Officials at NOAA were "sick" and "flabbergasted" about how the agency handled the fallout of President Trump's comments about Hurricane Dorian last year, newly released internal emails show. https://t.co/QqKxBcKu3n
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 3, 2020
Open Thread
Cheryl Rofer
Facts matter.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
CPAC attendee who has been experiencing “flu-like symptoms” for a week
bluehill
That guy hasn’t been paying attention for the last 15 years or so.
Roger Moore
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
MattF
Turns out that Matt Gaetz has the distinction of coming into contact with the ill CPAC attendee and of being a passenger on Air Force One. Karma, anyone?
oldgold
The POTUS is a acting like the Mayor in “Jaws.”
”You Yell Shark And We Have A Panic On Our Hands On The Fourth Of July!”
Baud
@MattF:
So he was protecting other people by wearing a gas max?
Baud
@oldgold:
Coronasharknado!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
any markets still open that can crash some more?
David Anderson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: fuck
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Matt Gaetz has always be known for being considerate of others.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Baud
Wonkette transcription of Biden’s O’Donnell interview.
Avalune
@Baud: Corona shark do doo do do do do Carona shark do do do doo doo Carona shark…(doo doo doo doo dodo corona shark)… we’re all dead doo doo doo doo doo do…we’re all dead dooooo
(Slow day at work, can anyone tell?)
trollhattan
If this doesn’t give your Schaden some Freude, you have no Shaden whatsoever.
And, oh, all of Italy now on travel restrictions.
ByRookorbyCrook
I think we all know how this is going to go.
Trump reassures a nervous nation
JPL
UhOh, If trump sees the emails, he could divert their funding to build the wall. just sayin\
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What David said but I prefer to bless my swears so I’d put holy in front of it.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’d love for the reporters to all start coughing at once.
Martin
So, we’re seeing universities taking mitigation steps. Princeton and UC Berkeley both shutting down instruction without any cases.
Universities have CDC caliber experts. You’re seeing the leading institutions saying ‘fuck this shit, we’re doing what we should be doing’. Nobody is going to question Princeton and UC Berkeley’s responses.
Well, Trump is probably about to, but seriously fuck that guy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Gaetz wasn’t just on the plane, he was in the car with the one I call The Beast
It would be wrong for me to giggle, wouldn’t it?
Brachiator
Trump is convinced that he can impose his will on reality. The GOP leadership ha committed to aid in any way they can. And even conservative leaning citizens are eager to contribute to the cause.
Even if it kills them.
It is beyond sad and weird that in the UK, prime minister Boris Johnson is unleashing his own version of Perpetual Political Bullshitting on the hapless British people.
@Roger Moore:
The ancient Spartans believed their own bullshit until the very end.
And the end did come.
And they were swept away by Rome.
And supposedly the Romans would visit the remnants of Sparta, as one would a theme park, and watch the Spartans play act at being mighty and important.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Sure. All the ivory tower elitists are anti-Trump, so it makes sense they’d participate in the hoax.
Jinchi
I’m always surprised that this is important to some people. Or that POTUS and VP flags even exist. I mean it’s not like we’re going to mix up these two guys.
lollipopguild
@Baud: “When in fear, when in doubt, run in circles scream and shout!”
Yutsano
@Avalune: I may never forgive you for that. Okay I have to stop laughing first…
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
I’m going to guess that Immanentize cancelled the Mediterranean cruise he and Little Imma were planning for next week, which included at least one Italian port of call. (If he posted his final decision in a comment, I missed it. Last I heard, he was about 50-50, but that was a few days and several news cycles ago.)
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: He did.
C Stars
@Martin: But Berkeley isn’t shutting down lab spaces or libraries as far as I can tell. Way more high-touch areas and opportunities for viruses to spread in those places than in a lecture hall. Really not sure what the point is.
Avalune
@Yutsano: Lol – I wouldn’t blame you. It was an awful thing to do. Just couldn’t help myself.
dmsilev
As true now as it was back when we all thought Reagan was the nadir.
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
There are still people wielding power in the US government who believe this. They haven’t a clue.
dmsilev
@C Stars: Labs and libraries are spaces where ‘keep at least a few feet away from everyone else’ is at least plausible. 500 seat lecture auditoriums, not so much.
Aleta
@Roger Moore: Funny how well that attitude fits with telling people to base everything on faith and that Trump is chosen by a deity.
Baud
@Aleta:
That deity being Loki.
Yutsano
@Avalune: Oh hush. It was dastardly clever. The fact that I have three nephews about the age to appreciate that doesn’t help.
Le Comtede Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@MattF:
I think I’m safer in Honduras right now.
A Ghost To Most
@Cheryl Rofer: Facts don’t matter to fascists.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
:-)
C Stars
@dmsilev: In theory I guess that makes sense, but in practice, labs are where hundreds of students share the same equipment (and stand in front of/breathe on/cough on) the same controls, and touch the same things all day. Still doesn’t make any sense to me, honestly. And often they are housed in a smaller physical space than a big lecture hall.
Baud
@Yutsano: Agreed. Evil, but clever.
Betty Cracker
@Jinchi: Wasn’t some scandal-plagued Trump cabinet flunky famous for having an agency standard flown at the DC building when he was present? Can’t recall which one — one of the ones who resigned in disgrace, if that narrows it down…
ThresherK
Emerald City ComiCon (in Seattle) has been postponed from mid-March to an unspecified summer week.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Should’ve been wearing that gas mask, Mattie. Better hope that canister is rated for biological agents
Avalune
@Yutsano: Our son used to get so angry when I’d quickly reword songs/poems/Dr. Suess/whatever to fit the topic of the day. I think it annoyed him that he couldn’t quite formulate a like response fast enough. Now he just rolls his eyes and me and laughs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: Ryan Zinke (I had to google), Interior Secretary
Afternoon MTP says trump was making a show of shaking hands at weekend fundraisers and insisted Gaetz come out of the room on AF1 he had sort of quarantined himself in, his germaphobia in conflict with his early-adolescent notions of machismo
Enhanced Voting Techniques
According the Vanity Fair Trump’s bluster’s about The Virus is all bluff and he is freaking out about people deliberately trying to get him sick,
vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-germaphobe-in-chief-struggles-to-control-the-covid-19-story#intcid…
Barbara
I feel like a lot of universities (like Columbia, where one of my daughters is) are shutting down in advance of spring break. I am not underplaying the potential seriousness of COVID-19 when I say it’s not clear to me that it’s necessary. I suspect the logic is to break the chain for the next two weeks because of the belief among many that, at the very least, we will have a lot more information two weeks hence and will be in a position to make a more informed or more nuanced decision about what to do next. It’s hard to disagree with that logic.
Baud
If Trump tests positive and had to quarantine himself, it’ll be interesting to see if the market reacts positively to the news.
Roger Moore
@A Ghost To Most:
No. Fascists may not care about facts, but the facts matter no matter what people think about them.
Martin
@C Stars: Well, that was my recommendation as well.
Remember, this is not containment. It’s mitigation. It’s an acceptance that containment has failed and that it will spread. It’s an effort to slow that spread, by adjusting measures.
I’ve been working the last 2 days to determine if we can restructure our non-virtualizable classes (labs, performances) to move from 2 student per workstation setups to one person, to allow for appropriate levels of social distancing.
If we eliminate the majority of our high density instruction and virtualize it (because we can), that allows us to free resources to focus on the low density stuff that we can’t. So, we would spread out the students in the labs. We would have protocols for sanitizing between labs. We may have the students to that themselves as part of the lab, provided they can effectively do that. TAs will have a role. We’ll have the staff/techs do a more thorough cleaning once a day.
Understand, this is still removing 90% of students from the campus, and reducing the interaction even more than that – these courses tend to be between 2 hours and 6 hours in length, so there’s even less opportunity between classes for students to interact. They are clustered in specific buildings, so we’re looking at additional sanitation in bathrooms, door handles, elevators, etc.
We can’t do that with a full population. But if you just have labs in operation, it’ll look like a ghost town. This is workable.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Coronasharknadosaurus!
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Not much.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That emergency stop is going to break. (Hopefully in stop mode.)
Avalune
I don’t know about the market but I’d react positively.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@A Ghost To Most:
They may not believe in reality, but reality believes in them
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is the CPAC attendee from Ohio? It was reported here earlier today, but I could have sworn they said AIPAC.
O/T, but this was fun to come home to:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
White House briefing has been postponed
mrmoshpotato
@Avalune: LOL Shame on you! (walks away whistling) Dammit!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Gotta show up fellow Texan Cruz.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Do you think he’ll demand to be tested or will he refuse and try to delude himself for as long as possible?
Baud
People are outside and they’re all breathing on me.
debbie
@Martin:
My company is trying to make up for lost time in regard to resilience. We all had to take turns working from home (connectivity sucked on my Chromebook), and today, they announced we will all take turns working from home for 30-day periods.
Nothing like going from zero to eleventy billion in one second. My head hurts.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL: On this site, we consencrate our curses! -JPL
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were testing him daily.
They should be testing Biden daily too but I’m not sure he has access to tests.
Avalune
@mrmoshpotato: I mean Baud is the one that said the magic word…
WaterGirl
@Baud:
So that’s where all the test kits are going.
debbie
@Aleta:
Unsurprising, considering all of his “natural ability.” //
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Did I see you write “Berwyn” in one of your comments to satby on a thread earlier today?
That’s where I was born and raised.
geg6
@C Stars:
Our university administration has decided that, if we shut down (highly likely, from the signals we got today), that all undergrad classes will be online and the science labs will be open to only faculty and grad students doing pertinent research. Med students will be working in the university’s medical center at Hershey as they are presumed to be needed in case of high patient overloads. I think that all makes sense. The decision to close will be made in the next day or two so that students don’t travel back to our campuses after this week’s spring break.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
“On the next episode of Hoarders….”
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The most revolting thing in that article is that he is refusing to cancel rallies (or at least not yet) but said that he would stop shaking hands. My husband keeps telling me that he is a narcissist and I know it, but it’s hard to find another anecdote that perfectly epitomizes how indifferent he is to the well-being others. “It’s fine for people to gather together in my honor so long as any risk of infection or death is limited to them.” Geez.
C Stars
@Martin: I do hope that is actually happening (contingency planning to make labs and in-person instruction/learning less risky) at Cal. The variety of these kinds of non-lecture-hall events is so huge, though, that it seems like it would be impossible to design accommodations for all of the various applications of these spaces (i.e. a fine art ceramics studio vs a chem lab vs a fabrication space vs etc etc) Though you would know better than I. I have a little skin in the game since someone I care about operates a lab at Cal. I’m just hoping that this is not a gesture to seem like they are looking out for student/staff/faculty well-being without actually doing so in a considered way.
Also I’m guessing that any student who is aware that they have underlying risk factors for severe illness would probably avoid those kinds of spaces anyway.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
that’s today’s america in a nutshell.
Martin
@debbie: This is why you need to start this stuff like your hair is a little bit on fire. The planning is about 1000x easier before the crisis hits than after.
My campus hasn’t closed, but if we do what Berkeley has done, hopefully we’ll be ready to roll.
delk
What a completely fucked up world it is that dumb ass dui Gaetz is riding in the beast and AF1.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Would they take away his phone? That’s what matters.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Beautiful.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I feel safer already.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
We’re on spring break but we just got asked to start familiarizing ourselves with online instruction. No cases.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
I hope not. His approval rating would probably go up 10 points.
JPL
@chopper: trumpworld.
mrmoshpotato
@Avalune: That’s not a magic word, though a drunk sharknado would be a sight to behold.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Yes. It was related to rubber chickens.
eemom
@Barbara:
Hi Barbara! Hope all is well with you. Hard to believe it’s almost a year since I left the (RL) snakepit.
Just said to my hubs that if there’s one tiny silver lining to this madness it’s that the shitstain, being that he’s a germophobe, has got to be pissing himself in terror that he’s gonna catch the thing.
Brachiator
@geg6:
Are there many students who stay in dorms? Is this also an issue?
I suppose that PC technology easily supports online learning, but is there any additional software that students have to get?
It’s been a long time since by student days. I guess the fact that it is spring break gives the administrators some lead time to make appropriate decisions.
chopper
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
so on one hand the virus is nothing, like the common cold, but on the other hand he thinks people are trying to get him sick. yeah that’s trump thinking all right.
Martin
@C Stars: That shouldn’t be a problem. Every department knows their own stuff, they have their own lab techs. With appropriate guidance, they should work just fine. It’ll vary a bit in the beginning and settle out as we go. There will be a bunch of ‘oh, I didn’t think about that!’ moments after the first week that’ll get fixed by the 2nd. By clearing the larger classes out of the way it frees up resources to help with this.
And we need that expertise. How you sanitize a sensitive electronic device may need to be different than a band saw or a pottery station. Techs are really good, they have this. I think the bigger concern is going to be can we source alcohol wipes, chlorox wipes, etc? I think we might be making our own for a bit.
The nursing program is easy – we’re training them to do this very thing, so we turn them loose on their own facilities.
I can assure you this is not a gesture. This is what I’m working on. Students are good at staying home most of the time. We do have the capacity to remove them from class if we suspect they are sick. Students are smart and surprisingly considerate so I’ll be surprised if we ever have to do that.
This is workable. It keeps students working toward their degree – which we need. We need those nurses to graduate. We need to get the Fall students in, and we may well still be doing this then. So this is also sustainable over a long period of time. We could operate this way indefinitely, if needed.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: You would NOT want them to take away his phone?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Will there be pictures of Trump backed into a corner, surrounded by test kits? Unable to get out?
C Stars
@dmsilev: ha! It’s true, too.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: How is Berwyn related to rubber chickens?
Bill Arnold
No further comment needed.
The UK Government Has Reacted With “Incredulity” And “Genuine Disbelief” At Trump’s Handling Of Coronavirus – “Our COVID-19 counter-disinformation unit would need twice the manpower if we included him in our monitoring.” ((March 09, 2020, Alex Wickham)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
trump donors: constant marks for a gang of low-rent grifters
Sandia Blanca
@Avalune: OMG, this made me laugh!!!
Marcopolo
In case anyone wants to see the press briefing w/ Trump, it is just about to start.
Edit: has started
OldDave
@Avalune: I may adopt that as my hand wash timer ditty.
delk
@WaterGirl: Son of Svengoolie!
mrmoshpotato
@Bill Arnold: Boris fucking Johnson is looking at Dump and saying,”Look at this wanker.”?
Sweet babby Jeebus!
Avalune
Some places will do well and some places won’t do well at all. – President Trump
That’s some profound shit right there.
Brachiator
@Avalune:
There is also a song parody, to the tune of My Sharona
My Corona
mrmoshpotato
@OldDave: Haha, ?No Coronashark…?
(Now I need a beer)
Martin
@Brachiator: Dorms are a huge issue. That’s outside of my role, but the expectation is that most students will leave the dorms and go home, and the students that really need the dorms will be spread out enough that we can minimize exposure. We have foreign students that can’t travel home. We have students that would be homeless without the dorms. So, that’s why we’re not completely shutting down – they’re far worse off if we don’t. We have more students in dorms than geg6 does, which makes this both easier and harder. .
I know they’re looking at food delivery to the dorms for quarantined students.
We have a number of quarantined students, but not in the dorms (well, Friday we didn’t at least).
In short, everything at the university is a 90/10 solution. Remove the 90% that we reasonably can, and throw everything that’s left at the remaining 10%. Both with the goal of keeping students working toward their degrees so they can graduate and new students come in.
Avalune
@Brachiator: Haha of course there is! I’m afraid to click…it will get stuck in my head 100% for certain.
mrmoshpotato
@Avalune: Stablest, profoundest genius!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara: I suspect Trump refusal to cancel the rallies fits into his narcissism in the sense a clapping crowd is the only time Trump feels affection from others. Being unloved is more terrifying than dying to him. That Trump is worried someone would deliberately infect themselves with a potentially lethal disease just to injure him shows Trump’s inability to empathize with other people.
Avalune
@mrmoshpotato: All his words are beautiful, like the letter.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Avalune: And those letters thank Trump for using them, with tears in their eyes.
TS (the original)
@Baud:
As my retirement funding disappears down the gurgler nice to know some comments can still make me laugh
randy khan
@C Stars:
It seems that the current thinking is that touch transmission is going to be relatively rare, so the risk is much higher if you’re close enough to someone who can sneeze on you. (This is not to say you shouldn’t wash your hands, etc., just that it’s incremental.
And labs generally have really good air circulation, which should help. Also, while it’s been a long time since I worked in a lab, I think modern standards call for gloves or, at least, washing your hands a lot.
dmsilev
@Avalune: So he’s moved on from ‘everything will be fine, now aren’t I awesome!’. I guess that’s a start.
mrmoshpotato
@Avalune: And so perfect. “Excuse me,excuse me, you’re a total loser. Sad! And I’m tremendous bigly at everything!”
Avalune
@dmsilev: He was talking about the hotel industry specifically in context, so I wouldn’t get too excited.
dmsilev
@randy khan: Depends on the lab. A chemistry or biology lab is going to have people wearing protective clothing as a matter of course. An intro electrical engineering lab, for instance, wouldn’t ordinarily need that.
Avalune
Haha all the reporters asking if the President has been tested.
Pence says I don’t know if he’s been tested, let me get an answer…
Good grief ya’ll.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@C Stars:
On first read, I thought that was “fornication space”, I think those are called dorms.
Fabrication…Never Mind.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: Has Dump said yet that he’d like to punch the virus in the face?
dmsilev
@Avalune: Bookings at the various Trump properties are down then? Along with Ted Cruz self-quarantining, that makes two entries in the positive column for the virus.
Luciamia
Gah, does everyline have to end up an asspat for Trump? Pence is practically slobbering.
debbie
Oh boy, here come Navarro’s lies.
ETA: It must mean something if NPR cut their coverage right after he started speaking.
ETA ETA: Ha! They’re replaying an interview with Swamp Dogg to fill out the hour instead!
Booger
@Betty Cracker: Whtsisface @ Interior.
mrmoshpotato
@Avalune: Someone should say they heard you can get it from sucking dictators’ asses.
Avalune
They are making it sound like they just were talking and wanted to throw together some guidelines to post. OH REALLY? JESUS THIS IS YOUR JOB! This is what you are supposed to be doing. Why are you like oh hey we were riffing and thought you guys might like it!
I mean…our government = thought it was cute, might delete later.
Betty Cracker
Everything’s fine!
randy khan
@Barbara:
All of this is making me think of Y2K, in the sense that doing too much and doing it too soon probably is better than trying to guess right about what you need to do and when. I was getting annoyed about what seemed like overreactions at first, then it occurred to me that it’s okay even if people are overreacting because it will slow down the spread of the virus and may help stop it sooner.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Sounds pretty dystopian.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Speaking of fornication spaces, how do dating apps deal with rapists? Spoiler: they don’t.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Can they sterilize Gaetz and Skeletor?
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Awesome. Hope the swamp compound is far from Tallahassee.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Who’s Skeletor?
zhena gogolia
@randy khan:
My husband is in despair about having to teach online. I’m actually happy they’re doing something in good time. I’m sure I’ll suck at it, but half a semester’s worth of a little chaos in the classroom is worth it to save some lives (my own, perhaps).
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: Gov of FL Rick Scott
geg6
@Martin:
Well, my campus only has about 200 living on campus, but we have 24 campuses and the main campus has over 60,000 students. They have thousands in the dorms. As for us, our international students are usually housed locally with local families during breaks, so that’s where they are now and will be for the duration, I’m sure. We only have about 25 of them and one from Hawaii.
germy
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Yup, was gov now senator, and the resemblance is uncanny
Martin
@randy khan:
No, the thinking is that touch transmission is going to happen. But if you run the numbers on 400 students in a lecture hall at 10 ASF/student where you need to touch 20 seats in order to get to your seat, vs 32 students in a lab at 50 ASF/student where the only shared surface is probably the door handle and you have enough time between labs (because they are long in duration and small in capacity) to do a basic cleaning between classes, then it’ll move through the latter community about 1% as fast as the former (the math on a lecture hall is shockingly bad).
But these are long term operational moves. We expect to do this probably for the rest of the year. We expect most students will get sick at some point over that period. But rather than stop instruction entirely for weeks, we’ll be able to operate more or less as usual for an extended period of time without sparking an outbreak.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
I just saw that. Holy Moly!
From BBC News
Marcopolo
My only comment in regards to the press conference is they sure shuttled Trump off the dais asap.
Martin
Well, that presser was a shitshow. Tax cuts. We’re going to tax cut our way through this.
The best bit of news was an acknowledgment from the Surgeon General that we’ve given up on containment (easy, since we never seriously tried it) and moving to mitigation. I still see almost no evidence that they’re doing that, but at least they acknowledge that’s what we ought to be doing.
Bill Arnold
@Marcopolo:
Out of curiosity, did somebody cough?
debbie
@germy:
Interesting that Trump is only meeting with GOP Senators to discuss a payroll tax holiday.
Martin
Remember when we thought Bush’s $1.4T deficit was bad? Sofa change compared to where we’ll be this year.
Ruckus
Just got back from the VA hospital, had a scheduled appointment.
They are on a partial lock down, only two entries open to the building. And you go through a screening with the security guard. Which was better than I expected. Have you been out of the country in the last 3 months? Have you been coughing or having shortness of breath? Have you been in contact with anyone with the virus (how the hell would you know unless it had been confirmed?)? Hey better than nothing. When the appointment was over the doc wanted to shake my hand. It was an automatic response on his part and he realized it when I said no thanks. I drove the 82 mile round trip, I’m really not interested in sitting on the train with everyone.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Thanks very much for the update.
I guess the one good thing is that there should be fewer individuals who are most at risk of being adversely affected by the virus on college campuses.
Perhaps not counting employees and faculty.
germy
TS (the original)
Just had to tune out Kornacki – attacking democrats (as usual) because Nancy Pelosi says she is not the person to shut down the House – depends on what the experts recommend.
germy
Seattle now has a drive-thru clinic to test health professionals for coronavirus every 5 minutes
Dan B
@Marcopolo: Word was the presser where Trump was present allowed no press or recordings to keep Trump off the air. Everybody bnb thought it was to censure the media but it may have been to keep Trump out of the news.
Is it a pattern? Are the people around him realizing they can, and must, keep him away from microphones?
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Oh. He’ll always be Bat Boy to me.
ETA – and he’s a Senator now – the horror.
Brachiator
@debbie:
Damn. They really are acting as though the Republican Party is the only legitimate party of the federal government.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: If the virus gets a tax cut, it’ll go away.
Ruckus
@germy:
Ice cream eaten very fast will help with a headache.
Oh you didn’t want to increase it, you wanted it to decrease it….
Martin
@Ruckus: That makes me feel better. My uncle goes to the VA 3x/week and there’s no chance he will survive getting infected.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Thanks for no warning, you jerk. :)
germy
“Playing his wife” ?
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: We’ll make up for the losses in volume!
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Might as well make it a frozen daiquiri. Earn that headache, damnit!
When a kid my first Slushie I guzzled and legit thought I had just killed myself.
lol chikinburd
Since open thread: Go to hell, Democracy Now, for laundering the dementia smear against Biden. Go to hell and rot there.
WaterGirl
@delk: I had forgotten all about Svengoolie!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Two volunteers working the door
germy
“grifter” “traitor”
jeez….
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
I see my job here is now done. :-P
WaterGirl
@Avalune:
I’m pretty sure that’s short for “yes, he’s been tested, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to say so. They should have followed up with “Have YOU been tested?” There’s no way for him not to know that!
When I said our media is going to be the death of us, I did not understand at the time that it could be literal, rather than figurative.
Ruckus
@Avalune:
Best bet when dealing with a gaggle of morons – always, always, always expect the worst outcome possible. And then double it. You won’t be off by more than 100% that way. And you should also be surprised at getting the outcome even that close.
A gaggle of morons is any group of more than ten where the total IQ is less than 100. If shit for brains is in that gaggle, expect that total to be less than 50. He doesn’t allow scores higher than his, and he brings down the score without ever trying.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Trouble in paradise?
Mary G
Notice that the 1,100 crew members on the cruise ship, most of whom aren’t American citizens, will not be allowed to get off. Pence made a point of saying that they’ll get the passengers off, then the ship will pull back away from shore.
satby
I wandered over on FB to see what the MAGAT conservatives I know are saying about this. Lots of denial and claims, with links to Brietbart et al, that Democrats are lying to the public about the virus to make Trump look bad. Every single one of these people I know is over 70 and has health issues. If I believed in a god, I would need a lot of forgiveness right now because I want them all to get it and get the scare of their miserable, racist lives. (Don’t want them to croak from it, though odds are decent some of them could).
Oh, and if we’d all just stop dwelling on the virus it would all blow over and the markets would bounce back. And at least gas prices are down where they should be! The kicker is they think they’re the smart ones.
Dan B
Exxellent tips for preventing infection and surviving:
Sip water / fluids frequently. If your throat is moist much of the virus will be washed into your stomach where acids kill them. If your throat is dry it is more likely the virus will stay in the throat and get into the windpipe and lungs.
By the time you are short of breath the lungs may be stiffening. It’s less likely to survive or for treatment to be effective if you’re this advanced. Check your breathing every morning. Hold your breath for ten full seconds. If you can without coughing you’re probably fine. If you have to cough seek treatment.
Seems like reasonable advice and an improvement on the moat of alcohol around the Toilet-Paper Castle walls.
Back to himming My Corona and CoronaShark…
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Are you trying to get on geese’s bad side?
Kent
Two side-by-side columns and headlines in today’s Washington Post.
The Coronavirus isn’t another Hurricane Katrina, it’s Worse , and
The Coronavirus is Trump’s Chernobyl
Shit is getting real for Mr. Trump (and the rest of us)
germy
@mrmoshpotato: apparently.
Major Major Major Major
Just wanted to join everybody else in saying holy shit, Italy!
Mary G
@WaterGirl: They did ask Pence if he’s been tested and he said no.
debbie
@germy:
NPR pointed out he did not attend the press conference.
Kent
I swear to God, the fall campaign ads are just going to write themselves.
March 5 – Trump coronavirus was a hoax
March 7 – Trump goes golfing while 1579 additional cases are discovered
etc. etc.
Just run a split screen with Trump being trump, goofing, golfing, and saying stupid shit on one side, with hospitals in lockdown and viral containment units and morgues on the other side on a day-by-day and week-by-week retrospective of what actually happened with Trump’s responses and behavior on the other.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I go often enough that it scares me. I’m in better shape than a lot of vets I see, my medical condition is not horrible but I’m neurologically compromised and this latest over the last 6 months is just another path to an opening. The death rate curve goes up rather rapid for those of us over 70 (Hi there!) although I suspect that the bad side is closer to 80 than 70, as the curve goes up I think exponentially after 80. I don’t have a lot of physical interaction with a lot of people but you know food shopping, the VA, etc. I don’t think my risk is as high as your uncle from the sound of it but it certainly is higher than average.
dmsilev
@mrmoshpotato: Geese don’t have a good side; they’re bastards through and through.
Jinchi
@Mary G: 1100 crew members on a ship that carried 3000 people! That number just blew my mind.
Barbara
@eemom: Hi to you too. It’s all same old same old. Hope to see you here now and again.
@randy khan: I had similar thoughts. What is hard to forgive is that we could be making these decisions with a lot more and better information, in order to be surer that we are disrupting people’s lives for their own good.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
That you didn’t expect something that obnoxious is on you that you didn’t see it coming from about maybe a million miles away…….
C Stars
@geg6: That makes sense to me.
@Martin: Thank you for offering so much information. I was just obviously having a moment of panic. But it sounds as though there’s quite a bit of thought behind these decisions. And yes, I do hope that there’s enough sanitizer for labs like the kind my loved one works in, where folks aren’t necessarily wearing gloves all of the time and there’s a lot of shared equipment.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Fabrication space/fornication space=dangerous in very different ways.
Ruckus
@eemom:
Too late. I believe there was photographic evidence within the last day or two that he already has.
Sister Golden Bear
My schaden is freuding….
No wonder Twitler is having a meltdown.
C Stars
@Sister Golden Bear:
All I can think of is the ha ha kid from the Simpsons: youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
C Stars
Does the Italy decree mean folks literally shouldn’t leave their homes, like to go shopping etc., or does it mean folks shouldn’t travel to different towns/regions for any reason other than emergencies?
chris
Just got off the phone with Academic Sibling #2 and attendant Academic Spouse. They had three conferences lined up in Italy and France in May. All cancelled to much dismay.
Worse, they were to go on to Berlin to spend holiday time with friends but they’re not too sure about that now. They’re going to wait and see for a bit while they try and get some money back from various airlines. I wished them luck and look forward to seeing them this summer for a change.
Jinchi
Just wait for the next Republican president.
mapaghimagsik
@MattF: Not yet.
germy
@C Stars:
washingtonpost.com/world/europe/italy-extends-coronavirus-lockdown-to-entire-country-imposing-restri…
MomSense
@C Stars:
There is a story in all the Maine news outlets that a Bowdoin student or students, who had recently returned from Italy, decided the quarantine didn’t apply to them. They went to the campus, met with their advisors, went downtown, etc. Bowdoin is in a town full of seniors. My mom is there all the time to see her best friend and for symphony practice.
There are so many selfish people.
Martin
@C Stars: Everyone is having a moment of panic. Working helps me with mine.
I’m not worried about universities. We’re on this, and students are the lowest risk population.
I’m worried about hospitals and retirement communities. I’m worried about social panic if hospitals get overrun, or if this sweeps through Congress.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Dan B: Would sipping wine frequently kill the virus In the throat or would it need to be something stronger like vodka or everclear? Asking for a friend.
MomSense
@eemom:
He literally pissed himself the other day at his field trip to the CDC. Lots of photos of his diapers leaking on his khaki trousers.
Can you imagine if any other politician pissed himself in public?
Martin
@MomSense: How the fuck did their advisors not shut that down?
Sometimes I forget what it’s like to have a bunch of rich entitled students instead of a bunch of poor thankful ones.
germy
Israeli rabbi: Coronavirus outbreak is divine punishment for gay pride parades
MisterForkbeard
@MomSense: Please tell me this is just something you’re making up. I can’t find anything about it, for which I’m somewhat grateful.
Baud
@germy: Jeez. Not even Pence is going there.
Brachiator
@Kent:
The crazy thing is that I hear right-leaning but usually somewhat sane talk radio hosts bend over backward to defend Trump, saying that he is doing the right thing by trying to calm and reassure the nation.
I think this is a Clear Channel radio station.
catclub
Worth a shot: Some people are like a slinky. Not very useful, but they can still bring a smile to your face when you watch them fall down a staircase.
Also, try the veal.
FlyingToaster
In the “shit’s gettin’ real” department, the Boston St. Patrick’s Parade is cancelled.
Miss Bianca
@Avalune: I think I’d be in the LMAO category here if I had a tune in my head for this little ditty…am I the slowest coach around, or what?
Oh, wait…I think I juuust got it. OK, now I *am* L’ingMAO.
catclub
@Jinchi: Somebody else reminded me of this. Trump did have unified government for two years.
Not as good as “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity has ended”
from the onion. but notable.
every-unified-republican-government-ever-has-led-to-a-financial-crash/
Dan B
@germy: Haven’t heard much from my cousin lately. Her son was getting married in Tuscany. September? May? Don’t remember but I said acouple weeks ago that I thought the country would be on lockdown and the world economy crashed. Guess I won’t be hearing much from her for a while.
WTF, I wasn’t promising an asteroid?
A Ghost To Most
@C Stars: Nelson Muntz.
germy
Dan B
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I would say to your friend that Everclear is only available black market at present. Wine is fine unless it’s from a fiaschi (sp?) or maybe it should be to support the lovely people of Italia!
Just say No to other types of Holy Water…
C Stars
@MomSense: Ugh. Yes, that’s horrible. My dad is immunocompromised at the moment as well as having underlying pulmonary issues and I’ve urged him to become a hermit for the rest of the year. I already anticipate that we’ll be seeing him more over Facetime than in person for the next several months. If past experience is any indication, my kids are effective little germ agents and I don’t want them to give this thing to their grandpa.
A Ghost To Most
@WaterGirl: I just want to give a hat tip to whomever decided to make clicking on the last comment date stamp trigger a refresh. If it is a happy accident, don’t fix it.
Sister Golden Bear
@germy: Not surprised. Bible humpers here have been blaming LGBTQ folks, just like they always blame all manner of natural disasters on us. Funny how God always seems to hate the same people they hate.
@MisterForkbeard: Yes, it’s true. And what was seen cannot be unseen. <reaches for eye bleach once again>
Jinchi
What’s the logic behind taking turns working from home? That doesn’t seem useful at all.
Another Scott
@Mary G: Yeah, turning the ship into a Voyage of the Damned is so like Donnie and his monsters.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: He’s
basicallytotally willing to kill 1,100 people, many from shithole countries.Brachiator
@Martin:
The US Supreme Court should use video chat for its sessions
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Thanks, I couldn’t bear to watch.
Sister Golden Bear
Fixed it for you.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Dan B: Yes, I know wine is fine, but do I (or my friend) need something stronger to kill the virus?
WereBear
This is the most useful instructions I’ve seen yet, from a public service professional in the UK.
our job is to #flattenthecurve
chopper
@germy:
wow, pandemic virus-killing hand sanitizer made by prison slave labor. ain’t that america? ugh.
chopper
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
unfiltered beer has b vitamins, remember that.
Dan B
@germy: The Pride Parades in Wuhan are Totally Fab!!*!*+
And the hundreds of thousands of Homosexual Marriages have Totally(!) solved the excess male population issue!
Now back to putting the idiot bigots far to the back of my mind.
BTW there are 200 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation in the USA at the moment. Most of the focus is anti-trans. ;<(
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
We need to crush these f–kers in the fall.
terry chay
@C Stars: They have the data from the WHO and Wuhan. Though you can get SARS-CORS-2 from those surfaces it is a very unlikely source of spread. This is why social distancing has been so effective in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.
Gin & Tonic
@White & Gold Purgatorian: You can’t be too careful (and I may suggest killing the malaria at the same time.)
Dan B
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Bleach!
It’s the new rose! The new sanitary avocado toast!!!
And I wonder if someone will start a run on mouthwash.
germy
@chopper:
Mike in NC
@chopper: See, we can compete with those inscrutable Chinese at something after all. MAGA!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy:
boy, is that gonna confuse the Iranians
I didn’t even know Liberty University had a program for rabbis
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How do you say “fabulous” in Farsi?
terry chay
@Baud: We don’t need to waste precious test kits at the moment. They simply need to take his temperature daily. Fever is the most common symptom and is easy and cheap to check for.
China with tons of test kits and a 3 hour turnaround didn’t bother to test unless you were showing a fever and/or cough. They got a handle on the outbreak. Most of their new cases are coming from abroad (I believe they are catching so many because they are checking symptoms on people arriving.)
Baud
@terry chay: Good point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: I remember the Christers saying that Katrina was caused by the dreaded homosexuals, except the gayest part of New Orleans, the French Quarter, was unscathed, while the majority black Lower 9th Ward was nearly destroyed. There wasn’t any storyline about God wanting to punish black people. Back in the 19th century there would have been.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Vast left wing conspiracy.
Patricia Kayden
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Perfect. CPAC finally gets something right.
Baud
@Dan B: And 9/11.
Elizabelle
@WereBear: They just moved it to its own website.
https://www.flattenthecurve.com
From the UK, with lots of excellent information about slowing/preventing the spread of coronavirus.
zhena gogolia
@WereBear:
that’s the best thing I’ve seen!
Patricia Kayden
Elizabelle
@WereBear: Good lord that site is perfect. Julie McMurry MPH does not mince words.
Relative to Other Countries, US Labor and Healthcare Policies are a Perfect Storm for Pandemics
Never has there been a clearer case for single-payer health care as a public good. The voting public in the US need to care as much about “keeping their doctor” as they do about keeping their doctor alive. Doctors worldwide are getting pummeled on the frontlines of this crisis, the lack of protective equipment is causing them to get infected, and themselves unable to get the care they need. For a personal lens on this, have a look here, but this is by no means unique; the accounts are flooding in.
Globally speaking, authoritarianism is also bad for pandemic control since it stifles the expertise and transparency required to make the best use of resources. Examples of this are most acutely seen in places like China (earliest in the epidemic), and now Iran. Statistically it is impossible that Turkey or Russia have no cases. The fact that the CDC site is not being updated over weekends does not bode well.
CaseyL
Speaking of Italy, an Italian doctor posted on reddit about being at ground zero:
Testimony of a surgeon working in Bergamo
It’ll chill you to the bone. He describes something not unlike the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.
Patricia Kayden
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL: this was a tad bit unnerving
JMG
So a week from tomorrow I am due to leave for Florida. Part duty (still questions relating to my parents’ estate, three years plus since my mom died, spend it all before you go, your descendants will thank you) and part pleasure (staying at nice resort I first visited in 1966, good food, golf, like that). Plus, seeing my parents’ surviving friends, and frankly every visit might be the last for them. Still planning on going, but it’s not until the 17th, so I am awaiting further developments. Am I being stubborn and selfish? Alice and I have huge supplies of hand wipes, sanitizers, etc. we bought when we both got sick right after New Year’s. Is my thought we should go just the insane belief of all human males that we never really get older than 18?
Jeffro
@Ruckus:
This was always my #1 concern about trumpov, even beyond his being owned by Russia: he’s a complete. fucking. moron.
No serious society would ever let someone like this get close to the reins of power in the dog catching department of Podunk, Illinois much less the “leader” of the United States and free world.
Can’t make those presidential requirements high enough in the future, in my opinion. We’re a nation of 330M people – serving as a Rep/Senator/Governor, completely clean bill of health, all tax records, and an IQ test should really just be a start.
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wait…surely you’re not suggesting…
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B:
More specifically, much of it is targeting trans kids. Stuff like threatening to put doctors in jail and to report parents to Child Protective Services if they attempt to provide trans healthcare to their child.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meanwhile, Sam Seder is peddling “very legitimate concerns” about Biden on the Hayes show. Hayes is having trouble letting go of the dream
Leto
@Jeffro: I think he is suggesting, and don’t call him Shirley! :p
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
No no no no no. Schadenfreude is when someone else’s Schade (misfortune) brings you Freude (joy).
Elizabelle
@CaseyL: Reading that. It’s astonishing. Please keep us apprised as you see more of this on reddit.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: not that it’ll make any difference, but were this a punishment from God it certainly seemed to first target countries that have been hostile to recognising their gay populations. And seems to be targeting the voting cohort in democracies who are the least in favor of decency towards us. Now, you could take that as a sign that the Almighty is displeased, say, with China’s censorship of gay content on the net and the arrest of several women writing unauthorised same sex romances…but as usual, the lesson will be that God is punishing them for not being hard enough and stoning us to death.
Baud
Sam Seder is such a Bernie shill.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: I just changed the underlying URL so it goes to the current site for flatten the curve.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Public policy is hard because people are complicated and behave like people. Measure A to solve problem B will often result in new problem C which is worse than problem B was.
Pareto optimizing society is an art form all of its own.
This is why I didn’t think Italy’s efforts would work.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just saw your comment. Glad a Juicer is on it.
Jeffro
@Leto: It’s almost like we rehearsed it! ;)
lamh36
this mutha…
End this tomorrow Dems. This is a direct reference to the smear being pushed by Trump and Bernie bros!
Marcopolo
@Baud: Yeah, that segment was awful. The elephant in the room none of the three of them addressed: Sanders says the reason he’s more electable is because he’ll bring out all these new voters BUT he is not doing that in the primaries.
Which is why he’s behind Biden in delegates.
WereBear
@JMG: Since you asked: No. Postpone. Tell those friends to take precautions.
It occurred to me this morning that Florida is set up for a perfect storm scenario.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: thank you
Baud
@lamh36:
Biden had to catch a plane to states with AA voters, so less time for speechifying.
BTW, the “7 minutes” thing is what the Bros are using to question Biden’s fitness. Sanders knows what he’s doing.
Baud
@Marcopolo:
The Establishment locked up all his voters in its basement.
Martin
Whichever candidate wants to convince voters that they are best equipped to unselfishly use the levers of government to help the citizenry should stop holding rallies immediately. Put it on YouTube live. You can still say everything you want to say. Bring your surrogates. Just remove the risk of spread.
Leto
@WereBear: I have a good friend who works for Disney and traveled there (FL) to do her mandatory stint. She married an Aussie and is not happy at all about having to do this. I’m kind of bungling this explanation but I/many others are worried about her.
zhena gogolia
What is this meme about Paul Gosar wanting to die in battle?
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Possibly Zes are annoyed about other things. (I mean, if one is a theist.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: these people are gonna drive me to joining twitter so I can tweet at them
that should take care of it
christ, he’s an asshole
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
Yeah.
Mary G
Is it just me or does this sound like Pompeo might be on thin ice? Near a bus?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Martin:
that’s a good idea– some kind of on-line town hall
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
I’ve been seeing this all day and not knowing where it comes from. The meme is pretty funny. (black humor)
buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/gop-congressman-paul-gosar-coronavirus-tweet-meme
debbie
@Jinchi:
They were testing the VPN. More people than usual were working remotely. This next round (working from home for 30 days) is probably part of seeing how far they can push it.
Mary G
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Dangerman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not in the least; Trump has well earned that “level” of respect.
When he checks out, I’ll have two scoops in his honor. Flavor TBD. I’ve always been a Rocky Road kinda guy. In ice cream, I mean.
mad citizen
@lamh36: The comeback for this is that Lincoln took all of two minutes to deliver the Gettysburg Address.
frosty
@A Ghost To Most: I learned the date stamp trick from BillinGlendale.
Mary G
Martin
The employees of the Life Care Center in WA haven’t been tested yet – they can’t get tests for them. 65 staff are showing symptoms and are quarantined.
They’re well over 50% infection rate there among residents. Would be about that among staff if those with symptoms test positive.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: It’s a great site!
Ksmiami
@MomSense: in fairness the US communications has been so poor and disorganized that maany people are basically just acting normal- in other words community spread is happening
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: BillinGlendaleCA!
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernie is a terrible person- just fuck him
TS (the original)
@Mary G:
I’m cryin’ for him. Guys earns over $20m per year. The true millionaire martyr. Has much to answer for in regard to Qantas. Used to be the best airline in the world until the govt sold it – now outsource everything outside of Australia to make more money.
debbie
How’s this for a great hashtag:
The Dangerman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m behind. What is the 7 minutes thing?
The bad news for Trump is no one is going to give a flying fuck about Biden’s health come November; they would vote for a tree stump over Trump if a tree stump could get on the ballot.
Jeffro
Just watched a clip of Trish Regan(?) on Fox reciting her cult lines about how this was all a “coronavirus impeachment scam” to crash the economy and take down her God Emp…er…trumpov.
Trish, whatever psychoactive drugs they have you on to help with the programming…stop takin’ em!
If this is what TCNJ-world absorbs from here on out, we’re gonna have a difficult time solving this thing and/or possibly remaining viable as a species. Whew!
Martin
@TS (the original): Don’t be critical. If it was PG&E they’d be giving out bonuses. Not taking salary is at least a positive step.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did you watch Ari Melber’s interview with Sirota? He let Sirota spew all kinds of disputable crap. He didn’t pushback on a single claim. I am convinced they’re afraid of Bernie Bros. But also, Ari is a terrible interviewer which is surprising because he is a lawyer.
MisterForkbeard
@The Dangerman: “Biden only spoke 7 minutes in public today because he has dementia and they need to hide it” is the operating asshole theory from desperate Sanders and Trump people.
Martin
San Jose State ending in-person classes.
Everyone, most of the cessation of in-person classes at universities since Friday have been campuses with no cases. This is preventative, shutting down large meeting areas, similar to theaters, concerts, airplanes, cruise ships, restaurants, churches. We don’t think young people who are at minimal risk should be congregating in groups of 30 or more.
How do you think we feel about older people congregating in spaces of that size?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Dangerman: see @lamh36: post above
the idea is that old Joe seems tired, don’t he…
Biden should respond, let’s compare medical records Bernie! Mine are public, how about yours?
JMG
@MisterForkbeard: Dana Houle had the perfect answer to that. All he did was quote “Four score and seven years ago.”
The Dangerman
@MisterForkbeard:
Hmmm. Dick moves from dick men. Fuck ’em.
Miss Bianca
@mad citizen: I love it. Consider that one stolen if I ever have to confront any Bernie Bros with that one. I’m just about to GBCW Facebook at this point, anyway. Got my horse, got my theater, got my real friends’ email addresses. Fuck.this.shit.
WaterGirl
I hope to god that Biden can get this wrapped up ASAP – enough for an outright win – and then immediately moves to online town halls and sets the example for everyone.
Or will it take too long for Biden to (hopefully) win outright? Is Super Tuesday even a statistical possibility?
Martin
Ohio State just moved classes online through March 30.
These large/high profile schools are making it easier for other schools to follow suit. it’ll just steamroll from here.
Immanentize
@MisterForkbeard: That sounds like puro projection to me. Sanders did not give his speech in Detroit so ‘others could talk about their community.’. Hmmmm
Jeffro
True story: my TCNJ dad told me that he watched Sanders at some sort of town hall event and was shocked to find that he agreed with Bernie on Medicare for All (well, for all who want it in my dad’s view) and on Free College For All (as long as they qualify with their grades and test scores and what not).
So I told him it was great that he (my dad) and AOC were so well aligned on this issue, and she appreciates his vote in advance in 2032.
And then we had the usual requisite convo about how he didn’t endorse her AT ALL, and I had to ask what was so different between Sanders and AOC since they’re 110% aligned on the issues, etc etc.
These clowns are so transparent in their misogyny, bigotry, and fake support for a fake ‘Democratic Socialist’
Fair Economist
@JMG: I would not go to FL. Wild transmission in the Tampa and Miami areas, and a state government that’s trying to cover up.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And this response too. Swipin’ it.
Jeffro
@MisterForkbeard: Isn’t 7 minutes about 6 minutes and 50 seconds longer than most folks can stand to hear from either trumpov OR Sanders?
They should be careful with this line of “attack”…it might turn out to be a big plus for Biden. “Vote for me and not only will I not lie to you, I’ll wrap it up so quickly you’ll be thanking me!”
Anya
Lawrence O just showed Jesse Jackson at a Bernie Sanders rally in Michigan and he sounded unwell.
Anya
@WaterGirl: I am convinced this will be wrapped up very fast if Bernie loses big this Tuesday. I don’t think he’ll hang around like he did after Hillary’s win.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: my understanding– and remember, I’m a certified random dumb guy on the internet– is that given the proportional distribution of delegates, it’s all but impossible for Bernie to catch up. I’m afraid that if older voters in MI get spooked and stay home tomorrow, Bernie will declare victory and demand we all bend the knee. Lawrence O’Donnell just said that Bernie was polling 25 points behind HRC in the ’16 MI primary and pulled off an upset.
@Anya: there was a Bernie surrogate on Nicolle Wallace’s show today who kept saying that Bernie won the first two contests– didn’t Buttigieg win Iowa in the end?– and “blew everyone away” (with 35%) in Nevada, and Joe Biden “did well” in So Carolina. No pushback. He had the look of a religious fanatic in his eyes.
JMG
It’s over tomorrow if the polls are within a John Daly drive of reality. Will Sanders quit? He didn’t last time, but peer pressure will be more intense now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: I had the same thought and googled his age, he sounded older than 78.
@JMG:
HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST BERNIE HAS PEERS!
dmsilev
@WaterGirl:
That will take a while, unfortunately. Proportional delegate allocation means that there’s no knock-out blow but just a steadily growing pile of delegates. If you take the 538 model as accurate, it’s unlikely that Biden will have an absolute majority of all pledged delegates before May.
Sorry.
sgrAstar
@C Stars: as far as UC Berkeley goes, I know a lot of the top admins there- from my pov they absolutely DO care about student and staff welfare. Berkeley is an extraordinary institution that does a lot of things really well. As other Juicers involved at UCs can attest, all of our campuses are operating under budgetary stress. Nonetheless, what they can do and have done for California is pretty awesome. I have a lot more confidence in Carol Christ’s administration than I do in trump’s, that’s for sure.
?
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernie says he “won the popular vote in Iowa”. But that doesn’t matter – especially not in a caucus. What really matters is delegates, and ex-Mayor Pete won 1 more delegate. ex-Mayor Pete won Iowa.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O’Donnell asks Biden if as President he would veto a Medicare for all bill that passed the house and senate. Stupid fucking question.
mad citizen
@Miss Bianca: You can always use fake names for Facebook and Twitter, etc. I’ve had a fake name Facebook for many years (hardly ever go on there, but think I did it to be able to comment on a newspaper site), and a fake twitter (different) name for a few years. So one can partake without raising the blood pressure
Although it is amazing, Facebook will find your real friends and acquaintenances somehow and try to friend you up with them.
Marcopolo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:As of right now before the voting tomorrow Biden needs to win 52% of the remaining delegates to get a majority; Sanders needs to win 55% of them. After tomorrow where it looks like Biden might net as much as +50 delegates to Sanders, Sanders will need to win like 60% of the remaining smaller pool. After next Tuesday, where it looks like Biden will crush Sanders in FL, Sanders will need to win like 65% of the remaining delegates which, with proportional awarding of delegates, is nigh impossible.
In 2016, Sanders fallback heading into April & May was that he was going to win so many delegates in CA he’d either: 1) catch up with HRC (except he wouldn’t), or 2) show he had so much momentum at the end of the primaries that they’d have to nominate him at the convention via superdelegates or underwear gnome math or something. Unfortunately, CA moved its 2020 primary up by 3 months and Sanders no longer has a big favorable state with a huge pool of unawarded delegates left to vote.
Tomorrow should see his campaign being lowered into the coffin & the March 16 primaries should be the nails sealing it shut. One might think he’d see the writing on the wall and drop out but we are talking about BS. He’ll probably limp into the convention stroking his supporters grievances all along the way (with assists from the Trump campaign & Russia).
Edited to add: as others have noted, even if Biden does as well as expected, due to proportional awarding of delegates it will still not be until the end of May or early June before he has an outright majority.
Kent
Sanders may not quit. But Biden can start ignoring his ass and pivot to the general election. Start campaigning in the important general elections states and just laugh at Bernie out campaigning in those last few primary states that Biden is probably going to win without lifting a finger.
Just ignore Bernie and start running against trump once the race is effectively over. That’s not even likely to lose many, if any, primary votes in the last states. In fact a lot of people will probably understand and appreciate that he is not putting trump in his sights not Bernie.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, but you’re our certified random dumb guy on the internet. I’m hoping for a blowout in favor of Biden tomorrow, too.
I’m looking for Biden to rack up enough delegates that it cannot possibly go to the convention. Because until that happens, Bernie’s got a gleam in his eye and hope in his heart that he could win at a contested convention.
eemom
@dmsilev:
The one that last Tuesday proved to be bullshit?
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that. I wasn’t sure if Nicole Wallace forgot about Pete winning Iowa because she mentioned it many times before. Maybe his cult-like repetitive certainty threw her. Though I enjoyed it when Nick Confessore said: the Establishment didn’t defeat Bernie. He was defeated by Black church ladies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Marcopolo: thanks, that’s a very clear explanation
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Well, shit. But I very much appreciate knowing the answer.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus: Haha
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That may be the smartest take I’ve seen so far.
TS (the original)
@Martin: Not for a $$$$ man. Same as trump not taking a salary – what does that mean to the US?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@CaseyL: I was just watching a video from someone in Italy and he was saying the Italians are openly flaunting the distancing recommendation because they fell they can’t give up socializing and partying. And Italy’s death rate doubled in one week.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Test
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Anya: He’s an old man. Jackson is exactly 30 days younger than Bernie.
prostratedragon
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: And has Parkinson’s. He’s got rather good at controlling it, until he gets a bit tired I think.