Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

In my day, never was longer.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Consistently wrong since 2002

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Friday/Saturday, March 27/28 (Domestic Edition)

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Friday/Saturday, March 27/28 (Domestic Edition)

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Per the local news, Massachusetts’ GOP Governor Charlie ‘Chickensh*t’ Baker has the state handing out ‘advisory notices’ asking entrants ‘from the NY area’ to self-quarantine for 14 days. No hard ruling, because ‘it would be impossible to enforce.’

He agreed that things might change, depending on how desperate the situation gets…

There was also a TV segment — on more than one channel — Cape Cod officials pointing out there are only two hospitals on the Cape, ‘advising’ people thinking of fleeing to their summer houses to STAY THE HECK WHERE THEY ARE rather than fighting traffic over the perpetually inadequate Sagamore Bridge. Like that’ll work, on the people it’s intended to target.

When I was nine or ten, I read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, and was stumped by the bit where one of Scout’s classmates reports a current-events newspaper clip about ‘Hitler washing the feeble-minded’. (And tells his confused teacher ‘I guess an idiot can’t wash himself.’) I asked my dad about it, and he said such bad words that I just let it drop…

Meanwhile, CAPITALISM!

Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    Ryan

    “Yes—getting masks and ventilators made en mass “is a great point of leverage, it’s a great negotiating tool””

    This is the world’s worst negotiator if he thins the DPA is somehow voluntary. Did he think DOJ’s orders that he not discriminate against black people were voluntary too?

  2. 2.

    bjacques

    Reposted from downstairs:

    The permanent residents of Cape Cod, the Lake District and other holiday getaways dealing with the unseasonal onslaught of vain city folk can take inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s “Summer People” (meanwhile practicing social distancing of course).

    Adam!

    This FT.com item (sorry, paywall) should be right up your alley. Speaking of never letting a good crisis go to waste—though obviously long in the works—China is proposing a “New IP” standard they’ve developed with Huawei and hope to test next year. It goes before the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) shortly, with the enthusiastic support of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and all the developing countries receiving Chinese largesse. One Belt, One Road, One Digital Superhighway…

    https://www.ft.com/content/c78be2cf-a1a1-40b1-8ab7-904d7095e0f2

  4. 4.

    p.a.

    NYers entering RI are being stopped and TOLD they must isolate 14 days.  Enforcement?  Don’t know abt that.  Constitutional?  ACLU to challenge.  Since it’s in all states, this is effective?  Maybe a shut down of currently vacant vacay homes is better.  Most of these spots have limited services.  Block Island RI winter pop abt 900, summer 10,000, summer weekends 20,000+ (daytrippers included of course)

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    @p.a.: My county sent out a letter telling summer home owners to stay home. Our medical services are set for the low low density local population, we don’t have many roads since lakes and mountains get in the way, and shelves are picked clean as it is.

    Plus, travel NOW is just a bad idea.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Just occurred to me; I bet Trump’s approval ratings have gone up because the Virus news has down out his damn idiot voice for most people. Sure, the press briefings, but who besides the political junkies watch that?

  7. 7.

    Geminid

    Virginia is not in a lockdown per se, just a ban on gatherings of more than 10 and activities like haircutting, etc. Many businesses are shut down though. I worked yesterday on a hardscape project, and a couple hundred yards away a framing crew was working hard on a new house. I drove home the long, country way, and the road was virtually deserted at 5pm. Looked like Governor Northam’s stay at home guidance, though not mandatory, was being followed. Virginia’s more urban areas- N.Va., Richmond, “Tidewater”- might still have to lockdown, but we are still feeling our way in the dark without adequate testing.

  8. 8.

    New Deal democrat

    @p.a.: “NYers entering RI are being stopped and TOLD they must isolate 14 days.  Enforcement?  Don’t know abt that.  Constitutional?  ACLU to challenge.  Since it’s in all states, this is effective?”

    States have plenary police power. So long as it does not disrupt interstate commerce, it is likely constitutional. The ACLU challenge based on search and seizure will likely fail because there is a compelling State interest in stopping the pandemic.

    It will be easier to enforce when the two super-regions of States with lockdowns cooperate to enforce it.

  9. 9.

    Bobby Thomson

    If you are a vendor of limited medical supplies in extremely high demand and an unpopular president tells you not to sell to someone willing to pay cash money, why would you not tell him to go fuck himself?

  11. 11.

    p.a.

    @New Deal democrat: I’ve been wondering what’s taking the NewYorkNewEngland govs so long to get to this.  Especially here in RI, small state limited resources (as too northern NE) join into a larger entity.

  12. 12.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Early in the epidemic in China, other provinces were hunting down travelers from Wuhan and Hubei, too; largely done by residents and businesses, some times by the police. Anyone with Wuhan or Hubei license plates were stigmatized, even those who had been long time residents in other provinces and had not gone to Wuhan or Hubei in months. Anyone showing Wuhan or Hubei as registered residence on their ID card (regardless where they actually resided) were refused service at hotels. There were stories of people from Hubei who drove to other provinces for travel, and were caught away from Hubei when the lock down was implemented. They wondered on highways like nomads for days, sleeping in parking lots of service stations, and eating instance noodles from vending machines, until reaching a city that had arranged for designated hotels to host such nomads from Hubei.

    People from epicenters can expect to be discriminated against, stereotyped, and stigmatized.

    Even now, people fro Hubei are sometimes still discriminated against in other provinces. There was an incident today, where bus loads of workers from Hubei were traveling to factories along the coast. They all had the right paperworks and green health codes. However, the check points at the neighboring provinces refused to let them through. Police officers from Hubei and neighboring provinces actually got into shoving matches, as tempers flared, before the situations were sorted out. Even after the lockdown in Wuhan ends, I am not sure if customers are willing to meet with me face to face for a while…

  14. 14.

    Soprano2

    It was already state law in MO that gun stores were “essential” in any emergency. Gotta be able to buy ammo to keep the crazy hordes from the cities away from their stuff! Bass Pro is trying to figure out a way to be essential so they can stay open,  that’ll probably be it.

    I figured it was only a matter of time until states started trying to keep people from other states out,  especially since so far we have no coordinated national response,  and probably never will.

  15. 15.

    ziggy

    I want to point out something about the tweet about “severe mental retardation, severe dementia, and TBI patients”. (I can’t seem to copy any of it). This is NOT because they are of lesser value as human beings in any way, it is because their prognosis is not good. Being on a ventilator is traumatic in itself, and can bring on dementia in older patients. I can only imagine what kind of torture that would be for someone who cannot completely comprehend what is happening. Triage is awful, no reason to look for devious intentions when there are none.

  16. 16.

    VOR

    Minnesota is on a Stay at Home order. There is a petition going around to re-open golf courses.

  17. 17.

    Flea, RN

    Re: Charles Pierce’s tweet – I think he raises an important point, but misses the forest for the trees.

    For context, I am a Critical Care RN (Emergency and Transport) with over a decade of experience.

    The word “ventilator” gets thrown around a lot in the press, without very much context; it is an amazing device and often life-saving, but it is hugely invasive, and comes with great risk of permanent damage or death. Having an endotracheal tube in place is one of the most irritating things you can imagine, and most people can tolerate being forced to breathe by a machine only with deep sedation. With this type of drug induced sleep comes significant other risks; ventilator acquired pneumonia is common, as is delirium. It is also extremely traumatic – our lungs are meant to be filled gently using our own muscles, not forced to fill with pressure from the outside.

    This is a last ditch effort to save someone’s life, not a walk in the park. It can take months for an otherwise healthy person to recover from a significant (read multi-day) stint on a ventilator.

    My reading of the admittedly incomplete data at this point, is that about 1/2 of patients placed on ventilators for treatment of COVID will die, and many will take weeks to get to the point where a decision can be made as to the efficacy of the treatment.

    People with pre-existing conditions have a much harder time with ventillation, especially when it is performed for such an extended period of time – either their physiological limitations make it difficult to withstand the trauma of the process, or they are unsuited for the anxiety and disorientation produced by the drugs and physical irritation (remember, they are often paralyzed, cannot speak due to the tube in their trachea, and on significant amounts of pain and anxiety meds to reduce their distress)

    This is where Pierce pointing out the “death panels” aspect to witholding treatment based on pre-existing conditions misses the point – even when resources are limited, the goals of care must be clear to put someone in such a traumatic situation. “Let’s try grandpa on the vent for a day or two to see if the antibiotics can work, even though it may kill him.” is very different than “We only have one ventilator, and we need to make a hard choice that may tie up this lifesaving resource for 2 weeks. Since his chances of benefiting from this treatment are not very good, it should go to someone with a better chance of surviving.”

    It is tragic, but reasonable that these discussions are being had now, so that frontline medical people can have some guidance and backing when they are confronted with making these horrific decisions in the heat of the moment with terrified patients and grieving families in front of them.

    This is triage, not eugenics.

  18. 18.

    lumpkin

    @ziggy: not sure anyone is thinking it’s devious, just that most of us never thought we would end up in a situation where we have to start letting the weak ones die. That doesn’t comport with our national self image.

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