. They’ve been told in many cases by Republican leaders or at least Republican leaders in the least have not countered it on something so vastly crazy as the election is stolen.

    You know, and- and this is why you have this real battle right now in the party, this idea of let’s just put our differences aside and be unified. You cannot unify truth with lies. The lie is that the election was stolen. The truth is Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. And I’m sorry that 74 million people voted for Donald Trump. They weren’t disenfranchised. They were simply outnumbered and as a party let’s focus on now, how do we go out and win more people.

    And that’s why actually I started the ‘Country 1st’ movement, at country1st.com is just to say, tell people the truth and quit peddling and conspiracies, because that’s what we’ve seen in this party. And they’re going to get rid of Liz Cheney because they’d much rather pretend that the conspiracy is either real or not confront it than to actually confront it and maybe have to take the temporary licks to save this party and in the long term this country.
    ……..
    ……..I was a Republican far longer than Donald Trump, and I’m only 43 years old. He became a Republican just a few years ago and- and tried to change the whole definition of conservatism. So I think it’s worth a fight. But, you know, the reality is over time, we’re going to see who- who wins this battle and- and then there’ll be a lot of decisions to make everywhere as we see parties realign and change.

    For me, I’m a conservative. I’m going to fight for the soul of this party. And- but every member, not just- not just, you know, leadership, every congressman, every state representative, every member of the party that pulls about in the primary has to decide, are- are we going to exist on lies or are we going to insist on truth? And to everybody that grew up in Sunday school like me, that thinks somehow accepting a lie is OK because maybe we can win the bigger battles. I got to tell you the- you know, the Christ I follow, the Jesus I know never says anything about it’s OK to lie to the people as long as the end state is the same. Truth matters. And that’s what this party has to come to grips with no matter the cost.
    ………
    ……… I think at the beginning, look, (Trump) was able to reach to a sector that we should naturally win, people that are struggling to make ends meet. We also lost a lot of people in that process. But Donald Trump was done after January 6th when Kevin McCarthy said, you know, this is Donald Trump’s fault. Make no mistake, he was done. He was sulking away to Mar-a-Lago, didn’t even go to the inauguration.

    And two weeks later, when you look at the financial side of it and you look at the fact there’s an election in two years and we want the majority, Kevin McCarthy went and so did Steve Scalise, and they put the paddles on Donald Trump and resurrected him in the party. And everybody after that became scared to death of who Donald Trump was again. And that’s what empowered him. And everybody went quiet. That’s why the ‘Country 1st’ movement I started, country1st.com, is trying to push back because we have to fight for the soul of this party and country.
    ……….
    Paragraphs added for clarity.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  142. Paul Montagu @12. There are Covid sniffing dogs, but they seem mostly to have dropped into the memory hole, maybe because the FDA just made it too difficult to qualify them for approval.

    They ay be expensive but there must be some use for them.

    https://www.lung.org/blog/can-dogs-detect-covid-19

    These five Belgian Malinois and one Jack Russell terrier that were chosen were then asked to detect a positive SARS-CoV-2 sample from a lineup of three or four cones that contained negative samples. The dogs did dozens of trials, with a success rate of between 76% to 100%. Two dogs that had previously specialized in detecting colon cancer, had a 100% success rate of the 68 tests they completed.

    The dogs may even be able to detect false negative tests. During the testing, two samples collected from individuals who tested negative were repeatedly marked by the dogs. The relevant hospitals were informed, and in subsequent tests these individuals tested positive.

    That’s all you need.

    No vaccine certificates. Just Covid testing dogs.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2021/02/08/are-covid-sniffing-dogs-the-miami-heats-new-mvps/?sh=6bedb0c65ba1

    According to a Heat spokesman, “the process has gone well so far—we line fans up at one gate for entrance to games. While the fans are socially distant, the dogs sniff the hands of the fans checking for the detection of Covid-19. If Covid-19 is detected on a fan, we escort the fan and the members of his/her group out of the line and into a separate area where we offer information on how to get tested.”

    “Checking for Covid-19 through the dogs is just one layer of providing safety for our fans. We still have strict mask policies once fans pass the dogs and enter the arena for the game,” he added.

    Early work in the pandemic using canines to detect the scent of Covid-19 centered around their ability to detect the virus in sweat samples. The dogs learned to sit or paw the floor when they came upon signs of infection. Early trials at airports in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Lebanon and Finland used dogs to detect Covid-19 in sweat samples from passengers, which were compared to conventional tests. Data from an online workshop, the International K9 Team, designed to share results from early experiments using canines for detection of disease, revealed that dogs in Lebanon and Finland identified cases days prior to conventional tests detecting the virus, implying that they can pick up an infection well before symptoms begin.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  143. We should not patronize any business that refuses to mandate such

    YMMV, but I won’t be coughing.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  144. On the topic of false vaccination cards.

    How does one make an ethical argument for a lie? Particularly a lie that could kill someone else.

    Let’s say that I’ve got a weak immune system do to my heart transplant of cancer therapy, and I rely on the fact that I am in a Covid-secure area. YOU fake your way in and happen to be carrying Covid unknowingly and I contract it from you and am fighting for my life.

    What is your ethical positions? That I should have been more careful? That I effed up by trusting you? That since I’m so weak and near to death I should have hurried up and died and thereby decreased the surplus population?

    I’d be really fascinated to hear what self-serving crap you care to share on this.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  145. *Let’s say that I’ve got a weak immune system DUE to my heart transplant OR cancer therapy

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  146. I mean, right now, it’s basically the- the Titanic. We’re like, you know, in this in the middle of this slow sink, we have a band playing on the deck telling everybody it’s fine. And meanwhile, as I’ve said, you know, Donald Trump’s running around trying to find women’s clothing and get on the first lifeboat.

    He’s got wrong; it’s Daughter Darth who looks like a fella in drag: her Daddy.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  147. Just Covid testing dogs.

    Unless the false positive rate of the dogs is comparable to the ~1% rate of infection, most of the people they flag will not have the virus.

    Dave (1bb933)

  148. Derby winner Medina Spirit tests positive for regulated drug

    sports.yahoo.com/derby-winner-medina-spirit

    Medina Spirit, the Bob Baffert-owned horse that won the 2021 Kentucky Derby, has tested positive for a regulated drug, betamethasone, and his Derby win could be in jeopardy.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  149. On the topic of false vaccination cards.

    How does one make an ethical argument for a lie? Particularly a lie that could kill someone else.

    On the topic of 1/6/2021, the Republican Party doesn’t seem to have a problem.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  150. Colonial Hackers Stole Data Thursday Ahead of Shutdown
    ……….
    The intruders, who are part of a cybercrime gang called DarkSide, took nearly 100 gigabytes of data out of the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company’s network in just two hours on Thursday, two people involved in Colonial’s investigation said.

    The move was part of a double-extortion scheme that is one of the group’s hallmarks. Colonial was threatened that the stolen data would be leaked to the internet while the information that was encrypted by the hackers on computers inside the network would remain locked unless it paid a ransom, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
    ……..
    It’s not clear how much money the attackers demanded or whether Colonial has paid. Ransomware demands can range from several hundred dollars to millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. Many companies pay, often facilitated by their insurers.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  151. I’d be really fascinated to hear what self-serving crap you care to share on this.

    Well said, Kevin.

    But refusing to be vaccinated (except for those with a rare, valid medical reason) is the real problem, and equally indefensible.

    Unlike many other issues today, this one really is tribal – you’re either on the side of your fellow human beings, or you’re on the side of the soulless, undead pathogen that’s preying on us, killing mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends.

    If you choose the side of the virus, what the actual F#CK is wrong with you?! And why shouldn’t the rest of us treat you as a sociopathic species-traitor if you persist?

    Dave (1bb933)

  152. Jim Miller @14 The effect on mortality in 2020 is greater than that of the 1918 flu epidemic. But that’s calendar years.

    NJRob (eb56c3) @20.

    When you hand people money not to work and then act surprised when they don’t.

    Biden said there was nothing measurable. I think he doesn’t understand it. Wgat his economic advisers were telling him is that there seemed to be no difference between those states that offered more and those that offered less unemployment insurance. They also say that there is a link between fear of Covid and less employment and between school closing and less employment.

    What’s going on? People don’t avoid jobs because Covid relief pays more because they know that is short term and they don’t know if they could get a job they want later. (It’s the opposite with disability and workman’s compensation and qualifying for Medicaid because there the job is less secure.)

    Also employers may find it difficult to re-hire workers because many have found better work.

    Paul Montagu @21. Taiwan and Belarus and news about Covid in North Korea don’t seem too likely in the immediate future, but Covid running out of control in India is, and the fall of Afghanistan could be like South Vietnam in 1975 (complete with helicopters at the U.S. Embassy?) Or maybe like Benghazi in 2012. And what in the world is Schumer talking about? Less need to prove value of a proposed grant?

    Rip Murdock @27, So far I saw a gas station with prices ranging from $2.959 to $3.459 a gallon/

    Dave @35. Both #1 and #2 would happen.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  153. 147. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 5/9/2021 @ 12:19 pm

    Let’s say that I’ve got a weak immune system DUE to my heart transplant OR cancer therapy

    You could still have a valid proof of vaccination.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/opinion/letters/masks-covid.html

    These new guidelines are making me cringe! I am a kidney transplant patient and therefore have a weakened immune system. I was fully vaccinated in February. This month I was tested to see if I produced antibodies from the Covid vaccine. I did not.
    I directed three of my friends who are also immunocompromised to get tested. They also did not show antibodies. According to my doctors, I have to be masked and distanced even with my family members who are vaccinated. There are millions of people who are immunocompromised and do not know that the vaccine might not be effective for them.

    It is irresponsible for the C.D.C. to claim that vaccinated people can go out unmasked! Speaking as someone who has a weakened immune system (and there are millions of us), I do not want to be a guinea pig for the medical establishment before they know all the facts….

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  154. Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 32% and has dropped also among Republicans.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  155. ……..I was a Republican far longer than Donald Trump, and I’m only 43 years old…For me, I’m a conservative. I’m going to fight for the soul of this party.

    Pfft. And Ronald Reagan was a FDR Democrat far longer than Adam Kinzinger was a living conservative; he registered GOP in 1962, at age 51. The fight for the soul of your party is over; now they’re just sweeping up the conservative debris and putting it back into the trunk stored in Goldwater’s attic. Welcome to 1964, kid.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  156. So far all major vaccines seem to work at least about 90% as well against all variants *

    If they did not, then vaccinating everyone would promote the spread of a vaccine resistant variant, just with a slight delay.

    * Not so the synthetic monoclonal antibodies which attack only one or two antigens. They could be improved.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  157. Days of Torrid Dogecoin Gains Erased as Musk ‘SNL’ Episode Airs

    Dogecoin, the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency, retreated from an all-time high after billionaire Elon Musk, appearing on “Saturday Night Live,” jokingly called it “a hustle.”

    The altcoin had surpassed 73 cents on Saturday before dropping to 46.01 cents as of 8:08 a.m. in New York Sunday, a 35% decline in 24 hours, according to pricing from CoinGecko.

    Dogecoin hadn’t been below 50 cents since May 4, amid a rally in anticipation of the “SNL” episode. The activity may also have affected Robinhood, which said earlier that it was having some issues with crypto trading, citing high volume and volatility.

    Musk was asked repeatedly during the “Weekend Update” segment to explain what Dogecoin is. After reciting multiple facts about the cryptocurrency in the character of a financial expert, he was asked if Dogecoin was a “hustle.” He responded, “yeah, it’s a hustle.”

    …….Musk helped drive Dogecoin to new heights on Friday and Saturday after tweeting a picture of himself and a Shiba Inu, the dog breed that lends its image to the altcoin, on the set of the NBC show.

    Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke in 2013, has surged more than 16,000% in the past year, according to CoinGecko. Musk has been among its biggest boosters…….
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (80e6b4)

  158. 157. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 5/9/2021 @ 1:10 pm

    Welcome to 1964, kid.

    They have three years to prevent that.

    That’s enough time for someone to plan a third party run. It is possible to win – Ross Perot, had he been a little different, could have won.

    There is unlikely to be a contest in the Democratic Party, even if it is not Joe Biden, and feelings about him then are unknown. There is unlikely to be a serious contest in the Republican Party. That makes a decision easier.

    Unfortunately, neither Liz Cheney nor Larry Hogan look like really good candidates.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  159. “We should not be requiring people to prove that they have been vaccinated.”

    Dana, name aside, I’m more of a conservative than a libertarian….as I’m way too practical and acknowledge that some collective action problems require state action. But my understanding of libertarianism is that government ought to butt out except for cases where there are market failures or when people are doing direct harm to others. With Covid, we are dealig with probabilities…not absolute certainties. There is not a 100% certainty that someone asymptomatic will infect me nor is there 100% certainty that someone is “100% safe” when vaccinated. Without instantaneous testing, you just don’t know who has it and who doesn’t.

    So, it gets complicated. It’s also complicated by the fact that someone aymptomatic may not know that they are spreading the virus and someone who contracts the virus has no way to determine who spread it, how serious the effects will be, and then how to assess liability. But probability tells us that many people in close contact…like on a cruise line…will contribute to spreading the disease. So is it fair for the libertarian to expect someone in close contact to accept a higher risk to their health because the libertarian wants to be free to not wear a mask or get vaccinated? Is the business on firm footing to want to operate in a low risk environment? Should government dictate or should businesses be able to set their own rules…and roll the dice on liability? Everyone probably chooses a different line.

    The reality is that some people will infect others and some of those infected will suffer grievous harm….so there does seem to be some liberty-directed imperative to do everything reasonable to avoid imposing direct harm….which then requires some level of responsibility/verification. It would be better if government wasn’t involved….but we’ve seen a lot of reckless behavior in the past year…without liability. That does suggest some governement role.

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  160. , he was asked if Dogecoin was a “hustle.” He responded, “yeah, it’s a hustle.

    So is gold, and emeralds and rubies, but that’s gone on for around 4,000 years or more.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  161. AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 5/9/2021 @ 1:24 pm

    . There is not a 100% certainty that someone asymptomatic will infect me

    Pretty small, and if they do it is likely to be a mild infection that may be equivalent to a vaccination.

    The reality is that some people will infect others and some of those infected will suffer grievous harm….

    No, not so. An asymptomatic person may more possibly lead to a chain of cases culminating in something bad.

    The dose matters.

    The reason things are so bad now in India is because there are a lot of severe cases who are also not in the slightest bit isolated. I don’t think it is that the virus is so much worse, although it may be a bit worse. It’s the difference between a campfire and a wildfire. A wildfire burns many more trees etc.

    I can give an illustration.

    Let’s say you graded cases A B C and D. A cases may lead to B cases and B cases to C cases and C cases to D cases. C and D cases also lead to some A cases further away.

    In the beginning the virus circulates underground.

    You may not be able (easily anyway) to measure dose of virions, but it stands to reason that the dose makes a great deal of difference. And that’s the main difference most masks make. The standard mask you see on the street may perhaps cut the dose in half. If both parties wear masks, maybe 80%

    The older someone is, or the weaker the immune system in reacting to a new virus, the lower the dose needed to create the same level of disease.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  162. RIP Pierre Samuel du Pont IV (Pete) du Pont (86).

    …….Mr. du Pont helped establish Delaware as a paradise for the credit-card industry with a law in 1981 that eliminated usury restrictions for in-state banks, allowing assessments of high-interest rates for credit customers no matter where they resided. A law intended to attract two banks and 1,000 jobs to Delaware eventually drew 30 banks to the state, creating 43,000 financial service jobs.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (80e6b4)

  163. @160. That ship sailed in 2015, Sammy, when the weenies on the stage were thoroughly BBQed by Trump.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  164. A 2011 paper abot effective doses:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7090536

    A 2021 preprint

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7685332

    The takeaway is that, of course, the dose matters and you need a lot pf viral material to successfully transmit a noticeable infection.

    All other things being equal, the smaller the viral load, the earlier comes the tipping point at which the disease is beaten back. The later the tipping point (the more severe the disease) the greater the initial exposure a second person may get.

    Very very little exposure, and an infected person won’t even transmit immunity.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  165. Dave wrote:

    But refusing to be vaccinated (except for those with a rare, valid medical reason) is the real problem, and equally indefensible.

    That’s the thing about freedom and liberty: no one has to defend his decisions on how he exercises his rights to anyone else.

    Unlike many other issues today, this one really is tribal – you’re either on the side of your fellow human beings, or you’re on the side of the soulless, undead pathogen that’s preying on us, killing mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends.

    If you choose the side of the virus, what the actual F#CK is wrong with you?! And why shouldn’t the rest of us treat you as a sociopathic species-traitor if you persist?

    And how will you know just who these “sociopathic species-traitors” are? Will you require them to wear six-pointed yellow stars? Or perhaps those who are vaccinated should receive six numbers tattooed on their forearms?

    Vaccinations haven’t even reached 50% yet, so are we to presume that you believe over half of the people to be “sociopathic species-traitors”? Do you make demands of all you see, to show you their vaccination papers?

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  166. The New York Times had a front page stpry on the shooting in Columbus, Ohio.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/us/columbus-makhia-bryant-foster-care.html

    Just like I thought, the 911 call was placed by the younger sister. And the girl killed was OK in school. And the visitor was the first one to pick up a knife.

    It ended when a second round started just as the police arrived – when a visitor spat in direction of the family of the girl who was killed. That angered her, and she raised a knife, and the rest is history.

    After school on April 20, the two Bryant girls found themselves alone in the house with Tionna Bonner, 22, one of Ms. Moore’s former foster children and, Ja’Niah said, her special favorite.

    Ms. Bonner, who had come to celebrate Ms. Moore’s birthday the previous day, was now scolding the girls, saying they were habitually disrespecting Ms. Moore.

    “She’s like, ‘My mom told you all to clean up this house, it’s dirty,’” Ja’Niah said.

    The dispute escalated quickly, but when Ja’Niah called Ms. Moore, who was at work, she said she was too busy to get involved, Ja’Niah said. So each of them called for backup: Ja’Niah called her grandmother, and Ms. Bonner called another young woman, Shai-Onta Craig-Watkins, 20, who had lived in the house as a foster child. Neither Ms. Bonner nor Ms. Craig-Watkins agreed to be interviewed for this article.
    Ms. Hammonds rushed over and described standing on the stairway inside, trying to protect her granddaughters as the older women threatened to beat them up. Ms. Bonner had pulled out a knife, Ja’Niah and her grandmother said, and Ma’Khia had grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen. Ja’Niah went into her room and called 911. In the call, placed at 4:32 p.m., Ja’Niah asked for help as people shouted in the background.

    Someone could be heard saying, “I’m not scared of no knife.”

    “It’s 3171 Legion Lane,” Ja’Niah told the dispatcher. “We got Angie’s grown girls trying to fight us, trying to stab us, trying to put her hands on our grandma. Get here now!”

    Twelve minutes later, the police arrived.

    Now of course the emergency was over by then, But then there was a second emergency:

    In a brief lull, Ms. Craig-Watkins left the house and the sisters began to pack up their things, thinking the worst of the situation was over. As they rushed out of the house, their father was pulling in to come to their aid. But also arriving was Ms. Craig-Watkins, who had returned with two more people. The two groups crossed paths, and Ms. Craig-Watkins spit toward the family, Ja’Niah and Ms. Hammonds said.

    “I feel like that really made Ma’Khia really mad when she spit,” Ja’Niah [the younger sister] said. “That’s when everything just went left.”

    A police officer stepped out of his car and walked toward the driveway just as Ma’Khia turned her attention to Ms. Craig-Watkins and could be heard on a video from a neighbor’s surveillance camera threatening to stab her.

    As Ma’Khia charged, Ms. Craig-Watkins tumbled to the ground, and Ma’Khia’s father tried to kick her. Ma’Khia turned to Ms. Bonner and backed her up against a car.
    Ma’Khia raised a knife, and Officer Nicholas Reardon, a white 23-year-old who was the first officer to approach the scene, shot four times at Ma’Khia, who slumped down.

    As Ma’Khia’s body lay on the ground, police officers led Ja’Niah inside Ms. Moore’s house, along with her father’s young son….

    The NYT also has a few criticisms, or what can be interpreted as criticisms, of the foster care system, particularly in Ohio. They make unrealistic demands of the natural mother and her family – and make unrealistic demands of foster mothers too (they are supposed to work outside the home, but it is a full time job) so it’s dysfunctional; and they pay unrelated foster mothers more than family members.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  167. Thanks for linking Pete du Pont’s obituary at 164, Rip. It was one of the best obituaries I’ve ever read. I found this part especially interesting:

    The governor’s approval ratings approached 90 percent. By the time he left office in 1985, the state’s economy was humming, with unemployment down to 7 percent from a high of 13 percent; the top tax rate cut in half, and state budgets were balanced every year of his tenure. Even the Democrats praised his performance.

    Barred by law from a third term as governor, Mr. du Pont was widely expected to challenge Delaware’s incumbent Democratic senator, Joseph R. Biden Jr. Instead, he began preparing for a presidential race. In 1986, nearly a year and a half before the primary season, he became the first candidate of either party to announce his candidacy.

    With those kinds of numbers, he could have taken Biden’s Senate seat. DCSCA would thus have been robbed of a favorite whipping boy. However, I’m sure DCSCA would consider du Pont a “royalist”, which just begs a question.

    If du Pont had run against Biden, whom would DCSCA have preferred? The guy with plagiarist tendencies, or the royalist? I’m very curious to know the answer.

    norcal (01e272)

  168. But I expect DCSCA to avoid making a choice.

    norcal (01e272)

  169. Mr Liberty wrote:

    So, it gets complicated. It’s also complicated by the fact that someone aymptomatic may not know that they are spreading the virus and someone who contracts the virus has no way to determine who spread it, how serious the effects will be, and then how to assess liability. But probability tells us that many people in close contact…like on a cruise line…will contribute to spreading the disease. So is it fair for the libertarian to expect someone in close contact to accept a higher risk to their health because the libertarian wants to be free to not wear a mask or get vaccinated? Is the business on firm footing to want to operate in a low risk environment? Should government dictate or should businesses be able to set their own rules…and roll the dice on liability? Everyone probably chooses a different line.

    The reality is that some people will infect others and some of those infected will suffer grievous harm….so there does seem to be some liberty-directed imperative to do everything reasonable to avoid imposing direct harm….which then requires some level of responsibility/verification. It would be better if government wasn’t involved….but we’ve seen a lot of reckless behavior in the past year…without liability. That does suggest some governement role.

    Does probability tell you that? This is from my site, where you can find all of the internal links that I can’t post here without the comment going into moderation:

    Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) latest thirty-day renewal of the illegal and repugnant mask mandate expires on Thursday, May 27th, at 5:00 PM EDT, just before his other COVID-19 restrictions are scheduled to be weakened, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him issue that one again.

    Reiterating that Kentucky will not be repealing its mask mandate anytime soon, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 1,068 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Thursday, as well as 28 virus-related deaths.

    Earlier this week, Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi lifted coronavirus restrictions, repealing their states’ mask mandates and reopening businesses to full capacity. Kentucky will not do that, Beshear said.

    “We’re going to continue to lose people until we’re fully out of the woods and everybody is vaccinated,” he said in a live update. “That’s the reason we’re not going to do what Texas or Mississippi has done. Those decisions will increase casualties when we just have maybe even a matter of months to go.”

    Except, of course, those decisions did not increase casualties, the seven day moving average of new cases in the Lone Star state being down to 2,651 as of May 6th, the lowest figure since June 17, 2020, while Mississippi is seeing a seven-day moving average of 182 new cases per day, a number not seen since April 14, 2020.

    That much, I reported yesterday, but I’ve since done more research. Texas currently has the lowest moving seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases since June of 2020, that average having dropped precipitously since the mask mandate ended. Texas, with a seven-day moving average of 2651 new COVID cases per day, and a population of 29.15 million, has a new case rate of 9.09 new cases per 100,000 population. Texas has no mask mandate and few restrictions. Texas has 29% of the adult populate fully vaccinated, and 39% have received first shot. Kentucky, with a moving average of 581 and a population of 4.48 million, is seeing new cases at a rate of 12.97 per 100,000, despite having mask mandate, more restrictions, and a higher percentage of population vaccinated, 33% fully vaccinated and 42% having received one dose. Texas has slightly higher population density, 109.9 per mi² compared to Kentucky’s 107.4 per mi². Despite what the so-called experts claimed, ending the mask mandate in Texas did not lead to unparalleled death and disease. Based on empirical evidence, the capacity restrictions and mask mandates had no positive effect on infection rate. . . .

    What about Michigan? Governor Gretchen Whitless Whitmer has imposed some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions in the nation. On May 6, the same date as the figures reported above for Texas and Kentucky, Michigan’s seven-day moving average was 3,317 new cases per day, 666 more per day than Texas’ 2,651. Yet Texas has almost thrice Michigan’s population of 9,966,555 people. Where Texas is seeing 9.09 new cases per day per 100,000 population, Michigan’s rate is 33.28 per 100,000, more than thrice that of the Lone Star State. Michigan has seen 35% of its adult population fully vaccinated, and 44% have received their first, dose, a rate higher than that in Texas, and even slightly higher than in the Bluegrass State. Michigan does have a significantly higher population density of 174 per mi².

    My data? To quote Soviet ambassador Alexi de Sadeskii in Dr Strangelove, “Our source was The New York Times.” The math I did myself, but feel free to check it yourself.

    The so-called experts have been telling us for over a year now what doom and gloom would visit us if we didn’t follow their orders. Finally, a few governors, all Republicans, grew some balls and did what their constituents wanted, and relaxed, and in some cases ended, the restrictions. Texas would become a huge morgue, we were told.

    Yet it didn’t happen. What the experts told would happen simply did not. The Texas mask mandate was lifted two months ago; surely by now we should have seen people in the Lone Star State dropping like flies, if the experts had been right.

    I get it: a respiratorily-spread disease, why it’s just logical that masks and social distancing would reduce the spread, right? But the huge peak, across the nation, was during last fall and winter, when every state but one, South Dakota, had imposed all sorts of restrictions on our constitutional rights. Then the infection rates began to decline, rapidly, just as the vaccines were released, but really before more than a few people received them. The infection rates were plummeting in states which had strong vaccine rollouts, and in states which didn’t.

    Nationwide, the moving seven day average of new infections hit its peak of 259,614 on January 7th; by February 21st, that number was down to 66,439, when vaccinations were mostly restricted to “Tier 1A and 1B,” health care workers and those over 70. There was a bumpy plateau, topping out at 71,503 on April 14th, but new cases have dropped since them, down to 42,097, as vaccinations increased, but also as state restrictions decreased.

    Currently, only 34% of the population are fully vaccinated, with 46% having received the first dose.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  170. The grandmother was the paternal grandmother. She had custody for a while (the mpther could not control her older kids) but then the landlord (perhaps abiding by fire regulations) said there were too many people in the house.

    Then her landlord found out that the children had moved into the apartment and told her she would have to move. She scrambled, placing the older girls at a summer camp and the younger two siblings in temporary foster care. When the camp ended, she had few options.

    In desperation, she called the children’s caseworker to ask if she could take them to a hotel with her for a few nights, but the caseworker said that was not allowed. He told her to drop the two older girls off at Franklin County Children Services, a hulking brick edifice in downtown Columbus.

    She found it frustrating; she felt the children belonged with their family.

    “They could’ve just given me what they give one foster parent, and then I could’ve gotten housing, taken care of the kids and done what I needed to do,” Ms. Hammonds said. [It can be done, but it takes six months to qualify as a foster parent]

    When they pulled up to the building, she said, Ma’Khia did not want to get out of the car.

    “She didn’t want to leave me,” she said. “I think about that all the time.”

    [the sisters were separated and not told they would be, and in a variety of foster homes]


    Ms. Hammonds slept wherever she could for several months — sometimes in hotel rooms, sometimes with friends, and many nights in her car — until she secured a home that could accommodate the children. In December 2019, Ms. Hammonds submitted a petition to the court for their return, but it was rejected.

    Though the court’s reasoning is not known, the Children Services agency had reported to the court that Ms. Hammonds had failed to meet all of the children’s needs and had not made sure they attended all necessary counseling appointments, according to Ms. Martin, the mother’s lawyer, who said the conditions imposed were unreasonable.

    …. There was, she said, a foster home so strict that Ma’Khia was often not allowed to leave the house; a group home with dog feces on the floor; a foster mother who screamed at the top of her lungs, not realizing Ma’Khia was recording it all on her phone….

    ….The two girls ended up at Ms. Moore’s house on Legion Lane — not far from their grandmother’s house, and together for the first time since they left her care….

    ….Still, Ms. Moore placed repeated calls to 911 in which she seemed to struggle to manage the children she had taken in.

    Sometimes, she was calling to report that a teenager had “gone AWOL,” failing to return home by curfew. But late last year, Ms. Moore sounded deeply shaken as she asked the police to remove a 10-year-old boy — or, as she put it, “one of my irate foster youths” — from her home.

    The boy could be heard in the background, alternately roaring and howling, as Ms. Moore told the police that he had been knocking ornaments off her Christmas tree. Three hours later, she made a repeat call for assistance, saying she did not feel safe driving the 10-year-old in for a psychiatric evaluation.

    After a brief initial interview, Ms. Moore declined to answer questions about conditions inside the home in the period before the shooting….

    ….By this spring, Ja’Niah said, Ms. Moore’s home had become increasingly tense. In the weeks leading up to the shooting, she said, Ms. Moore had accused the girls of stealing the cards that carry cash benefits for food.

    And she said Ms. Moore sometimes left them unsupervised, or with former foster children, women in their 20s who, she said, berated them and mocked Ma’Khia’s speech impediment.

    After school on April 20, the two Bryant girls found themselves alone in the house with Tionna Bonner, 22, one of Ms. Moore’s former foster children and, Ja’Niah said, her special favorite…

    This Tionna Bryant, who in the end was nearly stabbed, although not before threatening the girl who was killed with a knife, called her foster mother “Mom”

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  171. @169. Tendencies?????

    Pfft.

    Easy choice: neither. Scumbags both.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  172. @173 As I predicted

    norcal (01e272)

  173. 161.

    But probability tells us that many people in close contact…like on a cruise line…will contribute to spreading the disease

    If it’s the same people, over a prolonged period of time. It’s been compared to a petri dish.

    A -> B -> C -> D

    each iteration creating worse cases, but D’s and C’s creating a lot of A cases too.

    The city of New Delhi is now almost one gigantic petri dish.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  174. norcal (01e272) — 5/9/2021 @ 2:17 pm:

    The true gem in Pete Dupont’s obit was this:

    He was a mediocre student at Phillips Exeter, where he graduated in 1952, and at Princeton, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree in 1956.

    His classmates said he drove a Chevrolet, and once buzzed up to New York City for a blind date with Jane Fonda, then a Vassar student. He didn’t know who she was until her father Henry answered the doorbell. “I was speechless,” he told The Associated Press.

    Rip Murdock (80e6b4)

  175. @170. ‘In 1981, Du Pont helped establish the credit card industry in Delaware, in a race against South Dakota, which the year before had abolished its usury law limiting the interest rates that banks can charge consumers for credit. At the time, du Pont’s cousin Nathan Hayward III advocated that tiny Delaware aspire to become the “financial Luxembourg of America” – a tax haven for corporations, yacht owners, and credit card companies permitted to charge unlimited interest. Former Du Pont Chairman Irving S. Shapiro, then a lobbyist for Citicorp, helped Gov. du Pont pass the Financial Center Development Act in 1981 with the cooperation of the leadership of both parties and others in state and local government.’ – source, wikiwastechemcaldumper.org

    And who was the hapless scumbag U.S. senator from Delaware? The fella with the vanity hair transplant and “plagiarist tendencies.” The brain-damaged goose egg who can’t walk up a flight of stais withou fallin and helped those very banks whenever possible screw middle class Americans in Wilmington.

    And Scranton.

    Royalists all.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  176. I agree, Rip. I wonder if Pete pinched himself at that moment.

    And what a match, too! Pete du Pont and Jane Fonda. Holy mother of political discord!

    norcal (01e272)

  177. @174.Wrong.

    You predicted avoidance; the choice was made: neither.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  178. Ah, come one, DCSCA. People who won’t answer a hypothetical question aren’t any fun!

    Just pretend. Gun to your head. Which one do you choose?

    norcal (01e272)

  179. 171. Trying to correlate vaccination and mask rate to infections is like trying to correlate incarceration rate to crime levels.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  180. And how will you know just who these “sociopathic species-traitors” are? Will you require them to wear six-pointed yellow stars? Or perhaps those who are vaccinated should receive six numbers tattooed on their forearms?

    They deserve no better.

    Dave (1bb933)

  181. Or perhaps those who are vaccinated should receive six numbers tattooed on their forearms?

    Right, that’s EXACTLY the same as asking them to carry a vaccination card.

    Railing against the pandemic restrictions and at the same time refusing the single most effective means of ending them once and for all either shows a profound lack of intelligence or a sick preference for the virus over your fellow human beings.

    Dave (1bb933)

  182. Boys! Boys! Not on Cisheteronormative Archaic Gender Role Matriarchal Day!

    nk (1d9030)

  183. These constant Nazi references are beyond hyperbolic and just aid the leftist takeover of our nation.

    NJRob (24d956) — 5/7/2021 @ 1:36 pm

    The next day:

    These are the left’s modern day brownshirts.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/8/2021 @ 10:19 am

    lol

    lurker (59504c)

  184. @184 You think that will save you from the wokesters? 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  185. @185 Nice roast

    norcal (01e272)

  186. You should not patronize concerts, cruises, cabarets, and other crowded or confined congregations of people, whether they require proof of vaccination or not.

    As of July, there will be nowhere in the US that imposes gathering restrictions. So, what you are arguing is a retreat from society and/or a demand that others alter their behavior to suit your beliefs.

    To me, what matters is that *I* am vaccinated, and while I may not eat off communal plates or attempt to kiss strangers, I will take my chances with he world. That being said, if private venue demands that those entering the property behave in certain ways, I think they should nor not enter. I do not think Florida is correct in forbidding such tests JUST as I think that people forging documents to fool the venue owners are committing a crime.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  187. But refusing to be vaccinated (except for those with a rare, valid medical reason) is the real problem, and equally indefensible.

    People with a broken immune system generally do not benefit from the vaccine. The trade-offs are different. Oh, they usually get one since the benefit is not ZERO, but it’s not a lot either.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  188. I think that people forging documents to fool the venue owners are committing a crime.

    “Aggravated trespassing”?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  189. lurker (59504c) — 5/9/2021 @ 4:42 pm

    Good catch. Rob characterizes “Big Lie” as “constant Nazi references” because of the etymology, but the definition is more generic and perfectly fits what Trump and his adorers have been doing: “A gross distortion or misrepresentation of the facts, especially when used as a propaganda device by a politician or official body.”
    A easy way for these “constant Nazi references” to cease is for Trump and his minions to stop telling their Big Lie about the election.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  190. Why let yourself get fileted, skewered and flamed broiled fired, Liz?

    Do a Big Dick: resign.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  191. @187, 191. Thanks. Dunking on tribalism that blatant feels a little cheap, but obviously not enough to deter me.

    lurker (59504c)

  192. Breaking News-

    Mass shooting, Colorado Springs;

    ‘A gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado, slaying six adults before killing himself Sunday, police said. The shooting happened just after midnight in a mobile home park on the east side of Colorado Springs, police said. Officers arrived at a trailer to find six dead adults and a man with serious injuries who died later at a hospital, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.’ source, http://www.koco.com

    Happy Mother’s Day, America.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  193. The only “constant Nazi references” come from Dana in Kentucky when he calls the Kentucky governor “Reichsstatthalter“.

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  194. Lurker,

    The difference is the left is actually following the playbook to the letter. But you can continue defending them thinking since you identify as an ally you’ll be eaten last.

    NJRob (fde909)

  195. @180. Do you one better:

    Another mass shooting in Colorado.

    America: sucks or blows? As you say, “People who won’t answer a hypothetical question aren’t any fun! Just pretend. Gun to your head. Which one do you choose?”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  196. 195. Rip Murdock (41bc87) — 5/9/2021 @ 5:41 pm

    The only “constant Nazi references” come from Dana in Kentucky when he calls the Kentucky governor “Reichsstatthalter“.

    Why not “Viceroy?” Or “Royal Governor?”

    Nazi terminology carries with it far more implications than just arbitrary power.

    I see he didn’t do that in this thread @171.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  197. 178. norcal (01e272) — 5/9/2021 @ 2:36 pm

    And what a match, too! Pete du Pont and Jane Fonda. Holy mother of political discord!

    If she had married Pete Dupont, she never would have become such a radical, because first of all she was a fool.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  198. Dave wrote:

    And how will you know just who these “sociopathic species-traitors” are? Will you require them to wear six-pointed yellow stars? Or perhaps those who are vaccinated should receive six numbers tattooed on their forearms?

    They deserve no better.

    I was, of course, taking things to their logical extreme, but here you are, telling us that those who decline the vaccines deserve to be treated at the logical extreme.

    Now, I am assuming that if it actually came down to a proposal to force those who remain unvaccinated to wear a badge of shame, you would back off, but that raises the obvious question: how would you force those who decline to be publicly identified so that you could realize “why shouldn’t the rest of us treat you as a sociopathic species-traitor if you persist?” as a public policy? After all, walking across the parking lot in Kroger, I can’t just look at the 22-year-old Eastern Kentucky University coed in grey yoga pants and a maroon crop top and tell if she’s been poked.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  199. Here is an excellent story on Russell Ramsland Jr., a Harvard MBA and complete huckster. He tried to sell his stories about vote-machine manipulation to other candidates but the only chump who took the bait was our recent one-term loser president.
    This is the guy who claimed 100%-plus turnout by mixing up Michigan and Minnesota, and he’s the guy who claimed a 68% error rate in Antrim County, which was wholly debunked after a manual recount and canvas/audit, among other gross distortions. This is the guy who trotted out a “white-hat hacker” at a sales pitch and online television, who “identified himself only by a code name,” who also happened to be former army mechanic who was Sidney Powell’s expert witness with the pseudonym “Spider”. This is the guy who was on board with the Syctl nonsense.
    It’s worth a full read. The guy bears some responsibility in undermining our democracy and the legitimacy of our electoral process, for being one of Trump’s many Big Lie enablers, although the brunt of the blame still goes to Trump.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  200. Born 100 years ago today: Sophie Scholl-

    This weekend many will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of a young woman who famously stood up to Adolf Hitler and paid for it with her life.

    Her resistance is retold countless times in books, films and plays. And it continues to inspire people today.
    ……..
    There were just six members of the “White Rose” group, originally founded by Sophie’s brother Hans Scholl and his friend Alexander Schmorell. They were joined by Sophie, Christoph Probst and Willi Graf, and by one of their professors, Kurt Huber.

    Supported by a network of friends and supporters, they printed and distributed leaflets, encouraging citizens to resist the Nazi regime, denouncing the murder of Jewish people and demanding an end to the war.

    “We won’t be silenced,” read one, “we are your bad conscience, the White Rose won’t leave you in peace.”
    The group produced their sixth pamphlet at the beginning of 1943.

    “The German name is forever damaged if the German youth doesn’t finally rise up, avenge and atone at the same time, crush their tormentors and found a new spiritual Europe.”

    It was to be their last.
    ………
    She and her brother were interrogated and, after a show trial, sentenced to death. They refused to betray the rest of the group but the authorities tracked them down anyway. Within a few months the friends had all been executed.

    On the morning that she went to the guillotine, Sophie, aged 21, said:
    “Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go… What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
    ………

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  201. @197 I asked first. You answer my question, and then I’ll answer yours.

    norcal (01e272)

  202. 197 via 180, is it time to start asking about the effects of high altitude and continuous marijuana contact highs on the mental state of young men that may also be on medications related to mental conditions?

    urbanleftbehind (82c17a)

  203. Born 100 years ago today: Sophie Scholl-

    Such moral courage and physical courage is certainly humbling.

    Radegunda (05635c)

  204. Mr Finkelman wrote:

    The only “constant Nazi references” come from Dana in Kentucky when he calls the Kentucky governor “Reichsstatthalter“.

    Why not “Viceroy?” Or “Royal Governor?”

    Actually, I have used the term Reich Governor as well.

    Nazi terminology carries with it far more implications than just arbitrary power.

    I see he didn’t do that in this thread @171.

    Dictators should be identified as dictators. However, the term Reichstatthalter did exist before the Nazis took power. Perhaps some would find the title Комиссар better? Tribunus, Praetor, Consul, Proconsul? Perhaps our Windy City barrister would find στρατηγὸς ὕπατος more to his liking?

    In 2020, Republican legislative candidates ran against the Honorable Governor Beshear’s use of executive orders to restrict our rights, and the voters rewarded the GOP with 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives, for a 75-25 majority, and two more seats, out of 17 up for election, giving the GOP a 30-8 majority in the state Senate.

    The General Assembly then did exactly what the candidates promised: they passed laws restricting the Governor’s use of executive orders under emergency authority under KRS-39A, the most important being limiting those orders to thirty days, unless extended by the General Assembly. The Honorable Mr Beshear vetoed the legislation, after which the Assembly overrode those vetoes.

    So, our distinguished Governor went to highly partisan Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, who had acted against Republican Governor Matt Bevin, and Judge Shepherd issued an injunction prohibiting that legislation from going into effect until he ruled on its constitutionality . . . but he never ruled, nor set a date when he could be expected to rule.

    The state Supreme Court, which is officially non-partisan but is effectively controlled by Democrats eventually took the cases — there was one from Scott County which went against the Honorable Mr Beshear, thus creating controversy — and consolidated them. The Court then set June 10 as the date for oral arguments, meaning that the laws, duly passed into law by the legislature, would be held in abeyance for at least 3½ months, allowing the Honorable Mr Beshear to do whatever the f(ornicate) he wanted.

    But, in the last legal dispute, in 2020, that same Court took two month after oral arguments to issue its ruling; if the same time frame is followed this time, the acts of the legislature to limit the very noble Mr Beshear’s powers would be held in abeyance until the first week of August.

    The Democrats are, of course, trying to run out the clock, hoping that it will all be over by then, and they can simply dismiss the cases as moot if the magnanimous Governor has ended all of his restrictions by July 4th, as he has indicated was his goal. The problem with that is that if there is no decision, if the cases are simply dismissed, then this Governor, or one of his successors, could do the same thing during the next ’emergency,’ and the legal system would be, once again, able to drag things out, for our own good, don’t you know.

    Our great Governor has, since March of 2020, closed churches, violating our First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, (fortunately that was thrown out by a federal judge, so the state Supreme Court couldn’t change it, but we still saw churches closed for 10 weeks) limited gatherings, even in family homes, to ten or fewer people from no more than two households, violating our constitutional right of peaceable assembly, ordered a man into what amounted to house arrest, complete with an armed guard outside his home, without any due process of law, sent the Staatspolizei to record license plate and VIN numbers of automobiles in church parking lots for a couple which openly defied his closure orders, on Easter Sunday of all days, along with other restrictions on our rights.

    So yes, I call his actions dictatorial! Had he done this stuff 250 years ago, he would have had an unfortunate encounter with tar and feathers. The people of Kentucky, the actual voters in the Bluegrass State, voted strongly against the Honorable Mr Beshear’s actions, and Democratic judges have allowed this great expression of democracy to be simply set aside.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  205. The difference is the left is actually following the playbook to the letter.

    NJRob (fde909) — 5/9/2021 @ 5:52 pm

    So when you said, “Nazi references are beyond hyperbolic,” what you really meant was “Nazi references to my side are beyond hyperbolic, but Nazi references to my opponents are A-OK.”

    Like I said: tribal. Cartoonishly tribal.

    lurker (59504c)

  206. But you can continue defending them thinking since you identify as an ally you’ll be eaten last.

    NJRob (fde909) — 5/9/2021 @ 5:52 pm

    Show even a single instance where I’ve ever defended or self-identified as an ally of the Left. And no, “as awful as the Left is, the Trumpist Right is even worse” doesn’t qualify.

    lurker (59504c)

  207. Sure it does lurker. Thank you for saving me the time. It’s a pretty common way to attack the right but pretend to be above it all.

    NJRob (8b02db)

  208. @203. Did.

    Neither.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  209. I don’t pretend to be above anything. There’s nothing ambiguous about my opposition to the Trump GOP. The bit you create out of whole cloth is where that means I support and identify with the Left. Only in the minds of reflexive tribalists does opposition to one side necessarily mean support for and identification with the other.

    lurker (59504c)

  210. What are your issues with the left, the President, BLM, antifa, your local politicians, any of it?

    NJRob (8b02db)

  211. It’s a pretty common way to attack the right but pretend to be above it all

    It’s pretty common for Trump-loyalists to paint any deviation from fealty to their idol as evidence of being a leftist and lacking patriotism. As I’ve mentioned before, I saw that pattern beginning during the primaries of 2015-16, when Trumpers reflexively treated any criticism of Trump as a species of anti-Americanism.

    The way that Liz Cheney is being pushed aside in favor of Stefanik proves that today’s Trumpified GOP places personal devotion to Trump ahead of any policy concerns.

    Radegunda (05635c)

  212. Yes, Radegunda. It is very much a “If you’re not for us, you’re against us” mentality.

    norcal (01e272)

  213. As of July, there will be nowhere in the US that imposes gathering restrictions. So, what you are arguing is a retreat from society and/or a demand that others alter their behavior to suit your beliefs.

    Neither. I am saying that some people trust parachutes and some do not jump out of airplanes in the first place. There are still 2,000 deaths every day from Covid in the United States. Every day. From Covid. In the United States.

    nk (1d9030)

  214. @184 You think that will save you from the wokesters?

    I figured I blew any chance of that with “Boys! Boys!”.

    nk (1d9030)

  215. What are your issues with the left, the President, BLM, antifa, your local politicians, any of it?

    My issues with those groups and individuals are more numerous than I have time or space to mention. The list of things I don’t object to would be much shorter.

    lurker (59504c)

  216. Railing against the pandemic restrictions and at the same time refusing the single most effective means of ending them once and for all

    Considering no politician or bureaucrat has guaranteed that all this stuff ends “once and for all” after reaching a designated benchmark on vaccinations, this assertion seems to be begging the question.

    Factory Working Orphan (f916e7)

  217. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/defeated-labour-councillor-the-voters-have-let-us-down-

    One defeated Labour councillor in Amber Valley though has now offered up his own explanation for his defeat and that of 200 other colleagues across the country. Outgoing leader Chris Emmas-Williams, told the Derby Telegraph today: ‘It’s been a disastrous day for us. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an election with so acrimony and so many lies in campaign literature. The voters have let us down. I hope they don’t live to regret it.’ Emmas-Williams’ irritation came as the Tories won 13 of the 16 seats on Amber Valley Borough Council with Labour losing nine and overall control.

    This fits a trend. Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee put voters on notice before the election, saying that they had “no excuse” not to vote against the evil Tories.

    Sounds familiar.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  218. It’s pretty common for Trump-loyalists to paint any deviation from fealty to their idol as evidence of being a leftist and lacking patriotism. As I’ve mentioned before, I saw that pattern beginning during the primaries of 2015-16, when Trumpers reflexively treated any criticism of Trump as a species of anti-Americanism.

    The way that Liz Cheney is being pushed aside in favor of Stefanik proves that today’s Trumpified GOP places personal devotion to Trump ahead of any policy concerns.

    Radegunda (05635c) — 5/9/2021 @ 9:26 pm

    Nah, it’s more of a realization that some people don’t realize where the real battle lies and they think it’s business as usual. You at least have a track record here. Others, like those I challenge, do not.

    Yes, Radegunda. It is very much a “If you’re not for us, you’re against us” mentality.

    norcal (01e272) — 5/9/2021 @ 9:33 pm

    George W Bush says hello.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  219. @218 And give up an opportunity to grandstand and have people look to them for “safety”? How dare you!

    norcal (01e272)

  220. My issues with those groups and individuals are more numerous than I have time or space to mention. The list of things I don’t object to would be much shorter.

    lurker (59504c) — 5/9/2021 @ 9:56 pm

    So numerous that you generalize, but don’t say anything. Thank you.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  221. George W Bush says hello.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/9/2021 @ 10:57 pm

    Apples and peaches, Rob. W’s statement was was for the purpose of building an international coalition towards a foreign war. The mentality to which I referred fosters a civil war.

    norcal (01e272)

  222. Currently, only 34% of the population are fully vaccinated, with 46% having received the first dose.

    In my state, the numbers are 59% and 47%. In my county it’s 69% and 54%.

    https://cvvaccine.nmhealth.org/public-dashboard.html

    COvid-19 is pretty much disappearing, and a lot of that has to do with vaccination. Young people contracting COvid-19 and (mostly) shrugging it off have also provided a lot of immunity. The “young people in hospital” stories we heard over the last month are an indication of that.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  223. We are always only one generation from having our freedoms taken away. That’s clearer now more than ever.

    In some respects that generation was the previous one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  224. Would anyone care to bet that “medical privacy” will come under attack as a result of this pandemic? We are already seeing it in vaccine show-mes. There has always been tension in the area of pregnancy and abortion (does a 14yo girl really have privacy rights that extend to her parents?).

    That national ID card thing has so very many uses. Vaccinations, nationality, VISA status, criminal record, biometrics, health history, security clearance … just all kinds of useful things to be able to look up in a hurry.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  225. Kevin, there are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  226. @220 Yes, the real battle lies between those of us who believe in voting and democracy even if we lose sometimes and those who attempt insurrection against Congress when they lose and would rather be ruled by Russia than have to deal with a single Democratic administration.

    Nic (896fdf)

  227. You lost your right to medical privacy when electronic medical records, accessible by anyone with an internet connection, were made mandatory in 2009 as part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

    I have to laugh every time someone here mentions HIPAA, because I remember Patterico’s “The government breaks your leg and gives you a crutch”. Actually, HIPAA is “the government takes your pants and gives you fig-leaf”. A small fig-leaf.

    nk (1d9030)

  228. @228 Nic, you just don’t understand. Trump is a winner! Therefore, he can’t lose. Try to keep up.

    norcal (01e272)

  229. So numerous that you generalize, but don’t say anything. Thank you.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/9/2021 @ 10:59 pm

    Only to you is a statement of general opposition saying nothing. But I know that compiling an itemized answer to your question will be an amazingly productive exercise like no one’s ever seen before, so here’s my suggestion: For every Trump statement you admit was a lie (there are thousands to choose from, so even a diehard Trump-lover like you should have no trouble compiling a healthy list if you’re honest about it), I’ll give you something I object to in the people you asked me about. How’s that sound?

    lurker (59504c)

  230. HIPPA, nk, HIPPA. Doesn’t your internet have Twitter?

    lurker (59504c)

  231. I’d be surprised if Rob went along with that, lurker.

    I tried something similar with DCSCA upthread. He would not make a hypothetical (hypothetical!) choice between two offerings.

    norcal (01e272)

  232. The problem with Rob is his binary mentality, lurker, specifically that if you oppose Trump then you’re a liberal or Democrat or both. It’s beyond flawed, and lists are irrelevant. That, and his winning personality.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  233. HIPPA, like most security schemes, is largely successful in thwarting normal access to records while failing to inconvenience hostile access. Call a provider sometime about a bill your spouce incurred.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  234. Probably the worst thing about Donald Trump (a target-rich environment) is the degree to which he has poisoned all opposition to the Leftist surge. When it’s Donald Trump or The Road to Serfdom, Serfdom gets a second look.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  235. Railing against the pandemic restrictions and at the same time refusing the single most effective means of ending them once and for all

    Considering no politician or bureaucrat has guaranteed that all this stuff ends “once and for all” after reaching a designated benchmark on vaccinations, this assertion seems to be begging the question.

    Factory Working Orphan (f916e7) — 5/9/2021 @ 10:40 pm

    Remember the theory that Dem’s were just pushing social distancing measures to hurt Trump and that as soon as he lost they’d declare the pandemic over and lift them, thus proving that it was all just a hoax to hurt Trump?

    Time123 (653992)

  236. @Lurker 185, that was hilarious!

    Time123 (653992)

  237. Gasoline futures rise after cyberattack shuts down much of vital U.S. pipeline
    ………
    Gasoline futures rose 0.6% to $2.14 per gallon, pulling back from their highest levels of the overnight session. At one point, gasoline futures jumped as high as $2.216, levels not seen since May 2018.
    ………..
    Colonial Pipeline said Sunday evening that some of its smaller lateral lines between terminals and delivery points are once again online but that its main lines are still shut down.

    In an attempt to maintain fuel supplies along the Eastern Seaboard, the U.S. declared a state of emergency in 17 states and the District of Columbia on Sunday evening.

    It is not yet clear whether the shutdown will raise prices consumers pay at the pump, but analysts say a prolonged shutdown beyond five days could translate to higher prices.
    …….
    How quickly service is restored to the pipeline remains the crucial factor to watch. While tank farms typically have a few days of stored fuel supply, a prolonged outage could lead to a spike in fuel prices.
    ……….
    The pipeline is a critical part of U.S. petroleum infrastructure, transporting around 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil and jet fuel. The pipeline encompasses more than 5,500 miles and carries nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel supply. The system also provides fuel for airports, including in Atlanta and Baltimore.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  238. I’ve criticized Trump plenty of times on here. From his bombastic attitude, to his bs wY of speaking, to his used car salesman attitude, I don’t care for him or his personality. His policies on the other hand are worthy of support. But so many have decided to side with the communists because of Orange Man Bad that they don’t care anymore. And then there are the Mobys.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  239. Mr M wrote:

    Currently, only 34% of the population are fully vaccinated, with 46% having received the first dose.

    In my state, the numbers are 59% and 47%. In my county it’s 69% and 54%.

    COvid-19 is pretty much disappearing, and a lot of that has to do with vaccination.

    Given that some of the state with lower vaccination rates have seen a greater drop in cases, I’d say that the evidence does not support your statement.

    Young people contracting COvid-19 and (mostly) shrugging it off have also provided a lot of immunity. The “young people in hospital” stories we heard over the last month are an indication of that.

    This is a statement which tells us just how much of a governmental overreaction there has been to this virus. For that statement to be true, and I think it quite probably is, two things must be concomitantly true:

    1 – The spread prevention measures imposed by government were far less effective that claimed; and
    2 – The severity of the disease far less than claimed, as it requires that many more people contracted the virus, were completely asymptomatic, and were never tested.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  240. But so many have decided to side with the communists because of Orange Man Bad that they don’t care anymore.

    1. Biden isn’t a communist.
    2. Trump’s corruption and baseless assault on the honesty of our elections alone was reason to support Biden.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  241. And then there are the Mobys.

    I rest my case.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  242. nk quoted someone else:

    As of July, there will be nowhere in the US that imposes gathering restrictions.

    I have missed whomever wrote that, but it assumes something we do not know. The Honorable Andrew Beshear has stated that is his goal for the Bluegrass State, but if the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky told me that 2+2=4, I would check the math before I believed him.

    But, regardless of that, the Constitution of the United States guarantees the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and it seems that 49 governors across this once-great land curtailed that right in some ways, saying it was necessary. Well, sorry, but I do not accept the cockamamie notion that a state governor can just suspend one of our constitutional rights, and am quite proud to say that we violated the Honorable Mr Beshear’s order that we not have more than ten people, from not more than two households, gathered together.

    I only wish that I had been in the Frankfort protest in which the Honorable Mr Beshear was hanged in effigy.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  243. 1. Biden isn’t a communist.
    2. Trump’s corruption and baseless assault on the honesty of our elections alone was reason to support Biden.

    Time123 (d1bf33) — 5/10/2021 @ 8:36 am

    1. His policies are so there’s no difference. He’s a communist.

    2. BS and pure gaslighting. Now do Russia stole the election. Bush stole the election and on and on. Oh, do Stacy Abrams like Victor declined to do too.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  244. Our rights come from God, not from man. Man cannot take away what was given to us by our Lord.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  245. Bob Baffert blamed “cancel culture” after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test.

    “We live in a different world now. This America’s different.”

    https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status/1391765065179746306

    Davethulhu (6ba00b)

  246. Surprised he didn’t blame antifa.

    Davethulhu (6ba00b)

  247. NJRob, The most communistic and totalitarian edict of the Biden administration is the eviction moratorium. Which Trump also did.

    I never said Russia stole the election. I’ve been commenting her during the entire investigation and you won’t find me saying that.

    I did say that threatening to withhold military aid to pressure an ally into launching a baseless investigation was corrupt. Which Trump did.

    He’s also repeatedly attacked the election without evidence and managed to convince a lot of my countrymen to buy into that conspiracy theory.

    Time123 (653992)

  248. Our rights come from God, not from man. Man cannot take away what was given to us by our Lord.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/10/2021 @ 9:11 am

    Yet we routinely (and properly) take away peoples rights by imprisoning them whey they break the law. It’s almost as if the exercise of rights needs to be balanced with other competing goods.

    Time123 (653992)

  249. Kentucky Dana at 244.

    I ain’t snitching.

    And here’s the thing, comrades. America will open up again when the 1% decide that it’s the best way for them to keep what they have and get more. It’s that simple. Everything else is details distractions and opiate for the masses.

    Even the vaunted vaccine is a political placebo, and no explanation of “Why you call it that when it works?” is necessary for people who know how the placebo effect was first identified at Normandy on D-Day.

    Freedom! The only freedom we have is the freedom to help the rich get richer.

    nk (1d9030)

  250. Yet we routinely (and properly) take away peoples rights by imprisoning them whey they break the law. It’s almost as if the exercise of rights needs to be balanced with other competing goods.

    Time123 (653992) — 5/10/2021 @ 9:26 am

    Equating an innocent citizen with a convicted criminal is how Canada has gotten to the point of jailing pastors for daring to preach to their flock. You don’t believe we have an inalienable rights then, do you?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  251. Biden spending till our country collapses, pushing racist propaganda in our schools and wholeheartedly supporting the 5th column in our country that is terrorizing cities shows his support for the communist agenda.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  252. @252, pick a different example; my right to arms is limited by excluding destructive devices. My right to property can be take away with eminent domain. My right to speech doesn’t include slander or libel.

    None of our rights are absolute. All are balanced against other rights and goods.

    Time123 (eaed34)

  253. @233. Inaccurate.

    Did: neither. Failure to acknowledge same is endlessly amusing. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  254. @238. Gas prices have been steadily rising long before the pipeline incident– but then, any excuse to keep pumping folks at the pump. Friday prices outside San Diego: Shell reg., $5/gal., premium,$5.10/gal; Hi-test;$5.20 gal.

    “Greed is good.” – Gordon Gekko [Michel Douglas] ‘Wall Street’ 1987

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  255. The dollar could have lost as much as 30% of its purchasing power in the last year.

    nk (1d9030)

  256. Has Biden responded to the act of war on our pipelines yet?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  257. 258. He’s giving a speech now, babbling my administration has a ‘plan.”

    He’s an idiot.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  258. President Plagiarist is the Peter Principle on display… he’s talking chaff.

    Once a senator, always a senator.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  259. But by all means let’s b!tch and moan about Facebook and Twitter because they’re stifling a talking orange. No the ITs that control our pipelines and medical records and electrical grids and bank accounts and ….

    nk (1d9030)

  260. Has Biden responded to the act of war on our pipelines yet?

    I know that isn’t a serious question, but how do you think he should respond?

    Rip Murdock (41bc87)

  261. Asked by a reporter if you can’t protect a pipeline from criminal attack how can he protect it from an attack from a nation-state, President Plagiarist’s response: “We can do both.”

    With nearly 50 years in government, he has shown he can do neither.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  262. @262. He just did on national TeeVee.

    An episode of I Dream Of Jeannie is more informative. Listening to him is like passing gas– a short stink, then gone with the wind.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  263. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    Drink deeply, time123, Cthulhu and all you other proggies. Thus endeth the lesson.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  264. I know that isn’t a serious question, but how do you think he should respond?

    Clandestinely with extreme prejudice.

    nk (1d9030)

  265. Nk has it right. It is HIPAA. (This is how you separate the privacy professionals from the amateurs)

    Appalled (1a17de)

  266. Has Biden responded to the act of war on our pipelines yet?

    Like how Trump responded to Putin’s act of war with the SolarWinds hack? Hopefully, Biden’s response is more serious than the former guy’s.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  267. 2@68. His response: “My administration has a plan…”

    As do most funeral directors.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  268. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    Drink deeply, time123, Cthulhu and all you other proggies. Thus endeth the lesson.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/10/2021 @ 11:11 am

    Stupid response that ignores the point I made, and illustrated. I’ll repeat it, and type slowly so you can keep up; None of our rights are absolute in their exercise and all of them are limited in balance with other competing goods.

    Let me try and example that might resonate with you.

    I have a right to vote. But if I show up without an ID that meets the requirements for my state I will not be able to exercise it.

    My right to vote in this example is limited by other citizen’s right to a fair election and decisions will need to be made to balance impeding my right to vote with that.

    Time123 (ae9d89)

  269. #270
    Which is why after video review of our 2020 fiasco, the UK has decided to go 100% voter ID.
    Are we going to demand American owners of EPL teams divest?

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  270. If voting makes you happy then first pursue your ID, pursue signing up, pursue obtaining ballot, pursue special pencil to fill out ballot, affix signature and then pursue the box ballot goes into.

    Nope. Every potential voter should be pursued by a personal ballot caddy to the point that the caddy can fill out your ballot sign and date it for you and submit it to be counted by the same date the most recent lot of MRE’s expire.

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  271. Steve, you really embraced the analogy.

    Time123 (80b471)

  272. The Dana in Kentucky @206.

    Perhaps some would find the title Комиссар better?

    Yes, although Commissar is still too strong.

    The Court then set June 10 as the date for oral arguments, meaning that the laws, duly passed into law by the legislature

    The court wanted to rule against the Governor, but not now. Judges do that sort of thing when they are too afraid it might be a real emergency, but don’t want the precedent. It’s happened other times, too.

    Our great Governor has, since March of 2020, closed churches,

    The Governor of New York did that, or close to that, for a period of time in the spring of 2020, but he also did that with zones, and didn’t quite enforce it also. As I said, Governor Cuomo triangulates everything including pandemic restrictions. Unfortunately, the new Democrats won a majority in the sate Senate (which the Republicans had controlled for over 40 years through the miracle of gerrymandering, and then for a few years more by making alliances) and he determined that, for his purposes, the middle ground was signing the “bail reform” law (and then signing another law which took a fraction of that back) and the result was a gradual rise in crime, which they first tried to deny.

    It;s taken place all over the country because the “Black Lives Matter” liars have been pushing for it, and were not defeated in argument. The mayor of Atlanta has called it the “Covid crime wave” but it’s not.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  273. The vote among Republican members of Congress will be by secret ballot, like last time.

    You actually might need to have a 2/3 majority for the Republicans to oust a member of the leadership, but it seems it won’t actually be required. The news reports were not interested enough to explain why and how. Only one report I read even mentioned the two thirds, or the secret ballot.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  274. 218. Factory Working Orphan (f916e7) — 5/9/2021 @ 10:40 pm

    Considering no politician or bureaucrat has guaranteed that all this stuff ends “once and for all” after reaching a designated benchmark on vaccinations,

    It’s worse than that.

    They’re still hoping against hope that more people will get vaccinated than seem likely to. At the same time they’re not counting the number of people who got infected and recovered, often without being recorded as a Covid case.

    They are way underestimating how many mild cases there are, but that is the only explanation of how it circulates under the radar. Especially when first introduced, when virtually every case is mild (it’s not that the virus mutates – it’s that almost nobody gets exposed to a large viral dose until the virus has had a chance to pass through numerous people, with later cases getting infected with more virions.)

    We now can tell when it hits a new place, well before doctors could detect it. That can only mean that at the start, almost all new cases are very mild. It’s really says something that they haven’t figured this out yet.

    The monitoring is not set up everywhere.

    Viral DNA or rather maybe RNA is found in sewage – very often destroyed virus.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/health/coronavirus-sewage.html

    Dr. Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, had spent much of 2020 studying sewage, collecting wastewater from all over the state and analyzing it for fragments of the coronavirus…

    …In January, Dr. Johnson spotted something new in his water samples: traces of B.1.1.7, a more contagious variant that was first detected in Britain. Officially, the state had no confirmed cases of B.1.1.7, but the wastewater suggested that the variant had arrived. By the end of the month, the B.1.1.7 levels in Dr. Johnson’s water samples had risen sharply, and in early February, the state finally found its first case. It has since found hundreds more….

    …Multiple teams have also confirmed that sewage can serve as an early warning system; Wastewater viral levels often peaked days before doctors saw a peak in official Covid-19 cases….

    ….It has proved sensitive, too, allowing researchers to detect a single infected student in a dorm or resident in a nursing home.

    It even tells us that it circulated in northern Italy before China officially reported in December 31.

    An Italian team recently found that the new coronavirus was already present in the wastewater in northern Italy in mid-December 2019, days before the first Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, China, were publicly reported.

    Here
    s the study

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428442

    They had wastewater samples collected in the framework of other wastewater-based epidemiology projects between October 2019 and February 2020 from five wastewater treatment plants and before the first known clearly not imported case on February 21, 2020. The earliest cases they found were from 18 December 2019 in Milan and Turin and and then 29 January 2020 in Bologna. As controls against false positives they also looked at samples collected between September 2018 and June 2019.

    There were many direct flights hetween Wuhan, China and Milan, Italy, in connection with the bridal gown manufacturing. Not just business people but clothing workers. Of course the December 18 cases could have been infected people who got on a plane in Wuhan.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  275. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    I don;t think the people who cite that are drinking deeply in that at all.

    ““We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  276. @255 Two offerings, DCSCA. Not three. “Neither” was not an option.

    If you find hypothetical questions unpleasant, just say so.

    I’ve never used the blocking script, but I’m on the verge of it now.

    norcal (01e272)

  277. I read about studies of the results of pre-K.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/briefing/universal-pre-k-biden-agenda.html

    Educarionally, they fade away, but children who go through it are slightly less likely to drop out of high school, or go to jail.

    Nearly 70 percent of lottery winners graduated from high school, compared with 64 percent of lottery losers, which is a substantial difference for two otherwise similar groups.

    They are also more likely to take the SAT and enroll in college.

    It seems the idea of going to school is more likely to stick than educational accomplishment, which reflects the schools they attend, and whether or not any advantage is take of their head start..

    It seems to me that the same idea could apply to work. Lower the minimum age for child labor.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  278. Lower the minimum age for child labor.

    Of course the problem there is that you privilege the 17-year-old job applicant who only has to be paid $12 per hour over the 23-year-old job applicant who has to be paid $15 per hour.

    JVW (30a532)

  279. Dr. Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, had spent much of 2020 studying sewage, collecting wastewater from all over the state and analyzing it for fragments of the coronavirus…

    I thought America was founded on the idea that government should keep its hands off your sh*t.

    norcal (01e272)

  280. @278. ‘Neither‘ was the response.

    Just as Trump is a Reagan Creation:

    Accept it. Otherwise, you’re not going to do well w/Liz in the desert w/o a compass.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  281. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690

    “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” DarkSide wrote on its website.

    What?! They a have a website? Thuis is, you know, not legal.

    Is the whole website a cover story?

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/10/colonial-pipeline-shutdown-us-darkside-message

    Biden says ‘no evidence’ Russia involved in US pipeline hack but Putin should act

    ….Joe Biden said on Monday that “so far” there has been no evidence that the cyber attack late last week on a US pipeline had any involvement from the Russian state but that he believes Russia “has some responsibility” to deal with ransomware attacks emanating from its soil..

    “So far there is no evidence based on, from our intelligence people, that Russia is involved, though there is evidence that the actors, ransomware, is in Russia. They have some responsibility to deal with this,” he said.

    This is known, I think, as plausible deniability. Or maybe implausible deniability.

    The confirmation of the identity of the hackers behind the attack followed a message on social media, apparently from the group, in which it said its goal was to make money rather than to advance geopolitical aims.

    As relayed by DarkTracer, an investigative platform, the message said in imperfect English: “We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie us with a defined government and look for other our motives.

    “Our goal is to make money, and do not creating problems for society. From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future.”

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  282. Nk has it right. It is HIPAA. (This is how you separate the privacy professionals from the amateurs)

    Appalled (1a17de) — 5/10/2021 @ 11:24 am

    That was the joke.

    lurker (59504c)

  283. WSJ reports Gates divorce possibly liked to Epstein ties.

    Golly, WSJ. So the Capitol cop who shot and killed white woman and veteran Ashli Babbitt was a black man? Dig on that story for names and facts why dontcha.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  284. Is this a great state, or what?

    Newsom proposes giving two of every three California residents $600 as recall campaign heats up

    California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, facing a Republican-led recall, said Monday he wants to return the state’s enormous $75.7 budget surplus to the pockets of taxpayers via an expanded stimulus check program he says would benefit two out of every three residents.

    The $12 billion proposal would amount to the largest year-over-year rebate that’s ever been provided in any state in American history, Newsom said. It’s part of his larger $100 billion “California Comeback Plan” that would also include rental assistance and direct relief to help Californians pay off water, gas and electricity bills.

    JVW post incoming!

    Dave (1bb933)

  285. “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” DarkSide wrote on its website.

    What?

    No home address and phone number for these guys? Who’s their press agent?!?! Will they host SNL soon? A government led by a brain-damaged old fudd who can’t walk up a flight of stairs can’t even catch a cold, let alone a cyber raider.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  286. JVW (30a532) — 5/10/2021 @ 2:36 pm

    Of course the problem there is that you privilege the 17-year-old job applicant who only has to be paid $12 per hour over the 23-year-old job applicant who has to be paid $15 per hour.

    Those are not the on;y circumstances when someone can accept a lower wage because they are not supporting themselves. In fact that’s the case with most people working at the minimum wage. The Democratic argument is that every job should pay a living wage – or perhaps nothing, but they sometimes don’t like that either. Negative wages (aka education or job training) are OK with them though.

    And 17-year-olds already are not covered by child labor laws, except maybe for hours, and for work considered dangerous, like anything in a meatpacking plant, and that can stay.

    I was talking about 12-year olds. Paper delivery has disappeared and they mostly now work only in family businesses.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  287. Yes. Melinda Gates met Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 and didn’t like him. The divorce is said to have started when 2019 when it became public knowledge that Bill Gates had met a half dozen or more times with Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Gates issued a statement then saying he had no business relationship or friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Gates isn’t saying any more now except that he stands by that statement.

    Jeffrey Epstein evidently hooked Bill Gates with talk of philanthropy. Don’t know if he introduced him to a girl also. Nobody under age 18 by then of course. Epstein was trying hard to make friends. He also assembled physicists togwther.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  288. I see Liz Cheney just received the coveted OJ award for backstabbing.
    OK OJ just called himself one of her fans.

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  289. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 5/10/2021 @ 2:50 pm

    Who’s their press agent?!?!

    I don;t know. Denis V. Tyurin or Aleksandr G. Starunskiy?

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  290. I was talking about 12-year olds. Paper delivery has disappeared and they mostly now work only in family businesses.

    If they work in family businesses aren’t they largely exempt from most wage requirements, even that of actually paying a wage (though I am sure they would want to do so for tax reasons)?

    JVW (30a532)

  291. It could have been done primarily for profit. or maybe secondarily.

    The Russian government is said to let some hackers operate, to gain experience, while making money if possible, in return for helping the Russia spy agencies when needed.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  292. So far OJ and I disagree on three points. OK, two stabby points and one political issue.
    Hopefully there are more disagreements to look into because I’d feel a lot better about myself if I hated everything about the man

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  293. JVW (30a532) — 5/10/2021 @ 3:14 pm

    If they work in family businesses aren’t they largely exempt from most wage requirements, even that of actually paying a wage (though I am sure they would want to do so for tax reasons)?

    That;s probably correct. Although I’m not sure there is much of an advantage below age 14.

    And in an episode of “Young Sheldon” him getting paid for doing his father’s tax returns, and not saying he was a paid preparer, should not have been made into a possible problem.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Young_Sheldon_episodes#ep79

    The IRS charges the Cooper family $4.22 for a mistake on their tax returns. Wanting to prove he does the family’s taxes perfectly, Sheldon calls them to explain how he was correct and they made a mistake. The IRS responds by auditing them for the three years Sheldon has done the taxes. Sheldon is able to explain everything perfectly, but the accountant gets him to admit George buys him a model train for completing the taxes; a violation of accepting payment for unlicensed work. Sheldon is crushed he made a mistake but a pep talk from George teaches him mistakes are how one learns, and not to give up. Sheldon realizes since George is a teacher, doing the taxes counts as an economics lesson and the model trains are an acceptable gift for this, so the family’s taxes are fine. Dale must get a colonoscopy and wants Connie to get one too. She refuses, avoiding doctors since her husband died shortly after a similar appointment. Connie eventually gets a check-up and is healthy but must also get her own colonoscopy. Meanwhile, Melissa almost swears by saying phrases like “son of a Mitch”, which annoys Mary. Melissa further gets under Mary’s skin by reading about “asses” in The Bible and Mary grounds Melissa for it.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  294. Bob Baffert and Liz get the OJ endorsement.
    I’d be wondering where did my life make this turn to this point where God seems to be mocking me

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  295. The CDC (final bureaucratic step) is probably going to give approval on Wednesday for giving the Pfizer vaccine to children ages 12 through 15 (same dose) shots could be given even on Wednesday since the vaccine has wide distribution and there are places no appointment is needed. (Q. what about insurance information? Or ID?)

    New York Governor Cuomo is preparing to pen up 8 temporary walk in vaccination sites near mass transit. Anyone who gets a Johnson and Johnson vaccine will get a free weekly subway pass. (worth $33)

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  296. @297 Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  297. Is this a great state, or what?

    Given there is a $75,000,000,000 budget surplus, I’d rather have the state return it to taxpayers than spend it on “social” programs.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  298. * open up. Starting Wednesday. Must be 18 years old or over.

    Meanwhile the public guidance os catching up to where I was over a year ago, I think.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/opinion/coronavirus-airborne-transmission.html

    Then, on Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also updated its guidance on Covid-19, clearly saying that inhalation of these smaller particles is a key way the virus is transmitted, even at close range, and put it on top of its list of how the disease spreads.
    There was no news conference by the C.D.C. either.

    But these latest shifts challenge key infection control assumptions that go back a century, putting a lot of what went wrong last year in context. They may also signal one of the most important advancements in public health during this pandemic.

    If the importance of aerosol transmission had been accepted early, we would have been told from the beginning that it was much safer outdoors, where these small particles disperse more easily, as long as you avoid close, prolonged contact with others. We would have tried to make sure indoor spaces were well ventilated, with air filtered as necessary. Instead of blanket rules on gatherings, we would have targeted conditions that can produce superspreading events: people in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, especially if engaged over time in activities that increase aerosol production, like shouting and singing. We would have started using masks more quickly, and we would have paid more attention to their fit, too. And we would have been less obsessed with cleaning surfaces.

    Our mitigations would have been much more effective, sparing us a great deal of suffering and anxiety.

    As I said, they made to errors. Frst assumed it could not be transmitted by air more thn six feet and then, to explain people getting further away, assumed surfaces.

    They were very very slow to correct themselves because they wanted to maintain a facade of infallibility and ‘science”

    And they are trying to revise what they say without calling attention to it.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  299. The question is not why does OJ think so – the question is why is OJ siding with common sense?

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  300. @NJRob@245 I don’t think you know what communism is. Biden’s policies? That ain’t it.
    @253 pushing racist propaganda in our schools Are you dishonest? Or do you have the memory of a goldfish? I have told you several times how curriculum gets into schools and it isn’t via the President.

    @Dave@286 Maybe pay off some of the debt? Might be a good idea? Even as a possible beneficiary, I wouldn’t be against it.

    @Sammy@288 17 yr olds are covered by child labor laws and some other things. They have to qualify for a work permit from their school, so they have to keep up grades and attendance, what kind of places they can work is limited, hours are limited, types of tasks are limited, and the amount of responsibility is limited. 12 yr olds can also work in the entertainment industry and in some sports officiating. (you want your kid to make money without too many hours, get them into sports officiating)

    In case anyone is interested in on an on the ground look at how schools are doing, I can tell you that the COVID numbers for kids are almost certainly inaccurate. Parents are not getting their kids tested unless the kids get really, really sick. If a student is called out sick, they have to either get tested or do distance learning for 10 days. They are all doing distance learning for 10 days.

    Excuses I have heard for missing school: “teleconference with the Tibetan ambassador” “kidnapped by Al Queda” “Cramps, Cramps, Cramps, Cramps, Bunions” (the bunions was my fault, since I suggested that if this girl’s cycles was so awful and unpredictable that she was missing school 2 days a week for several weeks running, they might want to take her to the gyn. Mom said, “fine, it isn’t cramps, she’s out for bunions.”) 4 different weddings for one student, 3 family reunions for one student, more cramps, and one “attending a murder trial for educational purposes”

    Nic (896fdf)

  301. @303 Thanks for the good belly laugh, Nic. I didn’t know you were a comedian. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  302. 1. Biden isn’t a communist.
    2. Trump’s corruption and baseless assault on the honesty of our elections alone was reason to support Biden.

    Time123 (d1bf33) — 5/10/2021 @ 8:36 am

    1. He’s no commie; he’s worse: Irish-Catholic.

    2. Are you a “Time” traveller? Trump’s kerfuffle over the “the honesty of elections” surfaced after the November general. So a ‘lone reason’ seems remote if not manufactured hindsight.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  303. @norcal@304 Depends on the mood. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  304. Given there is a $75,000,000,000 budget surplus, I’d rather have the state return it to taxpayers than spend it on “social” programs.

    Leave it to the journalism aces at CNN to declare that Newsom plans to return a $75.7 billion dollar surplus to the taxpayers by providing $12 billion in stimulus. Somehow I don’t see that math adding up. And I guess that Newsom has to avoid using the word “refund” or else some of the wealthiest Californians — one-half of one percent of Californians pay 40% of the total income tax haul — might well ask where their cut is.

    I wonder what Californians will think about Newsom’s using this as “stimulus” and essentially transfer payments instead of as bona fide tax rebates. Given that there is already some question as to whether incessant government payments aren’t luring people away from seeking work, Newsom might have been better off promising everyone who paid property tax in 2020 up to $2000 in rebates, perhaps on a scale where you get 20% of your tax payment rebated up to the $2000 max payment. That would have the virtue of including retired people on limited income, middle income families who otherwise wouldn’t qualify for stimulus, and so many of us who didn’t receive any property tax holiday or special accommodations during COVID (Los Angeles County had a deal where you could pay in installments and they waived late penalties, but I never heard of any program to have your tax bill forgiven). Sure, the wealthy would also get the $2,000 but so what? They also paid property taxes, and they could always be encouraged to donate that windfall to a charity that they like.

    Newsom could also use that money to declare that all restaurants who were forced to close during the pandemic will be granted up to $50,000 in tax relief going forward. The national restaurant organization says that there are about 76,000 restaurants in the Golden State, so giving each of them an average of $50k in rebates would equal $3.8 billion. Heck, double that figure and give each restaurant an average of $100,000 in tax relief and devote $7.6 billion to the cause for all I care.

    What I am getting at here is that I don’t believe CNN for one second that Newsom plans to return the entire $75.7 billion to taxpayers. There’s little doubt that a big chunk of it will find its way to his pet hobby-horses such as healthcare subsidies for illegal immigrants, dumping money on the schools, subsidizing “green” this-and-that, and making public employees happy.

    JVW (30a532)

  305. @307. Quickest way to gt the $ back to CA citizens: just kill the state gas tax.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  306. Haven’t you heard, JVW? It’s all going to high speed rail!

    norcal (01e272)

  307. 2@68. His response: “My administration has a plan…”
    As do most funeral directors.

    Biden added more sanctions on the Putin regime, including on Russian sovereign debt, last month in response to the SolarWinds hack. Trump had the opportunity to do it, but he passed, apparently too busy lying to the American people about a “stolen” election and fomenting an insurrection and overthrow against our Constitution and American government.
    The hack on the oil pipeline company just happened, and then there are the directed-energy attacks on Americans. I hope Biden piles on more penalties against Putin. We’ll see.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  308. Mr Montagu wrote:

    Biden added more sanctions on the Putin regime, including on Russian sovereign debt, last month in response to the SolarWinds hack. Trump had the opportunity to do it, but he passed, apparently too busy lying to the American people about a “stolen” election and fomenting an insurrection and overthrow against our Constitution and American government.
    The hack on the oil pipeline company just happened, and then there are the directed-energy attacks on Americans. I hope Biden piles on more penalties against Putin. We’ll see.

    Vladimir Vladimirovich has already had military ‘exercises’ near the Ukrainian border. Remember how NATO leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief that Ukraine had declined NATO membership when Russia rolled the tanks into eastern Ukraine and annexed the Crimea? Russia has the hammer that nobody wants them to use.

    But it doesn’t even have to be taking more of Ukraine. All that Vladimir Vladimirovich has to do is wait until December of January, and shut off the gas shipments to western Europe. He doesn’t have to do it for long, just a couple of days, to let the Europeans know what’s what. You want President Biden to pile on more penalties against President Putin? That might not work out all that well.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  309. I’ve criticized Trump plenty of times on here. From his bombastic attitude, to his bs wY of speaking, to his used car salesman attitude, I don’t care for him or his personality.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/10/2021 @ 7:57 am

    That’s awfully general. Where’s the itemized list you wanted from me? Some might say — not I, mind you, but some — that it’s so general it doesn’t actually say anything. In fact just the other day a big burly man walked up to me with tears in his eyes, and he said, “Sir, anything that general says nothing at all.”

    Then he thanked me for making America great again by owning the libs.

    lurker (59504c)

  310. Told ya, lurker. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  311. #302

    Its why I thought I’ve gotten to the point where God is having fun at my expense

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  312. Remember the theory that Dem’s were just pushing social distancing measures to hurt Trump and that as soon as he lost they’d declare the pandemic over and lift them, thus proving that it was all just a hoax to hurt Trump?

    Time123 (653992) — 5/10/2021 @ 6:17 am

    That theory sort of falls apart in the face of the last 20-plus years of government power-grabs.

    Factory Working Orphan (f916e7)

  313. Ah, shaddupa you face! https://dailycaller.com/2021/05/10/government-approve-hugging-kissing-england-boris-johnson/

    Government officials in England will soon lift the ban on hugging and kissing, The New York Times reported Monday.

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Monday evening that the gestures would be government-approved starting next week, according to the report. It is one of the several coronavirus restrictions that has been lifted or relaxed after months of lockdowns.

    Just shut up, okay?

    nk (1d9030)

  314. Government-approved hugging and kissing?

    That’s a tumescence killer right there.

    norcal (01e272)

  315. Leave it to the journalism aces at CNN to declare that Newsom plans to return a $75.7 billion dollar surplus to the taxpayers by providing $12 billion in stimulus.

    Well if he gave it ALL back now, there’d be nothing lift in Santa’s bag around election time in the Fall.

    Do I have to explain everything?

    🙂

    Dave (1542be)

  316. Do you think there is any chance he is recalled, Dave?

    norcal (01e272)

  317. That’s a tumescence killer right there.

    Airstrip One.

    nk (1d9030)

  318. nk@321 Oh, that will definitely get me in the mood. 🙂

    norcal (01e272)

  319. @313 Imagine my shock.

    lurker (59504c)

  320. You want President Biden to pile on more penalties against President Putin? That might not work out all that well.

    So you’re okay with Putin extorting the EU by playing games with his natural gas supply without repercussion. Noted. Since he runs a country with Dutch Disease and may be richer than Bezos, I think he’s a better businessman than that.
    Personally, I think it’s worse when an authoritarian dictator isn’t struck with hardships to his economy and pet oligarchs after he attacks our country. He might think he got away with it and keep on with the attacks.

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  321. Mr Montagu wrote:

    You want President Biden to pile on more penalties against President Putin? That might not work out all that well.

    So you’re okay with Putin extorting the EU by playing games with his natural gas supply without repercussion. Noted. Since he runs a country with Dutch Disease and may be richer than Bezos, I think he’s a better businessman than that.
    Personally, I think it’s worse when an authoritarian dictator isn’t struck with hardships to his economy and pet oligarchs after he attacks our country. He might think he got away with it and keep on with the attacks.

    How, exactly, does pointing out that Vladimir Vladimirovich has the hammer here translate to me being “okay” with it?

    Sure, I’d like to see President Putin slapped down, kicked out of office, and Russia become a western democracy, but that seems rather unlikely to happen anytime soon . . . or ever. We have to deal with the world as it is, and is likely to become.

    What can we do to President Putin that he cannot respond back to us in far worse degree? Are we going to set up some kind of microwave warfare weapon in Moscow to irradiate the Kremlin? Are we going to poison Russian diplomats? There are weaknesses to being a liberal democracy that Russia does not have.

    NATO was founded on the premise that the USSR was an existential threat, with the provision that an attack on one was an attack on all. When we were facing Russian tanks across the Fulda Gap, that might have made sense, but today? Are we, or any other NATO nation, prepared to declare war on nuclear-armed Russia if President Putin decides to annex Estonia, the northernmost of the Baltic States, and a member of NATO?

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9)

  322. Another error – except that it’s so wrong and stupid it can’t really be called an error – by the Centers for Disease Control:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html

    Saying that less than 10 percent of Covid transmission occurs outdoors is akin to saying that sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year. (The actual worldwide number is around 150.) It’s both true and deceiving.

    The true percentage is probably below 1% and maybe below 1/10 of 1%.

    The source for this seems to be a study that involved Singapore, where transmissions at construction sites were classified as outdoors, but it was probably really what amounts to indoors. (Singapore is hot.)

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  323. Putin is already being cautious. Darkside is a new group, that charges less money for ransom and says its policy is not to attack hospitals, schools and nonprofits. And they truly were surprised by the disruption this hack caused. That’s because it wasn’t really caused by their hack – the company shut down the pipeline because they didn’t feel they fully understood the virus, and thought it might infect the actual pipeline control system.

    Criminals being cautious about affecting something too important isn’t new – the people who stole Lady Gaga’s dogs (and shot the dog walker) also tried to back off. But they’d shot someone. The fact he survived only had to get away with it for two or three years before they’d stop looking for them.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  324. More on the CDC “error”

    I asked the C.D.C. how it could justify the 10 percent benchmark, and an official there sent this statement:

    There are limited data on outdoor transmission. The data we do have supports the hypothesis that the risk of outdoor transmission is low. 10 percent is a conservative estimate from a recent systematic review of peer-reviewed papers. CDC cannot provide the specific risk level for every activity in every community and errs on the side of protection when it comes to recommending steps to protect health. It is important for people and communities to consider their own situations and risks and to take appropriate steps to protect their health.

    Erring on the side of protection — by exaggerating the risks of outdoor transmission — may seem to have few downsides. But it has contributed to widespread public confusion about what really matters. Some Americans are ignoring the C.D.C.’s elaborate guidelines and ditching their masks, even indoors, while others continue to harass people who walk around outdoors without a mask.

    All the while, the scientific evidence points to a conclusion that is much simpler than the C.D.C.’s message: Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter outdoors.

    Actually, it’s ventilation and exchange of air that makes the big difference indoors.

    Again, here, like with giving nonvaccinated people one dose in preference to a second dose of a vaccine. the people in charge of making recommendations for Covid in the United Kingdom, are actually using their brains – something considered very unscientific by the CDC. No brains can be trusted, according to the CDC and FDA.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  325. JVW @307:

    And I guess that Newsom has to avoid using the word “refund” or else…

    The IRS night claw back the money. Although there’s a lawsuit about that.

    Congress inserted a provision into the last coronavirus relief bill passed in March that gave money to the states but said states could not use the money to cut taxes. Or pay down debt. Or add to a rainy day fund. Or make a pension contribution. The Treasury Department just issued rules and they’ll be handing out the $350 billion soon. (the law said the money couldn’t be used directly or indirectly to cut taxes, or for these other purposes)

    The standard metric is inflation adjusted 2019 revenue. Extra money over 2019 that came in because of economic growth doesn’t count, just inflation.

    They can cut state taxes to match changes in federal income tax law. They can also cut taxes if they can show the state had other sources of income to fund that, like an offsetting tax increase. It can also be offset by cutting spending in areas that the federal money isn’t used for (I guess, provided the money isn’t mixed)

    The law does not require maintenance of effort for everything.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-to-start-doling-out-350-billion-in-aid-to-state-local-governments-11620666000

    Biden Administration to Start Doling Out $350 Billion in Aid to State, Local Governments

    Under Treasury rules, states must show they won’t use the aid to pay for tax cuts

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  326. I can’t get a comment through. Can someone unleash my most recent?

    Paul Montagu (26e0d1)

  327. 14. Jim Miller (edcec1) — 5/8/2021 @ 9:12 am

    If they are right, the world death toll is about twice as high as officially reported;

    More than that maybe in places where it gets bad. In India, in New Delhi, there are not enough spaces in hospitals, and I heard on the CBS Evening News yesterday afternoon, that almost none of the people who die at home are reported as Covid deaths.

    if they are right, the death toll in the US is about 1.5 times as high.

    Possibly more than the excess mortality because, when it gets serious in places, there are fewer deaths from other causes like surgery and accidents – and many coronary circulation deaths may really be caused by Covid’s tendency to create blood clots. All excess deaths from heart disease and stroke should separately be added to excess mortality estimates.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  328. Commenting works here. It could be something it in, maybe a typo or too many links, caused it to be trapped by the filter.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  329. Lurker,

    I’ve made my opinions known about Trump time and time again. I have no reason to link or repeat myself. Go look up my comments in the past. I’ve played this game enough where I need “to prove myself” and I’m not playing any longer. You need to do it or get off the pot.

    NJRob (eb56c3)


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