Patterico's Pontifications

8/1/2020

Weekend Open Thread

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:49 am



[guest post by Dana]

Feel free to share anything that you think readers might find of interest. Please remember to include links.

First news item

Trump says the clock is ticking on Tik Tok:

President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Friday that he plans to ban the short-form video app TikTok from use in the United States. While such a blanket ban would be nearly impossible under U.S. law, the president boasted of having absolute authority to abolish the app simply by issuing an executive order. “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States…Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” Trump said Friday, according to the White House pool report. Microsoft has been in talks with TikTok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance about acquiring the fast-growing app, according to multiple reports, a prospect Trump said he would not support. The acquisition of the app Musical.ly, which became TikTok, has been under national security review since late 2019, and TikTok itself is the subject of scrutiny and lawsuits over its data privacy practices.

Second news item

Boston Marathon bomber’s sentence tossed, but retrial of penalty phase could still result in Tsarnaev receiving death penalty:

A federal appeals court Friday threw out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

“But make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution,” Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote in the ruling, more than six months after arguments were heard in the case…Prosecutors could ask the full appeals court to hear the case or go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Third news item

Paging Leah Remini: Short-listed contender for Biden running mate heaped praise on Scientology:

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), a leading contender to be Joe Biden’s running mate, heaped praise on the Church of Scientology at a 2010 ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Los Angeles facility, The Daily Caller reports. At the event, which was filmed, Bass praised the church’s founder L. Ron Hubbard and told the 6,000 attendees that the opening was “an exciting moment because I know your goal and your commitment is truly to make a difference.” Bass, 66, was a member of the California General Assembly at the time. The shady church has been accused by former members of operating like a cult, allowing sexual and physical abuse to proliferate, and intimidating former members into silence by stalking and threatening them.

Fourth news item

What a difference a day makes:

The White House on Friday condemned Hong Kong for delaying its upcoming legislative elections for a year even as President Donald Trump a day earlier elicited significant backlash for suggesting the United States postpone its own November vote.

Earlier Friday, Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam used emergency powers to push back the city’s hotly contested legislative council elections, a day after a dozen pro-democracy activists had been barred from running.

“We condemn the Hong Kong government’s decision to postpone for one year its Legislative Council elections and to disqualify opposition candidates,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a news conference.

She went on, “This action undermines the democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kong’s prosperity and this is only the most recent in a growing list of broken promises by Beijing, which promised autonomy and freedoms to the Hong Kong people until 2047 in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.”

Fifth news item

Wisconsin Republicans say “no” to mask mandate:

Wisconsin Senate Republicans “stand ready” to strike down the statewide mask mandate that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced on Thursday, the GOP Senate leader said Friday.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald stopped short of promising that the Senate would vote to kill the order, which is slated to take effect on Saturday. Fitzgerald, a candidate for Congress who faces a GOP primary on Aug. 11, also did not indicate when the Senate might convene.

“Republicans in the state Senate stand ready to convene the body to end the governor’s order,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “The governor has caved to the pressure of liberal groups on this. How can we trust that the he won’t cave again and stop schools that choose in-person instruction this fall? There are bigger issues at play here, and my caucus members stand ready to fight back.”

Sixth news item

Why the woke won’t debate you:

It is not, as many think, a fear of being exposed as fraudulent or illegitimate—or otherwise of losing the debate or looking bad in the challenging conversation—that prevents those who have internalized a significant amount of the Critical Social Justice Theory mindset that prevents these sorts of things from happening. There’s a mountain of Theoretical reasons that they would avoid all such activities, and even if those are mere rationalizations of a more straightforward fear of being exposed as fraudulent or losing, they are shockingly well-developed and consistent rationalizations that deserve proper consideration and full explanation…There are a number of points within Critical Social Justice Theory that would see having a debate or conversation with people of opposing views as unacceptable, and they all combine to create a mindset where that wouldn’t be something that adherents to the Theory are likely or even willing to do in general. This reticence, if not unwillingness, to converse with anyone who disagrees actually has a few pretty deep reasons behind it, and they’re interrelated but not quite the same. They combine, however, to produce the first thing everyone needs to understand about this ideology: it is a complete worldview with its own ethics, epistemology, and morality, and theirs is not the same worldview the rest of us use. Theirs is, very much in particular, not liberal. In fact, theirs advances itself rather parasitically or virally by depending upon us to play the liberal game while taking advantage of its openings. That’s not the same thing as being willing to play the liberal game themselves, however, including to have thoughtful dialogue with people who oppose them and their view of the world. Conversation and debate are part of our game, and they are not part of their game.

Seventh news item

No to distractions from the basic mission of stabilizing the business cycle:

Joe Biden wants to change the way the Federal Reserve is governed for the first time in four decades.

In 1977, Congress set “maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates” as the central bank’s goals. It’s called the dual mandate, since everyone forgets the bit about interest rates.

In a recent speech, Biden mentioned the goals of low unemployment and price stability and then said, “Under my plan, I believe the Fed should add to that responsibility, and aggressively target persistent racial gaps in jobs, wages and wealth.” According to the Washington Post, his “campaign later said Biden has not explicitly embraced a third mandate for the Fed dictating that it consider racial justice in its policies, but that seeking one in the future is an option.”

…Adding another statutory mandate is the wrong way to go about improving monetary policy for Americans of any color.

Eighth news item

156,000 deaths as of today:

Note: I want to recommend to you Rod Lurie’s film, “The Outpost,” which is based on the book by Jake Tapper. It tells the true story of the Battle of Kamdesh, where a small and determined group of soldiers valiantly reclaimed Combat Outpost Keating when 300 Taliban fighters threatened to overtake it. There are really no words to describe the heroism and tenacity of the 53 soldiers who simply would not give up, no matter how much the deck was stacked against them. The film moves from the everyday tedium of life at the outpost to the erratic interruption of short-lived attacks by the Taliban taking potshots at the troops below. It was a cruel reminder of their sitting-duck position. One never gets lulled into a sense of complacency watching the film because it’s clear from the get-go that there is both a literal and figurative impending doom hovering above the outpost, and the viewer is swept up in the tense crescendo until all hell breaks loose. It’s a gut-wrenching watch, and a gut-wrenching reminder of what our service members are tasked with, how wholly vulnerable they can be, and that incredible men and women who put their lives on the line every day for the country they serve.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

523 Responses to “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (292df6)

  2. Bass was also part of the venceremos brigades, the terrorist recruitment arm of the regime.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  3. Trump didn’t suggest moving the election day. He tweeted a question. But thanks for posting something that repeats the same old DNC-Media propaganda technique used against TRump for 4 years. Its:

    1) Misrepresent what Trump wrote or said
    2) Attack him for that.
    3) Also attack for being inconsistent with your misrepresentation
    4) If Trump makes the Truth clear, label that “backtracking” or “Retreating”.

    It never changes.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  4. Good morning, Dana.

    I wouldn’t touch the Church of Scientology with a ten-foot pole, but otherwise I am also a big fan of L. Ron Hubbard as a writer. Battlefield Earth is Epic with a capital “E”, there is no other word for it, and his pulp fiction of the 1930s is of the highest quality. I have even read Dianetics*, the Gospel of Scientology, and it’s a better read than most the New York Times bestsellers people line up for, if you treat it as fiction. Its tragedy was the quality of the writing which made such nonsense sound so credible to the credulous.

    nk (1d9030)

  5. Red state has a good column on how the CV-19 deaths have been overstated. Its been due to several factors including (1) Hospitals get more $$ of they label medical care CV-19 and (2) CDC directed any one who died with CV-19 OR SUSPECTED of having CV-19 be labeled a CV-19 death. For example, Herman Caine was battling liver cancer (stage 4) if he died of that, his death would still be labeled CV-19.
    George Floyd had CV-19 and his death would’ve been reported as a Cv-19 death, if it wasn’t for the notoriety of his death.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  6. #3,

    Seriously?

    Dana (292df6)

  7. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial

    Two of the three Obama/Biden judges.

    You’re not a “real” conservative unless you want more.

    beer ‘n pretzels (911363)

  8. One is about ensuring honest elections, another is to prevent any voice,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  9. @3: Spot on, rcocean.

    beer ‘n pretzels (911363)

  10. He didn’t say what he said when he said what he said.

    Dave (1bb933)

  11. Trump Is the One Who Wants to Burn It All Down
    ………
    What is Donald Trump’s incentive structure right now? The hierarchy pretty obviously goes something like this:

    (1) Win the election.
    (2) Avoid blame for losing the election.
    (3) Bind his voters more tightly to his own person.
    (4) Establish a framework for his next venture.

    You will note that “Protecting Congressional Republicans” is not on that list.
    ……….
    And so as you move down Trump’s incentive structure, he has pivoted to items (2), (3), and (4).

    Why? Because these actions will shift blame away from himself, activate and validate the bitter-enders who are part of the Trump cult, and provide him with a launch pad for his post-presidential scheme, where he can promise to give people the real story of what happened with the election. (For just $9.95 a month.)

    All of this will be—just objectively speaking—good for Trump. It will make him money, enhance his hold on the Republican party, and pave the way for him to be the decider on the party’s 2024 nominee.

    It is unlikely to be good for the Republican party.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  12. Do these Trumpkin gaslighters who come here to lie in our faces get paid a set rate for every lie, or do they get paid by the size of the lie, do you think?

    nk (1d9030)

  13. Who else here is certain that Tik Tok is perfectly safe, not only because Imabelle has absolutely zero authority to ban it, but because the Chinese government is going to cut Ivanka in for a piece of the action?

    nk (1d9030)

  14. @ rcocean,

    Trump didn’t suggest moving the election day. He tweeted a question. But thanks for posting something that repeats the same old DNC-Media propaganda technique used against TRump for 4 years. Its:

    1) Misrepresent what Trump wrote or said
    2) Attack him for that.
    3) Also attack for being inconsistent with your misrepresentation
    4) If Trump makes the Truth clear, label that “backtracking” or “Retreating”.

    Here is what Trump said last week about mail-in voting:

    With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

    Mail-In Voting is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster. Even testing areas are way off. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there’s no accurate count!

    and

    DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The absentee ballots are actually a very good thing. Absentee ballots are secure and they are very good but universal mail-in are a disaster. You’re going to see an election that — and we’re going to do well in the election.

    Nobody wants that date more than me. I wish we’d move it up, OK. Move it up. You won’t know the election results for weeks, months, maybe years after. Maybe you’ll never know the election result and that’s what I’m concerned with. It will be fixed and it will be rigged.

    These governors are going to send out millions of ballots. They don’t even know where they are sending them.

    So, what we can see here is that:

    1) He did suggest moving the date of the election – both suggesting to postpone it, as well as literally move it up to an earlier date
    2) I did not mischaracterize what he plainly said
    3) I was not inconsistent with my “representation”
    4) Trump was clear about what he said, there was no “backtracking” or “back pedaling” because he actually said what he meant
    5) You owe me an apology for misrepresenting what I said, and what the President said as well

    Dana (292df6)

  15. Impotus Americanus. The insult quotient is quite high in the Lincoln Project’s latest.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  16. Oompus loompiticus. Heh!

    nk (1d9030)

  17. the eunuch project, man omidyar must be paying in fluke, (name the film reference) to just phone that in.

    narciso (7404b5)

  18. the answer is jon favreau in daredevil (before he brought tony stark to the screen) but way after swingers,

    narciso (7404b5)

  19. The good news:
    (1) No Americans died in seven states yesterday. Woo hoo.
    (2) We may have a functioning vaccine by year end.
    The ungood news:
    (1) 1,462 Americans died in 43 states yesterday.
    (2) 74% of those Americans resided in states that Trump won in 2016, so our president is now killing the very folks who would’ve voted for him. And yes, the deaths from the virus since June 1st are mostly on Trump and his lack of strategy and lack of taking it seriously.
    (3) There were 70,904 new cases yesterday. It’s not contained.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  20. 2) I did not mischaracterize what he plainly said
    3) I was not inconsistent with my “representation

    Yeah, just like Carrie Lam. Ridiculous.

    beer ‘n pretzels (a67981)

  21. It never changes.

    On that we agree, ocean. Trump didn’t respond by saying he was just asking a question, he doubled down, without offering a shred of evidence:

    “You’re sending out hundreds of millions of universal mail-in ballots. Hundreds of millions,” Mr. Trump said. “Where are they going? Who are they being sent to? You don’t have to know anything about politics.”
    Mr. Trump sought to back up his claims by pointing to delayed vote counts and rejected absentee ballots in some states’ primaries, but his claim that mail voting leads to inaccurate counts or fraud is false.
    He also vastly overstated the number of ballots that would be needed — only around 138 million Americans voted in 2016 — and continued trying to sow doubt about the election process. “I don’t want to see a crooked election,” Mr. Trump said, referring to allowing Americans to use mail-in voting. “This will be the most rigged election in history if that happens.”

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  22. James Lindsay gets it. Link #6 should be read in full.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  23. he won new york, new jersey, california, conneticut, massaschussetts do tell,

    narciso (7404b5)

  24. https://www.thecollegefix.com/conservative-students-attacked-at-binghamton-last-fall-sue-university-over-melee/

    Why it’s so important to have honest judges and not leftist shills.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  25. https://thebulwark.com/hillsdale-must-join-the-national-reckoning-on-race/

    Shall we continue to pretend that the bulwark is anything but more leftist claptrap?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  26. https://twitter.com/brinkofill/status/1288977843133784066

    I thought one of the founding points of America was to get rid of titles of nobility? Why do we work so hard to bring them back?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  27. https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/07/30/video-the-devastation-of-portlands-federal-courthouse-after-61-nights-of-violent-riots-n734356

    Watch the video. Do you want this to spread to the rest of the country by giving these lunatics what they want?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  28. https://www.dailywire.com/news/dozens-of-california-universities-to-require-social-justice-or-ethnic-studies-course-examples-police-reform-economics-of-racism

    Just another example of indoctrination and not education. What does this garbage have to do with getting the next generation of citizens ready to work and lead? Brainwashing 101.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  29. @12

    actually mr nk we get our choice of a freshly worn set of president vladimirs briefs or a naughty little puppy who would remind anyone of ivanka

    Dave (1bb933)

  30. https://reason.com/2020/07/25/the-three-dissents-in-calvary-chapel-dayton-valley-v-sisolak/

    For those interested in religious freedom and the dissents in the link above, it’s a decent summary.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  31. In a recent speech, Biden mentioned the goals of low unemployment and price stability and then said, “Under my plan, I believe the Fed should add to that responsibility, and aggressively target persistent racial gaps in jobs, wages and wealth.” According to the Washington Post, his “campaign later said Biden has not explicitly embraced a third mandate for the Fed dictating that it consider racial justice in its policies, but that seeking one in the future is an option.”

    One thing is clear that no matter which elderly white man wins in November we are going to have another four years of the President suggesting stupid policy only to have his staff tell us that he wasn’t necessarily suggesting the stupid policy and he wasn’t meant to be taken literally.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  32. Yeah, well, ain’t no equality law about anything gonna equal the stupidity of demanding equality in funerals. Not anything at all.

    nk (1d9030)

  33. Here’s a more effective CV19 prophylactic than HCQ, but no one’s talking about it.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  34. he won new york, new jersey, california, conneticut, massaschussetts do tell,

    Comedy gold!

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  35. Cowboys for Trump leader: Trump campaign distancing from us
    …….
    Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin told The Associated Press that a Trump campaign representative contacted him this week and said it would distance itself from the group’s activities.
    ……
    The move comes after Griffin faced criticism this week following his Facebook live video where he chastised Black athletes who support performances at NFL games of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” — traditionally known as the Black National Anthem — as a gesture of solidarity against racial injustice.

    “They want to destroy our country. They want to talk about playing a Black national anthem before football games? I got a better idea, why don’t you go back to Africa and form your little football teams over in Africa and you can play on a(n) old beat-out dirt lot and you can play your Black national anthem there. How about that?” Griffin said in the video. “This is America, we play the National Anthem in America today.”

    Griffin also offered to give people of color what he called a “101” lesson on racial identity and said anyone who does not identify as “American” first or opposes the Second Amendment right to bear arms should leave the U.S. or “go home.” …….

    Griffin, who is also an Otero County Commissioner, said he recorded the speech from a southern New Mexico mountaintop after fasting for three days, contemplating the nation’s political fate as the November election approaches.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  36. Paul @ 38. That’s a keeper.

    nk (1d9030)

  37. Mind-controlling fungus makes NeverTrump zombies lure other NeverTrumpettes to their zombie fate…

    Film at eleven…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  38. 32… it’s what they are best at. Rotten to the core…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  39. 3… you left out “wearing the skin suit”…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  40. Why the hell is a Karen of any stripe even a contender in this year’s veepstakes?

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  41. SARS-CoV-2 Transmission and Infection Among Attendees of an Overnight Camp — Georgia, June 2020
    ……. During June 17–20, an overnight camp in Georgia (camp A) held orientation for 138 trainees and 120 staff members; staff members remained for the first camp session, scheduled during June 21–27, and were joined by 363 campers and three senior staff members on June 21. Camp A adhered to the measures in Georgia’s Executive Order* that allowed overnight camps to operate beginning on May 31, including requiring all trainees, staff members, and campers to provide documentation of a negative viral SARS-CoV-2 test ≤12 days before arriving. Camp A adopted most components of CDC’s Suggestions for Youth and Summer Camps to minimize the risk for SARS-CoV-2 introduction and transmission. Measures not implemented were cloth masks for campers and opening windows and doors for increased ventilation in buildings. Cloth masks were required for staff members.

    Camp attendees were cohorted by cabin and engaged in a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, including daily vigorous singing and cheering. On June 23, a teenage staff member left camp A after developing chills the previous evening. The staff member was tested and reported a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 the following day (June 24). Camp A officials began sending campers home on June 24 and closed the camp on June 27.
    ……..
    Attack rates were calculated by dividing the number of persons with positive test results by the total number of Georgia attendees, including those who did not have testing results, because negative test results are not consistently reported in Georgia.

    A total of 597 Georgia residents attended camp A. Median camper age was 12 years (range = 6–19 years), and 53% (182 of 346) were female. The median age of staff members and trainees was 17 years (range = 14–59 years), and 59% (148 of 251) were female. Test results were available for 344 (58%) attendees; among these, 260 (76%) were positive. The overall attack rate was 44% (260 of 597), 51% among those aged 6–10 years, 44% among those aged 11–17 years, and 33% among those aged 18–21 years (Table). Attack rates increased with increasing length of time spent at the camp, with staff members having the highest attack rate (56%).

    During June 21–27, occupancy of the 31 cabins averaged 15 persons per cabin (range = 1–26); median cabin attack rate was 50% (range = 22%–70%) among 28 cabins that had one or more cases. Among 136 cases with available symptom data, 36 (26%) patients reported no symptoms; among 100 (74%) who reported symptoms, those most commonly reported were subjective or documented fever (65%), headache (61%), and sore throat (46%).
    ……..
    There will be the same problem with in-person classes, with asymptomatic infecting the adults around them.

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  42. 47… Cuomo, Wolf and Murphy.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  43. I really have no words for anything the Trump Administration does. The sharks are now jumping them. Those who still blindly follow them and alter their views according to Trump’s whims are not Republicans, they are Trump-partisans. It is time for the Republican Party to disavow Trump.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  44. Veep contender Karen Bass is standing by her Scientology comments, rationalizing them thusly.

    P.S. The cult had been investigated before 2010 (when she paid them tribute), and reports were made public by Nightline, Anderson Cooper, major media outlets, and NYT, among others…

    Dana (292df6)

  45. Trump Is the One Who Wants to Burn It All Down

    And his few remaining dead-end supporters have the matches.

    The preference cascade that is happening now will leave Trump with post-smoking-gun Nixon levels of support. He may lose every state.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  46. Kevin,

    Trump will be gone in 4 years or less if his health deteriorates, but the harm a leftist administration will do won’t ever be undone. You know that first hand with the socialist takeover of healthcare.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  47. @48-
    Kemp, Abbot, DeSantis

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  48. I have no problem with Karen Bass speaking to Scientologists. My STEM college one invited a young-earth creationist to the weekly colloquium as a means of honing our minds.

    I abhor cancel culture and this is part of it. More important is what she actually advocates, which should be enough to give anyone pause.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  49. It’s not that she spoke to them – it’s that she praised them, saying that it was:

    “an exciting moment because I know your goal and your commitment is truly to make a difference.”

    Dana (292df6)

  50. Trump will be gone in 4 years or less if his health deteriorates, but the harm a leftist administration will do won’t ever be undone

    You miss my point entirely.

    The treason is insisting that we have this terrible choice. There are probably 4000 better qualified and more electable Republicans, and we could choose one if this unelectable ah0le would have the courtesy to step down.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  51. Allahpundit argues pretty convincingly, and I hope correctly, that the media hype about Karen Bass is a signal that she’s been eliminated from Biden’s list:

    It’s pretty clear what this is about and it’s not about nominating Karen Bass for vice president. If her “comandante in jefe” nonsense about Castro hadn’t already finished her off, the Venceremos Brigade dirt that Ed wrote about this morning did. (I’m going to make the easy assumption that that was fed to the Atlantic by Kamala Harris and friends.) No doubt she has many supporters on Capitol Hill, especially in the Congressional Black Caucus, which she chairs, but Democrats aren’t about to freight themselves with unneeded Castro baggage at a moment when Florida seems winnable.
    As I write this, new dirt is surfacing that she spoke at the opening of a Scientologist church 10 years ago, in case Biden wants that baggage too. Assuming he doesn’t, why are BidenWorld sources chattering to the Times and CNN that Bass is very much an A-list top-tier might-just-get-the-nod candidate for the slot?

    It has to be that she’s been ruled out and they’re checking the box of making sure that the CBC believes that their favorite was considered carefully, right up to the last moment before the die was cast. It’s a show of respect to them for their input more so than to Bass, to make them a bit more comfortable with Biden’s actual choice.

    He has some interesting hunches about the rest of the field, so read the whole thing.

    Dave (1bb933)

  52. A School Reopens, and the Coronavirus Creeps In
    One of the first school districts in the country to reopen its doors during the coronavirus pandemic did not even make it a day before being forced to grapple with the issue facing every system actively trying to get students into classrooms: What happens when someone comes to school infected?

    Just hours into the first day of classes on Thursday, a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus.
    …….
    “ We knew it was a when, not if,” said Harold E. Olin, superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation, but were “very shocked it was on Day 1.”
    ……..
    “It was overwhelming that our families wanted us to return,” he said, adding that families needed to be responsible and not send students to school if they were displaying symptoms or awaiting test results. Students are also required to wear masks except when they are eating or for physical education outside, he said — and as far as he knew, the student who tested positive was doing so.

    Anyone who was within six feet of the student for more than 15 minutes on Thursday was instructed to isolate themselves for two weeks, Mr. Olin said. He would not give a specific number of people who were affected at the school, but he said no teachers or staff members were identified as close contacts, and therefore none have been told to quarantine.
    ……..
    He said that the district did not have a specific threshold for when it would close a school, but that it would likely do so if absences reached 20 percent. The state has not provided specific guidance to schools on when they should shut their doors, he said.
    ………
    “I most definitely felt like we were not ready,” said Russell Wiley, a history teacher at nearby Greenfield-Central High School. “Really, our whole state’s not ready. We don’t have the virus under control. It’s just kind of like pretending like it’s not there.”
    ………

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  53. “an exciting moment because I know your goal and your commitment is truly to make a difference.”

    That’s pretty generic/anodyne stuff, isn’t it? Pretty much standard “Message: I care” pabulum for the constituents.

    Her flirtation with El Commandante looks far more problematic to me (and fatal to her VP prospects).

    Dave (1bb933)

  54. TikTok may be a case where Trump is completely wrong about his authority to ban them, but he gets credit if his bombast caused them to sell to Microsoft. Better they be owned by Bill Gates than be under Xi’s thumb, and hopefully Gates’ software engineers will find all the backdoors and spyware and ransomware and all the other bad wares.
    This is good news because it means more Sarah Cooper, who tells us How to Tick Tack.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  55. The fan blowing her hair = genius.

    Dave (1bb933)

  56. @61-
    “Credit” from whom? Teenage dancers?

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  57. Better they be owned by Bill Gates than be under Xi’s thumb, and hopefully Gates’ software engineers will find all the backdoors and spyware and ransomware and all the other bad wares.

    Gates hasn’t been involved with Microsoft for years, and anyway MS will add their own backdoors and ransomware.

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

    Rip Murdock (3215ca)

  58. 53… LOL… I’ll take their policies – and numbers – over what Cuomo, Wolf and Murphy have wrought any day of the week.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  59. TikTok may be a case where Trump is completely wrong about his authority to ban them,

    Truly. Are we going to now have the president telling us which websites and apps we can access? What could go wrong? Suppose it was President Harris?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  60. Bozo, Chucko and Smoochy all would be better choices than this clown.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  61. …so our president is now killing the very folks who would’ve voted for him.

    Reaganoptics: freedom of choice.

    The GOP, the party of ‘personal responsibility’ ought to practice what they’ve preached for 40 years.

    Except they don’t.

    “Never mind what I told you. I’m telling you!” – The Captain [James Cagney] ‘Mister Roberts’ 1955

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  62. Wow they have their head up their ass, so far they need a chiropractor coronello. And for these purposes dewine and baker are nearly as useless.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  63. If he wants to issue edicts to the tech companies, why not mandate that that they have to support products for 10 years or longer? Apple, for one, is terrible about obsoleting things they just got through selling.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  64. Impacted Cranial Syndrome, narciso. Which may explain why they tout grifters like Rick Wilson… he knows his lemmings.

    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-lincoln-project-indulges-in-fat.html

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  65. Its an appendage of the chinese state like huawei,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  66. Tiktok- It’s basically malware, but I don’t think Trump has the authority to ban it and Americans have shown that they don’t care how much their privacy is violated as long as they get to show their cute kid pics to people they haven’t seen in 20 years and didn’t like very much when they did know them.

    Boston bomber- I don’t really care one way or the other.

    Scientology- Nope. They are a cult and in many ways a criminal organization. Nope.

    Hong Kong- It has taken far longer than I expected for China to digest them back into the mother country, but it looks like they are proceeding at pace now.

    WI mask mandate- Sounds like the Rs are doing a little “sound and fury signifying nothing” to gin up the base.

    No woke debate- Far left and far right, two sides of the same coin.

    Biden and the fed- More empty rhetoric from a politician trying to gin up his base.

    Corona deaths- Is the plan to just hope the number doesn’t get toooooooo high until after the election and then blame it on Biden? Because I’m starting to think that might be the plan.

    Really? The USPS? Again?

    Listen, the post office is effective and efficient and it does exactly what it is supposed to do in a very timely manner. I don’t understand why conservatives hate it so much. I just want my mail to get here with reasonable speed (including all my packages, which ALL do their final leg to my house out of the USPS). Postal systems in various other countries suck, ours doesn’t, could you please quit screwing with it?

    Nic (896fdf)

  67. “Credit” from whom? Teenage dancers?

    I like teenage dancers, but not in an Epstein kind of way.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  68. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

    Yes, the same, Rip. Except the new boss isn’t an authoritarian dictatorship that tramples political rights and civil liberties, and doesn’t imprison millions in “reeducation” camps, and doesn’t strip autonomy from autonomous city-states, and doesn’t use tanks and armed forces to quell rebellions against the firm, and doesn’t assert territorial control in international waters, etc.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  69. Coronavirus threat rises across U.S.: ‘We just have to assume the monster is everywhere’
    ……..
    This is a new phase of the pandemic, one no longer built around local or regional clusters and hot spots. It comes at an unnerving moment in which the economy suffered its worst collapse since the Great Depression, schools are rapidly canceling plans for in-person instruction and Congress has failed to pass a new emergency relief package. President Trump continues to promote fringe science, the daily death toll keeps climbing and the human cost of the virus in America has just passed 150,000 lives.

    “Unlike many countries in the world, the United States is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic. It’s time to reset,” declared a report released this week by Johns Hopkins University.

    Another report from the Association of American Medical Colleges offered a similarly blunt message: “If the nation does not change its course — and soon — deaths in the United States could be well into the multiple hundreds of thousands.”
    ……..
    An internal Trump administration briefing document prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and obtained Friday by The Washington Post counted 453,659 new infections in the past week.

    Alaska is in trouble. And Hawaii, Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma. Those are the five states, as of Friday, with the highest percentage increase in the seven-day average of new cases, according to a Post analysis of nationwide health data.
    ………
    Daily coronavirus-related hospitalizations in the United States went from 36,158 on July 1 to 52,767 on July 31, according to The Post’s data. FEMA reports a sharp increase in the number of patients on ventilators.
    ……..
    Thirty-seven states and Puerto Rico will probably see rising daily death tolls during the next two weeks compared with the previous two weeks, according to the latest ensemble forecast from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst that combines more than 30 coronavirus models.
    ……..
    Thirty-three U.S. states have positivity rates above 5 percent. The World Health Organization has cited that percentage as a crucial benchmark for governments deciding whether to reopen their economy. Above 5 percent, stay closed. Below, open with caution.

    Of states with positivity rates below 5 percent, nine have seen those rates rise during the last two weeks.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  70. If they disband the police, who do you think keeps order,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  71. The fan blowing her hair = genius.

    Jealousy rears its chromedome…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  72. Trump’s real problem (electorally) is that he has to convince people who have found him wanting that he’s the better choice. His recent actions are not accomplishing that. The two campaigns have now devolved to the following:

    Biden: “I am not Donald Trump!”
    Trump: “it’s me or the Commies!”

    Neither of these positions is very comforting, and neither is in the interest of the Republic. It would be very interesting if both dropped out and both Conventions had to do what they used to do: have a full airing of the issues and a choice based on a consensus.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  73. Do you suppose that the whole “primary” thing was a bad move?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  74. When Better than Nothing is a very high bar

    Biden: Nothing

    Trump: Better than Nothing

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  75. Biden eyes major foreign policy shifts if he wins
    …….
    From the Middle East to Asia, Latin America to Africa and, particularly, Europe, and on issues including trade, terrorism, arms control and immigration, the presumptive Democratic nominee and his advisers have vowed to unleash a tsunami of change in how the U.S. handles itself in the international arena.
    …….
    ……. Trump found it hard to make swift changes. Academics often say that American foreign policy is like an aircraft carrier: easy to order a wholesale change of direction from the bridge but far more difficult and time-consuming to alter course.

    Trump saw that when he was unable to extricate the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal for more than year. His well-publicized withdrawals from the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization won’t actually become final until after the Nov. 3 election, if ever. His decision to redeploy thousands of troops from Germany could take years.
    ……
    The Trump campaign casts Biden’s foreign policy experience as a weakness.
    ……
    Like clockwork, Republicans enacted the so-called “Mexico City” language — known by opponents as the “global gag rule” — to prohibit the use of U.S. foreign assistance for abortion-related services. Democrats rescinded it and should Biden win, he has promised to follow suit.

    But he’s also pledged to demolish other Trump policies on Day One. They include reversing Trump’s ban on immigration from mainly Muslim countries, restoring U.S. funding and membership to the WHO and halting efforts to oppose the Paris Climate Accord. He’s promised to call top NATO leaders and declare of U.S. foreign policy, “We’re back” while convening a summit of major heads of state in his first year.
    ……..
    Biden also has said he would immediately restore daily press briefings at the White House, State Department and Pentagon, events once deemed critical to communicate U.S. policy that the Trump administration has all but abandoned.

    Biden and his surrogates say they intend to act quickly on the following:
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  76. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/1/2020 @ 12:47 pm

    Ms. Althouse would be on solider ground if she weren’t defending a fat-shamer. One standard, applied to all.
    “This is a woman who likes to eat.”
    “She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem..”
    “She was like an eating machine – she ate a lot of everything.”
    “Miss Piggy.”

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  77. 83, this year, yeah, but on 2 occasions (impeachment exoneration and the delay of election day) DJT has voiced subtle support for that Carteresque lifeline of the 6 year term.

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  78. Moloch and skydragons and terrorist e xpress, choose wisely.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  79. Biden: Nothing

    If only.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  80. Biden: Sack of hammers

    Trump: Sacks of hammers can’t tweet

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  81. Biden/some Black lives matter Female Marxist/2020

    mg (8cbc69)

  82. 5) You owe me an apology for misrepresenting what I said, and what the President said as well

    First, I was NOT referring to trump’s press conference yesterday, but his tweet, where he simply asks a question

    Second, according to story quoted by you Trump is inconsistent because he wants to keep the date in hong kong but postpone the date in the USA. But he doesn’t say he wants to postpone it, according to the FOX quote he was to “Move it Up”! OR keep it fixed if they’ll be more accurate voting

    Third, As for misrepresenting you, where did I quote You? I didn’t. Are you the MSM? We’ve been down this road before, where you ASSUME I talking about you, when I never mention you by name and only talk about Never Trumpers or the MSM. I’ll apologize for one thing, not making it more clear it was NOT directed at you.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  83. rcocean, when you said “But thanks for posting something that repeats the same old DNC-Media propaganda technique bla bla bla bla”

    do you really expect anyone to believe you were not talking about the person who just posted something (Dana)?

    where did I quote You? I didn’t. Are you the MSM? We’ve been down this road before, where you ASSUME I talking about you

    Like a certain politician, you’re the victim simply for being called out, fair and square. You could just say ‘my bad’. I guess all those losers like Bush and Romney who would have just said ‘my bad’ don’t know how to fight.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  84. Trump/Mohammed Atta 2020! Don’t let the Marxists win.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  85. Reporters won’t see Trump nomination
    When Republicans renominate Donald Trump for president in Charlotte, N.C., on Aug. 24, journalists won’t be on hand to witness it, a convention spokesperson told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this week.

    Reporters also will be kept from the room when the Republican National Committee meets to conduct official party business.

    The spokesperson couldn’t say whether C-SPAN, the nonprofit public service network, would be allowed to air the proceedings.

    “[W]e are planning for all of the Charlotte activities to be closed press: Friday, August 21 – Monday, 24th given the health restrictions and limitations in place in the state,” the convention spokesperson said in an email. “We are happy to let you know if this changes, but we are working within the parameters set before us by state and local guidelines regarding the number of people who can attend events.”
    …….
    Barring a last-minute change, this will be the first Republican presidential nominating convention in history where reporters are not admitted.
    …….
    Trump’s programming, for the most part, remains a mystery.

    “We’re now three weeks from the Republican convention and we really don’t have a clue right now in terms of the schedule,” (C-SPAN’s political editor Steve) Scully said.

    C-SPAN hasn’t yet received press credentials to attend, though Scully expressed confidence that they will ultimately be issued.

    C-SPAN will air the convention’s business sessions if allowed.

    “We’re asking now if that’s going to be open and we don’t have answers to that,” he said.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  86. If Trump & Co. are going to declare a segment of Americans as The Enemy of the People, then the logical next step is to create a Nixonian Enemies List. How fascist.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  87. “Wrong!’: Trump slams Fauci over testimony on Covid-19 surge

    President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday, forcefully rejecting the nation’s top infectious disease expert’s testimony on why the U.S. has experienced a renewed surge in coronavirus cases.

    “Wrong!” Trump wrote in a retweet of a video where Fauci explained to a House subcommittee that the U.S. has seen more cases than European countries because it only shut down a fraction of its economy amid the pandemic. “We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases,” the president added.
    ………
    Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. has a higher amount of cases because it tests more than any country,
    contradicting officials in his own administration and confounding public health experts. The president also said at a rally he had as such requested a slowdown in national testing — a claim White House officials later said was a joke.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  88. @95-
    It’s called freedom.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  89. With law enforcement out of sight, Portland sees second peaceful night of protest

    For the second consecutive evening after federal law enforcement officers retreated from the front lines in this city, protesters had almost no interaction with state police as thousands gathered downtown until early Saturday morning.

    Oregon State Police, who took over in the protection of a federal courthouse on Thursday, were rarely seen outside the building, despite a lingering crowd that screamed anti-police slogans and set several large fires in the street.

    Without the federal officers sent by the Trump administration to rally against — not to mention the threat of tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests they brought with them — the protesters tackled more complicated questions among themselves.

    ……. When a group of black-clad protesters set an American flag on fire, a group of mothers quickly moved to extinguish it and sparked a shouting match.
    ………
    ……… Though the city is often associated with liberal politics and has a long-standing protest movement, it is also one of the whitest large U.S. cities and has a history of racism.
    …….
    After weeks of escalating violence, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) on Wednesday announced she had reached a deal with the Trump administration for state police to take over the guarding of the courthouse.

    After the first night of the new arrangement passed without violence, Brown said it was a victory for the city. “The president’s decision to send federal troops to Portland was a political stunt and it backfired,” the governor said in a video statement Friday.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  90. A good case made here that there is a close-range aerosol spread of CV19:

    I agree that long-range transmission by aerosols probably is not significant, but I believe that, taken together, much of the evidence gathered to date suggests that close-range transmission by aerosols is significant — possibly very significant, and certainly more significant than direct droplet spray.
    The practical implications are plain:
    ▪ Social distancing really is important. It keeps us out of the most concentrated parts of other people’s respiratory plumes. So stay away from one another by one or two meters at least — though farther is safer.
    ▪ Wear a mask. Masks help block aerosols released by the wearer. Scientific evidence is also building that masks protect the wearer from breathing in aerosols around them.
    When it comes to masks, size does matter.
    The gold standard is a N95 or a KN95 respirator, which, if properly fitted, filters out and prevents the wearer from breathing in at least 95 percent of small aerosols.
    […]
    My lab has been testing cloth masks on a mannequin, sucking in air through its mouth at a realistic rate. We found that even a bandanna loosely tied over its mouth and nose blocked half or more of aerosols larger than 2 microns from entering the mannequin.
    We also found that especially with very small aerosols — smaller than 1 micron — it is more effective to use a softer fabric (which is easier to fit tightly over the face) than a stiffer fabric (which, even if it is a better filter, tends to sit more awkwardly, creating gaps).
    ▪ Avoid crowds. The more people around you, the more likely someone among them will be infected. Especially avoid crowds indoors, where aerosols can accumulate.
    ▪ Ventilation counts. Open windows and doors. Adjust dampers in air-conditioning and heating systems. Upgrade the filters in those systems. Add portable air cleaners, or install germicidal ultraviolet technologies to remove or kill virus particles in the air.
    It’s not clear just how much this coronavirus is transmitted by aerosols as opposed to droplets or via contact with contaminated surfaces. Then again, we still don’t know the answer to that question even for the flu, which has been studied for decades.
    But by now we do know this much: Aerosols matter in the transmission of Covid-19 — and probably even more so than we have yet been able to prove.

    For the case in Skagit County, one person gave the virus to 52 others at choir practice. It’s hard to imagine this could happen without some degree of aerosol spread.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  91. 95… yes, free to be Commie sh*theels until they pay up at the Gates of Hell…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  92. @103-
    Assuming you believe in Hell, or Heaven for that matter. Otherwise, there is no price to be paid (assuming your conduct is legal).

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  93. #97 If trump bars reporters from the Convention, that’s a good thing. Its far too dangerous for them, given the health risks. They can watch on TV in perfect safety.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  94. @106-
    It won’t be televised either.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  95. @106-
    ……Its far too dangerous for them, given the health risks. They can watch on TV in perfect safety.

    And your concern for their safety is touching.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  96. ‘The 1988 presidential campaign of Joe Biden, the longtime Democratic U.S. Senator from Delaware, began in June 1987. He was considered one of the potentially strongest candidates in the field. However, in September 1987, newspaper stories stated he had plagiarized a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock. Other allegations of past law school plagiarism and exaggerating his academic record soon followed. Biden withdrew from the race later that month.’ -source, wikiplagiaristJoeyBee

    “I’ve done some dumb things, and I’ll do dumb things again.” – Joe Biden, 9/17/87

    Like running in 2020.

    Idiot.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  97. 28.

    Shall we continue to pretend that the bulwark is anything but more leftist claptrap?
    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/1/2020 @ 9:48 am

    You criticize the bulwark after you linked to gatewaypundit?

    Your commitment to objectivity is impressive.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  98. DCSCA:

    For years, Donald Trump the politician has portrayed himself as a “super genius — and even “a very stable genius” — who succeeded in life less because of the privilege granted by his wealthy upbringing and more because of his own hard work and superior acumen.

    His niece Mary L. Trump becomes the latest person to poke a sizable hole in that persona.

    In newly published excerpts of her tell-all book, Mary L. Trump claims that her uncle paid someone to take the SAT for him to gain admission to college. As the New York Times reports:

    The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school.

    Not that copying a law school paper isn’t a solid proof of Biden’s poor character. It is. But what do you say about Trump’s academic cheating? A guy like you, who takes academic integrity so seriously, would never stoop to overlooking it for a politician just because you voted for him.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  99. https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/01/fourth-grade-teacher-details-how-schools-push-ban-history-and-leftist-agendas/

    More indoctrination starting in K-8. All fossil fuels are bad. Why do you want the animals to die? On and on.

    NJRob (195711)

  100. rcocean says he was not referring to Dana when he said this:

    Trump didn’t suggest moving the election day. He tweeted a question. But thanks for posting something that repeats the same old DNC-Media propaganda technique used against TRump for 4 years.

    I call bullshit and I say rcocean is not being honest.

    That was the third comment in the thread, and the first was from Dana and the second was narciso, and the “thanks for posting … DNC-Media propaganda” can only have been directed at Dana.

    I don’t appreciate it and I don’t appreciate him lying about it, and I am considering what to do about it.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  101. Dana, sorry for the trouble, but when you have a moment would you please release my comment #113 from moderation. I erroneously assumed “s***hole country” was too obscure to be stopped by the moderation filter. Mea culpa. And thanks.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  102. “Wrong!’: Trump slams Fauci over testimony on Covid-19 surge

    President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday, forcefully rejecting the nation’s top infectious disease expert’s testimony on why the U.S. has experienced a renewed surge in coronavirus cases.

    “Wrong!” Trump wrote in a retweet of a video where Fauci explained to a House subcommittee that the U.S. has seen more cases than European countries because it only shut down a fraction of its economy amid the pandemic. “We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases,” the president added.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea) — 8/1/2020 @ 4:19 pm

    Russia is no longer testing. They are showing no new cases except those that are of famous people that are publicized. Putin has decreed that doctors should not test as it’s not necessary. They know the symptoms and if a person has the symptoms just treat them as if they have it but don’t test. This pushes the narrative that Russia has the virus under control. They also have lifted all restrictions, no masks being worn as a mandate in Moscow and life is “as usual.”

    And this information is not from a news article or biased outlet. It is from two individuals who are personally known to me that I trust. One living in Moscow and one in a village in the southern part of Russia.

    So Trump is right. We do have more infections that are known because we test. The issue isn’t whether we actually have more or fewer infections, it is that we actually know about the ones we have while other countries are not aware of those that aren’t symptomatic. Our rate of infection and number of cases would be the same whether we tested or not. Testing doesn’t give us the virus, it exposes it. If you aren’t tested and are asymptomatic you never know you have it, hence you are not counted. So because we test, we have “more” cases.

    Marci (405d43)

  103. First, I was NOT referring to trump’s press conference yesterday, but his tweet, where he simply asks a question

    You said Trump did not suggest postponing the election. Now that it has been pointed out you were wrong, you do not apologize for making an incorrect statement, but lash out at the person who made the correct statement for not guessing that you were referring to one statement but not another when you made your blanket pronouncement.

    Really, the only reason to keep you around is to have you here as an object lesson in how people who love them some Donald Trump too often act in the manner in which you have behaved on this thread: dishonestly, rudely, and ignorantly. That increasingly seems like a poor reason for preserving the comment privileges of someone who virtually never adds anything of actual value.

    What say others?

    Patterico (115b1f)

  104. @115-
    Our rate of infection and number of cases would be the same whether we tested or not.

    I agree, but for Trump ignorance is bliss. No doubt he would be bragging (like Putin or Kim) about how few cases we have.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  105. @112

    1. I’m sorry, but her source is not being truthful. 4th grade history curriculum is state history for whatever state you are in. The teacher would not have been covering the things she says she’s no longer covering. Probably the person writing the article should have done more research.

    2. Curriculum is approved by the school board. The school board is directly elected by the local population. It is very local government. And there is no reason parents wouldn’t know if they are interested. Curriculum is available to the parents.

    3. I cannot say if her source is being truthful about their science curriculum (it’s more varied by locality than the history one) because she sure wasn’t honest about the history curriculum, so I have serious doubts. However, even if she was being honest, that would be the curriculum locally selected by the majority of the population.

    Nic (896fdf)

  106. In this afternoon’s qualifying game for the Stanley Cup, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Edmonton Oilers all stood for the national anthem.

    But, the NHL had Matt Dumba, a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild, give a “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name” — referring to Breonna Taylor — presentation, and he knelt for the Star Spangled Banner. Two black players, one from each team, stood beside him with their hands on his shoulders, in support.

    After our national anthem came O Canada, the national anthem of our neighbor to the north . . . and Mr Dumba stood for that. Don’t tell me that Black Lives Matter isn’t wholly anti-American.

    The Dana in Kentucky (f2cf00)

  107. Thank you for mentioning Leah Remini, Dana. I really admire her courage in taking on Scientology in such an astounding way. I watched every episode of her A&E television series about Scientology. It was so intriguing I couldn’t stop!

    The longer I live, the more I realize how ideologies, whether political or religious, are crafted and honed to ensnare people. There is an accumulated sophistication to them, with the result that they have a framework with a ready answer for almost any doubt or question, so much so that all too many people cannot mentally defeat them.

    I saw it first with Mormonism, and now I’m seeing it in other places.

    norcal (a5428a)

  108. Postpone the election? That wouldn’t work out very well for President Trump.

    Both the President’s and Vice President’s terms expire on January 20, 2021, if he isn’t re-elected. If there is no election, than no one is elected, and those terms still expire.

    The Constitution specifies that next in line would be Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, but if no elections are held, all 435 House seats would be vacant.

    At that point, it falls to the President pro tempore of the Senate, Charles Grassley of Iowa. Since his term does not expire until January 3, 2023, he’d become President.

    The Dana in Kentucky (f2cf00)

  109. Patterico,

    My vote is to keep rcocean around. Opposition is good, whether in government or on blogs. 🙂

    norcal (a5428a)

  110. @111. You’re kidding, right?

    JoeyBee was tagged, bagged, quit and hit the showers. But Trump?? Catch him if you can…

    “You know why the Yankees always win, Frank? Cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.” – Frank Abagnale Sr., [Christopher Walken] ‘Catch Me If You Can” 2002

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  111. Mr M wrote:

    Trump will be gone in 4 years or less if his health deteriorates, but the harm a leftist administration will do won’t ever be undone

    You miss my point entirely.

    The treason is insisting that we have this terrible choice. There are probably 4000 better qualified and more electable Republicans, and we could choose one if this unelectable ah0le would have the courtesy to step down.

    Oddly enough, Mr Trump was an “unelectable ah0le” in 2016, too. How’d that work out?

    The Dana in Kentucky (f2cf00)

  112. 120.

    Don’t tell me that Black Lives Matter isn’t wholly anti-American.

    Black Lives Matters isn’t wholly anti-American.

    Now what?

    BLM is an American movement opposed to allegedly disparate police treatment of African-Americans in America. If you want to call that “wholly anti-American,” nobody can stop you, but it’s dumb.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  113. Given Trump’s multiple character flaws which are publicly on display every day as well as those reported and which he hasn’t the capacity of introspection to acknowledge, this fixation on Biden’s plagiarism with an incident that occurred 30+ years ago is hilarious 🤣 . I can’t wait to see Trump’s commercials on the subject-if he dares.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  114. lurker wrote:

    Don’t tell me that Black Lives Matter isn’t wholly anti-American.

    Black Lives Matters isn’t wholly anti-American.

    Now what?

    BLM is an American movement opposed to allegedly disparate police treatment of African-Americans in America. If you want to call that “wholly anti-American,” nobody can stop you, but it’s dumb.

    And what, I have to ask, do they think that they achieve that is pro-American by kneeling for the national anthem, and then standing for Canada’s anthem? Is there no racism at all in Canada?

    The Dana in Kentucky (f2cf00)

  115. Rip,

    I don’t understand this fixation on plagiarism, either. It appears that MLK also plagiarized to a certain extent, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great man.

    I’m not a Biden supporter, but even I can see that Biden has more decency than Trump.

    norcal (a5428a)

  116. 128.

    I have no idea what their position is, if they have one, on Canadian police practices. Choosing to focus protests on the alleged abuses of one’s own government says nothing about governments elsewhere.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  117. @126. Fixation?? The twit quit in 1988 because of it.

    Plagiarism is stealing; it is the theft of somebody else’s work product. An it is a blatant character tell. But if Righties now want to grant passes for Grand Theft Thought-o, fine. All is forgiven, Bubba; your slate is clean, Hillary… and Teddy… rest in peace!

    Other than vanity hair plugs and multiple brain surgeries; other than being deliberately deceitful about his income, a liar about his travels and chumming for racists and his son w/t Ukraine; other than being a known PLAGIARIST- which is out right stealing, a blatant character tell and signals mental laziness; other than betraying the very middle class he boasts he champions w/banking legislation favoring his Delaware-based credit card pals; other than being a Scranton boy one week and a Wilmington fella the next; other than demonstrating a disturbing, worsening, gaffe-prone dialect with increasing emotional instability; other than literally being part of the problem in the Beltway for 40 years– yeah, it’s a “fixation” — for Washington D.C., which is precisely what motivated Americans to vote for Trump in the first place.

    And, of course, he’s a great show. Because in this era–Americans don’t want to be governed, they with be entertained: Reaganoptics.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  118. ^ wish to be entertained.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  119. BLM is a racist, Marxist movement demanding special privileges for individuals based on the race and wholly antithetical to American values.

    NJRob (195711)

  120. All those cotton plantations in antebellum Canada…

    Dave (1bb933)

  121. @127 When there is housekeeping to be done you clean your own kitchen, you don’t go over and clean your neighbor’s.

    Nic (896fdf)

  122. But had a Tory, or either of the Ford brothers been prime minister now, would he have kneeled through his anthem as well?

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  123. The pcs are very blanc mange the reform alliance less so, does zoolander get the idiocy from pierre or maggy, yes.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  124. The NBA tv comeback game drew less than the average game. Einstein they aint.

    mg (8cbc69)

  125. No there is unfortunate speculation that fidel and zoolander are related thats dubious for a number of reasons

    Narciso (7404b5)

  126. Does the RCMP shoot a lot of black people?

    nk (1d9030)

  127. 133. NJRob (195711) — 8/1/2020 @ 6:57 pm

    BLM is a racist, Marxist movement demanding special privileges for individuals based on the race and wholly antithetical to American values.

    I think it;s mainly a pro crime movement.

    Al Sharpton is trying to take it over and turn it into a non-Marxist movement demanding special privileges for individuals based on race. Except that by race, it should be understood as people he’s connected to.

    He’s been trying to control it for years:

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/znw9y4/al-sharpton-is-struggling-to-control-the-black-lives-matter-movement-1218 (Dec. 2014)

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-black-lives-activists-clash-20200718-liwz56h7cvhpxae4br5ek764ue-story.html

    A Bronx man at the center of New York City’s Black Lives Matter movement came after the Rev. Al Sharpton with both barrels over remarks the minister made last week about black-on-black violence amid a rash of shootings across the city.

    Hawk Newsome, the chairman of Black Lives Matter’s Greater New York chapter, said the long-time civil rights activist is out of touch, and said Sharpton’s point-the-finger preaching has given Republicans and the police ammunition to try to discredit the cause….

    ….Newsome said he took issue with remarks Sharpton made at a funeral for Brandon Hendricks-Ellison, 17, a promising college basketball prospect who was shot to death by a stray bullet in the Bronx last month just two days after graduating high school.

    Sharpton pushed for stronger gun control measures and said the Black community has to work to fix its own problems.

    “Yes, we’re going to deal with policing,” Sharpton said in his eulogy. “But we also have to deal with our communities. We can’t do anything until we learn to respect everyone one of us. The way to teach America that Black lives matter is to teach it to each other first.”

    But Newsome said…..“They are playing into the white racist narrative by pointing fingers at the community. The true cause of our pain is this shrewd capitalist society that leaves us living in unsafe housing conditions. We are under employed. The zip codes with the highest rates of poverty have the highest rates of violence…..”

    Sharpton declined to respond to Newsome’s remarks. But a Sharpton associate, the Rev. Stephan Marshall, said Sharpton has been speaking for 30 years about Black-on-Black crime and the need for Black communities to address the problem.

    Last month, the official Black Lives Matter Global Network distanced itself from Newsome after Newsome said in a Fox News interview that the new movement “would burn down this system and replace it.”

    The Floyd family has also thrown in with Sharptpn – probably to try to make it something peaceful.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  128. I think the First Nations people (the red man) are the most aggrieved up there. I’m just impressed that there was multiple black cast members in the Nova-Scotia based Trailer Park Boys series.

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  129. I think the First Nations people (the red man) are the most aggrieved up there.

    And Snidely Whiplash.

    nk (1d9030)

  130. Like the aussies with the aborigines.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  131. No hesitation to date yourself with Snidely Whiplash, huh? Good for you.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  132. The Lincoln Project’s plan for preserving the union: Drive Trump out of office by driving him nuts

    “Trump is a narcissist and he cannot help but react to threats to his delicate psyche,” explains [George] Conway. “He is a very sensitive, weak human being who cannot take criticism.” The other factor, he adds, is that “he can’t think ahead. He merely reacts to things. And what we do is take advantage of both of those psychological defects.”

    What that means in practical terms is that the Lincoln Project ads are specifically designed to trigger the president. Whenever Trump is reacting to a Lincoln Project ad, he’s talking about things he shouldn’t be talking about. He’s explaining why he inched down the ramp at the U.S. Military Academy, or drank water with two hands. He’s shooting off a tweet about the “Mourning in America” ad, thereby raising millions of dollars . . . for the Lincoln Project.

    […]

    You can call it trolling, and it is: The Lincoln Project buys ad time in Washington and Bedminster for an audience of one. “He is a creature who exists only on television, the Chauncey Gardiner of our time,” says [Rick] Wilson, evoking the movie “Being There.””The fact that we’re able to use his mental infirmity and addiction to television to freeze him and manipulate him serves a broader purpose for the overall campaign in terms of taking him off message, disorganizing and disorienting him.”

    Dave (1bb933)

  133. 5. rcocean (fcc23e) — 8/1/2020 @ 8:14 am

    George Floyd had CV-19 and his death would’ve been reported as a Cv-19 death, if it wasn’t for the notoriety of his death.

    I don;t think so. It had been awhile since he had recovered from it, and this a clear homicide, not death from natural causes.

    The defense of Thomas Lane is that (he thought at least) they were trying to prevent George Floyd from harming himself.

    And in fact an ambulance had been called, and Derek Chauvin took his knee off his neck when the ambulance arrived.

    He was dead by then, though.

    This may be closer to the malicious doctor comparison than I thought.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  134. It’s been obvious Lincoln Project has been trolling him from the get-go. Which hearkens back to Hillary’s — think what you will of her — spot-on remark in 2016, “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  135. Plagiarism is stealing; it is the theft of somebody else’s work product. An it is a blatant character tell.

    Good point, DCSCA, but I may have missed your response regarding Donald Trump’s use of another test taker work on his SAT. I don’t want someone with such a passion for academic integrity to miss the opportunity to express their views on Trump being a cheater, obviously a big disappointing for someone who voted for him.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  136. Really, the only reason to keep you around is to have you here as an object lesson in how people who love them some Donald Trump too often act in the manner in which you have behaved on this thread: dishonestly, rudely, and ignorantly. That increasingly seems like a poor reason for preserving the comment privileges of someone who virtually never adds anything of actual value.

    What say others?

    Patterico (115b1f) — 8/1/2020 @ 6:06 pm

    rcocean is really good at conveying the Trump perspective. It saves us a lot of time. I think he should own up to Dana though.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  137. “Yes, we’re going to deal with policing,” Sharpton said in his eulogy. “But we also have to deal with our communities. We can’t do anything until we learn to respect everyone one of us. The way to teach America that Black lives matter is to teach it to each other first.”

    I never thought I’d say this, but God bless Al Sharpton.

    norcal (a5428a)

  138. My vote is whatever Dana wants.

    DRJ (aede82)

  139. rcocean is really good at conveying the Trump perspective. It saves us a lot of time. I think he should own up to Dana though.
    Dustin (4237e0) — 8/1/2020 @ 8:16 pm

    But it’s his refusal to own up to anyone for anything that makes him such an on-brand Trump proxy. Take that away from him and the #nevertrump Marxists win!

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  140. I think Joe Biden doesn’t like any of the choices. His announcement has been postponed from today, Saturday August 1, to next week, to the week before the convention before the convention, i.e. some time like August 11 to 15 (Aug 15 or 16 is probably a hard deadline.)

    Karen Bass was a serious choice, and her name was brought up by California Democrats as an alternative to Kamala Harris. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes her, because she is from the House and she knows her. Karen Bass was really pushing for herself, calling up a number of union presidents.

    It is true that some blacks were pushing for a black candidate but it is not the Congressional black caucus, but another group of people who talked to Biden in May, and at that time the two names they mentiond the most were Kamala Harris and Susan Rice. Karen Bass’s name hadn’t yet much come up.

    The trouble for Senator Biden is that now he could have people that are disappointed because he doesn’t pick a black woman. He never made a commitment but he did raise their hopes.

    The problem with Kamala Harris is that Biden thinks she would not help him as president, nor follow his priorities, and would start running for president right after the inauguration, and many many people including on Biden’s staff, don’t like her. Biden’s campaign doesn’t like leaks about people close to Biden, like former Senator Chris Dodd, not liking her, by the way. (Karen Bass has said she is not interested in running for president, and she’s being touted as a serious legislator – a workhorse – and Biden thinks a good part of a vice president’s job, and something he thinks he did well, is working to pass legislation)

    Karen Bass also has this Castro thing (and now Scientology too!)

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/joseph-biden-vice-president.html

    And in private vetting conversations, members of Mr. Biden’s team have asked Ms. Bass to explain aspects of her record on Cuba: She visited the country multiple times in the Fidel Castro era and issued a respectful statement when he died. Ms. Bass has said publicly that she had reconsidered those comments.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  141. I never thought I’d say this, but God bless Al Sharpton.

    His views have moderated considerably over the years. If you ignored his history, he’d look like a mainstream liberal with an unearned oversized influence. As such he could do a lot of good with comments like the one quoted above. But history doesn’t just disappear and he has atoning to do. Until he does it, for my part he can eff himself.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  142. Yes ignore freddies fashionmart ignore colin ferguson, ignore tawana brawley his remarks about merchants in the diamond district.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  143. RIP Wilford Brimley, dead at 85. He was in several films, as well as playing the Postmaster General in Seinfeld.

    It seems like he had been 85 for the past 30 years.

    norcal (a5428a)

  144. @15o. Apparently you did–just as they missed catching The Donald back in the day. See #123.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  145. [Biden’s VP] announcement has been postponed from today, Saturday August 1, to next week, to the week before the convention before the convention, i.e. some time like August 11 to 15 (Aug 15 or 16 is probably a hard deadline.)

    Indecisiveness. Another character tell by JoeyBee.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  146. DCSCA,

    Dead horses everywhere are begging you to have mercy on yours.

    norcal (a5428a)

  147. Oddly enough, Mr Trump was an “unelectable ah0le” in 2016, too. How’d that work out?

    He won by about 5 votes in 6 different states, to squeak past the electoral college (much as he did the real college). That was back when people could say things like “Just you watch, he’ll be awesome!” Now we know better. All he does is talk trash. His ONLY success was raising my taxes, and that was 2 years back. Now, he’s just blaming.

    He will lose by 20 points against a dead man.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  148. BLM is a racist, Marxist movement demanding special privileges for individuals based on the race and wholly antithetical to American values.

    BLM is one of those things that everyone in that half of the political spectrum is papering over with their own slogans. Pretty much like what happened to the Tea Party.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  149. My vote is to keep rcocean around. Opposition is good, whether in government or on blogs

    He’s a predictable apologist for the president, but someone has to do it. If not him, someone else.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  150. @161. “Here’s the deal, man” – JoeyBee comes off lame.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  151. Joe Biden really likes Susan Rice (she is the only one of the candidates he really knows) but she’s got real political baggage:

    1. Rwanda in 1994 – she helped prevent any other countries from interfering with the genocide because that’s what Bill Clinton wanted.

    2. Benghazi. (now she could defuse that by saying she made a mistake in listening to what the CIA said, but is that likely, especially with Biden saying you should always listen to the experts?)

    3. The Iran deal, which she was for (but here the only thing that really matters is what Biden says should be done now.)

    4. The memo she wrote to herself on January 20, 2017 about Mike Flynn where she said that Obama said on Januar 5, 2017, to do things “by the book.” (The FBI didn’t, later, and the Republican accusation or suspicion would be that what the memo said was a lie.)

    Also she cites Biden as saying the Logan Act could be used as a reason to interview Mike Flynn

    Another strike against Susan Rice is that she’s never run for elective office (and also of course has little contact with people on Capitol Hill) But she says she’s campaigned (made speeches) and in 2018 seriously investigated running for the Senate from Maine against Susan Collins this year.

    By the way, the Biden campaign did some polling and discovered that Kamala Harris didn’t help any.

    Besides these three, here’s Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who does check the minority box even though pepeople on;t reallythink of her that way (it’s more like disabled veteran for her) who has support from Illinois, and also senator Jack Reed (D-R.I>) who also touts his state’s Governor, Gina Raimondo, who is considered a moderate and also is considered to have handled the coronavirus epidemic well.

    One problem for Tammy Duckworth is that she was not born in the United States and you could get into the whole issue of what is natural born. (while her father was a U.S. citizen and a veteran, her mother was overseas Chinese from Thailand Her family didn’t move to the United Sates until she was 16 and before that she lved in several countries)

    Also maybe still in in the running Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is being oushed by Bill Clinton (!)

    I don;t know why.

    Possibilities that occur to me are:

    A) Because he thinks he can influence her, or her husband.

    B) Because he genuinely believes that, of the choices Biden might consider, she has the best chance of not harming the ticket, and Clinton is not looking any further ahead than Biden’s election.

    And maybe in particular thinks picking her could help Biden the way his criticizing Sister Souljah helped him in 1992,

    C) Because he is almost alone in supporting her, if she is picked she will be grateful, but he otherwise has no influence on her.

    She really has a ready too simple explanation as to why blacks were pro-Biden in the primaries:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIjkYcZTUsw

    There;s also Representative Val Demings of Florida, a former police chief accused of being too partial to bad police) and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (accused of eing too arbitrary on her lockdown orders)

    Val Demings also says partisan things.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  152. And what, I have to ask, do they think that they achieve that is pro-American by kneeling for the national anthem, and then standing for Canada’s anthem?

    Canadians are nicer about it. I’ve actually been in Canada, at a convention that was about 50% black, and I did not notice any overt racism. Then again, I’ve only noticed it here a few times and I’ve been here a lot more. Back in the day when I sated several black ladies, I sometimes got a by-blow of the poor treatment some gave them.

    At it’s core, BLM is about blacks being treated fairly and being able to have confidence they will be treated fairly — the same confidence that you have. That BLM is being hijacked by everyone with a grievance doesn’t change that.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  153. *dated. Freudian slip

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  154. But it’s his refusal to own up to anyone for anything that makes him such an on-brand Trump proxy

    Truth.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  155. Joe Biden really likes Susan Rice (she is the only one of the candidates he really knows) but she’s got real political baggage

    Unless political baggage is such that it gets past the “I’m not Trump!” message of the Biden campaign, it won’t matter. Kamala Harris’ backstory just might.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  156. @130-
    Plagiarism is stealing; it is the theft of somebody else’s work product. An it is a blatant character tell. Etc. etc.

    I would take your argument more seriously if it literally took place a half of my lifetime ago. As far as championing credit card legislation favorable to the industry, he did represent Delaware where they are headquartered. In other words, he was a politician serving his constituents (I’m not sure what legislation you objected to). How do feel with McConnell’s support of the tobacco industry? You apparently object to politicians behaving like politicians.

    What does the following “tell” you about Donald Trump?

    Paying someone to take a college SAT?

    Having your sister complete your college homework?

    Cheating on your wives (multiple times)?

    Consorting with sex workers?

    Sexually objectifying your daughter on national radio?

    Bragging how easy it is to sexually assault women by grabbing their private parts?

    Describing your niece as “stacked” to her face and your (only American) wife?

    Cheating business opponents and Americans out of their homes and livelihoods who were in way?

    Lacking empathy for 150,000+ Americans who have died as a result of the actions or inactions of the administration?

    Lacking the grace to acknowledge the deaths and service of political leaders that have differences with you?

    Attacking political opponents as “enemies of the state” for disagreeing with you or reporting on facts about your policies, and advocating their prosecution?

    Feeling the need to exaggerate accomplishments in order to belittle others?

    Repeating demonstrably false conspiracies in order to generate fear?

    I could go on and on, but the above “character tells” provided by Donald Trump pale in comparison to a 30 year old plagiarism charge. I can’t wait to see the Trump campaign commercial.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  157. You criticize the bulwark after you linked to gatewaypundit?

    Your commitment to objectivity is impressive.

    lurker (d8c5bc) — 8/1/2020 @ 5:21 pm

    Yes, I linked to them because they had useful information. It was factual. Do you think it was a lie? Unlike Bulwark which just emoted leftist cant.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  158. Oh please. Gateway Pundit is a major fake news site.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  159. 150,000+ Americans who have died as a result of the actions or inactions of the administration?

    Absurd.

    beer ‘n pretzels (a7db7c)

  160. So are the WaPo, NY Times and LA Times, but you still link to them constant Rip.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  161. constantly*

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  162. I have really really tried to find a pony in Trump’s pile of sh1t, but I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t one.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  163. The WaPo, etc are slanted. Gateway Pundit is fantasy.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  164. Thunder players all kneel during anthem after threat from Oklahoma lawmaker
    …….
    All the Thunder players knelt on Saturday alongside Utah Jazz players during their NBA bubble debut.
    …….
    Rep. Sean Roberts (R-Hominy) issued a warning to the Thunder on Friday threatening to pull tax breaks for the team if players kneel during the national anthem while citing conspiracy theories about “Marxism.”
    ……..
    Roberts believes the demonstration intends to destroy nuclear families.

    “By kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, the NBA and its players are showing disrespect to the American flag and all it stands for,” Roberts wrote. “This anti-patriotic act makes clear the NBA’s support of the Black Lives Matter group and its goal of defunding our nation’s police, its ties to Marxism and its efforts to destroy nuclear families.”
    >>>>>>>>>
    I guess he’s not a fan
    .

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  165. National Review-speaking of slanted. Never met an Obama conspiracy theory it didn’t like.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  166. National Review-speaking of slanted.

    LOL

    What an insight, Rip. National Review owns up to being slanted. Nothing gets past you, does it.

    beer ‘n pretzels (a7db7c)

  167. @175-
    Since Trump has specifically said he has no responsibility for the federal government response (which he clearly does) it is not absurd. And he certainly has no empathy for the suffering of American families that have lost loved ones. He had to be shamed into lowering the flag on Memorial Day.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  168. @15o. Apparently you did–just as they missed catching The Donald back in the day. See #123.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/1/2020 @ 9:05 pm

    My mistake. But “You’re kidding right?” isn’t much of a condemnation of Trump’s presenting another’s work as his own on the SAT. It’s interesting that for Trump, the defense is seemingly that he got away with it (catch him if you can). I don’t think that getting caught is what makes plagiarism wrong.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  169. Kevin M,

    what I linked to was factual. No disputing that the redactions done in the Maxwell case were easy to get around by just copy/pasting the document.

    That’s not fantasy. Why did you post that remark?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  170. At it’s core, BLM is about blacks being treated fairly and being able to have confidence they will be treated fairly — the same confidence that you have. That BLM is being hijacked by everyone with a grievance doesn’t change that.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/1/2020 @ 9:23 pm

    Damn straight. Everyone who isn’t a sociopath should understand how important it is that blacks feel they are a full member of society who can enjoy the same as anyone else. Not necessarily an easy ride through life, any more than anyone else can, but at least fairness.

    Those who are taking this over for some radical vision are kinda ghoulish.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  171. @171. Half-your-lifetime ago? So? There is no expiration for getting caught at plagiarism. It is stealing. It is theft of the work product of another or others. It is a blatant character tell and it signals mental laziness. Per quora:’The consequences of plagiarism could include losing your job, professional embarrassment, being expelled from a school or university, or failing a course.’

    There is no argument: back in the day, the twit quit his ’88 campaign because of it; Plagiarist JoeyBee was caught red-handed at it on multiple occasions.

    But Trump?? Back in the day, he wasn’t. Socatch him if you can…

    “You know why the Yankees always win, Frank? Cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.” – Frank Abagnale Sr., [Christopher Walken] ‘Catch Me If You Can” 2002

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  172. Indecisiveness. Another character tell by JoeyBee.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/1/2020 @ 9:10 pm

    No one should see Biden’s campaign and walk away reassured that our nation’s problems will be solved any time soon.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  173. rc is a good commmenter. Too many people who aren’t nevertrump have been driven away from this blog and an echo chamber does no one any good.

    The ones that bother me are the mobys. Just own up to your positions. Don’t claim to be something you’re not.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  174. Plagiarist JoeyBee was caught red-handed at it on multiple occasions.

    But Trump?? Back in the day, he wasn’t. Socatch him if you can…

    Getting caught is not what makes plagiarism wrong, DCSCA. I could plagiarize your last 70 comments to explain this. It’s a character thing. Obviously a billionaire can steal the ideas of others to pretend to excel academically in ways that you or I could not.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  175. @184. Life is unfair: back in the day, he wasn’t caught; Biden was. So ‘catch him if you can…’ better people than infest the modern ideological conservative movement have tried.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  176. @187 I’m pretty sure that there is, in fact, a statute of limitations on IP theft. The internet tells me it’s between abt 3 and 7 years. 😛

    Nic (896fdf)

  177. @184. Life is unfair: back in the day, he wasn’t caught; Biden was. So ‘catch him if you can…’ better people than infest the modern ideological conservative movement have tried.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/1/2020 @ 10:32 pm

    Indeed it is. It is an odd defense that Trump was able to pay for more skillful cheaters, more involved with more devious, perhaps more horrifying, cheaters. Some of these people seem to have engaged in human trafficking, bounties on American life, other terrible things.

    Both are very flawed men. Show me a man who isn’t flawed and I’ll trust him a lot less than someone whose screw ups I can see. Getting away with deception in a major way is more a sign of ruthlessness than intelligence, in my experience.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  178. That’s not fantasy. Why did you post that remark?

    I said that Gateway Pundit was fantasy. Not anything you posted. From time to time they may accidentally say something factual.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  179. You said Trump did not suggest postponing the election. Now that it has been pointed out you were wrong, you do not apologize for making an incorrect statement, but lash out at the person who made the correct statement for not guessing that you were referring to one statement but not another when you made your blanket pronouncement.

    I said I was referring to Trump’s tweet, because that was the only thing I knew, when I wrote it. i was completely unaware that Trump had a press conference where he made the remarks Dana later quoted. I thought I made that clear. I didn’t apologize for making an “incorrect remark”, because there’s no reason to apologize for an honest error. If your standard is that everyone who makes an error of fact, must apologize, than we’ll need a lot more apologies on this board.

    I’m not lashing out at anyone. I made a general statement, and it was taken personally by Dana. I was asked to apologize to Dana for accusing her of being wrong, when she was right. I apologized for not making my statement more clear, that it didn’t include her. If she wants an apology anyway, I’m willing to make it. If you want an admission that I was wrong on my ‘Blanket Statement’ on Trump’s support, I’m willing to make it. But that’s about it.

    rcocean (fcc23e)

  180. Joe Biden really likes Susan Rice (she is the only one of the candidates he really knows) but she’s got real political baggage

    Like she has never held elected office.

    Hence selecting her to possibly be a heart beat away from the Oval given Plagiarist JoeyBee’s advanced age, disturbing, worsening, gaffe-prone dialect and increasing emotional instability would end his chance for a win the moment her name leaves his lips. She’s just a stalking horse.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  181. Another strike against Susan Rice, believe it or not, is that her son is a Trump cultist.

    To me, that points to a tragic failure to instill bedrock American values and Judeo-Christian morality.

    Dave (1bb933)

  182. The times was wrong about every urban controversy about orlando sanbernardino about chris steeles rolling grift about the nature of history with the 1619 project about ukraine what have they been right about lately ill leave out duranty and matthews

    Narciso (7404b5)

  183. Govt redactions have been terrible going back to the starr report, where the former was playing checkers, while carville was beating him with a mallot.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  184. For the last 30 years round numbers govt and corporate policy has been like feinsteins blinkered notion, it was in that view that we gave china special trade status.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  185. now sarah cooper is like one of those brain dead zombies, but steve schmidt, deserves to have his guts taken out with a pool cue, and hung in the day, as a warning not to associate with him

    narciso (7404b5)

  186. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/naomi-schaefer-riley/transgender-children-craze/

    Though gender dysphoria does seem to be “contagious”—and the parents who were most successful at getting their daughters to snap out of it were the ones who pulled them out of school, took away their access to social media, or even sent them to another state—it does not seem to present the way other medical issues do. First of all, patients make the diagnosis. Ordinarily, we don’t go to doctors explaining that we think we have pancreatic cancer and just expect them to treat it. We go to doctors with symptoms and expect them to run tests and find the source of our pain. When anorexics tell us they are too fat, we don’t expect medical professionals to agree and help them search for a Weight Watchers meeting. But when it comes to gender dysphoria, therapists are supposed to adhere to the “affirmative care standard,” which basically means telling a patient his or diagnosis is correct and then figuring out how to “treat” it.

    And the treatment is unlike any other medical treatment. The doctors Shrier interviews explain that how much testosterone they offer patients is largely an aesthetic choice. How much facial hair do you want? How low do you want your voice to go? And unlike even cosmetic surgery, these treatments will (by their very nature) result in the destruction of certain healthy bodily functions. Cosmetic surgeons do not end the ability of their patients to breastfeed or give birth—but that is exactly what transition surgeons are doing.

    .

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  187. https://nypost.com/2020/08/02/there-have-now-been-more-nyc-shootings-this-year-than-in-all-of-2019/

    There have been more shootings so far this year in New York City than in all of 2019.

    A 24-year-old man who walked bleeding into Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx on Saturday night has pushed the city’s total number of shootings this year to 777 — topping the 776 recorded in all of last year, NYPD data compiled by The Post reveals.

    And it’s only the first days of August, with five more months before the year is over.

    “It only gets worse from here,” warned Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

    “As the shootings continue, so will retaliation. It’s a vicious cycle that the NYPD worked hard to mitigate, but that they are no longer able and in some cases willing to do.”

    The year’s plague of gunplay has touched every borough, killing or injuring 942 victims and cutting down not just hardened gang members but innocent children.

    Vote leftist, win bullet wound rewards.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  188. 190… spot on… motherfarking Kos Kidz feeling their oats.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  189. 189, not 190…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  190. Marci (405d43) — 8/1/2020 @ 6:01 pm

    Factual problems galore, starting with this…

    Russia is no longer testing. They are showing no new cases except those that are of famous people that are publicized.

    It’s probably good to not believe the numbers from China, Iran and Russia, but Putin is reporting 7.7 million tests in July and 186,000 186,000 new cases. If you have better sources that say something different, show your work. At over 5,000 new cases per day, I don’t see how anyone can say that Putin has the virus under control.

    So Trump is right. We do have more infections that are known because we test.

    No, Trump is lying because the positivity rate has increased since the first of June.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  191. Trump: Socialism? Hell yes!

    Donald Trump has hit out at America’s tech billionaires, saying there is ‘too much income disparity’ in the US, as he shared a video clip on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s multibillion-dollar fortune.

    Trump on Saturday said ‘changes must be made soon’, after tweeting a Business Insider video showing how the country’s richest tech execs have only grown richer during the coronavirus pandemic.

    Dave (1bb933)

  192. Maybe he should cut their taxes again and see if that fixes it.

    Dave (1bb933)

  193. Teh Kos KARENz…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  194. The title speaks for itself.

    But the content is thin gruel, and McCarthy has skin in the game his book to sell. There’s no there there, heavy on insinuation and little on new facts. It still remains that the IG already investigated all this and did not find bias.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  195. rcocean,
    You’re either missing the point or being deliberately deceptive. Your offending words were these:

    But thanks for posting something that repeats the same old DNC-Media propaganda technique used against TRump for 4 years.

    That’s a personal attack on Dana’s intellectual integrity, that she’s shilling for “DNC-Media”. She deserves an apology for that. An apology for “not making my statement more clear” is not good enough, IMO, because your offending statement is still out there, unretracted and unapologized for.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)


  196. I disagreed and continue to disagree with our lock-down strategy. Protect the vulnerable and those at risk. Probably would have helped to not pack NYC nursing homes with those with the disease too.

    189 – yup. That would be me. I used to come here regularly but it has reached the point that it is nothing but hatred for anything and anyone associated with Trump. The focus is so heavily weighted toward things Trump says and character and there is very little factual discussion of actual policies and changes to laws. Just “Orange Man bad”. Even when Trump does something good rarely is credit or mention made. This site just reads as a “we hate all things Trump” and the hate, yes hate not dislike , is palpable.

    Y’all might think Biden and the Dems won’t make it worse but I fear you are wrong. The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens when the Dems get their radical wish list? For some reason I doubt it.

    Marci (405d43)

  197. Hmmm Link not showing. Not sure why. It’s a RedState article on Sweden. Sweden stats

    Marci (405d43)

  198. @212-
    That’s rich (pun intended)!

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  199. Trump keeps promising an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system that never arrives

    It was a bold claim when President Trump said that he was about to produce an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system, at last doing away with the Affordable Care Act, which he has long promised to abolish.

    “We’re signing a health-care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health-care plan,” Trump pledged in a July 19 interview with “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace.
    ………..
    “ We’re going to be doing a health-care plan. We’re going to be doing a very inclusive health-care plan. I’ll be signing it sometime very soon,” Trump said during an exchange with reporters at an event in Belleair, Fla., on Friday. When a reporter noted that he told Fox’s Wallace that he would sign it in two weeks, Trump added: “Might be Sunday. But it’s going to be very soon.”
    ……..
    Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who regularly meets and golfs with the president, said the health-care plan that Trump has referred to would come in the form of an executive order that Graham called “fairly comprehensive.” However broad, an executive order would fall short of a full legislative overhaul.

    Graham said what Trump has in mind now would ensure that consumers do not risk losing their health plans if they get sick, but he did not give details.

    “He’s pretty excited about it,” Graham said of the president. The ACA’s consumer protections for people with preexisting medical conditions is one its most popular facets with the public, and it is the one part of the law Trump consistently says he would preserve if he could get rid of the rest. How he could do that while containing costs after he and congressional Republicans remove the law’s requirement that everyone has to purchase health insurance remains the question.
    ………
    The ACA — politically polarizing throughout the decade it has existed — is favored by a slim majority of Americans. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in July found that 51 percent support the law while 36 percent oppose it. A Fox News survey in June showed 56 percent support and 38 percent opposition.
    ………
    For Trump, saying that he is about to produce a health-care plan to replace the ACA has become a recurrent mantra of his presidency.
    ……..
    In June 2019, Trump said in an interview with ABC News that he would announce a “phenomenal” new health-care plan “in about two months, maybe less.”

    Two months later, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters that the president was preparing to introduce an elaborate plan to redesign the nation’s health-care system in a speech the following month. “We’re working every single day here,” Conway said last August. “I’ve already been in meetings this morning on the president’s health-care plan. It’s pretty impressive.”

    No speech or plan came.

    In June (2020), Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested that the administration would develop a health-care plan only if the nation’s highest court, which has upheld the law in two earlier cases over the past eight years, overturns it this time. “We’ll work with Congress on a plan if the ACA is struck down,” Azar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’ll see what the Supreme Court rules.”

    That was three weeks before the president told Fox that he was about to issue a plan.
    ………

    Against existing evidence, Trump says that will soon change.

    “We’re getting rid of it because we’re going to replace it with something much better,” Trump told Wallace two weeks ago.
    >>>>>>>>>>>
    Promises promises!

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  200. @208. That’s ’cause Plagiarist JoeyBee is literally afraid of himself.

    … and Putin smiled.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  201. Birx says U.S. has entered a ‘new phase’ of pandemic as cases, deaths rise
    ……….
    “ I want to be very clear what we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, noting that infections were increasing in rural and urban areas. “It is extraordinarily widespread.”

    Asked about an estimate from former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb that virus deaths could top 300,000 by the end of the year, Birx said “anything is possible.” She said such an outcome would be far less likely if people practiced social distancing and avoided large gatherings.
    ………
    Birx’s remarks came after another week of grim signs that the country’s pandemic response was failing. The seven-day average for new coronavirus-related deaths rose in nearly half of U.S. states over the past week, pushing the national death toll past 150,000 and prompting health experts to warn that the trend was unlikely to reverse anytime soon.
    ……..
    Nationwide, the daily coronavirus death toll exceeded 1,000 for the sixth day in a row on Saturday, according to The Post’s data. The 1,198 new fatalities marked the most that officials have counted on a Saturday, when death reports tend to be lower than those tallied midweek, since May 9.

    Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, have warned 20 states in the Sun Belt, the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest that the virus spread is accelerating within their borders. Mitigation efforts have helped in some places, Birx said, but people need to practice strict social distancing and wear masks. She also raised concerns about the virus spreading within multigenerational households, urging people in those settings to “really consider” wearing masks inside their homes.

    With the new academic year starting soon in many communities, Birx also suggested that schools avoid in-person instruction in places where infections are rising — a departure from recent demands by Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that schools fully reopen in the fall.

    “We need to stop the cases,” Birx said. “If you have high caseload and active community spread — just like we’re asking people not to go to bars, not to have household parties, not to create large spreading events, we’re asking people to distance-learn at this moment so we can get this epidemic under control.”
    ……..
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent analysis of pandemic fatalities shows weekly reports of new deaths increasing over the next month, with 5,000 to 11,000 new deaths projected in the third week of August. The national death toll could climb to more than 168,000 by that time, with a high estimate of 182,000, according to the CDC’s review.

    Amid the rising deaths, Trump on Sunday struck an optimistic note, tweeting, “USA will be stronger than ever before, and soon!”
    …………
    Insert obligatory Kevin Bacon appearance here.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  202. For the benefit of the interested, CSPAN is carrying the live NASA/SpaceX TeeVee feed of the truly historic Dragon reentry and splashdown now. First slash for a U.S. spacecraft since Apollo/Soyuz in July, 1975. Splashdown is scheduled for 2:48 PM EDT and given the advances in camera capbilities, should be a good show ‘riding along.’ Even using taxpayer funded U.S.government facilities, a safe return will be a milestone– at least for what passes as government financed ‘private enterprise’ in LEO HSF operations- a mere 59 and a quarter years after the Soviet government orbited and safely return a fellow traveler named Yuri Gagarin.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  203. Paul Montagu (1ef895) — 8/2/2020 @ 7:43 am

    At over 5,000 new cases per day, I don’t see how anyone can say that Putin has the virus under control.

    He’s going to have a civilian vaccine out by August 14, possibly due to his hackers. (the same hackers who hacked the DNC)

    China is already accinating its military, and also international travelers who will take it.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  204. Going forward, Sweden is an argument for not shutting down an economy, but it also requires a near-complete buy-in for the populace.

    Anders Tegnell says his modelling indicates that, on average, Swedes have around 30% of the social interactions they did prior to the pandemic.
    And a survey released this week by Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency suggests 87% of the population are continuing to follow social distancing recommendations to the same extent as they were one or two weeks earlier, up from 82% a month ago.

    No, they’re nowhere close to herd immunity.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  205. The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens when the Dems get their radical wish list?

    Trump will be to blame if he loses this BINARY CHOICE election. He had over 3 years to make a difference, let alone keep his promises, but he and you are still running on “Vote against the Bad Democrats and their Radical Policies.”

    Their policies and politicians are not what I want, but neither is Trump. The GOP needs to start rethinking and rebuilding now.

    DRJ (aede82)

  206. Marci (405d43) — 8/1/2020 @ 6:01 pm

    We do have more infections that are known because we test. The issue isn’t whether we actually have more or fewer infections, it is that we actually know about the ones we have while other countries are not aware of those that aren’t symptomatic.

    China, I think, is back to limiting testing. They don’t test unless someone gets really sick.

    Our rate of infection and number of cases would be the same whether we tested or not

    But not the same between different countries. There are real differences between states or countries and between different time periods.

    It is not that the infection rate in all localities are the same and the only difference is how much testing you do. Saying something like that would be an obvious absurdity.

    It just means there may not be a good, simple comparison of the scale of the epidemic across countries, and time periods. But deaths from covid, and especially excess deaths per capita, are a good indicator.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  207. 220. Trump promised to do something about DACA too, by the end of last week, saying the Supreme Court had given him new powers. But I guess Stephen Miller didn’t like what was in store.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  208. Trump will be to blame if he loses this BINARY CHOICE election.

    Because he got credit when he won four years ago.

    beer ‘n pretzels (7eab0c)

  209. 184. Dustin (4237e0) — 8/1/2020 @ 10:25 pm

    But “You’re kidding right?” isn’t much of a condemnation of Trump’s presenting another’s work as his own on the SAT. It’s interesting that for Trump, the defense is seemingly that he got away with it (catch him if you can). I don’t think that getting caught is what makes plagiarism wrong.

    The defense is that it is simply not true that Dnald Trump paid smmeone else to take the SAT for her; that Mary Trump has no direct way of knowing since this would have happened the year before she was born; that nobody made this accusation before; the person she said took the test for Donald Trump, by by the name of Joe Shapiro, was someone he met at Whartion (she later said it was or must have been another Joe Shapiro!); that Trump took the SAT in military school and everyone and the teachers knew each other; and an interview by some student who says he was there and remembers Donald Trump taking the SAT. And Mary Trump has not named her source other than to say it was someone in the family.

    Now, on Colbert Mary Trump was not agreeing to everything would have liked her to say.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  210. 229… HEH! that was just mean…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  211. He did get credit for winning in 2016. IMO he squandered a tremendous opportunity to change the direction of our country by putting his and his family’s interests first. He could have been another Reagan but he doesn’t have the ability.

    DRJ (aede82)

  212. .. discipline, intelligence, knowledge, spirituality, or humility.

    DRJ (aede82)

  213. The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens

    I think you are greatly exaggerating the influence that commenters on this blog could have had on the many Trump 2016 voters who are now so disgusted that they will not vote for him again.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  214. Veep contender Karen Bass said on Meet the Press that her policy toward Cuba was exactly the same as the Obama Administration. And that she didn’;t know th words Jefe and commandante were offensive in Florida. As soon as Hous emmembers from Florida told her that she was sorry. Still seemed to be saying Castro was well liked in Cuba.

    She wants herself and Biden to sink or swim together on Cuba?

    She also couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted to say she was naive about Cuba when she was 19 – she couldn;t even decide how old to say she was. She generalized and didn’t answer the question Chuck Todd asked. (I guess part of the problem is that maybe she kept on praising Fidel Castro a long time later.)

    https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-august-2-2020-n1235604

    CHUCK TODD:

    Let me turn to the issue of Cuba. A lot of people have turned to this issue with you as they’ve dug in. You spent some time there in the ’70s as a young activist, I believe working with a group called the Venceremos Brigade, building houses in Cuba. You have rejected the idea that you were somehow celebrating the Castro regime. But looking back — do you look back on that and think you were a big naïve?

    REP. KAREN BASS:

    Oh, I think as any 19 year old would be, sure. In my early twenties, I went to Cuba to help the Cuban people, to build houses. But over the last 20 years, Chuck, I have been working — one, I’ve always believed in bridging the divide between our two countries. Cuba’s 90 miles away. But for the last 20 years, I’ve actually been working on health care related issues in Cuba. You know, the Cubans train U.S. doctors. [?! Is there a medical school in Cuba?] And I’ve been recruiting those doctors to work in the inner city because they come in tuition free. [come into Cuba;s medical school?] The Cubans also have two medicines, one for diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for, and I would like to have those drugs tested in the United States. [Is there any other drug she would like the FDA to approve?]

    Now, that doesn’t excuse the fact that I know the Castro regime has been a brutal regime to its people. I know that there is not freedom of press, freedom of association. And interestingly, when I went in my late teens and early twenties, you know, one of the things that — one of the reasons was to build relations with the Americans that were there, [?] because there were over 100 young people that were there. And all of us worked on different issues. [She was helping make them aunified pro-Castro lobby?]

    Well, what’s interesting is that we had the ability to come home and protest against our own government. But the Cuban people most certainly cannot do that. They couldn’t do it then and they can’t do it now. [This is getting to be word salad]

    CHUCK TODD:

    But Congresswoman, I have to say, you sound a lot tougher on Castro now than you did when you described him as “comandante en jefe” when he died. And then you said something that I found interesting. You said you didn’t quite realize how sensitive folks were in South Florida about this still.

    REP. KAREN BASS:

    No. Oh, go ahead.

    CHUCK TODD:

    And so I’m just curious, sort of, that you thought, well, Californians wouldn’t mind that description, but it might offend Floridians. Forget that a minute. It still seemed as if you had a soft view of Castro, if you will.

    REP. KAREN BASS:

    Yeah. And let me explain too because I think the use of the term “comandante en jefe” what I meant by that is is that clearly, in Florida that is a term that is endearing to him. I didn’t see it that way. [But just saw it as his title, withou indicating approval?] I was expressing condolences to the Cuban people, to the people in Cuba, not Cubans around the world. I don’t think that is a toxic expression in California. But let me just say, Chuck, lesson learned. Wouldn’t do that again. Talked immediately to my colleagues from Florida and realized that that was something that just shouldn’t have been said.

    CHUCK TODD:

    But it’s not — you said you were expressing condolences to the Cuban people. There’s many people who believe that the Castro regime in general was keeping them confined, was stifling their freedom. That actually, getting rid of Castro might’ve been a celebration to some.

    REP. KAREN BASS:

    [Chuck Todd means many people on the island but Karen Bass either misses that or chooses to interpret it differently]

    Yeah, maybe. And in the island, I think it’s slightly different because, you know, they certainly didn’t have the freedom and wouldn’t have the freedom to celebrate that. So I think that it is just very important, the way the Obama administration had opened up relations with Cuba, I think the best way to bring about change on the island is for us to have closer relations with a country that is 90 miles away.

    CHUCK TODD:

    Just very quickly, I’m curious of your reaction. You were called “Communist Karen” yesterday by the Trump campaign. And Senator Marco Rubio said you would be — essentially implied that there was nobody who has ever been considered for the vice presidency that was seen as so much of a Castro sympathizer. How do you react?

    REP. KAREN BASS:

    Well, one, don’t consider myself a Castro sympathizer. Number two, my position on Cuba is really no different than the position of the Obama administration. [She;s tyn herself to Obama almost making it so that if she sinks, th Democratic Party sinks with her] As a matter of fact, I was honored to go to Cuba with President Obama. I went to Cuba with Secretary Kerry when we raised the flag. So there really isn’t anything different. And then frankly, I believe the Republicans have decided to brand the entire Democratic party as Socialists and Communists. So I’m not surprised by Rubio’s characterization of me or of a role I would play if I were on the ticket.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  215. He could have been another Reagan but he doesn’t have the ability.

    A bit of a logical contradiction there. He could not have been, because he is constitutionally unable to escape his fundamental selfishness and unwillingness to learn.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  216. @187-
    I’m sorry, still not convinced. Plagiarism is an intellectual wrong, but certainly far less serious character “tell” than adultery, sexualizing family members, bragging about sexual assault, or cheating in school and business.

    Biden paid a price in 1988, but if Trump wants to run it n 2020, more power to him.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  217. For the benefit of the interested, CSPAN is carrying the live NASA/SpaceX TeeVee feed of the truly historic Dragon reentry and splashdown now.

    Reaganomics!

    Dave (1bb933)

  218. Trump gets an education in the art of reversal
    President Donald Trump has strong views on just about everything. Until he doesn’t.

    He ordered states to reopen in the spring, only to extend national social distancing guidelines. He insisted he would have the Republican convention at full size, only to scrap much of the event. He suggested the election should be delayed, only to reverse course and declare it should actually be held early.
    ……..
    As America has battled the coronavirus for the past five months, Trump has fought everyone else as he pushed his own contentious plans — governors, mayors, lawmakers, judges, even his own administration officials — before later reversing course, backing away from his initial stance or simply moving on to the next issue and declaring victory.
    ……..
    In the last few days, as Congress debates another round of coronavirus relief, Trump backed an extension of $600-per-week unemployment benefits he opposed only days ago and he appeared to have quietly dropped his own requests to cut the payroll tax and fund a new FBI headquarters through a coronavirus bill.

    “They know what I want,” Trump told reporters Friday about congressional negotiators, even though some on Capitol Hill have grumbled that they, in fact, don’t know what he wants.
    …….
    Trump pulled back on his more bellicose threats after America’s school districts, large and small — even in some Republican-friendly states led by Republican allies — defied him.
    …….
    School officials also say they didn’t believe Trump’s threat. Only Congress has the authority to withhold federal funding — most of which goes to schools in low-income areas and special education.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  219. Trump health official: Time to ‘move on’ from hydroxychloroquine
    A top official in the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response effort said Sunday there is no evidence that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for the virus, despite President Donald Trump’s continued promotion of the anti-malaria drug.

    In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” administration testing czar Brett Giroir said he could not recommend hydroxychloroquine because trials “do not show any benefit.”

    “We need to move on from that and talk about what is effective,” Giroir, assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services said.
    ……..
    ……..”I think most physicians and prescribers are evidence-based and they’re not influenced by whatever is on Twitter or anything else,” Giroir said. “And the evidence just doesn’t show that hydroxychloroquine is effective right now.”

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  220. @238 Reaganomics! …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  221. @238 Reaganomics! …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/2/2020 @ 11:09 am

    Damn, Gina

    Dustin (4237e0)

  222. NASA incompetence…

    …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.

    Dave (1bb933)

  223. The defense is that it is simply not true that Dnald Trump paid smmeone else to take the SAT for her

    Sammy, it’s true that’s a defense Trump would offer, but I do not believe it and appreciate it wasn’t offered because frankly we know what Trump is all about. However in the discussion I was having, the defense was that Trump didn’t get caught, but Biden did. That’s an interesting hybridization of character and capability.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  224. @243 Oh Davey, do avoid commenting on areas outside the area of your competence. The push for privatization by Ronnie’s minions was the cause– you know: REAGANOMICS.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  225. The hockey player that knelt for the American national anthem, but stood for the Canadian national anthem… is Canadian.

    NJRob (1a1095)

  226. @246. The nerve!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  227. do avoid commenting on areas outside the area of your competence

    Switching to backup Irony Meter…

    Dave (1bb933)

  228. @248. Switching to backup Irony Meter…

    ‘Irony Meter’- one of the cuts by Newtie & His Blowfish on that 1980’s CD: Reaganomics!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  229. because they feel so confident,

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/08/02/bill-clinton-white-house-spokesman-urges-joe-biden-not-to-debate-president-trump/

    chuck todd grew up in kendall, and yet after dropping out of american university, went to work for sandinista cheerleader tom harkin, a real rocket surgeon,

    narciso (7404b5)

  230. NeverTrump is just a hop, skip and a goose step the far side of dcsca-level cray cray…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  231. as they excuse cuomo, murphy, lamont (remember when they pretended to hate him) charlie parker, wolf and franken furter levine, fat bastard hogan, gruesome gretchen, and cadaverous evers, like the starwars cantina scene,

    narciso (7404b5)

  232. @251. So cray-cray, whoever wins is a win/win.

    Welcome to 1964.

    Glorious.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  233. They’re on the mains…

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  234. Splahdown and stable 1. Congrats to SpaceX and NASA!

    What goes around, comes around— welcome home… Gemini 3.

    And Dead Yuri Gagarin smiled…

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  235. The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens

    Trump critics are incapable of owning anything. They are defined by what they are against, not by what or who they are for.

    Anyone they have supported in the past gets cancelled if they say anything that deviates. See Cruz, Paul, Graham, Sasse, Haley, Carson, Cain. They can’t own a candidate or a position or a vote for more than a fleeting instant. Trump’s mercurial nature is no match for them.

    They throw the word cult around because they can only think in those terms. They are the Scientology of political identities.

    beer ‘n pretzels (9937ff)

  236. I’ll own the fact that we warned you Trump was an incompetent, sociopathic con-man, and that nominating and electing him would lead to disaster for America, and for the Republican party.

    But I guess putting a reality TV game-show host into the White House seemed like a good idea at the time, eh?

    Dave (1bb933)

  237. Great video today from NASA and SpaceX… but golly gee, we’ve seen virtually an identical scene before… 48 years ago when three, not two, fellas returned not from LEO– but from the moon.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQTYpAPAME

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  238. Trump’s Grip on the GOP is Slipping
    ………..
    The once rock-solid grip that the president had on his party seems to be slipping. Talking with pollsters and strategists from both sides this week,  it’s clear that Trump is suffering not just with Democrats and independents but also with GOP voters. They tell us of polling that shows Trump underwater in districts he carried easily in 2016. One GOP strategist told me that even in heavily Republican districts, Trump’s job approval rating among Republicans has dropped 10-20 points. The KFF poll released last week found Trump’s overall job approval rating among Republicans dropped 12 points between May and July. On handling coronavirus, the drop in GOP support was an even more dramatic 26 points. 
    ………
    Whether it’s warning suburban (white) Americans of the threats of “low-income housing” (read: Black) being built in their neighborhoods, running ads featuring an older, white woman frantically trying to call 911 as a shadowy figure breaks into her home, or warning of rioters and looters running free in “Biden’s America,” Trump is hoping that selling fear will help to bring GOPers home. 

    But as Washington Post columnist and Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Henry Olsen noted, just bringing GOP voters back isn’t enough for Trump to win. “Trump and the GOP are losing because independents who might have backed them have turned away in the aftermath of the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd. To win, or just to make it close, the president and his party have to win them back.” Winning them back will require Trump to prove he’s not only taking this pandemic and this moment in history seriously but is making appreciable progress in getting the economy and life back to normal. The idea that Trump will be able to stay disciplined and focused enough to deliver on this seems unlikely. He will need something outside of his control to happen. Even good news about a vaccine trial or the easing up of COVID outbreaks may not be enough. Strategists who’ve been conducting polling and focus groups tell us that the voters Trump needs to win have basically tuned out and turned off this president. And, warns a GOP strategist, Biden is a tougher opponent than Trump has ever had to face. “Biden,” says this strategist, “is acceptable for anyone with any grievance with Trump.” 
    ………

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  239. …disaster for America, and for the Republican party.

    For America? No. For the ideological conservatives infesting the Republican Party? Yes.

    Glorious.

    But I guess putting a reality TV game-show host into the White House seemed like a good idea at the time, eh?

    Reaganoptics.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  240. Wow – Trump cultists interfering with the recovery.

    SHOOT TO KILL

    Dave (1bb933)

  241. Republican National Committee disputes GOP convention spokesperson’s claim that Trump’s renomination will be closed to media
    The Republican National Committee says no final decision has been made about whether President Trump’s renomination will be held in private at the GOP convention, contradicting previous reports that restrictions on crowd size during the coronavirus pandemic would prevent members of the press from attending.
    ……..
    The apparent walkback is the latest turn in a Republican National Convention planning process marked by tumult and uncertainty.
    ……..
    Circular firing squad.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  242. Trump critics are incapable of owning anything.

    Trump defenders are incapable of holding Trump to the same standards they apply to Trump critics, such as taking responsibility for mistakes or misdeeds.

    Trump defenders pretend to be offended by dishonesty and cruelty — except for Trump’s routine dishonesty and cruelty. They pretend to be amused by craziness and lunacy, while averting their eyes from the daily lunacy displayed by their hero.

    Some Trump critics are former supporters who have publicly expressed their remorse over voting for him.
    I’m still waiting for the most avid boosters (aside from Ann Coulter) to own their mistake in painting Trump as a selfless patriot with a big heart and sharp instincts who somehow knows more than others without studying anything and who would never lie to us and who can’t conceivably have any self-interested motives, and who was the only person who could possibly save America.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  243. I’ll own the fact that we warned you

    Dave, you own that like you would’ve owned four years of HRC.

    I can always rely on you to prove my point without fail, and without a hint of irony.

    beer ‘n pretzels (888d61)

  244. “Reaganomics! …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.”

    What? Engineers warned NASA managers about operating the o-rings at low temperatures….if anything, we are looking at the flawed decision-making process of a government entity. Safety margins and risk management are non-partisan. This has nothing to do with lower tax rates and de-regulation….nothing.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  245. @266. Except it does; the Reagan minions push for privatization and profitability of government. You really don’t know what you’re talking about regarding this issue. But then ignorance is bliss; stay happy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  246. The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens when the Dems get their radical wish list?

    Is that a binary choice or something? Your pants-pooping hysteria imposes no obligations on me.

    nk (1d9030)

  247. “The thing is if Trump loses and we have Biden are you going to own what happens [?]”

    The problem is that Trump-as-bull-in-china-shop twisted and distorted GOP politics beyond recognition….such that no alternatives could arise to practically challenge Trump. Because of the internal compromise of Fox, every potential challenger was DOA. So instead of impeachment and abuses of executive power leading to a natural transition to an alternative, we are stuck with a wounded hemorrhaging pustule who is more than willing to drive the GOP over the cliff’s edge. This should be the lesson from choosing an outsider, with no political experience, and with no established loyalty to anyone but himself. It’s unconscionable to think that I have to be bullied into giving him four more years because he foreclosed on giving the GOP a chance to choose someone else. My conclusion is that by his actions, Trump doesn’t want my vote. Biden’s policy preferences guarantee that he will not get my vote either. I will sleep well if Biden wins and will work tirelessly to rebuild a functional GOP. What will you do?

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  248. The problem is that Trump-as-bull-in-china-shop twisted and distorted GOP politics beyond recognition….

    Glorious.

    Welcome to 1964.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  249. I don’t know what I look forward to the most: The disinfection of the White House or the lamentations of the deplorables. Thankfully, that’s not a binary choice. We can have both.

    nk (1d9030)

  250. I will sleep well if Biden wins and will work tirelessly to rebuild a functional GOP. What will you do?

    I slept well four years ago knowing I did what I could to make sure sane judges got appointed. No Trump critic owns any of that.

    I will sleep well knowing I did what I could to achieve the same for the next four years.

    beer ‘n pretzels (911363)

  251. America First!
    Or: “fighting obstructionists” by obstructing a transparency bill.
    https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2019/06/14/sen-marsha-blackburn-blocks-bill-requiring-campaigns-notify-fbi/1455094001/

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  252. There must be some perfectly innocent reason why Trump & Co. don’t want the FBI to know about foreign efforts to influence our elections. Right?

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  253. “Blessed are the sleepy for they shall soon drop off.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

    nk (1d9030)

  254. 230.

    Trump will be to blame if he loses this BINARY CHOICE election.

    Because he got credit when he won four years ago.
    beer ‘n pretzels (7eab0c) — 8/2/2020 @ 10:10 am

    If you blamed Hillary for your vote for the lesser evil Trump, then you should blame Trump for everyone who holds their nose and votes for Biden. Or at least that’s what someone with even the flimsiest veneer of consistency would do.

    Of course if you didn’t blame Hillary, i.e., you thought Trump was awesome and were jazzed to vote for him from the get-go, then maybe you don’t blame anyone if Biden wins. Maybe you tell yourself Biden was just more awesome than Trump (I’ll hold my breath for that one). Or maybe, though equally unlikely in this timespace, you admit you were wrong about Trump to begin with.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  255. “the Reagan minions push for privatization and profitability of government. You really don’t know what you’re talking about regarding this issue”

    Ehhh, no. You seem to have a basic flaw in your understanding of markets and government. First, governments don’t provide goods and services as well as entrepreneurs in the market. They usually look out for their budgets and institutional interests. Any amount of time in the public sector…and closing out year-end budgets….shows this. Decisions often are made based on political concerns. And when government agencies fail, they’re often rewarded with even more taxpayer dollars. If private companies are inefficient, they go out of business. That’s a strong incentive for private companies to meet market demands efficiently. Yes, people were looking to NASA to run a public space line — taking the lead on deploying anything to space. The reality is that government is not good at doing this….and neither is Amtrak or the post office. NASA should be involved in cutting-edge science and exploration that the private sector is ill-equipped to engage. This is like pushing for Amtrak to take on more commercial service. This is the antithesis of conservative thought on NASA. So NASA with the Challenger needed a political win to fuel a government run commercialization of space. The private sector would have aborted because reputation is everything….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  256. There must be some perfectly innocent reason why Trump & Co. don’t want the FBI to know about foreign efforts to influence our elections. Right?

    Right. Because when the FBI itself uses foreign sources to influence elections, we cheer it on.

    beer ‘n pretzels (334591)

  257. If you blamed Hillary for your vote for the lesser evil Trump, then you should blame Trump for everyone who holds their nose and votes for Biden.

    No, I blame those who think Biden is the lesser evil. Duh.

    beer ‘n pretzels (334591)

  258. So not even a flimsy veneer. I appreciate the candor.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  259. Like the coin collector and russian drunk snorfle

    Narciso (7404b5)

  260. White House steps back from Trump suggestion about delaying the election

    The White House has no plans to try to delay the Nov. 3 election, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday, even as he defended a tweet from President Trump that raised the possibility.

    “We’re going to hold an election on November 3rd, and the president is going to win,” Meadows said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

    Trump’s tweet on Thursday, which set off alarm bells throughout Washington, was merely meant to raise questions about whether a major expansion of mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic could produce fraud or lead to untenable delays in counting votes, Meadows insisted.
    ………..
    Cleaning up after the parade’s gone by……..

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  261. Because when the FBI itself uses foreign sources to influence elections, we cheer it on.

    So the FBI used foreign sources to help get Trump elected? By announcing that HRC was under investigation?
    Or do you mean the stuff that wasn’t made public until after the election?

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  262. Cleaning up after the parade’s gone by……..

    After the Trumpsters tried their best to explain how Trump was bringing up a very serious concern, and how only Trump could have gotten the public to talk about it.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  263. Rip Murdock (46c2ea) — 8/2/2020 @ 11:09 am

    A top official in the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response effort said Sunday there is no evidence that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for the virus, despite President Donald Trump’s continued promotion of the anti-malaria drug.

    In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” administration testing czar Brett Giroir said he could not recommend hydroxychloroquine because trials “do not show any benefit.”

    But these trials tested the wrong thing: hydrozychloroquine late n the disease, and without zinc I think too.

    Chuck Todds tried to get him to say it was dangerous, or perhaps that Trump tweeting about it is dangerous, but he pointed out that hydrozychloroquine was not available without a prescription, and he also didn;t think too many doctors would use it. And all he would say was “So, at this point in time, we don’t recommend that as a treatment” acknowledging that they might reverse themselves again. They insist they are the voice of truth, but also admit that the “truth” may change. And it’s not because they really didn’t know until they changed what they said..

    There are other studies showed it helped. A little. Dr. Zelenko says that, combined with zinc, and the antibiotc (and maybe we really don;t kno if the antibiotic has anything to do with it) it can stamp it out early in the disease. His proof is the low number of patients he saw from Kiryas Joel who died compared to other similar religious Jewish communities. Some of them also Satmar.

    Giroir is not reliable because he also said “We still don’t know about immune plasma, but it has worked in many other circumstances.’ This is also called convalescent fluid.

    IT’S TOTAL NONSENSE THAT WE DON’T KNOW. IT’S JUST NOT BEEN PROVEN BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

    And that only because of exclusionary rules of evidence. By him, and by some many others every medicine is considered innocent until proven guilty. This is not a standard we can afford to live by.

    And Giroir didn’t mention artificial (monoclonal) antibodies at all! Even though it may be ready for use in month of two.

    “We need to move on from that and talk about what is effective,” Giroir, assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services said.

    True but he doesn’t do it because of high standards of evidence. And he doesn’t even mention monoclonal antibodies even as a possibiility.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  264. 227. Ehhh, no….

    Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh, yes. You really don’t know what you’re talking about on this issue.

    But thanks for playing; ignorance is bliss; so stay happy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  265. A bit of a logical contradiction there. He could not have been, because he is constitutionally unable to escape his fundamental selfishness and unwillingness to learn.

    Anyone can learn and change, or inform themselves in order to make better decisions. Reagan did it; we’ve all done it; Trump could have done it. Only his vastly inflated ego stops him.

    “Reaganomics! …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.”

    Speaking of vastly inflated government egos … NASA’s push to launch despite the objections of 10 contractor’s engineers is what killed the Challenger crew.

    DRJ (aede82)

  266. @238 Reaganomics! …is what destroyed the Challenger and killed the crew.

    Yeah, The Gipper said “How can we make that shuttle trickle down?”

    Or maybe not. Or maybe economics had nothing to do with it. “Naive cynicism” isn’t praise.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  267. @266. Except it does; the Reagan minions push for privatization and profitability of government. You really don’t know what you’re talking about regarding this issue. But then ignorance is bliss; stay happy.

    I could as reasonably blame 9/11 on curly light bulbs.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  268. @285-
    I suggest you contact Giroir, Birx, Redfield, and Fauci and tell where they are wrong.

    Go Sammy go!

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  269. To win, Trump must convince more of those that voted for Clinton to vote for him than he has convinced those who voted for him to vote for Biden.

    Is there anyone who believes he has done, or might do this?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  270. It should be a warning sign, when you offer conservatives the choice of communists or Trump, that they find the decision hard.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  271. @291-
    rcocean & NJRob

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  272. No, I blame those who think Biden is the lesser evil. Duh.

    beer ‘n pretzels (334591) — 8/2/2020 @ 2:04 pm

    🍦

    Dustin (4237e0)

  273. Rip, I don’t think they really do. Just like Baghdad Bob didn’t really think that Saddam was going to crush the Americans. They just don’t see their line of retreat.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  274. No, I blame those who think Biden is the lesser evil. Duh.

    Why are you not blaming the fukwits who saddled YOUR side with an evil that is arguably the greater one?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  275. Also, DCSCA, today’s spashdown happened in the SpaceX Dragon. That is a private company. Space never belonged solely to NASA but Reagan envisioned space as a place for national security, commercial, and civil goals — with a role for government and private interests. That happened today.

    DRJ (aede82)

  276. Reagan envisioned private companies having a larger role in America than the Democrats did — and made it happen — and the current crop of Democrats sees their chance. It’s too bad that Bozo the Clown is running “our” side.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  277. Yes, but one step forward met with a big step back: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-rocks-the-us-not-so-much-according-to-elon-musk-2020-08-02

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  278. artificial (monoclonal) antibodies at all! Even though it may be ready for use in month of two.

    Several months ago, I noted that there had been success in using plasma derived anti-bodies against the disease, and I asked why they could not use that to create artificial antibodies. Someone here said it was difficult and would take a long time.

    Sammy, what is the status of creating artificial antibodies, perhaps cloning those in plasma from those who recovered from the disease? That strikes me as a fertile ground for research, but I have heard little about it.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  279. According to the NIH (https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/05/21/enlisting-monoclonal-antibodies-in-the-fight-against-covid-19/)as of May 2020:

    the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) partnership, which has brought together public and private sector COVID-19 therapeutic and vaccine efforts, is intensely pursuing the development and testing of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for COVID-19 [4]. Stay tuned for more information about these potentially significant advances in the next few months.

    So far, no updates though.

    Bored Lawyer (56c962)

  280. It’s too bad that Bozo the Clown is running “our” side.

    What is this “our” side? From what I’ve read in this thread, you’ve made your choice. I’ve made a choice to do what I can – money, time, anything needed only gated by my ability to provide – to help make sure another Democrat does not sit in the Oval Office in my lifetime.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  281. You see I take what ALL of these Democrats say seriously… they say they want to transform America and they’ve never been more forthright and honest about their plans. They’ve gone so far as to demonstrate what some of these plans will entail through their race-baiting, rioting, looting, burning, etc.

    No thanks.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  282. Trump’s October Surprise
    …….
    Donald Trump, knowing he’d lose if the election was held today, wants one of those October Surprises so he can beat Biden over the head with it.
    ……
    Besides, every time he has said a word about this subject, it’s generated headlines. Writers and journalists spend days and weeks analyzing what he meant. He doesn’t have to Tweet to amplify this message, it spreads more efficiently than Covid.

    …….[T]hrow the entire UFO issue into the upcoming presidential election at the last minute in a wild attempt to deflect, distract and scare enough people to win the election.
    ……..
    Trump can’t help but notice that whenever he has spoken about UFO topics, he generates waves of headlines and coverage that makes him look like a guy in the know. That dynamic has given us Trump ……..recently doing a Father’s Day interview with Don Jr. where the Commander-in-Chief of all of the United States Armed Forces said what he knew about Roswell was “very interesting.”
    …….
    ……. If there is a threat to us from ET or whoever, then other countries will rally around the U.S. because we have the best weapons, and the American people will keep him in office because they know he’ll be tougher than Biden.
    ……..
    …….. Here’s just one example: It’s Thursday, October 22 at Belmont University in Nashville.
    Donald Trump and Joe Biden step on the debate stage for the third and final time. The last two meetings have been memorable for plain old strange zeitgeist weirdness, but both sides will think their guy won hands down.

    Trump knows he’s going to say something, doesn’t want to over-rehearse, wants to play it by ear. At some point, he’s going to just come out and say it: aliens are real, UFOs are real, it could be bad, but he’s got it handled. This requires somebody with guts, you can’t let a wuss like Biden deal with these creatures.

    Biden, hit with this broadside, may literally have no response. The subject will not have come up in debate prep. Yet there it will be. Just him and a crazy President on stage together, and the crazy President just said that he thinks we have an alien problem, and doesn’t think Biden is tough enough to handle it.
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  283. Rip Taylor says impeach him now for Future Crimes!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  284. Getting those hopes up aint you, Rip? Your biotch hillary was winning as well. lmmfao.

    mg (8cbc69)

  285. One has to be delighted that 5.1 million tuned in to watch TB12 hit golf balls into the woods compared to the few that watch political baseball or basketball.

    mg (8cbc69)

  286. Trump knows he’s going to say something, doesn’t want to over-rehearse, wants to play it by ear. At some point, he’s going to just come out and say it: aliens are real, UFOs are real, it could be bad, but he’s got it handled. This requires somebody with guts, you can’t let a wuss like Biden deal with these creatures.

    is it wrong that I want to see this?

    Dustin (4237e0)

  287. @307-
    As I said here in the past, I didn’t vote for President in 2016 nor will I in 2020.

    Your disguised vulgarity didn’t go unnoticed, mg. But then again as a Trump supporter I am not surprised. He speaks the same toward women.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  288. I want to see it too, Dustin.

    Dana (292df6)

  289. You a jehova witness, Rip?

    mg (8cbc69)

  290. Even more unifying would invading Nazis from the moon.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  291. no cog joe won’t make it to the finals, he will be in a old folks home first.

    mg (8cbc69)

  292. @312-
    No, but I try to treat everyone with respect. Even you.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  293. @314-
    We’ll see.

    Rip Murdock (46c2ea)

  294. Only his vastly inflated ego stops him.

    So why doesn’t he rise above his vastly inflated ago?
    A: Because he is constitutionally unable to. If the weight of the presidency hasn’t lifted him above his egocentrism, nothing will. If it hasn’t made him realize he should read his daily briefings and listen to people who know things he doesn’t, nothing will.

    His mental capacity to absorb new information is also in doubt. Insiders have remarked on his very short attention span, on the need to give him illustrated briefings with this name peppered throughout to get his attention, and on his tendency to waste briefing sessions by bloviating about himself and his grievances.

    “He could have been another Reagan but he doesn’t have the ability” is basically a textbook case of a logical contradiction. He could not be what he lacks the ability to be. Period.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  295. 318

    “He could have been another Reagan but he doesn’t have the ability” is basically a textbook case of a logical contradiction. He could not be what he lacks the ability to be. Period.

    The technical formulation for that is, “if my grandmother had balls she’d be my grandfather.”

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  296. You do realize that UFOs are simply time machines; exploratory probes from our future.

    So rest easy Righties an Lefties; the planet survives Trump. 😉

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  297. never could fly with angels, Rip.

    mg (8cbc69)

  298. 317,

    Your comment perplexes me. We have had brilliant Presidents, dolts, and everything in between. They all managed to decide how to govern for their own reasons, and so does Trump. Trump is not retarded or brain-damaged. I have one of those in my life and believe me when I tell you that, unlike my brain-damaged family member, Trump could change but doesn’t want to. He made his choice to put himself and his family first in every decision. He did not have to do that but he did, and it was his ego and greed that made it happen, not his intellect.

    DRJ (aede82)

  299. My paisans understand whats at stake
    https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2020/08/01/louisville-cuban-community-rally-support-la-bodeguita-de-mima/5562669002/

    There is nowhere to go after this place falls,

    Narciso (7404b5)

  300. DRJ,

    you think Trump wouldn’t have made more money avoiding politics than running and winning the presidency?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  301. 318
    I could have been tall if I weren’t so short.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  302. DRJ,

    you think Trump wouldn’t have made more money avoiding politics than running and winning the presidency?

    I’m not DRJ, but very probably not. It took him fifty years to find the right snake oil to sell to the right rubes. Before that, he was living on debt, running out of credit, and on the edge of bankruptcy.

    nk (1d9030)

  303. @28.Yeah, he did. Newtie and His Blowfish were pushing profitability and privatization all over the government–particularly the civil space effort at NASA and the USPS.[Gingrich wanted to disband NASA.] Ronnie’s OMB led to the disaster by pressing them to keep flying. You can’t run an R&D organization by cutting margins like a grocery store chain. An BTW, he wasn’t the Gipper. George Gipp was.

    ________

    Speaking of vastly inflated government egos … NASA’s push to launch despite the objections of 10 contractor’s engineers is what killed the Challenger crew.

    And NASA managers were pressed to keeps the shuttles flying by the Reagan privatization and profitability minion at his OMB. Hell, to keep schedule NASA managers were literally forced to cannibalize orbiters for parts tomeet schedule pressures. It’s all in the report. Reagan’s minions wanted to run shuttle like TWA–or a grocery store chain. They were wrong.

    298.Also, DCSCA, today’s spashdown happened in the SpaceX Dragon. That is a private company. Space never belonged solely to NASA but Reagan envisioned space as a place for national security, commercial, and civil goals — with a role for government and private interests. That happened today.

    Actually, Arthur C. Clarke, not Reagan, envisioned what is transpiring in his epilogue to the 1970 book, First On The Moon.

    But you might want to double-check the date on that ‘directive’ as it was piped out in the wake of the reshuffling after the Challenger accident report was issued, the decision by DoD to cease being a prime customer for shuttle and return to using expendable LVs for space ops and DoD literally abandoning the multi-billion dollar shuttle launch complex, which was nearly operational, at Vandenberg AFB in CA [for polar orbit spysat ops BTW]. And, of course, a directive dated 2/88 [six-plus months before the STS-26 established the return to flight status for shuttle] ramping up through budget deliberations was pretty much void by 11/88 anyway. The Reagan policy made shuttle its own destination. Once Bush space policy was established– and if you know your space history– the Reagan space station– then nicknamed ‘Freedom’– was redesigned many times forcing delays and expense as it became a Cold War boondoggle, given it was to be chiefly financed by U.S. taxpayers– and was not a popular project w/Congress, the public [even I opposed it] nor many in HSF management– who considered it nothing more than a make-work project to subsidize aerospace firms. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the USSR only accelerated that POV and made any rationale for the expense that much harder. Quayle headed the space council and saved station by a vote.

    This country spends a yuggggggggge amount of money on space ops and has several space programs- most only know the civil space agency, NASA– and the NASA budget is meager compared to the services, the intel agencies and the alphabet agencies operating w/t dark budget crowd.

    These days, it is best to remember that as far as civil space ops goes, SpaceX successfully lobbied for- and has been heavily subsidized by– government financing: the taxpayer. A big boost came from the Obama stimulus package for launch facility refurbishment- and, of course, though modified, SpaceX did not have to pay for nor construct the launch and support facilities they make use of at the Kennedy Space Center– like LC-39A; American taxpayers paid for it. And U.S. gov’t recovery forces were on stand-by as this flight was contracted by NASA. Quarterly driven, private enterprised firms simply cannot make HSF ops profitable w/o government as a customer. The ROI is nil for private investors; hence investors sink their $ into oil wells or gold mines–or Facebook. The largess of the capital investment needed is still too high. That’s why governments do it. And that’s why NASA, w/budgets flat, contracts out routine LEO ops to firms like SpaceX so they can concentrate on BEO ops. Remember the Pan Am shuttle Orion, the HoJo restaurant and Hilton Hotel in Kubrick’s vision of Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? PanAm and HoJo eateries may be gone in 2020, but the concepts portrayed in 2001 remain valid.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  304. Trump could change but doesn’t want to. He made his choice to put himself and his family first in every decision

    My observation of Trump tells me — and many other people — that he doesn’t even recognize the difference between what is good for Trump and what is good morally, or between what flatters himself and what is true. That is why he is unashamed to make public statements that sound so morally bankrupt to a normal person — statements that his apologists tell us we shouldn’t take literally, because they are so embarrassing. And why he was unembarrassed to make that ridiculous Sharpie loop on a weather map — because in his mind that transparent absurdity was better than saying “I made an error.”

    He evidently doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with being extraordinarily self-centered and insistent on his infallibility, because that’s the lens through which he sees the world. Whether that is innate, or cultivated by Fred Sr., it’s who he is.

    I’m not saying this to excuse him, in a “poor Don, he can’t help it” sort of way — even if, at bottom, he cannot be a different person. He’s past the point in life where any significant change might even be hoped for. The point is: his psychological makeup is unsuitable to such a position of responsibility.

    Obviously he had some abstract or superficial notion of helping the American people and being a patriotic servant — enough to mouth some slogans. But I don’t believe he was thinking “Now that I’ve duped people into hailing me as a selfless, compassionate super-patriot, I’m going to be very self-serving in office! And when people criticize me for it, I’ll just keeping being selfish.”

    Why would someone who so craves adulation choose to behave in ways that draw so much scorn? The answer is: because he doesn’t understand how anything he does could possibly be worthy of scorn or blame. That is the way to reconcile his obsession with whether people approve of him and his frequently absurd and obnoxious behavior.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  305. he doesn’t understand how anything he does could possibly be worthy of scorn or blame. That is the way to reconcile his obsession with whether people approve of him and his frequently absurd and obnoxious behavior.

    This, with the caveat that I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt of him actually trying to reconcile anything because he doesn’t see his behavior as absurd or obnoxious or out of line. He wonders what is wrong with everyone else because he is always right in his own eyes (and they are wrong). That is typical of people who lack a functioning moral compass. Their actions are the standard. In his mid-70’s and more than half-a-century of being this way, and I suspect it’s become increasingly worse over the years, this is Trump being Trump. This is who he has always been.

    Dana (292df6)

  306. I just took a walk in my pleasant little section of Reno. Just at the end of my walk I noticed that my neighbors two houses down (a couple of delightful women who I’m fairly sure are lesbians, and I know are Democrats, because I researched my whole street recently online) had hung up a “Biden 2020” banner on their front eave. Hanging right next to it was a full-size skeleton (which I think has been there since Halloween).

    I guess the irony hasn’t occurred to them. 🙂

    norcal (a5428a)

  307. artificial (monoclonal) antibodies at all! Even though it may be ready for use in month of two.

    301. Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 8/2/2020 @ 3:51 pm

    Several months ago, I noted that there had been success in using plasma derived anti-bodies against the disease, and I asked why they could not use that to create artificial antibodies. Someone here said it was difficult and would take a long time.

    The reason they couldn’t use it was it wasn’t set up, and also they needed approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and you are very careful about getting ahead of yoursekf if you want approval from the FDA..

    No it wouuln’t take along time. It;s much much faster than a vaccine.

    Sammy, what is the status of creating artificial antibodies, perhaps cloning those in plasma from those who recovered from the disease? That strikes me as a fertile ground for research, but I have heard little about it.

    Icn look it up. There’s plenty about it, but it usually comes either from a pure research perspective or with a business or company focus.

    Research was done very early/ Example:

    https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/llama-antibody-engineered-block-coronavirus

    On June 11. Eli Lilly said it could bw ready by the fall

    https://www.biospace.com/article/eli-lilly-chief-scientist-thinks-covid-19-antibody-treatment-ready-by-september

    On Monday, Eli Lilly and Company announced that its partner Junshi Biosciences had dosed the first healthy volunteer in a clinical trial of a neutralizing antibody against COVID-19. The company is testing a second antibody to test and is conducting preclinical studies of a third antibody. In an interview with Reuters, the company’s Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skovronsky said the third antibody could possibly begin human trials in the new few weeks. But the statement that got everyone more excited was when he indicated one of the antibodies might be available for use by September.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  308. More of a scarecrow but same principle.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  309. So where are we now?

    https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/eli-lilly-starts-mid-stage-study-of-covid-19-treatment-636908

    Eli Lilly and Co on Thursday said it plans to test its experimental coronavirus therapy in studies meant to secure regulatory approval, even before the company has seen data on how effective it may be.

    The company said its experimental antibody treatment, LY-CoV555 being developed with Canadian biotech AbCellera has moved into mid-stage testing and that it was planning final-stage human trials in the coming weeks.

    Lilly expects efficacy data from the mid-stage trial in the fourth quarter of the year.

    The ready date seems to have been pushed off to November or DecemberL

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-07-30/lilly-aims-to-produce-100k-virus-antibody-doses-by-year-end-cfo-video Eli Lilly Chief Financial Officer Joshua Smiley says the drugmaker expects to start registratrion trials of its coronavirus antibody treatment “within the next few weeks” and to produce 100,000 doses of a successful therapeutic by the end of 2020. He speaks on “Bloomberg Markets: European Close.” (Source: Bloomberg)

    That’s Ell Lilly.

    What about other companies?

    There’s a race.

    https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/07/28/will-regeneron-help-win-the-fight-against-covid-19.aspx

    https://endpts.com/covid-19-roundup-can-eli-lilly-have-an-antibody-ready-as-quickly-as-regeneron-dan-skovronsky-says-its-not-unreasonable

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  310. Sometimes clinical trial recruiting causes a news story to bre written

    https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20200729/sarasota-memorial-hospital-expands-covid-19-antibody-trial

    Patients recovering at home can now join the trial of the cocktail that “completely obliterated the coronavirus” in earlier tests, a doctor says.

    A clinical trial means there is a 50% chance of getting a placebo.

    To participate in the trial, you must have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past two days and experienced at least one symptom within the past five days. Participants who meet the criteria will be screened by the SMH research team and, if approved, randomly chosen to receive a single intravenous treatment (infusion) of either the antibody cocktail or a placebo the same day or next day. They then return home with ongoing monitoring and standardized care. Researchers will follow up with phone calls, and nurses will collect nasopharyngeal and blood samples to document how the virus is progressing.

    For somebody who didn’t get sick enough to get into the hospital already recovering it may not make too much of a difference, but “Science” must have its human sacrifices also.

    There are also other easier ways of getting antibodies. It can be breathed in or they can use the pad pf tiny needles developed at the University of Pittsburgh. But they probably think, let’s just do usually do one innovation at a time, and different people hold the patents.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  311. What is this “our” side? From what I’ve read in this thread, you’ve made your choice.

    I never said that any of the Trumpist sycophants were on “our” side.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  312. Trump is not on “our” side. He is simply making sure than the Communists win. He could not throw this election more than he is. And so many fools are cheering him on.

    The. Emperor. Has. No. Clothes.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  313. Bored Lawyer,

    I think using convalescent plasma for Covid-19 only works (if it works at all) when given before the patients get very sick. It is basically IVIG taken from one person. IVIG can certainly help patients but it is not a cure for anything.

    DRJ (aede82)

  314. By the way, taking a vaccine for anything seems to help the body fight coronavirus

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/health/coronavirus-vaccines.html

    Now a study suggests that people who have received certain routine vaccines in the recent past — including childhood vaccinations like measles-mumps-rubella and polio, as well as adult flu vaccines — have lower coronavirus infection rates than those not recently vaccinated….

    ….The researchers analyzed the immunization records of 137,037 patients who had been tested for infection with the coronavirus, comparing matched pairs of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients who were otherwise similar.

    Patients had lower infection rates if they had recently been given the high-dose flu vaccine or had been vaccinated against polio, measles-mumps-rubella, chickenpox, pneumococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B, or haemophilus influenzae Type B, compared with those who had not received those vaccines in recent years.

    The level of risk reduction varied, depending on the vaccine and on how recently the individual had been vaccinated. But generally, the childhood vaccinations were linked to a greater reduction in coronavirus infection than the high-dose flu vaccine given to elderly individuals…

    This would work by stimukating the immune system. It would probably be important not to get infected by the coronavirus until some time had passed since the vaccination. But not too much time.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  315. to help make sure another Democrat does not sit in the Oval Office in my lifetime.

    But Trump IS a Democrat. He’s just running against Communists. There are no Republicans running. Near as I can tell he never planned on winning the nomination, and he never planned on winning the election. He was just incapable of throwing it against Hillary. Incompetent at diving, along with everything else. This time, he’s up against a mannequin, who will just sit silently while Trump self destructs.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  316. I ask you this: picture the irrational, impulsive, possibly deranged Trump as commander-in-chief in a major war. If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  317. Interesting, Sammy. I wonder if this is the reason children aren’t affected so much by Covid.

    norcal (a5428a)

  318. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-convalescent-plasma-covid-treatment-clinical.html

    Beginning in the late 1800s, German and Japanese scientists found that when they injected horses, goats, and other barnyard residents with toxins produced by the bacteria that caused diphtheria and tetanus, the resulting antibody-rich antiserum could be purified and used to treat or prevent a range of infectious diseases. Although the antibodies (immune proteins that neutralize pathogens) provided only temporary protection, the work was so lifesaving and revolutionary that one of its creators, Emil von Behring, received the first-ever Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1901. (The work of his collaborator, Japanese scientist Kitasato Shibasaburō, was not formally recognized until recently….

    ….The development of antibiotics largely made convalescent plasma obsolete, but when new infectious diseases popped up that no one could treat, the treatment was dusted off and hauled out. Desperate physicians used the plasma to treat Ebola, SARS, and MERS, and a variety of anecdotes showed both safety and efficacy. So when COVID-19 came knocking, Casadevall knew immediately that the strategy would be worth trying—and testing. (In fact, researchers in China had begun piloting use of convalescent plasma in patients in late January.)

    ….But Casadevall knew that convalescent plasma, like any therapy, was less likely to be successful in the sickest patients. At that stage of illness, early reports from China showed that much of the physical damage was caused by the immune system itself, not the virus, something that convalescent plasma can’t reverse. While he believed the plasma could help—the scientific literature had more than a few near-miraculous deathbed recoveries from the treatment—he knew that the therapy’s promise lay more in its ability to prevent the onset of severe illness or to prevent symptoms completely than as a cure for advanced disease.

    The problem was where to get enough plasma for all the patients who needed it. Shoham knew the coronavirus had ravaged New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community and reached out to a friend, Chaim Lebovits, to ask for help. [These were not people treated by Dr. Zelenko I assume but I don;t know for certain. Dr Zelenko’s pate=ients came from Kiryas Joel]

    ….The work has proved so popular that the American Red Cross has begun testing all donated blood for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Blood that has high levels of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies will be shunted to coronavirus treatment. It’s a testament to the value of Casadevall’s idea that tens of thousands of people have already received convalescent plasma as the world’s largest biotech companies (including, ironically, CSL Behring, named in honor of convalescent plasma’s first proponent) scramble to find an effective therapy.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  319. IVIG is a blood product that is used to treat many diseases, including primary immune disorders and autoimmune diseases. It does not cure diseases but it can be a good treatment. IVIG has a half-life of 28 days, on average. The normal IVIG is made from the blood of thousands of donors, so it has many different kinds of antibodies. Eventually Covid antibodies will show up in the IVIG products but it may take years for there to be enough to matter.

    For now, doctors are using plasma from recovered patients. In my town, some local patients have donated plasma that worked well. Other plasma from San Antonio didn’t work as well. Could it be that there are different strains in different places? We don’t know. But it is likely the plasma only works for about 28 days.

    DRJ (aede82)

  320. Some vaccines for other diseases decrease the probability of getting sick, but some hurt:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/health/coronavirus-vaccines.html

    Patients had lower infection rates if they had recently been given the high-dose flu vaccine or had been vaccinated against polio, measles-mumps-rubella, chickenpox, pneumococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B, or haemophilus influenzae Type B, compared with those who had not received those vaccines in recent years.,,,

    ….And some vaccines, if received five years before the study began, were tied to higher coronavirus infection rates, including the human papillomavirus vaccine and the one against typhoid, as well as the meningococcal vaccine.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  321. I never said that any of the Trumpist sycophants were on “our” side.

    Gotcha… you’re going to vote for Biden. That’s your choice.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  322. Wow were not talking the white rabbit but spiny norman the giant hedgehog.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  323. 344/ First question: Do they mix plasma from different patients?

    Every patient develops hos own antibodies. And yes, the level declines with time.

    I had the thought they should take plasma from people successfully immunized by vaccination.

    The reason it may not much help the sickest patients is that the sickest patients have another problem other than the amount of virus.,

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  324. He’s just running against Communists.

    Dude.

    Dave (1bb933)

  325. Dr. Zelenko says that, combined with zinc, and the antibiotc (and maybe we really don;t kno if the antibiotic has anything to do with it) it can stamp it out early in the disease.

    Dr. Zelenko has credibility issues, Sammy, including his assertions about its prophylactic qualities, and it probably explains all his FoxNews appearances.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  326. @331. I guess the irony hasn’t occurred to them. 🙂

    Banner & Skeleton! It’s a ‘Gaffe Package.’ Latest gimmick since the Spiro Agnew Wristwatch- the one with the hands that ran backwards.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  327. I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt of him actually trying to reconcile anything

    I meant: that’s how we the observers can reconcile what otherwise looks like diametrically opposed tendencies in one person.

    His warped psychology is no doubt partly innate; he was apparently a bully from an early age. And then Fred Sr. rewarded his worst tendencies, because Fred wanted his heir to be “tough” and unapologetic at all times. As his niece tells it, the whole family indulged and rewarded his selfishness and cruelty. Trump learned that being a jerk was the way to get ahead, and get his father’s approval. And for whatever reason, people in business indulged and rewarded his worst character traits.

    What I find more baffling is how a large part of the electorate — including people who used to write and speak about the importance of character — chose to frame every Trump vice as a virtue that’s indispensable to the cause of righteousness and truth.

    Just as baffling, or maybe more so, is how many otherwise smart people appear to be perfectly comfortable with Trump’s absurdity.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  328. He did not have to do that but he did, and it was his ego and greed that made it happen, not his intellect.

    I do have questions about his intellect, DRJ, but I don’t know if it’s age-related or if he’s really a thick-headed dolt. He does not seem able to process new information or information that does not align with the fantasies running through his head. If he has trouble dealing with new facts, then that speaks to his low intelligence. If he can’t deal with facts that contradict his inner storylines, then that’s ego or self-delusion or both.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  329. Prediction: the Democrats will show as much grace, class and patriotism when Trump wins in November as they did after Hillary Clinton got her ass handed to her in 2016.

    Maybe even more.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  330. Will Saletan takes Pelosi and the NYT to task for their criticism of Dr. Birx. Good stuff.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  331. Just as baffling, or maybe more so, is how many otherwise smart people appear to be perfectly comfortable with Trump’s absurdity.

    Radegunda (e1ea47) — 8/2/2020 @ 8:51 pm

    Here is a possible demystifier:

    “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

    Leo Tolstoy

    norcal (a5428a)

  332. Dave, if the dems aren’t radical commies (and I realize a lot of them aren’t), they should repudiate that stuff. I’m not seeing it. 64 days of them shutting down intersections in my town is a lot of radicalism. The list of demands is lengthy and some of it seems pretty hard core.

    At a certain point, the party should tell us what it is about, the presidential candidate should fill in the blanks. Biden seems to be having trouble making a decision about his VP, let alone telling us he opposes radical tactics or whatever this approach to public safety is that we’re seeing.

    I ain’t a Trump fan but I can’t just pretend Biden’s not the leader of the left in the USA at this time. And I can’t just pretend he’s doing a bad job. If the GOP could just think about what it’s doing, keeping Trump on the ticket. All these fears about what could happen next year should warrant a serious decision about Trump.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  333. Gotcha… you’re going to vote for Biden. That’s your choice.

    If Trump is the nominee for the Republican Party, there is only one sane person running (and it isn’t Trump). I vote for sanity. You’d have to be insane to do otherwise.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  334. There’s no way, short of Trump voluntarily stepping down, to remove Trump from the ticket. Yes, Mitch could lead a rabble of Republicans to the White House, and give Trump an offer he can’t refuse, but that would virtually guarantee a Republican defeat in November, because Trump’s rabid base would likely just boycott the election. Their devotion is more to the man than conservative principles.

    norcal (a5428a)

  335. when Trump wins in November

    Whistling past the graveyard.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  336. Dude.

    You have a better description for their “progressive” wing?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  337. Dustin, the GOO has had three plus years to see the train wreck of Trump and his presidency, and yet they still kept him on the ticket. Frankly, it clearly doesn’t matter to them what kind of man he is, or what he does. This isn’t about who the best candidate for the presidency would be, and who would coalesce the Party and draw in the most voters. This is about who will provide them continued access to the sort of unfettered power they want. A moral and principled president who has foundational principles undergirding him would be far less likely to let things go unchecked.

    Dana (292df6)

  338. Heh. GOP, not GOO. But if the shoe fits…

    Dana (292df6)

  339. A narcissist can’t conceive of rejection and resists giving up until there is no other option. A dolt would not know when to give up. Trump does give up when he has to, thus his bankruptcies and court cases/settlements. His bully persona is he never loses but he has been a party in thousands of court cases in business, as campaigner and as President. Why don’t people care? Because he has so much stuff like this in his history that it has become noise.

    DRJ (aede82)

  340. the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already,

    My theory is that some people think it’s super-smart to assert the truth of what looks obviously ridiculous to people of lesser intelligence.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  341. Because he has so much stuff like this in his history that it has become noise.

    “That’s just Trump being Trump.” He’s so consistently awful that it becomes a rationale to indulge his awfulness.

    Radegunda (e1ea47)

  342. Dustin, the GOO has had three plus years to see the train wreck of Trump and his presidency, and yet they still kept him on the ticket. Frankly, it clearly doesn’t matter to them what kind of man he is, or what he does. This isn’t about who the best candidate for the presidency would be, and who would coalesce the Party and draw in the most voters. This is about who will provide them continued access to the sort of unfettered power they want. A moral and principled president who has foundational principles undergirding him would be far less likely to let things go unchecked.

    Dana (292df6) — 8/2/2020 @ 9:56 pm

    you would think at a certain point, even selfish politicians and other leaders, who are willing to break any principle, would pragmatically realize that the problems we face are too serious. The damage going on right now is actually an opportunity, though. Slumlords are eagerly awaiting landlords going out of business in my town (where you cannot evict even after a very lengthy time with no rent, and a lot of people can’t pay rent). Stocks going up and down really favors the folks who have better information and analysis. Their increased wealth will largely come from middle class investors.

    And who can forget the clickbaity 24 hour news cycle and social media outrage content. Those guys are doing fantastic with bad societal outcomes.

    you’d think these guys who sober up a bit if things get really bad, but they don’t seem to see it that way.

    And I realize Kevin’s right. As bad as Biden may be, he is sane. It is not going to be an existential crisis for our country if he’s elected. I find Biden thoroughly unimpressive, but his tacit support is really a lack of vision and leadership, not a sinister plot.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  343. Dave, if the dems aren’t radical commies (and I realize a lot of them aren’t), they should repudiate that stuff. I’m not seeing it. 64 days of them shutting down intersections in my town is a lot of radicalism. The list of demands is lengthy and some of it seems pretty hard core.

    There’s no high-level leadership of BLM. The list of demands is lengthy because they’re written by a committees of hundreds or thousands trying to outdo each other in wokeness. And Communists were big fans of police – and state power in general – last time I checked.

    At a certain point, the party should tell us what it is about, the presidential candidate should fill in the blanks. Biden seems to be having trouble making a decision about his VP, let alone telling us he opposes radical tactics or whatever this approach to public safety is that we’re seeing.

    ‘Arsonists And Anarchists Should Be Prosecuted’: Biden Responds To Protests

    Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Tuesday that law enforcement should protect “peaceful protesters,” while “arsonists and anarchists” should face legal prosecution.

    […]

    “I’ve said from the outset of the recent protests that there’s no place for violence or destruction of property,” Biden said. “Peaceful protesters should be protected and arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted, and local law enforcement can do that.”

    […]

    “We need leadership that will calm the waters and lower the temperature,” Biden said. “That’s how we’ll restore peace in the streets.”

    That was last Wednesday. And I think he makes an excellent point that convincing the protestors that the federal government and the president aren’t their enemy is necessary. But since it’s at odds with Trump’s political needs, he works to achieve the opposite.

    I ain’t a Trump fan but I can’t just pretend Biden’s not the leader of the left in the USA at this time. And I can’t just pretend he’s doing a bad job. If the GOP could just think about what it’s doing, keeping Trump on the ticket. All these fears about what could happen next year should warrant a serious decision about Trump.

    Communists also tend to be pretty keen on centralized, iron-fisted leadership and discipline. But the BLM protests are extremely de-centralized. While the protestors in different cities communicate, there is no national leadership or specific agenda to engage with, as far as I can see. Pelosi, Schumer and Biden certainly aren’t calling the tune.

    Dave (1bb933)

  344. You have a better description for their “progressive” wing?

    When it looked like that wing was in danger of winning the presidential nomination, it took the rest of the party about a weekend to secure the nomination for the least progressive candidate in the race.

    The Democrats – including Biden – talk about a lot of dumb policies. Some could be considered watered-down and/or recycled socialism (i.e. redistributionist), although they aren’t really any more radical in spirit than the programs of the New Deal or the Great Society.

    Words mean things, and Communism refers to a very specific historical phenomenon. Labelling any measurable fraction of the national Democrats communist just seems silly.

    Dave (1bb933)

  345. Being an anarchist is not a criminal offense. Neither is being a communist or trump supporter.

    asset (e0d979)

  346. Being an anarchist is not a criminal offense. Neither is being a communist or trump supporter.

    “This is the Central Scrutinizer … it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven’t been passed yet …” – Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage

    Dave (1bb933)

  347. There are self-identified nazis in this country, and for the most part they support… no… they LOVE Donald Trump. Still, as despicable a person as Trump is, and as historically unfit for office as he is, he’s not a nazi. Being loved by nazis, saying things nazis love, even saying some of the same things nazis say isn’t enough to make someone a nazi. Words have meaning, and Trump is not a nazi.

    There are also self-identified communists in this country, and for the most part they detest Joe Biden. They consider him ideologically indistinguishable from Trump, Pence, Cruz, you name it. There’s a long list of things wrong with Biden. He’s a mind-numbingly unexceptional thinker, politician and leader. I’ve never heard him express an interesting or original thought. He’s a craven panderer. In short, we deserve so much better for president of the most powerful, important country on the planet. But communist? Because some of the people he panders to are Che-shirt wearing idiots? That’s multiple degrees of separation further from communism than Trump is from nazism, and Trump isn’t a nazi. Words have meaning, and Biden is not a communist.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  348. There are self-identified nazis in this country, and for the most part they support… no… they LOVE Donald Trump. Still, as despicable a person as Trump is, and as historically unfit for office as he is, he’s not a nazi. Being loved by nazis, saying things nazis love, even saying some of the same things nazis say isn’t enough to make someone a nazi. Words have meaning, and Trump is not a nazi.

    Correct. He’s more of a Nazi sympathizer.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  349. Horacio,

    If it is war, what are the war aims?

    Appalled (1a17de)

  350. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cdc-director-acknowledges-hospitals-have-a-monetary-incentive-to-overcount-coronavirus-deaths

    U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield agreed that some hospitals have a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths as they do deaths for other diseases.

    “I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes, too. Really, in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement,” Redfield said during a House panel hearing Friday when asked by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer about potential “perverse incentives.”

    Stating the obvious.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  351. The Nazis and the communists, 2 sides of the same coin, needed to defeat the existing power structure to put in place their own. That is exactly what BLM has done as has antifa in their no-go zones. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality.

    The democrat party has been wholly absorbed by the communist party. They promised they would do so over time and have done so.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  352. https://www.bookwormroom.com/2020/08/02/america-is-engaged-in-a-religious-war/

    We should have realized a long time ago that the battle raging across America, in its streets and its cultural institutions, is a Holy War. In some ways, the first shot fired was the universal ridicule from the left when Tim Tebow kneeled before God at football games. Just a short time later, that same leftist establishment was exultant when Colin Kaepernick “took a knee” during the “Star-Spangled Banner,” not as a sign of respect but as a form of insult.

    Marxism, after all, is a doctrine of faith just as surely as the traditional Judeo-Christian religion is. What Kaepernick did was the American equivalent of tearing the crucifixes off the walls in Catholic Churches during the 17th-Century wars of Reformation in Europe.

    While Marxism is deeply hostile to traditional religion, it has all the hallmarks of a religious belief system, even though it lacks a divinity at its center.

    Read the rest.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  353. Intresting headline from the WSJ With No Federal Agents on Streets, Portland Protests Turn Largely Peaceful.

    A major (maybe the major) Right leaning newspaper is helping cement the narative that the excessive violence was the fault of the federal troops.

    The text of the article is far more nuanced.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  354. The Nazis and the communists, 2 sides of the same coin, needed to defeat the existing power structure to put in place their own. That is exactly what BLM has done as has antifa in their no-go zones. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality.

    The democrat party has been wholly absorbed by the communist party. They promised they would do so over time and have done so.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:06 am

    If this were True why did a centrist democrat win the nomination over many for more liberal candidates? Several of those candidates were personally far more popular than Biden. Why does the short list for his VP pick include multiple centrist Dems? I know what you’re afraid of, but it doesn’t align with the available evidence.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  355. https://nypost.com/2020/08/02/there-have-now-been-more-nyc-shootings-this-year-than-in-all-of-2019/

    Why does leftist control make an area more violent and less safe?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  356. He’s not centrist unless you consider AOC to be centrist since he’s taking her ideas and all the far left’s platforms and adopting them as his own.

    But you knew that already Time, so why are you pretending otherwise?

    He was chosen so people could claim he was a centrist while enacting a far left agenda.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  357. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cdc-director-acknowledges-hospitals-have-a-monetary-incentive-to-overcount-coronavirus-deaths

    U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield agreed that some hospitals have a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths as they do deaths for other diseases.

    “I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes, too. Really, in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement,” Redfield said during a House panel hearing Friday when asked by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer about potential “perverse incentives.”

    Stating the obvious.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:04 am

    Also obvious is the vastly increased number of deaths from all causes.

    This data doesn’t depend on classification or financial incentives. It’s JUST the total number of people that have died. Latest few data points are artificially low so keep that in mind. CDC estimate is 150,000-200,000 more people have died this year than would be expected.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  358. He was chosen so people could claim he was a centrist while enacting a far left agenda.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:18 am

    When you say “chosen” do you mean by the primary voters?

    Time123 (dba73f)

  359. Nah. By the media and the left. But you know this already. The big scam is claiming he’s more electable by calling him a moderate. To get the squishy middle to vote for him. Same lies used to elect Obama who then severely damaged our healthcare system.

    Radical leftists run the democrat party. Look at the show trial they engaged in while “interrogating” AG Barr. Where are your remarks about that disgrace?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  360. https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/08/louisville-ky-cuban-community-rallies-in-support-of-cuban-restaurant-after-blm-issues-list-of-demands/

    The demands and an attached contract, which were created by local organizers and activists, ask NuLu business owners to:

    Adequately represent the Black population of Louisville by having a minimum of 23% Black staff;
    Purchase a minimum of 23% inventory from Black retailers or make a recurring monthly donation of 1.5% of net sales to a local Black nonprofit or organization;
    Require diversity and inclusion training for all staff members on a bi-annual basis;
    And display a visible sign that increases awareness and shows support for the reparations movement.

    More BLM racism and intimidation.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  361. Nah. By the media and the left. But you know this already. The big scam is claiming he’s more electable by calling him a moderate. To get the squishy middle to vote for him. Same lies used to elect Obama who then severely damaged our healthcare system.

    Radical leftists run the democrat party. Look at the show trial they engaged in while “interrogating” AG Barr. Where are your remarks about that disgrace?

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:28 am

    1. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Bar testimony. The way they do those things rarely elicits new information. I could go on, but you already know that. Sorry I don’t have a better take for you.

    2. If you pay attention to the demographics of who voted for Joe Biden in the primary (as opposed to Warren, Sanders, Butigieg, or Gabbard) your theory that he was chosen doesn’t make a lot of sense. First he won in SC based in large part on older AA voters. Then he won in MI with a similar, older demographic. It could be like you say, but the evidence we can see makes it more likely that when given the option, Dem primary voters picked the more conservative choice.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  362. Leave Bill Barr ALONE!!!1!!

    Leviticus (5dade0)

  363. The Maverick Philosopher lost me in the first paragraph. Democrats and Biden are not The Enemy, they’re political opponents and fellow Americans who have wrong ideas about the size and scope of government. It’s a crap mentality.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  364. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality. The democrat party has been wholly absorbed by the communist party.

    I agree that there’s some reality denial going on here. It appears that the only answer to Biden and Democrats among the hardcore Trump faithful is over-the-top hyperbole and fear-mongering. It’s the false choice of Trump or Hugo Chavez.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  365. More hyperbole and fear-mongering, this one from the Bookworm guy: “What Kaepernick did was the American equivalent of tearing the crucifixes off the walls in Catholic Churches during the 17th Century wars of Reformation in Europe.”

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  366. That was last Wednesday. And I think he makes an excellent point that convincing the protestors that the federal government and the president aren’t their enemy is necessary. But since it’s at odds with Trump’s political needs, he works to achieve the opposite.

    Dave, while I agree Biden’s made statements like this, he’s not really succeeding in getting that out there, and he’s definitely doing his best to be a blank slate, leaving room to fill in the gaps hoping Biden’s on your side. Maybe he’s on this side, maybe he’s on that side. What we need from democrat leaders is an outspoken, passionate voice giving some idea of what the left is about.

    There’s no high-level leadership of BLM.

    While that’s literally true, and Biden can’t control the whole thing, he is the leader of the movement to completely shift our nation’s direction away from Trump. It will take some risk taking and some vision to get people to work with him. It will take asking for compromise and seeing a bigger picture. I do not expect more from Biden than this basically terrible performance, where he does the very minimum he can get away with because it’s a clever way to let it be about his idiot opponent. But we need more anyway.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  367. How much hyperbole and fear-mongering do you think is directed at Trump, Paul? Same question regarding his supporters.

    I would be interested in your top 10 list of hyperbole and fear-mongering against that group that you would make you willing to run to their defense. Voice of reason and all that…

    BuDuh (29167e)

  368. How much hyperbole and fear-mongering do you think is directed at Trump, Paul? Same question regarding his supporters.

    A ton. A complete metric ton.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  369. A ton. A complete metric ton.

    I have to admit that I was surprised to read you calling Trump a “nazi sympathizer.”

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  370. No surprise there.

    Here’s a good read that might benefit more than a few…

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/01/case-trump-will-come-down-his-record-its-strong-one/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  371. I don’t think Trump cares about any ideology enough to be a sympathizer, but he will use ideologies and sympathizers whenever he thinks they can help him.

    DRJ (aede82)

  372. I don’t think Trump cares about any ideology enough to be a sympathizer

    Do you agree, then, that it is hyperbole and fear-mongering to label Trump a “nazi sympathizer?”

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  373. #396, It was intended to be a little tongue in cheek.

    Being strictly accurate; I don’t think Trump cares about any political ideology. I think he cares about Trump.

    So long as it doesn’t harm Trump I think he naturally favors authoritarianism, where a strong leaders has the power to do as they see fit without being inhibited by law. I don’t think Trump wants to replicate the vile crimes of the Nazi regime (especially with respect to Jewish people.) But I think he is very sympathetic to White Nationalist view of the United States.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  374. My beloved mother passed away Thursday, July 30, in the Year of our Lord 2020. May God rest her soul.

    She was a great lady, much loved and highly respected by everyone who knew her. Primary owner and principal broker of the largest, most successful real estate corporation in the Rio Grande Valley, with listings in practically every city and town across five counties, everywhere from Port Isabel/Padre Island to Rio Grande City. She was elected president of the McAllen Board for five consecutive terms. The National Association of Realtors distinguished her with a Realtor Emeritus award for being an exemplary broker for over 45 years. She was a self-made millionaire by the age of 45. Not bad for a Texas country girl who never went to college a day in her life.

    My sister moved back down here to help me take care of her, because her health had been deteriorating over the last few months. Wednesday night at around 3:00 AM, she came over said she was very worried. Mother was having trouble breathing and making gurgling sounds. Well, I told her, there’s nothing we can do about that now. We’ll have to wait till morning, make an appointment at the clinic and take her to see a doctor.

    Thursday morning, we had a hell of time getting her down the stairs, because she could barely walk. The only way was to sit her down and pull her down step by step. We put her in an office chair and wheeled her out to the car. When we got to the clinic, I went inside and got a wheelchair.

    It was only about a 30 wait. The doctor said she had a respiratory tract infection. He gave a shot of anti-biotics and handed my sister some pain medication in capsule form. His instructions were: soft foods only, like Jell-O or pudding, just open the capsule and sprinkle the pain medicine on it. No liquids. (I thought, well that will kill here, because coffee is a liquid, and she so loves her morning coffee.) Lie her down, head and feet elevated. Do not take her to the hospital. They’re all overrun with Covid-19 patients.

    We took her home, wheeled her into the living and lied her on the couch, head and feet elevated, and covered here with a blanket. I sat there holding her hand, while my sister went into the kitchen. She found some Cranberry jell, sprinkled the pain medicine on it, and fed it to her. Then she left to go to the store for Jell-O and pudding.

    I sat there holding her hand. I asked, “Mother is there anything you want or need?” “Cigarette,” she mumbled. Of course, Kool Menthol 100s, that’s what she smoked. I lit a cigarette and held it for her while she took a couple of puffs. I held her hand while she quietly went to sleep. I kept holding her hand, waiting for my sister to return.

    When my sister come home, she went into the kitchen, presumably to make Jell-O. I thought, well, mother’s asleep, sisters in the kitchen, so I carefully laid her arm across her chest and went to my library.

    Only minutes later, I heard screaming, crying, my sister calling out my name. I ran over there. “I think she’s dead!” I checked. She wasn’t breathing, pupils were dilated, no pulse. Yep, she’s dead. She must have passed shortly after falling asleep, while I was holding her hand, before my sister returned. I just didn’t notice she’d stopped breathing.

    I won’t go into how hysterical my sister was, the police and paramedics, desperately trying to revive her. I told them not to bother. Dead is dead. Dead means you don’t come back. The point is that she passed peacefully in her sleep at home, with her son holding her hand. That’s a hell of a lot better than dying alone in a hospital, surrounded by Covid-19 patients and strangers.

    Did Covid-19 kill my mother? No, she didn’t have it, tested negative twice. But in a way it did.

    The pandemic has utterly destroyed the real estate market and crashed the economy. So, there are no buyers, no sales. The moratorium of foreclosures meant no assignments, no listings. Since she specialized in repossessed homes, that hit her hard. She had nothing to do! Other than go to the office, manage accounts and update files.

    My mother always said, work is life. In her mind, if she stopped working, she’s stop living. She was right. Because of the pandemic, she couldn’t work, doing the job she loved. That’s what killed her.

    That, and when she needed critical care, she couldn’t get it, because the hospitals are overrun with Covid-19 patients.

    I don’t think people are taking this coronavirus seriously. We’re in a new phase now, and it’s spreading rapidly all across the country. If we don’t control this outbreak, the results will be disastrous.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  375. God bless you and your mom, Gawain’s Ghost.

    I am glad you have such a beautiful way of seeing things, glad she died with you there comforting her.

    Dustin (4237e0)

  376. Clever, they are.

    Blame it on the masks! Some people are wearing masks and cases are high. See…. there you have it! Trump tweet coming soon.

    Gohmert Syndrome.

    noel (4d3313)

  377. I’m very sorry to hear about your Mother Gawain. I hope you and your family are doing as well is you can.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  378. But I think he is very sympathetic to White Nationalist view of the United States.

    Are his black supporters ignorant of this?

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  379. She was a fine Texan, GG. God bless her.

    DRJ (aede82)

  380. Trump is a neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate enabler, encourager, empowerer, and promoter, as proven by four years’ worth of clear and convincing evidence.

    As for “sympathizer”, Trump and sympathy don’t belong in the same sentence in the first place, and it’s a cheap trick by his adorers too shift the question from his actions, seen by all, to his “true feeling, kumbayah ya’ll”.

    nk (1d9030)

  381. My condolences, Gawain’s Ghost.

    nk (1d9030)

  382. @405, Maybe they don’t believe he is. Maybe they agree with that POV. Maybe they care about that less then other issues.

    “He has a black friend” just isn’t a very compelling counter point.

    If you can show polling data that indicates he’s doing well among non-white voters that might be interesting, but I don’t think you’ll find that.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  383. Condolences, GG.

    I hope you local hospital situation wasn’t misrepresented like Houston’s was.

    Yinon Weiss
    @yinonw
    A month ago the Houston mayor said hospitalizations were growing “exponentially” and would be overwhelmed in two weeks. This scared a lot of people.

    One month later COVID beds are down 33%. ICU COVID down 12%.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/yinonw/status/1290085422962339840

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  384. condolescences gawain,

    narciso (7404b5)

  385. “He has a black friend” just isn’t a very compelling counter point

    Who is making that lame argument?

    There are countless black Trump supporters that are as vocal as they can be. Diamond and Silk, The Hodge Twins, Vernon Jones, and many, many more. I am shocked at your tone here.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  386. This website has helpful information about Covid in Texas and other states, BuDuh. I think it is less hyperbolic and fearful than Twitter can be.

    DRJ (aede82)

  387. I would point out that my rejection of Trump is based on the last few months. He had me to win over, as he had many who detest the Democrats to win over, but even with extra heaping benefit of the doubt, he failed to do that. No, he succeeded in driving me away.

    His blind followers, being blind, continue to sign his praises but everyone else is turning their backs. The GOP has not nominated him yet. They still have a chance.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  388. BuDuh @412, my first comment was intended to be a somewhat joking. I appreciate talking to you and I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful to you. I’m taking your comments seriously and they to reply honestly.

    I am moving quickly and am probably not phrasing things well.

    I’m sure Trump has black supporters who legitimately support him. I think he has fewer than previous GOP presidents. Last poll i saw was a few weeks ago, so that could have changed. Regardless, I think it’s possible that he can have black supporters and still be sympathetic to white nationalism. If he’s not sympathetic to
    White Nationalist ideas he’s had ample opportunity to make that clear and that at this point not doing so has to be intentional.

    It’s rarely hard to figure out what Trump doesn’t like. He’s good at attacking things.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  389. Pelosi, Schumer and Biden certainly aren’t calling the tune.

    No, but AOC and her posse are willing.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  390. Here is a recent Vernon Jones interview:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dyge0PRa_Z4

    He had the opportunity to decry “white nationalism” but went with “nationalism” as he described Trump’s commitment to all Americans.

    Is Vernon Jordan an ignorant black man, Time?

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  391. Chin up, GG… your mother sounds like an admirable woman. Things will get better.

    And best wishes to you.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  392. BuDah, The one measure that hardest to game is fatalities.

    # of cases needs to be adjusted for testing.
    % hospital utilization needs to be adjusted for COVID, which has funding attached. Also if the administrates aren’t fools they push out anything they can to make room for CV19 cases, so it should go up more slowly. Either way it’s complicated.

    The CDC site can be broken down by State.

    It shows you’d expect about 5,000 ppl a week to die in texas in the summer. They’ve been running over 5K. Even if you take out adjustments for under counting and lag (it’s an option on the dashboard) they’re still over the expected fatalities for recent weeks.

    Time123 (dba73f)

  393. Correct. He’s more of a Nazi sympathizer.

    No, he’s just clueless, wildly insensitive, and out of touch. He actually believes that what he thinks up in the shower are insights of magical power, and he just cannot wait to share them with everyone. Never mind that they were said, and discarded, 40 years ago by lesser beings.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  394. I think it is less hyperbolic and fearful than Twitter can be.

    We agree on Twitter. 🙂

    From your link:

    Future Hospitalization (both ICU and non-ICU) Projections
    Save
    Share
    TEXAS
    Assuming current trends and interventions continue, Texas hospitals are unlikely to become overloaded in the next 30 days. However, any reopening should happen in a slow and phased fashion.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  395. How much hyperbole and fear-mongering do you think is directed at Trump, Paul?

    Um, noted, the “two wrongs make a right” and “but they do it, too!” excuse. It used to be that Democrats were the Emotional Party and the GOP was Rational Party, but no longer. The Trump Party has become the Emotional Party, with the gamut of emotions ranging from fear to anger.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  396. I’m less surprised that Hugh Hewitt will gush about Trump than the sun coming up every morning. He is a faithful cheerleader. Always has been.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  397. I appreciate you gathering info on fatalities,Time. But has nothing to do with the hospital’s being overwhelmed. And, according to DRJ’s link, there isn’t any danger of that.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  398. Labelling any measurable fraction of the national Democrats communist just seems silly.

    So, if Romney and the GOP has won overwhelmingly in 2012, the Tea Party would have had no power in that administration? It is beyond belief that the Congress, without the filibuster to slow them, would fail to enact the tings they say they want to enact. Do they really have to publish “Our Struggle” for you to beleive it?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  399. Darn it!!!!

    I forgot the obvious prediction that Paul would begin with “Um” while not answering the question.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  400. The overwhelming hatred and attacks from all quarters will motivate many, many voters.

    If you think Americans approve of cities being looted and burned and all of it excused by the media and the Democrat Party, you have a surprise in store.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  401. @417, I think you mean Vernon Jones, state rep from GA who may or may not be a paid surrogate. Vernon Jordan is an old Civil Rights guy.

    I listened to the clip. He seems convinced, but didn’t address the things that Trump has done and said that make me feel he’s sympathetic to the white nationalist argument. Mr. Jones did a good job making the case for isolationism and, potentially nationalism.

    One of the things he raised was reducing foreign aid and giving that money to Traditionally Black Colleges…He might like that, but I think US colleges (all of them except open admission colleges) get enough aid at the moment.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  402. Sorry for your loss, Gawain’s Ghost.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  403. I appreciate you gathering info on fatalities,Time. But has nothing to do with the hospital’s being overwhelmed. And, according to DRJ’s link, there isn’t any danger of that.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 8:40 am

    I think it depends on what you mean by overwhelmed. If they have beds for someone hurt in a car crash they have beds.

    If they don’t want to bring in an elderly person suffering from respiratory issues because of concerns about CV19 that’s a problem.

    Do you say they’re overwhelmed when they have no more room and patients in the halls?
    Or do you say they’re overwhelmed when they can’t offer their typical level of care?

    I’m not selling here. It’s a question I don’t know i have an answer to.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  404. How much hyperbole and fear-mongering do you think is directed at Trump, Paul?

    Um, noted, the “two wrongs make a right” and “but they do it, too!” excuse. It used to be that Democrats were the Emotional Party and the GOP was Rational Party, but no longer. The Trump Party has become the Emotional Party, with the gamut of emotions ranging from fear to anger.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895) — 8/3/2020 @ 8:37 am

    1. I think he’s accusing you of arguing in bad faith. I think he’s been somewhat persuasive on that.
    2. Both parties have been the emotions party forever. Almost no one votes based on cold hard data.
    3. Grievance should be on your list.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  405. I think you mean Vernon Jones, state rep from GA who may or may not be a paid surrogate. Vernon Jordan is an old Civil Rights guy.

    Of course I meant Vernon Jones. I mentioned him by name

    As far as the paid surrogate slander, he deals with that quite well:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GjxDEoXkjzE

    And, lastly, why would an “old Civil Rights guy” be supporting a nazi sympathizer?

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  406. How much hyperbole and fear-mongering do you think is directed at Trump, Paul?

    I’m not Paul (or Peter either), but I think very little “hyperbole” is directed at Trump. Just the opposite, I would say. He is far worse than most people say he is because few people can even imagine that such a depraved person can exist outside a Hannibal Lecter movie.

    The “fear-mongering” is a different thing. I, personally, am not afraid of what he might do *directly*. He is an incompetent, ignorant, unintelligent coward. I am afraid of the way his utter worthlessness is leaving our nation vulnerable to so many of our enemies foreign and domestic.

    nk (1d9030)

  407. Also from my link:

    ICU headroom usedBeta
    TEXAS

    Texas has about 6,663 ICU beds. Based on best available data, we estimate that 42% (2,798) are currently occupied by non-COVID patients. Of the 3,865 ICU beds remaining, 3,117 are needed by COVID cases, or 81% of available beds. This suggests hospitals cannot absorb a wave of new COVID infections without substantial surge capacity. Aggressive action urgently needed.

    I don’t know if Texas will have another surge. I hope not but we have reopened and it is Summer, so more people are getting together, socializing and traveling.

    DRJ (aede82)

  408. I

    If they don’t want to bring in an elderly person suffering from respiratory issues because of concerns about CV19 that’s a problem.

    If you can gather the data on that single assertion, then I think your following questions will be more easily answered.

    First, who is “they?” If “they” is a group of scared citizens, then I would suggest that the real problem is the misrepresentation of public officials about the capacity and functionality of the local hospitals.

    If “they” is the hospital leadership, then a functioning media would have an excellent expose into why some hospitals haven’t adopted a reliable functioning system like others. Both being local problems I believe that they should be solved locally and have state or federal intervention if necessary.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  409. Here is the official Texas website showing available hospital beds. All but two districts show less than 100 ICU beds available, and those two have slightly more than 100 beds. I’d say we are in trouble.

    DRJ (aede82)

  410. Condolences to you and family, Gawain. It’s a profound concern that your mom couldn’t get admitted to critical care.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  411. Fear of a surge, IMO, should not cause people like GG’s mom to be told to not come to the hospital.

    The 2018 flu season put a much worse strain on hospitals, but officials didn’t tell people with other sicknesses to avoid hospitals:
    https://www.redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/07/12/brace-yourself-turns-out-the-201718-seasonal-flu-was-as-bad-as-covid-19/

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  412. I think you mean Vernon Jones, state rep from GA who may or may not be a paid surrogate. Vernon Jordan is an old Civil Rights guy.

    Of course I meant Vernon Jones. I mentioned him by name

    As far as the paid surrogate slander, he deals with that quite well:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GjxDEoXkjzE

    And, lastly, why would an “old Civil Rights guy” be supporting a nazi sympathizer?

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 8:55 am

    You wrote Vernon Jordan, civil rights leader. AFAIK he doesn’t support Trump.
    You liked to Vernon Jones, state rep from GA. He does support trump.

    It’s not a big mix up, but Mr. Jones has less moral authority than Mr. Jordan.

    Asking someone if they’re working for a campaign isn’t slander. It’s a fair question. Especially if they’re a member of the opposition party.

    Usually the speaker answers that they’re affiliated with whatever PAC/Org is paying them, and then explains why they’d be doing it for free. Or they say “No” and explain their points. He did neither. So I’m not sure if he’s a paid advocate or not.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  413. If you can gather the data on that single assertion, then I think your following questions will be more easily answered.

    First, who is “they?” If “they” is a group of scared citizens, then I would suggest that the real problem is the misrepresentation of public officials about the capacity and functionality of the local hospitals.

    In this case the evidence is from Gawain about a statement he attributed to his mother’s Physician. In my experience the two times a Dr (not in Texas) made a recommendation about taking a family member to the hospital they were in contact with that hospital. They told us to go to urgent care, but they called ahead to make sure they would be ready when we got there.

    In this case “They” are a Doctor giving a recommendation about patient care. I assume that the Medical professional knows what they’re talking about when they give that recommendation. It would likely be malpractice to tell someone not to go to the hospital if you didn’t have some basis for that advice.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  414. I take a family member for treatment at a local hospital every month. I have delayed it twice during the pandemic at their request and at my discretion because hospitals are having problems. It is hard to provide care to all patients and to segregate Covid and non-Covid staff, supplies, and services. It is hard to arrange for safe access to the hospital and to transport patients in the hospital. It is hard to get enough staff who can deal with these problems. The list of problems go on and on, and then multiply it by all the hospitals.

    DRJ (aede82)

  415. I see, Time. My mistake. Reading and typing too quickly on my part, but I was confused by your #428 reference to my comment at #417 where I correctly said “Jones.” I didn’t realize that I had made the mistake in an earlier comment.

    Apologies.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  416. Fear of a surge, IMO, should not cause people like GG’s mom to be told to not come to the hospital.

    The 2018 flu season put a much worse strain on hospitals, but officials didn’t tell people with other sicknesses to avoid hospitals:
    https://www.redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/07/12/brace-yourself-turns-out-the-201718-seasonal-flu-was-as-bad-as-covid-19/

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 9:09 am

    1. It’s not flu season. That’s important.
    2. “bad” is a vague term. Let’s look at fatalities. The weekly deaths from all causes for Texas, are currently higher at this time then during the 2018-2019 flu season. It’s been worse for a while.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  417. I see, Time. My mistake. Reading and typing too quickly on my part, but I was confused by your #428 reference to my comment at #417 where I correctly said “Jones.” I didn’t realize that I had made the mistake in an earlier comment.

    Apologies.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 9:19 am

    I do that kind of thing frequently. Don’t sweat it.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  418. In this case “They” are a Doctor giving a recommendation about patient care. I assume that the Medical professional knows what they’re talking about when they give that recommendation.

    When the medical professionals held a press conference on hydroxychloroquine a different assumption ruled the day. It seems as though mistakes are possible. At this moment Texas hospitals are not turning away anyone although they are fearful about the future.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  419. Again with deaths, Time. The topic is capacity.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac)

  420. I live in Texas, although a long way from where GG lives. I promise you this is happening in many towns, especially small towns with only one or two hospitals. Hospitals are for Covid right now. They still treat emergencies but many sick people who would have gone to the ERs in the past aren’t going now, and doctors are telling us not to go. We see this during disasters like hurricanes, mass shootings, etc. This is a different kind of disaster.

    DRJ (aede82)

  421. I forgot the obvious prediction that Paul would begin with “Um” while not answering the question.

    It’s an answer, BuDuh, just not one to your liking as it was a rhetorical question. Both sides use fear and hyperbole to scare voters. Since there are only a handful of liberals commenting here, I’m responding to Red Menace commentary in this thread. It’s not factual or persuasive.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  422. @401. Gawain’s Ghost– My eyes are teared up for you. Unbounded condolences.

    It is a difficult transition, so take it a day at a time. The bureaucracy of death aside, stay busy, let go of what you can, allow yourself time to grieve– and flood your mind with all good memories. Mine passed 3 months ago; it is a new phase. Keep moving forward. My best to you and your family.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  423. Again with deaths, Time. The topic is capacity.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 9:23 am

    I continue to maintain there’s a link between the 2.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  424. doctors are telling us not to go.

    That is the real problem, IMO. Maybe the doctors and the insurance companies should have started making house calls a priority. Ultimately it is the Almighty Dollar that is more important than our health.

    When COVID-19 smacked the United States in March and April, health plans feared medical costs could skyrocket, jacking up premiums drastically in 2021, when millions of the newly unemployed might still be out of work.

    But something else happened: Non-COVID care collapsed as hospitals emptied beds and shut down operating rooms to prepare for an expected onslaught of patients sickened by the coronavirus, while fear of contracting it kept people away from ERs, doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics. In many regions of the country, the onslaught did not come, and the billions of dollars lost by hospitals and physicians constituted huge savings for health plans, fattening their bottom lines.

    https://khn.org/news/dont-count-on-lower-premiums-despite-pandemic-driven-boon-for-insurers/

    Insurers are making out like bandits while ultimately pulling the strings(no surprise) on our health care. The “new normal” is a dream come true for their bottom line. Hospitals have the capacity to deal with both Covid and other ailments. Bean counters are picking who gets told that. It is a real sorry state of affairs.

    Thank you everyone for the dialogue today.

    BuDuh (58d38f)

  425. Hospitals are shutting down, doctors arebeing fired.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  426. In this case “They” are a Doctor giving a recommendation about patient care. I assume that the Medical professional knows what they’re talking about when they give that recommendation.

    When the medical professionals held a press conference on hydroxychloroquine a different assumption ruled the day. It seems as though mistakes are possible. At this moment Texas hospitals are not turning away anyone although they are fearful about the future.

    BuDuh (e6b3ac) — 8/3/2020 @ 9:22 am

    I think there’s a big difference between what Gawin said his mother’s doctor advised and what that clown show claimed. I think it’s OK to take the credibility of a source into account.

    Time123 (89dfb2)

  427. I think he’s accusing you of arguing in bad faith. I think he’s been somewhat persuasive on that.

    It would be bad faith if I denied that the Democrats engage in their own brand of hyperbole and fear-mongering, Time. I expressly did not deny that. I’m simply responding to some Red Scare hyperbole in a conservative-leaning comment thread, and I’m saying that the fear-mongering is not that factual, helpful or persuasive, IMO.

    Paul Montagu (1ef895)

  428. Describing the organized firestorm coordinated by corporations and govt amdmedia isnt red baiting, its jusr the plain truth, now garbage that tick tock wittes cadges from rogue coin traders. Thats the real deal.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  429. Gawain’s Ghost,

    My condolensces on the passing of your mother. She sounded like a solid woman who understood the value of work, and was wasn’t afraid to face it head-on. IOW, a woman to be respected. May God comfort both you and your sister at this time.

    Dana (292df6)

  430. BuDuh,

    There are urgent care clinics, televisits and phones but sometimes you need an ER, especially with the sick and elderly. It is unfortunate but it happens in hospitals and with doctors because this is a learning process for everyone. In my family, it has taken several weeks to get a diagnosis and medicine for a family member because the whole process (being seen, orders for lab and other tests, getting results, hearing from the doctor, doing follow up and making adjustments to treatment) has slowed down significantly.

    DRJ (aede82)

  431. Sorry about your mom’s passing GG.

    NJRob (20f3a5)

  432. I’m interested in the “real estate has crashed” phenomenon, however. Three houses have sold, on my block, in the last month. None seem to be for depressed prices. I guess that may be happening some places but, without trying to be elitist about it (and my block is hardly that), “location, location, location.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  433. BTW, I am not angry at Trump. It would be like being angry at a jar of mayonnaise. I am angry at those that helped him hijack “the last best hope of mankind.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  434. Well, Time123, that is what the doctor told us. Do not take her to the hospital. Makes sense, really. She had a respiratory tract infection. That is not something you want to have, if you are exposed to coronavirus. Besides, I doubt there was anything the hospital could have done for her. They have all these rules now, like only one relative in the room at a time, everyone must wear a mask, etc..

    She passed peacefully at home, with her son holding her hand. As I said, that’s a hell of a lot better than dying alone in a hospital surrounded by Covid-19 patients and strangers.

    When my father passed, in a hospital on a respirator, he was surrounded by his entire family. That’s not possible today.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  435. Oh, and thank you all for your condolences. They are appreciated.

    If you knew my mother, you loved and respected her. She was a great lady. And she will be missed.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  436. Hospitals have the capacity to deal with both Covid and other ailments.

    Not in my town. I have seen it firsthand from the beginning. We have one infectious disease doctor handling 7 hospitals spread out in 6 towns. Some of the hospitals have no staff doctors. Not all staff has the skills to handle Covid so they can’t be used. The AC systems circulate throughout so you can’t put Covid in the same building with non-Covid patients. Trying to make some hospitals Covid free sounds great but too many asymptomatic patients ended up at the clean hospitals, so more spread. And in small towns, you are in big trouble when it spreads to the staff and doctors, as it has in our town. There are no replacements so even if you have the beds,you may not have staff. Our hospital is hiring contract staff from places like NYC.

    DRJ (aede82)

  437. If you knew my mother, you loved and respected her. She was a great lady. And she will be missed.

    Gawain’s Ghost

    What a lovely tribute. She knew she was loved.

    DRJ (aede82)

  438. @375

    If it is war, what are the war aims?

    The complete and utter destruction of the other side

    Horatio (60b005)

  439. Speaking of which, any opinions on Netflix’s “Hannibal” with Mads Mikkelsen?

    nk (1d9030)

  440. Followup on answers to Bored Lawyer @301:

    Sammy, what is the status of creating artificial antibodies, perhaps cloning those in plasma from those who recovered from the disease? That strikes me as a fertile ground for research, but I have heard little about it.

    The New York Times has lead front page story about a possible “October Suprise” by President Trump.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/us/politics/coronavirus-vaccine.html

    The “October Surprise: would be vaccine and the theme of the story is about how “scientists” are worried a vaccine might be authorized too soon.

    There is one sentence there about antibodies:

    Late last month, Mr. Trump called the chief executive of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to check on the progress of a potential antibody treatment.

    This is of course, supposed to be bad, or at east suspicious. The article notes the White House seems interested in getting things done by October and not so much by a later deadline.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  441. I wouldn’t worry about Karen bass and Cuba. she has clearly thrown the dictatorial Communist Cuban regime under the bus, along with the Church of Scientology.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  442. John McCain:Joe Liberman::Joe Biden:Susan Rice.

    The person the candidate woud prefer for vice president but there are political counselers against it. In the case of Joe Lieberman even the possibility that the Republican cnvention wold not nominate him. Joe Biden doesn’t have that problem, but she’s almost a dream candidate for the Republicans – if the on;y issues we had to worry about were those that existed in 2019.

    John McCain:Sarah Palin::Joe Biden:Keisha Lance Bottoms.

    The wild card choice that looks better than the other alternatives on the short list besides the one the candidate truly wants?

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  443. There could be another coronavirus disease in the future.

    There’s variant in acave in Yunnan, China that may be even more deadly. Three out of six infected in 2012 died.

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-deadliest-maze-how-scientists-tracked-covid19-in-secret/news-story/715b875698e30b1cfa910f2cd54a2376

    The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a renowned centre of coronavirus expertise, was called in to test the four survivors. These produced a remarkable finding: while none had tested positive for SARS, all four had antibodies against another, unknown SARS-like coronavirus.

    Furthermore, two patients who recovered and went home showed greater levels of antibodies than two still in hospital, one of whom later died.

    Researchers in China have been unable to find any news reports of this new SARS-like coronavirus and the three deaths. There appears to have been a media blackout. It is, however, possible to piece together what happened in the Kunming hospital from a master’s thesis by a young medic named Li Xu.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  444. Don’t be fooled by universities’ incessant chatter about “diversity.” Most are poster children for ideological conformity and proud of it. The faculty, students, and administrators know it. Indeed, many welcome it since their views are so obviously right and other views so obviously wrong. They believe discordant views are so objectionable that no one should express them publicly.

    What views are now considered beyond the pale? They almost always involve ordinary political differences. We are not talking here about direct physical threats. Those are already illegal, and universities rightly deal with them. They don’t have to face neo-Nazi marches. Nor is anyone advocating such noxious ideas as genocide, slavery, or child molestation. Speech about those subjects might be legal, but virtually nobody is making the case for them. That is not what the fight for freedom of speech on campus is about. It is about the freedom to voice—or even hear—unpopular views on topics such as merit-based admissions, affirmative action, transgender competition in women’s sports, abortion, and support for Israel.

    These are perfectly legitimate topics, and students ought to be free to hear different ideas about them. They are hotly contested topics in America’s body politic. That’s how democracies work. Not so on college campuses, where the “wrong views” are not just minority opinions. They are verboten, and so are the people who dare express them. Challenging this repressive conformity invites condemnation, severs friendships, and threatens careers. It is hardly surprising that few rise to challenge it.

    Worse yet, university leaders seldom do. They have a fundamental responsibility to defend open discourse, and they have largely abdicated it. Shame on them.

    https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/woke-colleges-are-assembly-lines-conformity

    Colonel Haiku (5eeb77)

  445. you want to tell him something different, coronello.

    narciso (7404b5)

  446. 469. @Bored Lawyer

    Actually there are tw sentences about antibody treatments in the front page New York Times story about Trump’s interference with research against the coronovirus that some people are afraid might produce an “October Surprise”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/us/politics/coronavirus-vaccine.html

    People briefed on the discussions say the White House has also pushed for progress by the fall on therapeutics — drugs to treat people who fall ill to the disease — including the possibility of an emergency use authorization for one or more of those drugs. Late last month, Mr. Trump called the chief executive of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to check on the progress of a potential antibody treatment.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  447. Very sorry for your loss, Gawain’s Ghost.

    Dave (1bb933)

  448. Gawain’s Ghost, my condolences.

    urbanleftbehind (08b3a1)

  449. Sympathies, GG.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  450. 399.

    I don’t think Trump cares about any ideology enough to be a sympathizer, but he will use ideologies and sympathizers whenever he thinks they can help him.
    DRJ (aede82) — 8/3/2020 @ 7:44 am

    That’s been his proven M.O. since long before he soiled our politics with his onanistic jabber. There’s no cesspool too foul for him to wade into for a scrap of sewage encrusted flattery. But that doesn’t make him philosophically pro-cesspool. True, his lack of the tiniest shred of dignity or human decency makes him an ideal spokesman for cesspool culture, but he’d throw cesspool dwellers under the bus as cheerfully as he has Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, Muslims and cesspool critics the world over if he thought there was a compliment or quick grope in it for him.

    There’s a semantic argument to be had over whether being properly identified as a GROUPer/(GROUPophobe) requires subjective belief in/(against) what GROUP stands for, or whether acting in service of/(against) GROUP’s agenda is sufficient. Tending toward the former, I apply such labels narrowly. More important though, I find the popular urge to call people nazis, commies, racists, whatever… dumb. Does anyone really think it makes Trump a better person if his hate-filled incitements are for personal gain instead of a deeply held bigotry?

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  451. 454.Hospitals are shutting down, doctors arebeing fired.

    Dogs and cats living together… who ‘ya gonna call?!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  452. I extend my sympathy, Gawain’s Ghost.

    You have done a wonderful job of describing the lives of you and your mother in your corner of Texas.

    norcal (a5428a)

  453. This endorsement of Trump from The Daily Stormer is typical of neo-nazi sentiment.

    Show me a comparable communist endorsement of Biden.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  454. “Hospitals are shutting down, doctors are being fired.“

    Um not in my medical world. There are not enough doctors, nurses, medical techs. Right now if you have skills you are in high demand. Very high demand.

    How much of this is due to the virus, well some of it. The stuff you had before the virus is still there. Then the virus shows up and it is more difficult to work. The cases that do come in where it is suspected are not easy.

    I will add that some of the gap was being filled from overseas skilled workers who could fill the credentials. That pipeline is near shut down.

    Echo (e92c55)

  455. Robert avakian revolutionary communist party

    Narciso (7404b5)

  456. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/revolutionary-communist-party-head-vote-biden

    That was easy lurker.

    Communists for Biden.

    NJRob (03cb1f)

  457. Rob, I don’t think that makes the point you intend. It sounds like the communists think he’s going to maintain a US system that communists dislike, but that they dislike Trump more because they think he’s a fascist.

    From the linked article

    The head of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA is urging members to head to the polls in November to cast their votes for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden – arguing that while Biden still represents a “murderous system of capitalism-imperialism” he is a better choice than President Trump.

    “Biden is not ‘better’ than Trump, in any meaningful way — except that he is not Trump and is not part of the move to consolidate and enforce fascist rule, with everything that means,” he said. “The struggle against this fascist regime needs to include voting against Trump by voting for Biden … and being prepared to carry forward this mass mobilization if Trump loses the election but refuses to leave.”

    Time123 (235fc4)

  458. Sure it does Time. He said not to vote 3rd party, to vote for Biden. That’s an endorsement plain and simple. To pretend otherwise is disappointing.

    How about following the link to the actual endorsement.

    I have also emphasized that it is this system of capitalism-imperialism which, through its “normal workings,” has brought forth this fascism, and that no fundamental change for the better can be brought about under this system, and instead this system must be overthrown and replaced by a radically different and far better system, in order to abolish and uproot all relations of exploitation and oppression, and the violent conflicts they give rise to—all of which is built into the foundations of this system and its ongoing functioning and requirements.

    Right now, for everyone who is concerned with ending injustice and oppression, and with the question of whether humanity will have a future worth living—or will have a future at all—removing the Trump/Pence fascist regime from power is an immediate, urgent question and truly historic imperative.

    And, for those who understand the need for revolution, for the overthrow of this system, as the fundamental solution to the continuing horrors this system causes for the masses of humanity (whether this system is ruled through an open fascist dictatorship, or the disguised “democratic” dictatorship, of the ruling capitalist class), the immediate struggle to oust the Trump/Pence regime from power must be approached not as a “diversion” from (or “substitute for”) building the movement for the revolution that is needed, but precisely as part—a crucial part and urgent requirement—of the overall work of building for this revolution.

    To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

    Finally, regardless of what happens with this election, it remains profoundly true—and it is vitally important to recognize, and to act on the understanding—that no fundamental change for the better can come under this system. Even as sustained mass mobilization urgently needs to be built around the unifying demand of Trump/Pence OUT NOW!, all those who have come to see that institutionalized white supremacy, male supremacy and the many other outrages and crimes against humanity perpetrated under this system are in fact built into this system of capitalism-imperialism must work together, in an ongoing way, to build a continually growing movement and to strengthen the organized forces for an actual revolution to overthrow this system.

    He actually sounds similar to some of the NeverTrump crowd.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  459. Seems clear they hate Trump and view Biden as a lesser evil from their point of view. They ramble on for a long time. Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see them say anything positive about Biden. Personally I think when RevCom’s call you part of a capitalism-imperialism system it probably means you’re within the norms for my country. Definitely doesn’t seem like the view Biden as sympathetic to their goals.

    This is not because Biden (and the Democratic Party in general) have suddenly become something other than what they are: representatives and instruments of this exploitative, oppressive, and literally murderous system of capitalism-imperialism. The electoral process continues to be what we revcoms have called it—BEB (Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit). It remains the case that no fundamental change for the better can come about through this electoral process, and that, in general and overall, voting under this system serves to reinforce this system, especially if voting is seen as a way—and more so if it is seen as the (only) way—to bring about meaningful change.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  460. How about following the link to the actual endorsement

    Their words are geared toward the result they want – they don’t represent any actual reasons nor do they reflect any actual thinking.

    But they are what they hope that people who listended to their propaganda will listen to.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  461. He actually sounds similar to some of the NeverTrump crowd.

    And Trump supporters sound like Hitler:

    There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction – to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power – that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago.

    but that doesn’t make them the same.

    DRJ (aede82)

  462. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/youtube-censored-my-talk-on-policing

    Heather MacDonald’s video didn’t violate any rules – unless, like a Philadelphia lawyer, you are willing to argue that contradicting what Back Lives Matters says incites “violent acts against individuals” and is at least “inappropriate for children under 18” because it is too sensitive and cuts to people’s core beliefs.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  463. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/eli-lilly-launches-late-stage-antibody-treatment-trial/story?id=72139356

    If the late-stage study goes according to plan, Eli Lilly said it could have results in the coming months.

    Democrats should be happy. Eli Lilly is not giving any date for when this might be generally available that is before the election.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  464. It still could become an October Surprise.

    What Jimmy Carter years later, accused the Reagan and Bush campaign of doing in 1980 – deliberately trying to prevent the hostages from being released before the election – Democrats (or “scientists”) are really doing with regard to getting effective treatments for Covid-19.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  465. DRJ @6:53…

    somebody should do one of those Hitler parody videos, only with him speaking in a West Texas drawl.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  466. Airplanes were UFOs to the South Pacific cargo cults. Cortes’s galleons were gods to the Aztecs.

    nk (1d9030)

  467. Yes anyone who opposes the left is hitler, really.

    Narciso (7404b5)

  468. I got, or noticed for the first time, a dollar bill Series 2017 with Steve Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury.

    His signature is a scrawl – he printed his name (no script or cursive) That was probably his signature 2.0.

    Two bills out of 13 were Series 2017.

    It’s taking longer and longer to become current.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  469. Sean Hannity, on his radio show, interviewed Dr. Harvey Risch about hydroxychlroquine. Dr Risch has many complainta about the FDA. He thinks it’s reserving a slot for emergency approval for some other drug.

    Dr. Risch was also on CNN where he got intoa dispute with the host:

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/risch-cnn-anchor-berman-hydroxychloroquine

    “None of those studies that you just cited are random placebo-controlled trials, what Dr. Fauci refers to as the gold standard,” Berman said, as the CNN on-screen chyron stated “Growing body of evidence shows hydroxychloroquine is ineffective.”

    Risch responded: “That’s not actually correct. The problem with those randomized controlled trials, is they were trials done on the wrong people. They were trials done on low-risk people with low risks of hospitalization and mortality. You don’t do a study of prostate cancer with women… because nobody is gonna get the outcome.”

    Risch said the studies were conducted on “very low-risk people who are not going to get hospitalized or die” from coronavirus.

    Risch says it is for high risk people who have not yet come down with the disease. And the FDA never said you needed arandomized control trial for emerggency approval.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  470. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/revolutionary-communist-party-head-vote-biden

    That was easy lurker.

    Communists for Biden.
    NJRob (03cb1f) — 8/4/2020 @ 3:07 am

    I said comparable, Rob. Just because Fox News searches the internet for anything with “communist” in the title doesn’t make a personality cult which could hold its conventions in a phone booth (if phone booths still existed) comparable to the Daily Stormer and its ideological bedfellows which also revere Trump. I can call myself The Revolutionary NJRob Party, but that doesn’t mean I speak for your global network of NJRob followers.

    Tell me the truth: until you saw the Fox News post, had you ever heard of Bob Avakian or his optimistically named Revolutionary Communist Party? I hadn’t.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  471. Until the left promoted them, I’d never heard of the daily stormer. What’s your point lurker? The communist party has more followers than that dumb racist group. The endorsements were equivalent and focused on voting for one party because the other was worse.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  472. I doubt I’d know about antifa if the right hadn’t promoted them, but they did so I do. That’s comparable. This two man mutual admiration society/community theater group… not so much.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  473. That’s disingenuous. The media promoted antifa as some peaceful anti-fascist group which was a lie. They are a violent, fascist, leftist group much like nazi stormtroopers.

    Commies are still dangerous. You know that. Believing a policy that retards success can be successful is insanity.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  474. please remove my post from moderation. Using a word in its proper context should not be prohibited because a past commenter used it derogatorily.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  475. Thank you.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  476. You know, Rob, you keep accusing me of bad faith on absolutely zero evidence. And I keep giving you more chances to stop being a jerk. But there’s a limit. Here’s some free advice: you can’t do the same things you accuse the enemies in your imagination of doing, then claim the moral high ground. Why would you think that’s OK? The ends justify the means? Two wrongs make a right?

    For the last time, if something’s pissing you off, fine. Go scream at a cloud. But leave me out of it. Next time I put you on ignore; then you’ll have one fewer person to accuse of bad faith for disagreeing with you.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  477. The explosion in Beirut was from 2,750 tons (that’s 5,500,000 lbs.) of ammonium nitrate. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/04/middleeast/beirut-explosion-port-intl/index.html

    I got derided here one time for saying that the stuff explodes without needing to be mixed with diesel duel or triggered by another explosive. It’s happened in a Texas port too. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fertilizer-explosion-kills-581-in-texas

    nk (1d9030)

  478. diesel “fuel”

    nk (1d9030)

  479. Indubitably, Professor nk:

    Ammonium nitrate decomposes, not explosively, into the gases nitrous oxide and water vapor when heated; however, it can be induced to decompose explosively by detonation. Large stockpiles of the material can also be a major fire risk due to their supporting oxidation, a situation which can easily escalate to detonation. Explosions are not uncommon, relatively minor incidents occur most years however several large and devastating explosions have also occurred, including the Oppau explosion of 1921 (one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions), the Texas City disaster of 1947, the 2015 Tianjin explosions in China and most recently, the explosion in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon on 4 August 2020. which was attributed to 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a port warehouse.

    Dave (1bb933)

  480. The first case I worked on as an attorney involved a contract dispute between companies that handled ammonium nitrate. As the youngest, newest lawyer, my role was minor — run errands and document review, including interviews with the workers and their managers. What was stressed everywhere is how incredibly dangerous this stuff can be.

    DRJ (aede82)

  481. Quick calculation says that 2750 tons is a cube about 12 meters on a side.

    Or about 48 shipping containers in volume.

    It’s not that large a volume, really, considering that it trashed an entire city.

    Dave (1bb933)

  482. Until the left promoted them, I’d never heard of the daily stormer. What’s your point lurker? The communist party has more followers than that dumb racist group. The endorsements were equivalent and focused on voting for one party because the other was worse.

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/4/2020 @ 5:53 pm

    I think the point is that the white nationalists explicitly say Trump is one of them. They love him. This includes the Daily Stormer, Richard Spencer, David Duke, and a variety of affiliated losers.

    The Commies you linked to explicitly say Biden is terrible and not part of their movement. But they agree with the people above that Trump is a white nationalist so they’re saying vote for Biden to get Trump out.

    It’s a pretty big difference.

    Time123 (af99e9)

  483. I’d never heard of the daily stormer

    The name is a direct reference to the infamous German nazi party weekly, Der Sturmer.

    Dave (1bb933)

  484. Gallop has a new poll out.

    Their conclusion is below. But I don’t think it’s this negative. Most of Trump’s supporters don’t seem to view him as being in charge of the federal government so I don’t think they will feel he’s accountable for results they dislike.

    Americans have rarely been less satisfied with the state of the nation than they are now. Although the public does not have to be highly satisfied for incumbents to be reelected, the current level of satisfaction sits well below the low-water mark (33%) at which an incumbent has won reelection in the past. An even more troubling sign for the current president is that satisfaction is significantly lower now than it was in 1992 (22%) when George H.W. Bush lost his bid for a second term.

    Time123 (66d88c)

  485. meanwhile more members join the squad, as the progs go full khmer,

    narciso (7404b5)

  486. Time123,

    That’s just differing strategies by the 2 groups. Both endorsed respective candidates. Neither candidate returned the favor. Both of us would argue that differing candidates support those stated groups.

    NJRob (811fe9)

  487. Time123,

    That’s just differing strategies by the 2 groups. Both endorsed respective candidates. Neither candidate returned the favor. Both of us would argue that differing candidates support those stated groups.

    NJRob (811fe9) — 8/5/2020 @ 9:06 am

    But the commies didn’t endorse Biden. They said he, and the Democrat party was horrible.

    There’s a difference between liking someone because you think they’ll do what you want done, and viewing them as a least bad option.

    Time123 (b87ded)

  488. 515. Trump isn’t right, but his Democratic critics aren’t right either. And Trump is modifying what he says as he goes along. making his criticisms more legitimate..

    Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b)

  489. Of course they did. They said vote for Biden. Don’t vote 3rd party. That’s explicit. Everything else is just a game.

    NJRob (811fe9)


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