Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let there be snark.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Open Thread: Coronavirus-Related Podcasts for Aural Learners

Open Thread: Coronavirus-Related Podcasts for Aural Learners

by | 107 Comments

This post is in: 

Forwarded by Major Major Major Major:

Coronavirus 411 alerts, updates, and information

Coronavirus Daily Briefing

Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction with Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Coronavirus Global Update BBC World Service

Coronavirus Today: Alerts and Updates with Dr. Brian McDonough

Epidemic With Dr. Celine Gounder and Ronald Klain

Social Distance with Dr. James Hamblin

Viral: Coronavirus

Also:
The Al Franken Podcast: Andy Slavitt on the Pandemic

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  1. 1.

    Emma

    This Podcast Will Kill You put out 6 (six!) 45 minute – 1 hour (!!!) episodes yesterday covering pretty much every aspect I can think of. Not hosted by actual doctors (I believe they’re grad students in one of the science fields), but they interview lots of doctors and scientists.

  4. 4.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I suppose guns really don’t work with a virus. Wow listen to that report makes my brain hurt.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    And kudos to the state government, who put together a user-oriented site and secured the domain in record time.

  9. 9.

    PsiFighter37

    Wilmer threatening to hold up the Senate legislation. Great – because this is the exact time to being playing purity pony.

    Fuck that asshole. Still intent on nuking the Dems no matter what. Schumer should kick his ass out the caucus and truly render him irrelevant.

  10. 10.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: He has heaped praise on a few billionaires and companies that are moving mountains to bring or build supplies for California.

    And some other stuff like Keep Your Distance.

    [ETA] Ooops, that should be a reply to BR.

  11. 11.

    Mallard Filmore

    @EthylEster: Now I have a concern about this HUGE bailout … who will end up paying?  Despite the bailout getting directed away from big companies, will this end up being a back-end way to loot the middle class when the bill comes due?

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    Sounds familiar:

    (WaPo) LONDON — Britain is behind on testing people for coronavirus, compared with countries such as Germany and South Korea, but officials Wednesday promised again that millions of test kits were on the way.

    At Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s daily news conference, he said that Britain is ordering “huge numbers of tests” and would be ramping up its screening programs soon.

    Second verse, same as the first!

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    @PsiFighter37:

    Wilmer threatening to hold up the Senate legislation. Great – because this is the exact time to being playing purity pony.

    Fuck that asshole. Still intent on nuking the Dems no matter what. Schumer should kick his ass out the caucus and truly render him irrelevant.

    I would love it if it were good cop/bad cop. Schumer saying to McConnell, “Listen, you should give us what we asked for, or Bernie will hold out for even more radical reform. And he’s got nothing to lose.”

  19. 19.

    Betty

    @Mary G: Several of the first cases in the Caribbean were brought in by people from the UK. The UK is way behind on finding out who is infected.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    That never works, and would not work here.

    Doesn’t work in the movies either. But leads to kick ass fight scenes.

  21. 21.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Asshole spent the whole time in Vermont and now pipes up. Honestly, fuck him. No wonder that jerkoff got kicked off a commune when he was in his 30s.

  22. 22.

    Betty

    @Mary G: Sorry, I should have said confirmed cases. Testing has been very limited, and many of us suspect it has been in the region for a while between Carnival visitors and cruise ship arrivals.

  23. 23.

    Martin

    @PsiFighter37: The Senate bill is terrible. You spend $2T not solving the problem, and then when shit gets really real you can’t do anything because you already wasted $2T.

    Push the House bill to the front.

  27. 27.

    EthylEster

    @Mallard Filmore: WaPo is publishing stuff about the bill. More info is better. From Rubin editorial today….

    Roll Call reports: “The enormous spending bill expected to be released Wednesday morning will include $400 million in election assistance, according to two sources who have seen a summary of the bill from appropriators.”

    But I am also hearing that some R senators are gonna put a hold on the bill because….freedom? Could be rumors. No cites given.

    Kevin Drum has a post up now discussing the size of the package. He compares it to WW2.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    The Senate bill is terrible. You spend $2T not solving the problem, and then when shit gets really real you can’t do anything because you already wasted $2T.

    I thought the Senate bill contained elements that the House wanted.  If this is “pass the Senate bill now and we might look at the House bill later,” then yes, fuck it.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    @Mallard Filmore:

    McConnell is already plotting a Take It Or Leave It position.

    Leave it.

    Trump can explain to his supporters why a bill for corporations is a good thing.  “A beautiful thing. It’s big. A perfect protect corporations bill.”

    Hell, in a week Trump will get bored and forget the bill ever existed.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    this strikes me as a huge, hairy deal

    David Lammy @ DavidLammy

    “Thousands of 15-minute home tests for coronavirus will be delivered by Amazon to people self-isolating with symptoms or will go on sale on the high street within days.” This could be a game changer. A huge well done to Public Health England.

    I’m taking everything with a grain of salt, but Lammy is an MP and the link is to the Guardian. Home tests with finger prick blood tests (cause my first thought was: “No way can people give themselves an accurate nasal swab”). The article is not quite as definitive about the time-frame, one person saying weeks, not days.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Ah, that would add a yuge important data stream IDing those who now have antibodies for the virus. Doing it at home in near real-time? Brilliant, possibly, provided folks can do and report it without screwing up.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: There are some, but I think Pelosi was willing to suck it up if the Senate could pass it.  But if they can’t pass it, then get a vote on the House bill and make the Senate reject it.

    We need to understand just how defining a moment this is.

  35. 35.

    J R in WV

    Here’s a great way to keep busy during your home quarantine!! Free books published by Johns Hopkins University Press !!!

    Several are about various paleontology subjects, because I found it on a rockhounds listserv, if anyone remembers those, but many others available too. Get educated in all sorts of academic topics!

  36. 36.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Tell Bernie’s fans about that. Over in that article that was linked above to DailyKos, it’s mentioned that Sanders has no real leverage.

    Here’s a comment saying, “no uh, yes he does!”:

    Any Senator has significant leverage.  I am glad he is using his.  I said in 2016 he could end up as a powerful voice and great ally to President Clinton.  He chose a different path.  Hopefully he is getting back to what he is good at, and leaving presidential politics to those better suited to it.

     

    He is applying counterpressure.  Really, you don’t understand how negotiations work?

    If we don’t push back then they can unilaterally apply the same pressure to get their way.  Why is that so difficult to understand?

  37. 37.

    Aziz, light!

    I suppose guns really don’t work with a virus.

    The guns are for the coming race war, or for when the sick people turn into zombies, whichever comes first.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Miss Bianca: I had MSNBC on in the background, and a reporter whose name escaped me said a handful of GOP Senators want to trim UI benefits, and Sanders is threatening to blow things up if they do
    I thought it was Eli Stokols but I just checked his twitter feed and I’m not seeing that

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Brian Schatz @brianschatz 2h
    Republicans right now are holding up COVID relief package because the unemployment insurance is TOO GENEROUS. I’ve heard zero business leaders or workers ask me to not make too much money available. My advice is: Ask anyone in your home state. They will tell you to pass the bill

    Chris Murphy @ChrisMurphyCT  2h
    Let’s not over-complicate this. Several Republican Senators are holding up the bipartisan Coronavirus emergency bill because they think the bill is too good for laid off Americans.

  42. 42.

    Martin

    1M unemployment claims in CA in the last 2 weeks.

    In case anyone was wondering why the GOP thinks the UI benefits are too generous.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jeffrey Stein@JStein_WaPo

    For those just tuning in:
    1. Senate included an increase in unemployment insurance $ – extra $600/week
    2. Some Rs now demanding it be scrapped bc would make UI>min wage, hurting incentive to work
    3. Sanders now saying if they do 2, he will hold up bill over ~$500B “bailout” $$

    I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned, but I’m not a Sanders fan, but he’s got a point here.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That’s different than what was reported upthread, which was that Bernie was going to blow up the deal. You are saying he’s going to blow up changes to the deal, which makes more sense.

  45. 45.

    Martin

    The House bill avoids this situation because it raises minimum wage in the process.

    Pay attention to whether they’re trying to save the economy, or just their place in the economy. Totally different goals.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Paul McLeod@ pdmcleod
    · 1h The issue is the bill provides $600/week in federal unemployment insurance on top of what the states pay out. Lindsey Graham say people could quit their jobs because they could end up making more money drawing unemployment. They want the payments capped at a person’s full salary.

    I have know since I was ten that you can’t get unemployment if you quit your job. I learned it from a television sitcom.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    1M unemployment claims in CA in the last 2 weeks.

    In case anyone was wondering why the GOP thinks the UI benefits are too generous.

    It still rankles me that the US could not even grasp the concept of trying to get companies to retain workers and subsidize their pay. Schumer and other Democrats really have a thing for wanted to help laid off workers instead.

    However, paying money to the unemployed is still less than the freaking no-strings bailout of corporations.

    And the US will still have to aid in the rebuilding of entire industries when this is over.

     

     

  50. 50.

    hueyplong

    Only a fucking Republican thinks someone would give up a steady job to make an extra couple of bucks of temporary UI benefits.  It’s just another example of the fact that the phrase “moral hazard” actually means “fuck the powerless.”

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @hueyplong:

    They have a giant file drawer labeled “F” for “Free Stuff.” Anything involving gummint dollars that isn’t a DoD contract or giving away federal land goes in there.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Annie Lowrey@AnnieLowrey 14m
    You can’t claim UI if you quit, and you can’t claim UI if you’re fired for misconduct (at least in some cases).

    Steven Dennis@StevenTDennis

    · 3h
    IMPORTANT: The problem Sasse, Tim Scott and Graham have is that the UI benefits would be larger than what many low-wage workers make because of the *extra $600 per week.* They worry that would create an incentive for low-wage workers to get laid off and stay laid off.

    If this were Blackburn, Johnson or Cornyn, maybe a couple of others (Marco, the goober from North Dakota who beat Heitkamp), I’d buy stupid as an excuse, but however warped or damaged these three might be, I have trouble believing they believe this bullshit.

  57. 57.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I can see how this is going to play out.

    Republicans dick off and whine about socialism

    Blue states and the blue cities in the Red States take action with the distancing, beat down the pandemic.

    Republicans the idiot base claim it was no big deal.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    I listened last hour to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam give a Covid-19 briefing. Seemed very solid. Northam had an active pediatric neurosurgery practice until he became governor in 2018 (he was a state senator before that, a part time job in Virginia). And he served four years as an Army surgeon at the beginning of his medical career, so he is well-grounded in medical problems and solutions. Northam spoke of conversations he and other state officials had carried on with Falwell Jr. and Liberty U. officials, and quoted 1 Corinthians about responsibility. (Now Falwell’s saying he did not exactly say he was reopening, mumble mumble. Just an asshole.) So far as I can see the social distancing mitigation is being carried out, and we should be bending the curve down. But we are all just making more or less educated guesses, because a certain asshole pissed away most of two months and we are only now starting to test in large numbers. Good luck everybody. We’ll need it.

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Martin: Sudden surge of up to 25% of the population not spending money, because they are out of work has it’s own problems too. Of course the MAGA hats can’t even think beyond their next meal so that concept is beyond them.

  60. 60.

    dmsilev

    Oh, for the love of God

    Louisiana pastor defies COVID-19 stay-at-home order, holds services for hundreds
    Despite a stay-at-home order this week from Louisiana’s governor, the Rev. Tony Spell was praying over a woman in his Baton Rouge church on Wednesday morning.

    “God in the name of Jesus, I want you to touch her; I want you to heal her body; I want the spirit of peace and God to go forth with her,” the evangelical pastor intoned.

    As city and state officials across the country ordered people to remain at home to combat the virus’ spread, people have been defying those orders: partying on beaches, picnicking in parks and hiking in groups. But Spell’s Pentecostal services in Baton Rouge, which drew 1,800 people last Sunday, pose a unique challenge in this deeply Christian state where counties are referred to as parishes — one that pits constitutional rights to freedom of religion and speech against efforts to protect public health.

    […]

    Late Tuesday, about 300 people gathered at Spell’s Baton Rouge church, Life Tabernacle, where anointed handkerchiefs were passed out to parishioniers.

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @trollhattan: They have a giant file drawer labeled “F” for “Free Stuff.” Anything involving gummint dollars that isn’t a DoD contract or giving away federal land goes in there.

    More like as Catch 22 said, any government money not going to farmers is dangerous socialism.

  62. 62.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @dmsilev: This is in the context that Louisiana in a week and half has passed the death toll of California has had the kast 44 days and they figure Louisiana will be out of ventilators by the end of next week.

  64. 64.

    J R in WV

    OK, so politics related… Got an email the other day boosting Betsy Sweet for Democratic nominee in Maine, running against Susan Collins. Was from Susan Sarandon, who worked hard for Bernie Sanders and against Hillary Clinton in 2016. So worked hard for Donald J Trump for President, also too!! Wrote back to Ms Sweet, to tell her being endorsed by Ms Sarandon was a fatal error.

    The real Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine is Sara Gideon, current House Majority Leader in the Maine House of Reps. So I donated to Ms Gideon, and wrote another note to Ms Sweet’s campaign to tell them about their fatal error. No one who helped Trump get elected, like Susan Sarendon, deserves any support from real members of the Democratic Party!

    You all might want to support Ms Gideon for Senate in Maine !!!

    ETA: fix typo

  65. 65.

    Brachiator

    More on podcasts

    I have been enjoying the podcasts Make Me Smart, Marketplace and Planet Money, which have had good programs on the impact of the corona virus on the economy.

  68. 68.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: Yeah. Wages are typically only about 15% of food service industry costs. Do a national rent/debt payment/utility freeze, guarantee 50% of employee wages (because you’ve eliminated the need for the other 50% with the freezes) and tell employers they can’t do layoffs. You just freeze everything in place.

    The sooner we realize that we have no functional economy and every effort to have one undermines saving lives, the sooner we can get on the right footing here.

  69. 69.

    trollhattan

    If there were ever any doubt Republicans have become a death cult worshiping Trump in exactly the fashion of David Koresh and Jim Jones followers:

     

    A new CBS/YouGov poll asked Democrats who they trust for information on the coronavirus pandemic. Their answers are instructive: the CDC 87%, your governor 75%, the media 72%, friends and family 72%, religious leaders 44%, President Trump 14%.

    Compare that to the answers of Republicans: President Trump 90%, the CDC 84%, friends and family 81%, religious leaders 71%, your governor 65%, the media 13%.

    Mind = boggled. Ninety fucking percent.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @trollhattan: I’d make the traditional ‘tell his base to drink bleach and they’d do it’ joke, except that that arguably already happened with him pushing those very dangerous drugs a few days ago, leading to someone killing themselves by drinking pool cleaning solutions.

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Sudden surge of up to 25% of the population not spending money, because they are out of work has it’s own problems too. Of course the MAGA hats can’t even think beyond their next meal so that concept is beyond them.

    A lot of conservatives are in the same boat as everybody else. But they seem to grab onto the false promises that Trump offers and are eager to point the blame on anything except reality if things don’t magically improve in a couple of weeks.

  75. 75.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl: Adds a special something to the occasion. Who says you can’t mix church services with a nice friendly game of Russian Roulette?

  78. 78.

    PsiFighter37

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have not read into the details, but of course it is typical Bernie to not play nice with the caucus he is a part of and make unilateral demands on his own. Because he’s had sooooooo much success legislatively in his career.

    Again: fuck that guy. Leave it to the professionals who have gotten shit done.

  80. 80.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    But they seem to grab onto the false promises that Trump offers and are eager to point the blame on anything except reality if things don’t magically improve in a couple of weeks.

    Until the shit really hits the fan and somebody close to them dies because of this virus.

    Come to think of it, America’s gun problem adds whole new dimension to this crisis: what happens if doctors decide to take a loved one off a ventilator because they’re unlikely to pull through and a patient with better chances needs it but the family points a gun at the doctor trying to pull the plug?

    Hospitals already have police on site and I suppose visitation to hospitals is and would be discouraged/prohibited anyway

  86. 86.

    satby

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): you only have leverage when your opponents want the same outcome (this particular bill passed). The Republicans aren’t all that committed to this bill, the changes were forced on them. They’ll be totally ok with blaming “the Democrats” and taking a recess because they’re secure in the knowledge that American “news” media will cover for them and blame the Democrats too.

  87. 87.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @PsiFighter37:

    Wilmer threatening to hold up the Senate legislation. Great – because this is the exact time to being playing purity pony.

    Fuck that asshole. Still intent on nuking the Dems no matter what. Schumer should kick his ass out the caucus and truly render him irrelevant.

    Dude, if this is what he’s fighting with Lindsey, Sasse, and the two fucking Scotts I don’t get why you’d object.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, warned that unless a group of GOP senators back down from their demand for changes to the unemployment insurance benefits, he would slow walk the bill until stronger guardrails were put on hundreds of billions in funding for corporations.

    “In my view, it would be an outrage to prevent working-class Americans to receive the emergency unemployment assistance included in this legislation,” Sanders said in a statement.

    thehill.com/homenews/senate/489525-last-minute-complaints-threaten-2t-senate-coronavirus-emergency-a…

    I don’t see any evidence he’s trying to stall things. Meanwhile, the R’s are absolutely trying to hurt people. You need to post a link to the accusations you make or else this is just Bernie Bashing and spreading false rumors to whoop people up.

  89. 89.

    HumboldtBlue

    Newsom Announces Mortgage Relief For Californians Affected By COVID-19

    – 12:45 p.m., March 25, 2020

    Four of the five major national banks have agreed to a 90-day forbearance on mortgage payments for those affected by COVID-19, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.

    Wells Fargo, US Bank, Citi and JP Morgan Chase have all agreed to waive mortgage payments for 90 days. Bank of America was the only one that did not commit to the 90-day forbearance. The bank has only committed to a 30-day forbearance, Newsom said.

    State-charter banks and credit unions have also agreed to the 90-day forbearance. Newsom said it is important to have a coordinated relief effort for families instead of a patchwork of relief like what happened during the housing bubble collapse in 2008.

    There is no income requirement for mortgage relief, but there needs to be evidence that the homeowners have been affected by COVID-19, Newsom said. But it won’t be as laborious as it was during the housing crisis in 2008, he added.

    More than 1 million Californians have filed for unemployment benefits since March 13. Under the stimulus package deal that was just reached, the federal government will add $600 on top of the state benefits, Newsom said. — Alexander Nguyen, web producer

  90. 90.

    Martin

    @BR: He’s gotten most banks to agree to a 3 month mortgage holiday. Need to expand that to rents. Not sure a governor can do that.

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    Yeah. Wages are typically only about 15% of food service industry costs. Do a national rent/debt payment/utility freeze, guarantee 50% of employee wages (because you’ve eliminated the need for the other 50% with the freezes) and tell employers they can’t do layoffs. You just freeze everything in place.

    Some countries (The Netherlands, Denmark, Canada) seem to be taking the approach of trying to subsidize wages and also help small businesses. And yes, they are helping some big corporations as well. This seems a more rational approach.

    Los Angeles County, as noted before has declared a moratorium on personal and commercial evictions, and encouraged moratoriums on utility bills and have tried to keep small business employers from laying off staff. Obviously, for California as a whole, this has not been tremendously successful.

    The sooner we realize that we have no functional economy and every effort to have one undermines saving lives, the sooner we can get on the right footing here.

    I’ve said this early and often here, and in some tax and accounting sites I participate in.  Countries deliberately contracted the economy. They cannot react as though it is a simple recession or dip in the economy.

    And Trump and his chief advisors are unable to conceptualize this at all.  The same is true of the Senate Republicans. Some Democrats are a little shaky as well, but they don’t seem to be as inflicted with “corporations uber alles” dogma as the GOP.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

     

     

    @dmsilev: Pentecostals can get into weird shit, like snake handling. I took it as a bad sign when Trump hooked up with that nutty Paula White. Maybe she thinks praying over Trump is a form of snake handling.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator:

    It still rankles me that the US could not even grasp the concept of trying to get companies to retain workers and subsidize their pay. Schumer and other Democrats really have a thing for wanted to help laid off workers instead.

    I think you’ve mentioned this before.

    I’ve been curious how it would work. There are established systems for paying the unemployed, sending people checks, etc. Those can be ramped up quickly.

    Is there an existing economy-wide system for the government to pay companies to retain workers? Maybe that’s the rub – maybe there isn’t such a system? Dunno.

    The federal government is a huge beast built up over 200+ years. Lots of laws, lots of rules and regulations, lots of traditions and norms, lots of political constraints.

    And one could easily imagine some sort of BS lawsuit about paying companies to retain their workers making its way to the SCOTUS and the RWNJ 5 deciding that it’s all unconstitutional anyway, so we have to go back to the gold standard, or something…

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    A new CBS/YouGov poll asked Democrats who they trust for information on the coronavirus pandemic. Their answers are instructive: the CDC 87%, your governor 75%, the media 72%, friends and family 72%, religious leaders 44%, President Trump 14%.

    Compare that to the answers of Republicans: President Trump 90%, the CDC 84%, friends and family 81%, religious leaders 71%, your governor 65%, the media 13%.

    This is just sad.  At least a Business Insider story on this lays it out plain.

    Trump has repeatedly spread false or misleading info as the coronavirus pandemic has escalated (and well before the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic).

    I am not the only one who has pointed out that Trump’s supporters will grasp onto him even if it costs them their own lives.

    But I am just gobsmacked and saddened at the degree of their insane faith in this idiot. But the best grifter always gets the suckers to defend him to the death.

  99. 99.

    danielx

    Overhearing Fat Bastard’s daily shitfest* –  let’s see:

    beautiful

    tremendous

    big beautiful wall

    very unfair

    biased

    not happy

    only the day and issue changes, never the overarching themes of ‘I am great’ and ‘everybody is so unfair to me’.

  100. 100.

    Citizen Alan

    Offtopic, but the Bernie Swine are now pushing a 1993 rape accusation against Biden apparently made by a woman name Tara Reade. She hasn’t bothered to say anything about this in the last 27 years or so, but she has put out blog  posts as recently as 2018 expressing her deep admiration for Vladimir Putin. Naturally, anyone who points these facts out on Twitter is accused of red-baiting and told we should “always believe women.”

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    The federal government is a huge beast built up over 200+ years. Lots of laws, lots of rules and regulations, lots of traditions and norms, lots of political constraints.

    And yet Trump tramples traditions and ignores norms and rules and the people cheer him. He is a man who does not recognize any constraint and the GOP leadership backs him to a large degree.

    Here is one of the the things that Denmark proposed to do:

    Denmark’s government agreed to cover the cost of employees’ salaries at private companies as long as those companies do not fire people. If a company makes a notice saying that it has to either lay off 30 percent of their workers or fire at least 50 people, the state has agreed to take on 75 percent of workers’ salaries, up to $3,288 per month. (This would preserve the income for all employees earning up to $52,400 per year.)

    And The Netherlands

    Emergency cases – A compensation measure will be introduced for certain companies that are impacted the hardest (e.g., restaurants, cafes, etc. that need to close down). This includes a fixed payment of €4,000 for a period of three months.

    I am not saying that these are perfect answers. But I see more creative thinking coming out of California and New York, and from Los Angeles county than from the federal government.

    People talk about FDR.  But the idea is not to mimic his proposals, but to adapt and adopt his method, thinking about a contracted economy in new ways.

     

    ETA:  even the plan to send people checks needs an overhaul of the present system. You can’t just depend on last year’s tax records for addresses. The Make Work Pay credit excluded people on Social Security, even though their address and bank information is more up to date.  Using the unemployment compensation system has to be retooled to include people who currently have jobs.

  102. 102.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    Heh. : )

    Some of the “doomers” ended up being right about all of this: the virus escaped containment in China, spread to the entire world, has begun to tank the economy, and has already started killing a lot of people, sadly

  103. 103.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    It is sad and I don’t get it. Anybody who actually has paid attention over the last 3 years and focused on the big picture should come away with the opinion that Trump is an incompetent, corrupt bullshitter. He sounds like a fucking idiot half the time during these public Coronavirus addresses.

    It’s pathetic and sad and this fact should be shoved right into their faces

  104. 104.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It is sad and I don’t get it. Anybody who actually has paid attention over the last 3 years and focused on the big picture should come away with the opinion that Trump is an incompetent, corrupt bullshitter. He sounds like a fucking idiot half the time during these public Coronavirus addresses.

    I know people who actually say that when they see Trump, they see a strong leader who reassures them. They go out of their way to excuse his angry flareups and attacks on his opponents as just being “unfortunate.”

    They remind me of people who are so “pro-cop” that they refuse to even consider the possibility that a police officer may have even committed an error when there is a confrontation or shooting of a civilian.

    For example, even though they defend their own right to have a gun, if a civilian legally had a firearm with him and was shot by a cop, they immediately ask, “why did he have a gun? The cop obviously was in fear for his life.”

    Trump supporters cannot see anything other than their faith in Trump. I even heard one person once say “Trump is a businessman. Of course he lies. But he still loves America.”

  105. 105.

    andy

    The prepper thing is particularly amusing. Of course they are not ready because what they really wanted was the opportunity to shoot somebody and be the big hero, the tough guy who makes the tough decisions. Now they are scrambling for toilet paper because they didn’t install bidets in The Compound.

  106. 106.

    Mousebumples

    @km: thanks for the rec! Pediacast is great if you’re concerned about kids, childcare, etc. Hosted by a pediatrician, they’ve also had some covid cases recently.

    pediacast.org/

  107. 107.

    ballerat

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Until the shit really hits the fan and somebody close to them dies because of this virus.

    I think most of them will still blame their usual boogeymen.

    They will blame the Dems for distracting Dear Leader with impeachment. They will blame the media for conspiring to try to make Trump fail. They will blame the Chinese for bringing it into the country.

    They hear what they want to hear, and they will blame who they always wanted to blame.

Comments are closed.