Once upon a time we had a president who had an inappropriate relationship with one of his interns. There were daily calls for him to resign. We were told that he had “trashed the place“.
Today we have a president who is threatening to withhold life-saving equipment from states with governors he doesn’t like. Has even one prominent pundit called for his regisnation?
And where’s all that big talk about the 25th amendment we used to hear sometimes?
Dorothy A. Winsor
He should just drop his pants and stick his ass out for people to smooch. He’s been too subtle. They didn’t get it.
HumboldtBlue
Stay the fuck at home. That’s all I got.
Mary G
Our CA gov, Gavin Newsome, has their number and compliments the president as obsequiously as Mike Pence. Then he rolls his eyes at the camera and we all say “What assholes” along with him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Seriously. Why aren’t more people calling for his resignation? Don Lemon yesterday was beside himself about Trump demanding governors should be “nice” to him or they basically won’t get any aid.
Seth Myers was doing his A Closer Look a few days ago from his home and I could really hear the anger in his voice just barely coming through. It was in Don Lemon’s voice as well
I think something’s going to break in a lot of people when this gets really bad in a few weeks and Trump isn’t going to survive this in the end
Geoboy
Republican Party delenda est.
bbleh
Has even one prominent pundit called for his resignation?
Hahahahahaha. The media don’t call for Republican resignations. What alternate universe do you live in?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If I were a billionaire, I would be running ads of with the now standard clips of trump interspersed with a given Senator’s (Collins, Graham, McSally, Gardner) excuses during impeachment. Grind Collins into the dust with alternating “I think he’s learned his lesson” and “I take no responsibility” clips.
laura
Gutless wonders would never risk the old “both sides.” The silence is deafening and I.F.Stone, Ida Tarbell Sinclair Lewis and David Halberstam are spinning so fast in their graves, they could generate as much electricity as the Hoover Dam.
Bruuuuce
@laura: The writer I miss most, though, is Molly Ivins. Forget ripping them all new ones; she would have left shreds too small even to interest teacup dogs.
FelonyGovt
Shocking. I told a friend in Michigan yesterday that with her “nasty” governor, her state is now in the New York-California boat and on its own.
Bruuuuce
And, OT, Richard Thompson is going live on Facebook in three minutes (4 PM Eastern) for those may be interested.
ETA: Looks like RT forgot to account for Daylight Saving Time, and the event may be in an hour, instead.
japa21
An infant in Cook County has died from the virus.
Yes, the virus would have gotten here, but it would be nowhere near as bad if we had a responsible adult at the helm. Neither of those terms apply to Trump.
My hatred for this man knows no bounds. Unfortunately, he couldn’t care less how I feel.
MJS
Trump won this battle a long time ago when he successfully cowed the media through his claims of “fake news” and they failed to forcefully push back. Now, every effort to honestly report on anything he does is a “hoax” or “witch hunt”, and the media blithely ignores that, and just moves on to report on his latest outrage. Rinse, lather, repeat, with no accountability, ever.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Trump’s new 60 second ad includes a brief clip of Newsome doing just that. It’s his mordida.
MoCA Ace
Unfortunately neither will tens of thousands of US Citizens. My loathing for that immoral orange shitstain is immeasurable. If it could be measured I would lack the ability to describe it using words alone.
janesays
I think people figured out that calling for the 25th Amendment was a pointless waste of time, since Mike Pence is 100% beholden to his master and would never go along with it. The language in the amendment is not unclear about this – the VP must be willing to sign off on it to invoke it. The entire Cabinet could support it, but it doesn’t happen without Pence’s approval. And even in the event that you could Pence to go along with it, it would never survive the challenge it would face in Congress. It’s not as simple as the VP and a majority of Cabinet members saying, “We’re invoking the 25th Amendment” – Trump would immediately challenge the claim that he’s incapacitated, and unless 2/3 of both houses of Congress agreed with the VP and Cabinet’s claim that the president was incapacitated and unable to carry out the duties of his office, he would have his powers immediately restored.
If we couldn’t even get within 15 votes needed to remove him from office in the senate via impeachment, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell we would be able to clear the much higher threshold needed to remove him via the 25th Amendment.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Future Susan Collins quote, “His lesson learned is to not take responsibility.”
RepubAnon
@bbleh: The media companies know that:
It’s really that simple: the Republicans know that bullying works, and that they can cow the media. (Besides, the media consolidation means that all major outlets are owned by the 0.1%.)
scav
The road to medical supplies etc lies through everyone kneeling under the Resolute Desk and kissing up. The blue dress is now a blue PPE suit.
cain
It’s unbelievable to me that our president would withhold aid until we kiss his ass. As you rightly claim, not one word from any pundits about it.
I think the thing is – sex is easy to figure out. It’s very basic. This shit is not basic, and requires explaining and so the media doesn’t want to get into that. An affair or whatever it is, is easy to explain and take advantage of. While this stuff requires shit like proof.. although it seems even if you have a ‘grab em by the pussy” that seems to be just fine with this public. Maybe they are also fine when the president takes away precious resources that will save the lives of nurses, doctors, and patients..
The president wants to use it during his reelection platform to fuck over the blue states. It’s not going to work. That fucking virus is going to still be here in the fall and still going to fuck everyone over especially him. His incompetence will be on display constantly as the death count continues to climb in the south in all the places that he won the vote and who refuses to do social distancing..
There is going to be a panic real soon in the white house. The person we have to really watch out for is Barr. That asshole is going to declare martial law and do whatever the fuck he wants.
japa21
@MoCA Ace: Think Anne Meara:
I hate you so much that if the word hate were engraved on every grain of sand in the entire world, all that hate would not be one tenth of the hate I have for you.
Paraphrased, because my memory doesn’t recall every exact word, but very close.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
did a quick ‘trump resignation’ google, and Max Boot called for trump to resign in August of 2018
I would bet that between the liberals, the both-sidesers and the never trump right, most big name pundits would’ve supported trump being convicted on impeachment. The right-leaning AB Stoddard– who not too long ago called on ‘grownups’ in the Republican party like Trey Gowdy to stand up to trump– has written an open letter calling on Bush and Obama to speak up. She was on the Nicolle Wallace show yesterday, and I was hoping someone would point out to her that while it would be fine and dandy for Obama to co-sign a statement from Bush, trump is a Republican creation and the burden falls on Republicans to speak up, starting with the Bush brothers.
To get back to my Susan Collins obsession, her political patron Bill Cohen was all over TV a year or so ago making very emo statements about the state of our country. If he meant it, he would be calling on Collins to resign, or at the very least loudly supporting her challenger. I can’t think of similar old guard Republicans in other states– Iowa, Colorado, Arizona?–, but if you’re “never trump” and you’re not fighting for Dems to take the Senate, you’re just useless
japa21
@RepubAnon: Worse.
If a Democrat criticized the media, say, if Obama had criticized Fox, the rest of the media would probably jump to Fox’s defense.
Wait a minute, he did and they did.
Bruuuuce
We frigging well IMPEACHED this self-described President for withholding aid until a leader sucked up to him. After he was acquitted, he obviously realized he had a Get Out of Jail Free card for such extortion, so now it’s part of his SOP
cain
Their people are going to die or experience near death experiences – that is going to have a profound effect on everyone. We are still at the beginning of this curve. The political calculus is going to change soon enough.
But when Dems get the reins of power, they will need to break up the media companies. Too much control under few. It’s one of the big mistakes that Clinton made back when was to let these assholes consolidate.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has always lived in a quid pro quo world. To get something, you need to give something. His father and grandfather were criminal scum, as are his own spawn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@japa21: Jake fucking Tapper– ‘our sister network’. I’ve never been able to get past that with him.
BBA
Clinton should’ve resigned. Trump shouldn’t have been allowed to get to the bottom of his escalator.
I wish I shared your optimism.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Seth’s keeping up with A Closer Look is great. I’m so glad they’re keeping them going.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
We have all read this before, but it bears repeating again.
hitless
I’ll bet Trump has a good chance to get reelected. He has successfully shifted responsibility to the governors, his approval keeps rising, and he can now show campaign ads featuring prominent Dem governor’s saying he did a great job. The CDC mailers are labeled “president Trump’s guidelines” and every relief check someone gets will be signed by Trump and feature text saying that the money is coming from him. It will be hard to defeat him
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Have you not watched the daily press conferences? Thy are all sucking his dick, even/especially the stupid blond doctor who is shaming our gender and her profession.
japa21
@hitless: It was rising briefly but is heading back down as the true enormity of this tragedy is hitting home.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Bruuuuce:
If Thompson is in Britain, DST doesn’t start until tomorrow.
janesays
@mrmoshpotato: John Oliver is returning to air tomorrow as well – the show is going to be filmed from his house. Seems like all of the late-night personalities have adapted by switching to producing content from their own homes.
MattF
I think Jen Rubin ‘suggested’ that resignation was a plausible way out for Trump, although I haven’t found the specific column.
Bruuuuce
@Steeplejack (phone): Likely, and a good reason why he’d have miscalculated. 45 minutes now, and oh, BOY! am I looking forward to it.
Sherparick
@Geoboy: Ubicumque seminaveris in terra et sal.
Brachiator
The pundits constantly look for that statement or pose that let’s them declare that “now Trump has truly become presidential.”
It’s a freaking farce.
The only pivot that Trump makes is to go deeper into his petty vindictiveness and overwhelming need for approval.
But this is not just a US problem. We seem to be stumbling into an Age of Authoritarians.
NotMax
25th amendment more designed for when a president is unconscious, not unconscionable.
Jeffro
since the 25th amendment isn’t an option, and since he won’t resign, impeach him again for what he’s done here – both for ignoring his duties/telling CDC not to test, and for withholding aid from states when a governor was critical.
and then just start calling him a murderer to his face
MattF
@MattF: Rubin says here that Trump should announce that he’s not running for re-election.
Sloegin
Inslee had the temerity to run for President. That’s the entirety of Trumps imagined beef with WA. Our Governor has been OBSEQUIOUS during the entire crisis, but apparently that’s not good enough for President Big Baby. He’s going to kill us because Inslee ran for President.
Yutsano
@hitless:
I’ll take that bet. It’s still way too early to be throwing in the towel. President Toadface is still unpopular. He’s just showing his mug more on TV like he’s “doing something”. He’s still the cretinous lump he’s always been.
FelonyGovt
This LA Times article about smuggling masks from Mexico into Texas for Texas doctors shows the full failure of this administration to coordinate distribution of supplies,. They haven’t even removed tariffs on the import of medical supplies.
janesays
@MattF: She didn’t suggest he resign, she suggested that he announce he is withdrawing from his campaign for re-election and won’t seek a second term… basically pull an LBJ.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/19/this-is-how-trump-escapes/
The Dangerman
This is kind of a repeat from downstairs but I looked up the signing ceremony today and a whole bunch of only Republicans lined up behind the President. What sort of asshole do you have to be to, 1, congregate, and, 2, make it a partisan affair? I agree with someone up above. Trump will not survive this. I don’t know how. 25th Amendment? This can’t go on.
Sebastian
@cain:
I am starting to see signs in the media. Jake Tapper ever so slightly is starting to be angry.
As this starts hitting close to home, endangering pundits themselves and people close to them, you’ll start seeing more outrage. Very similar to 2008 when they realized that they are going to lose a LOT of money and started asking more aggressively, testy even.
Give it a few more weeks. This has only just begun.
janesays
@The Dangerman: Trump will never be removed from office via the 25th Amendment. The hurdles that need to be cleared are significantly higher than they were to remove him via impeachment, and we all remember how that went, given it ended less than 2 months ago (feels like 2 decades ago).
The only way out of this is at the ballot box in November.
Mnemosyne
@Bruuuuce:
Yup. There’s a clip circulating on Twitter of one of the House impeachment witnesses warning us about THIS EXACT THING HAPPENING, and Republicans couldn’t be arsed to listen.
Some people only learn the hard way, unfortunately, and this way is going to be VERY hard for all Americans, not just the ones who deserve it.
japa21
@Sebastian: The key is angry. He has been criticized before and some folks have shown disgust with him before. But anger is coming more and more to the surface. And that anger will filter into the masses.
MattF
@janesays: Right. There are lots of pundits who would be delighted with a Trump resignation, but no one expects that to happen, including me.
hitless
@Yutsano: I’m not throwing in the towel. In fact, I edited my post to be at least slightly less doom laden after reading it myself.
But the solidity and size of Trump’s base is shocking. And he will devote the full power of the federal government to get himself reelected. And he has the supreme court in the bag as well. I’ll continue to donate and obviously vote but it’s not a great situation.
Brachiator
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:
Thing is, a virus doesn’t care about who is in or who is out. Nor does it care about the law.
This has Trump and the GOP scrambling. They can’t depend on the old scams. It is crazy that one gambit they tried to sell to their own base was “the economy is more important than you. You should be willing to die to make America great again.”
This is a tough sell even for a grifter like Trump.
NotMax
@hitless
Did you by any chance also invest in cold fusion?
;)
Not saying it is right or wrong, recognizing it as a real deal: As with Congress (“Congress sucks but my representative is dandy”) the same applies to governors (“They all suck but mine is a peach”) and those who swing that way do not take kindly to theirs being trammeled nor hung out to dry.
Mnemosyne
@hitless:
Every prediction I’ve seen from world health authorities is that, right now, we are at the beginning of the slope on this thing, and red state governors are pretending it’s not happening. Check back in 30 days and see if you still think Trump is going to be able to weasel his way out of responsibility for what’s about to happen.
We are at the very beginning of this disaster.
janesays
@japa21: I wish that were so, but it’s not. He’s pretty close to the highest approval ratings on average he’s ever had in his entire presidency (but still a net negative when looking at aggregate polling data)…
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?cid=rrpromo
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
I want to believe those numbers will eventually regress back to where they normally have been or worse, but they haven’t started moving in that direction yet. If the election were held today, there’s a terrifying chance that he might actually pull it off. Fortunately there’s still a lot of time left between now and election day.
Aleta
Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul
Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel
It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul
Martin
We’ll likely cross Italy’s per day fatality peak on Monday. People can then stop saying ‘will xxx be the next Italy’.
Was expecting 2150 total today for the US. Looks like we might go over that. That’s per the Johns Hopkins data set.
The worst county in CA is one infection per 3000 people. Miami Dade and Broward are currently worse than that. Fulton and Bartow County in GA are worse than that. Sumner, Davidson, Williamson Counties in TN are worse. Milwaulkee County is worse. Every county north of Atlantic County NJ is worse. Cumberland County ME is worse. Shelby County AL is worse. Kershaw County, SC is worse. St Louis County MO is worse. Johnson County IA is worse. Gallatin County MT is worse.
Summit County UT is 1 case per 330. NYC is 1 per 288. Suffolk County is 1 per 438. Westchester County is 1 per 135. Nearly 1% confirmed positive in a county of nearly 1 million people.
Governors that want to claim ‘we’re not California’ might want to consider that some of their more populated counties are actually worse than anywhere in California, and NY really does need resources much more badly than California does.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
They’ve barely begun to scramble considering what’s coming down the pike. The real scrambling begins when people start dying in parking lot tents in Florida and Alabama and Mississippi because the hospitals are overflowing and red staters finally realize this is not all just a hoax by crybaby liberals.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays:
Or a pine box.
cain
@Sebastian:
The problem is that they’ll revert once a Democrat is in charge again. That is what really pisses me off. We go and continue to fix the country when in charge only to have Republicans back in power in a few years and then they break shit again.
I’m absolutely sick of the media now and I feel like it’s time to break them up.
janesays
@Mnemosyne: That’s my hope as well. I think the numbers will go back down, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say his current “popularity” (relatively speaking) is pretty terrifying. To put it another way, if we could choose to have the election tomorrow or 7.5 months from now, I would definitely go with the latter.
trollhattan
@hitless:
Because I can’t relate to his hardcore supporters I instead ponder how many of the “approve” cohort wish to keep him because they simply don’t want to relinquish being in power and all the goodies.
Mary G
janesays
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That won’t happen. The guy is like a cockroach in a nuclear holocaust. His lifestyle would suggest he should keel over and die at any minute, but I’m afraid we’re just not going to be that lucky.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
The Giant Evil Corporation sent all of us LA County employees home on March 13th, and I and my coworkers have been working from home ever since. The “other” big animation studio nearby did the same thing a couple of days ahead of us. Big employers in California seem to have been on the ball watching this thing, thank god.
NotMax
@janesays
Don’t change horses in mid-death is a terrible campaign slogan.
;)
Mnemosyne
@janesays:
The good news is, his approval ratings and the election polls against Biden are saying opposite things — his approval ratings are barely cracking 50 percent (which is “good” compared to his usual ratings) but electorally he’s polling at something like 40 percent against Biden’s 48 percent.
Most of the states that will be hardest hit by Covid-19 are Trump strongholds, which I don’t think is going to work out for him as well as he hopes.
Elizabelle
@hitless: Don’t you want to go with “gutless” or “brainless”?
James E Powell
@The Dangerman:
Trump one consistent feature is that he always follows this rule: Feed the base & give the press/media something to talk about.
Demonstrating scorn for Democrats does both.
MoCA Ace
@The Dangerman:
I have a few suggestions.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays: In late 2001, George W. Bush’s popularity was hovering around 90%, as was his father in early 1991. There is a “rally ’round the flag” effect that can account for inflated approval. This effect is usually short lived.
Elizabelle
@James E Powell: Happy birthday a day late. You and chopper share the same bday.
James E Powell
@hitless:
I agree with you and generally add in that the press/media really love Trump and do not want to see him lose. He is pure money for them all, even the ones who go on cable to denounce him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays: His grandfather was one of the first deaths from the “Spanish” Flu in 1918 , superior genes indeed.
SFAW
@Sherparick:
“Where are the salted kumquats that the real seminarians threw on the ground?”
That doesn’t make any sense.
Martin
@Sloegin: Oh, I think Inslee, like Newsom, telling the FDA and CDC go to fuck themselves with their testing rules, we’re going to test in defiance of federal guidelines had more to do with it. Trump wanted no cases, and we destroyed that plan. Never mind the plan could never have worked, we were disloyal.
JMG
To those worried: The election is not next Tuesday. It is 219 days away. Considering what’s going on now, trying to predict how people will feel about the next week is difficult. How they’ll feel that far in the future is unknowable. Save that worry for October. If you must worry, focus on keeping you and your safe and well. I find that MORE than enough anxiety right now, thanks.
Mary G
James E Powell
@Elizabelle:
Thank you. The proximity of my birthday to baseball’s opening day has always been a source of positive energy for me. This year, I’m getting it from the many fine people whom I have the luck to know.
The Dangerman
@MoCA Ace:
I have a few, too. I’ve been saying for a while this fucker has to go away for this to even begin to improve; his fuck the Blue States, they won’t vote for me anyway, stuff is …. mind numbing. I can’t wrap my head around it. If we don’t blow him, we are below him (h/t, “Sean Connery”, SNL Jeopardy). Fuck him, fuck his family, fuck his fucking buildings … arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Jen Rubin misses that as soon as he is out of office, New York State comes calling.
She’s right about the markets approving Trump not running for re-election. I think they’d go even higher if he resigned or died.
But Trump’s only concern is Trump.
Sure Lurkalot
@Bruuuuce: Thanks for the PSA but I think it’s tomorrow.
scav
I’m going to go deal with splitting the miscanthus — social isolation is basically the best thing that has ever happened to this garden. But this I’m nearly sure of: I don’t give a shit if the puling evangelicals and the associated MAGAt base ever come to their senses and recognize their enthusiastic enabling of disaster. They’ll likely never see anything in their mirror beyond their imagined halo of infallibility. But the vast bulk of this nation are the lumps that don’t vote and if they ever get roused off their asses because they get a clue that it matters . . .
Emma from FL
Could we for god’s sake stop spending our time chasing polls? Most of the time they are nonsense; complete and utter nonsense. We need to concentrate on (1) keeping up the drumbeat against republicans and (2) keeping them and their Russian allies from stealing the election again.
Also, just remember that if we grab the house and the senate, Trump is screwed.
Eyes on the prize, folks.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Martin: I assume you’ve seen the IHME curves? I’m running on little sleep last night (hot flashes and allergies suck) and having trouble figuring out how they’re calculating their peaks.
James E Powell
@janesays:
I haven’t given up hope for a meteor.
Elizabelle
@JMG: Yeah. This just not seem to be a time to go looking to borrow trouble.
hitless
@Elizabelle: both those things are certainly possibly true…Im just stunned to see a huge swath of the American electorate perfectly ok watching Soviet-style leadership of the republic. I’d be very happy to see a sign that enough people in enough of the right states want something different.
Jazzman
+1 for the “Ventilator Blues” reference. That 1972 Rolling Stones tune has become weirdly relevant these days.
I sure hope it never happens that “we all need some kind of ventilator!”
Kirk Spencer
Assuming current curve continues we’ll top a million right around Good Friday, with deaths breaking 10,000 a bit sooner.
That’s something of a magic number, I think. Especially when Easter three days later is double.
I don’t see his approval staying up at that point. He’ll deflect and blame governors, and some of that will stick, but it’s still going to be the wake up.
Assuming current curve caveat – the mayors of big cities and governors of blue states believe and are working to do what they can. I’m actually figuring the curve will flatten some. That million pop will take longer, then, but it’s just as certain I’m afraid.
Ksmiami
@hitless: dude the economic fallout is just starting as are the bodies piling up… he’ll probably contract the virus anyway but Dems are in better shape than u think.
debbie
@cain:
This is who Donald Trump has always, always been. He’s just never had the kind of power he does now.
James E Powell
@scav:
Good point. Did the southern whites who did not own slaves ever acknowledge that their support for secession and war was a disaster?
debbie
@hitless:
Most of ’em Christians too. Never let them forget that.
Martin
@Mnemosyne: A lot of of us were pretty prepared too. My administration moved almost seamlessly because we prepared everyone for work from home in the event of an earthquake, so everyone had a laptop, had access to the campus VPNs, our systems were accessible from there, we have no paper processes we can’t also run using PDFs in a pinch, etc. Most of us were set up to work from home with zero notice on the assumption our office was red tagged and couldn’t be entered. I imagine companies all up and down CA are at least there to some degree.
Geminid
Virginia had blue waves in 2017 and 2019. The Democrats flipped 41 House seats in 2018. I think this trend will only intensify, especially when Trump’s main argument was a strong economy. Those caught up in the Trump cult will never abandon him, but they are only a large portion of that 42-46% approval group. Trump’s popular vote total in 2016 was second lowest of 10 major party candidates since 2000, barely edging out John McCain’s 2008 total. And I think he’s gained fewer supporters than he has lost since then. While it would be nice if the pundits and reporters expressed the rage we feel about the guy, I don’t think the majority of Americans need their mediation to make the correct judgement on Trump. Janesays is right, it will come down to the election, and it will be up to the American people to drive the stake into Trump’s black heart on November 3. But I believe that Trump can’t win the election, he can only try to steal it.
Heywood J.
@janesays:
Seems like the ballot boxes of November 2018 were pretty clear. They should keep impeaching until he stops committing impeachable offenses, period. Either murdering American citizens to stuff your own pockets is a crime, or it isn’t. That needs to be clarified now, given the likelihood that what happens between now and November may enough to postpone or nullify the electoral process.
We voted for them to do something. The impeachment was a good start, but the work is not done. They need to keep going.
2liberal
threatening ? i don’t think that is the correct term
Bruuuuce
Oy. As a friend posted on the Book of Faces, “Does anybody know what day it is?” I seem to have lost either track of time or the ability to read. The Richard Thompson show is Sunday.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bruuuuce: is it only on Facebook? I would love to watch a Richard Thompson acoustic set (I’m assuming that’s what he’s doing)
Jim Parish
@SFAW: Heh. Reminds me of a bit in Blish’s _They Shall Have Stars_, where one character attempts to translate a German saying using the “If Only It Were English” system: “Aber den Tod ist keine Krautlein gewachsen” became “The fatter toad is waxing on the kine’s cole slaw”.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was fortunate enough to see Richard Thompson do an acoustic set at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT. He was fierce.
NotMax
@Jim Parish
Then there’s the Yiddish saying which translates as “Don’t knock on my teakettle.”
;)
Aziz, light!
When this is all behind us, at least 45% of the nation’s voters will vote — or will have voted — to give the shitfunnel another four years in office.
oatler.
@Jim Parish:
“Bite the wax tadpole”
Bruuuuce
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The ad does say “Live on Facebook”, so I suspect that’s the only venue
WereBear
Never. They started the Klan and spread propaganda about how they were blameless and wonderful. Gone With the Wind has the truth peeking through in tiny bits. The rest is romantic myth.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
From what G was saying, his particular CSU was way less organized, though it’s not clear if the problem was the campus administration or his specific department. They didn’t send everyone home until the 17th, I think.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
And, sadly, Northern politicians lined up to help them do it. Scholars are still battling the myth that “no one” signed up for the Union Army to battle against the evils of slavery. It’s pretty clear that a decent percentage of them did exactly that.
Mnemosyne
@James E Powell:
Also, keep in mind that the “most Southerners didn’t own slaves!” claim is more than a little misleading. They usually only count the legal, listed owner of the slaves but deliberately leave out any family members who benefited from their father/husband/son/brother owning slaves. In particular, a whole lot of women benefited from slavery even if they didn’t legally own said slaves.
debbie
@Bruuuuce:
Wow! I’m so glad I saw your post!
Bostondreams
Florida beaches are still open. This tweet shows one beach that runs over two counties. You can see where Duval ends and St Johns begins.
https://mobile.twitter.com/travisakers/status/1243990179557359616
eemom
@WereBear:
Actually it’s worse than that; it is hideous racist apologism and er, whitewashing revisionist history.
I say that as a lifelong lover of the book. #cognitivedissonance
Bruuuuce
@debbie: You’re welcome. I’m definitely looking forward to tomorrow, now, which is something I keep having to remind myself of, daily, these days
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bostondreams: I just saw that, it’s amazing, and somewhat terrifying. And, meanwhile…
James E Powell
@eemom:
It’s the top grossing (adjusted for inflation) film in American history. That says quite a lot to me. I had seen several of the most famous scenes, but never watched it all the way through till I was over 50. I found it close to unwatchable at times, but pushed myself through.
NotMax
@James E Powell
And by the arcane methodology of Hollywood accounting, is finally going to show a profit any day now.
:)
Bruuuuce
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Closer to home, Rhode Island is going Florida a step further:
Mnemosyne
If folks are looking for walking-around-town masks and not hospital-quality ones, I just bought a few on Etsy in fun prints. They also have a pocket to insert a filter that protects against pm2.5 air pollution, so they should also come in handy this fall when the wildfires start.
WereBear
@James E Powell: if you have never read the book, it’s worse.
L85NJGT
Reuters headline:
SHA–Zaam!
Fair Economist
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: IMHE is using some kind of mathematical model of an infection sweeping through a population. I find their sharp peaks very implausible in view of the Italian “peak” – 10 straight days of 5-6,000 cases a day. That’s pretty flat, and Italy wound up with restrictions tougher than most American states, at least on paper. Bringing the rates back down looks very hard.
ziggy
I have to give this to Mike Pence–apparently he is a “different kind of guy”, who will “quietly call (the governors) anyway”, according to Trump. I don’t think he is completely heartless, only sold most of his soul, there is a tiny crumb of it left. With any luck, we’ll end up with him or Pelosi before too long.
Just Chuck
@japa21:
“HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.”
debbie
@WereBear:
My mother was an ardent reader. Beside her copy of Gone with the Wind was Ben Ames Williams’ House Divided. I remember liking it far better than GWTW. I never got what anyone liked about the movie, other than Clark Gable.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Link to a pattern for home-sewn masks in thread upstairs.
Jay Noble
media, banks, health care . . . We’ve had the tools to stop this all along but apparently the know who to buy off.
Just Chuck
@L85NJGT: “Empathy” is a dirty word to conservatives.
No really, I remember them crucifying Sotomayor for exactly that.
Tom Q
@?BillinGlendaleCA: An even better analogy: when the hostages were first taken in late 1979/into early ’80, Carter’s numbers soared to 60% or higher. It probably helped him survive Kennedy’s primary challenge. But reality bit soon enough: the oil shock brought on by the Iranian revolution led to recession, which pushed his numbers down sharply; on Election Day he scored only 41%.
As Rachel Bitecofer and a few other have pointed out, for Trump merely to ascend to break-even or a bit below, at the maximum moment of rally-round-the-flag, shows he’s in terrible position (especially since the Fox poll says that, despite getting his approval to almost 50%, he loses to Biden by a squelching/blowout-level 9%). Not to mention, the recession we’re just beginning will make 1980’s recession seem like a flesh wound.
Trump is going down hard. Any pundit who thinks his miniscule bump over recent days means anything positive in terms of re-election (looking at you, Kornacki) is only showing his own lack of knowledge of history.
Tom Q
@James E Powell: It says a great deal about this country that the two biggest cinema phenomena of the first half of the 20th century were Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
True story: one of the ways that producer Val Lewton got himself a Hollywood reputation as a pushy asshole was that he tried to discourage his then-boss, David O. Selznick from making GWTW because Lewton hated the racism of the book so much. Lewton was one of the producers that they based Kirk Douglas’s character on for “The Bad and the Beautiful.”
Sloegin
@Martin: I like the cut of your jib. Your thinking is Just as crazy as my thought, neither of which can really be ruled out. How does anyone figure out the thinking of a madman?
WereBear
@debbie: The two main characters were well played and in constant romantic conflict with a backdrop of Lost Cause nonsense that made White Supremacy seem exciting.
Women of the time asked for a giant spoon.
ziggy
@Mary G: Those are some well-trained cats!
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: good for Lewton! Unsung genius.
WereBear
@ziggy: Pence is the reason the CDC got a new head who wanted to put all HIV-positive people in camps.
Mnemosyne
@Emma from FL:
If we learned anything from this year’s primaries, it’s that public polling is completely fucked. NO ONE saw how huge Biden’s victory would be in SC, or that it would cause a domino effect in the rest of the remaining states. Any public pollster who tells you that s/he saw it coming is full of shit.
cain
@Bostondreams:
That’s a lot of New Yorkers hanging out there. /sarcasm
Mnemosyne
@Heywood J.:
If the Covid-19 curve doesn’t flatten by Easter, I’m pretty sure you’re going to get your wish for a second impeachment. This one might even succeed in removing him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He’s trying to foment a cultural (at least) war
cain
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure how.. Congress critters don’t want to be hanging around each other.. it will all have to be done virtually. Of course, McConnell will push it off citing COVID-19 concerns and not remotely do remote voting.. until of course a justice is available to replace.
columbusqueen
@The Thin Black Duke: I’ve seen two: one at the Dublin Irish Festival, and the second at the Great Southern Theater right before I got married in 2011. That one was a gift from my best friend & matron of honor, since I’d introduced her to RT’s music years ago. He was superb both times, as well as in the two electric shows I’ve seen.
It’s good to be in Columbus, because we’re a major center of RT fandom ?
Martin
@Mnemosyne: I have to qualify – the staff moved seamlessly. The faculty are still complaining about how we could have done this to them.
I suspect CSU is in better shape in that regard.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Notice he didn’t do that for Louisiana, another hot spot. I bet he won’t be doing any quarantine of any red state/cities – just the blue ones. You can also bet that California will be included in it.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
If you’ve never seen “I Walked With A Zombie,” it can be read partially as a sly commentary on the GWTW mythology. The censors forced Lewton to set the story in the West Indies and to make the heroine Canadian to try and conceal the theme of the crimes of the past coming out to damage the present, but it’s pretty blatantly obvious what Lewton is saying about racial oppression of the 1940s and whose fault it is.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, we’ve got our narrative. It wasn’t that republicans wasted a month calling this a hoax, it’s that dirty blue state city folk infected the other states.
No wonder Cuomo is calling it a declaration of war.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Of course he is. It’s what he DOES. As the Hoarse Whisperer says on Twitter, Trump is a very simple machine. He wants to gain adoration and avoid shame. What people underestimate is the lengths he will go to for those two goals, because he has none of the usual social inhibitions. He thinks that laws and regulations are for suckers, not for innately great people like him.
Geminid
@WereBear: I thought the movie Gone With the Wind was mediocre, but when I finally read the book a few years ago I thought I understood why it was a bestseller even before the movie came out. Scarlett O’Hara grows up wealthy and pampered, loses it all, claws her way back, independent of men. Not saying she was a good person, just a good character, and for 1938 a feminist hero. As for the racism, Margaret Mitchell was a woman of her time and place, and was writing a book basically about white people, for white people. Her treatment of African American characters was not hateful so much as indifferent. But I wonder if her attitude would have changed had she not been killed by a drunk driver, and had lived into the 1960’s.
Mnemosyne
@cain:
I think that things are really in flux right now and anyone who tries to cling to “the way things have always been” is going to get steamrollered. But we’ll see.
Mary G
Gov. Gav subtweets the president:
Aleta
@cain: He has such a primitive brain. A governor criticizes him, so he would withhold lifesaving aid to every person who lives there. Let them die, no matter who each individual voted for, and their children too. A blue state is in trouble and there’s a way to punish it? Hurt every citizen—Rs, Trumpers, Ds, Is, nonvoters. A feudal lord who burns the crops and villages of his opponent’s entire fiefdom.
He’s never going to think, “That’s enough” or “That’s too much.” The higher the stress the more dysfunctional he will become.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: that’s wild. I have seen it and will do so again.
Heywood J.
@Mnemosyne: I hope you’re right, and am cautiously “optimistic” (don’t like using that word in the middle of a plague) about that. He’s committed at least one impeachable act practically every week since the GOP traitors decided the law doesn’t apply to him.
We all know how people with Trump’s psychological makeup take such things. Normal people are chastened by having their conduct censured; psychopaths are emboldened by it. This will only get worse if the House doesn’t step up and use every single tool at their disposal.
Biden should start a shadow cabinet of experts ASAP and start posting daily counter-briefings, on YouTube if the corporate accomplices won’t air them. Show the contrast, and beat into the thick ‘murkin skulls until it finally seeps in. Stop pretending that Republicons can be “worked with,” and identify them for what they are.
There are many opportunities here for Democratic leadership to be proactive and start tearing down these thugs, before more people die needlessly. They need to use all of them, as often as possible.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
Definitely a blatant subtext of “we knew Trump’s assholes would be no help, so we fixed the problem ourselves” in that tweet.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It also can be worse, Italy just went passed 10K deaths.
Damn.
Geminid
I don’t think Pelosi will pull the trigger on another impeachment unless she believes there are 20 Republican Senators who will vote to convict. Impeachment without removal isn’t much of a sanction. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another impeachment in the lame duck Congress, as a lever to pry Trump out of office if he disputes the electoral result.
Heywood J.
@Mnemosyne
Yes, exactly. And he’s never been given any reason to think otherwise. He’s never been held accountable for anything.
Mnemosyne
@Heywood J.:
FWIW, Biden is already doing that, which is why he set up a home studio. He’s also using it to make guest appearances on TV shows and news programs without endangering anyone by breaking quarantine.
And I would make a slight correction based on my layperson’s understanding of toxic narcissism. A normal person is chastened by being criticized, but a toxic narcissist is driven to double down on whatever behavior it was that got him/her criticized to prove to themselves that they were actually right all along and it was the person who criticized them that was wrong. I think you can see a whole lot of ways for this instinctive doubling-down behavior to go horribly wrong in the next few months.
Mnemosyne
@Geminid:
Because Pelosi is smart, she will wait for the Senate Republicans to come to her. We’ll see if their fear of a total economic collapse is able to overcome their fear of retaliation by Putin and Trump.
ETA: The Republicans are going to do their best to blame the House Democrats, but Pelosi can point out all day long that her branch impeached the motherfucker, so it’s all the Republicans’ fault for not removing him. And the parallels between Ukraine and what Trump is doing now are impossible to ignore, though I’m sure they’ll do their best.
eemom
@Geminid:
It is more nuanced than that, in both directions. Perhaps to Mitchell’s credit to some extent, the Black characters in the book are actually presented as three dimensional characters rather than stereotypes….IF you overlook the assumption that all of them are just fine with being slaves and devoted as fuck to their “owners”. But that assumption is very much at the root of the book….and that, together with its complete whitewashing of the horrors of slavery, is unforgivable.
And please, spare me that “product of the time” bullshit. The woman drank the bullshit “lost Cause” myth to the dregs.
Again though, she was a brilliant storyteller.
PIGL
The punditocracy are craven scum. They are also Republican operatives. Look no further.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
Very cool. Hadn’t heard of Lewton before, but — contrary to the “product of the time” apologia referenced above — he was clearly way ahead of his.
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
Leni Riefenstahl was one of the all-time great filmmakers who understood the medium like no one before her had. But she chose to use her gifts to promote Hitler and the Nazis, for which she is rightly excoriated today.
Same with D.W. Griffith. Brilliant, groundbreaking filmmaker who revived the KKK with “Birth of a Nation” and was indirectly responsible for the “race riots” of the 1920s that killed thousands of Black Americans.
J R in WV
@BBA:
Fuck you with a rusty farm tool… Bill Clinton was the best president the country had in our lifetimes until Obama took office.
Being a horn-dog with a young woman who came on to him… not good, but not evil either. My sympathy is with Hillary and Chelsea, for the wounds they took from despicable vermin like Limbaugh…
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
It’s easy to overlook the connections because ZOMBIES! but when you know they’re there, they really jump out at you.
Also, these are 1940s sad zombies, not 1960s cannibal zombies, so it’s more spooky than scary.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Why not both? Seems like the truth to me!!!
glory b
Yesterday Chuck Todd and Kristen Welker were shrugging their shoulders and agreeing that Trump was “being completely honest” about politicizing the outbreak.
It was almost complementary.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
Have not seen it, but will. Thanks!
Bill Arnold
@Martin:
They pissed away closer to two months. Months that could have been used to acquire and stockpile PPE and other items useful during a respiratory virus pandemic.
The correct response to an emerging pandemic always looks like overreaction.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: RT playing today? Or tomorrow? I’ve been avoiding Book of Faces but I would venture on for that!
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Pollsters are not prophets or oracles, even though people insist on treating them that way.
All they can do at best is give you a snapshot of voter sentiment at the time the poll is taken. They can not tell you how voters will react to earlier primaries, even if a voter tells a pollster that they are 100 percent voting for a certain candidate. Subsequent events can make people change their minds, as happened here.
If there were a single, national primary, maybe polls might be closer to the final result. But otherwise, there are too many variables.
Miss Bianca
@Bruuuuce: I have just alerted my band mates for a “social distancing listen in” tomorrow! Thx for posting the ad link!
Chris T.
Cardboard box. Pine boxes will be as rare by then as TP is now.
Geminid
@eemom: When I say Margaret Mitchell was a woman of her time and place I am just stating a fact. People are entitled to judge her by whatever standards they wish regardless of that fact. But as for Mitchell drinking the “Lost Cause” koolaid, it’s the white characters (aside from Rhett Butler) who drink it; the skepticism about the Southern war aims on the part of the narrator seemed obvious to me.
Another Scott
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Not Martin, but I just saw this Twitter thread that might be relevant.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I’m not sure either.
That looks like a fairly conventional model assuming a national policy response, which we very clearly don’t have.
I think it’s a bit misleading on the beds needed unless we’re prepared to medevac patients from NY to Montana where there may be beds (France is doing this using the TGV, by the way). And their fatality numbers look lower than mine, but not outrageously so. Since it’s unclear that Florida have taken sufficient steps to get R0 < 1, I’m not sure why the assumption their numbers will drop. Based on Asia and Italy, I suspect they have not done enough.
Ksmiami
@Aleta: firing squad now
Another Scott
@Another Scott: tl;dr –
(Emphasis added.)
Uh oh… :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@JMG:
Can not stress this enough
So I’m going to say it in a way that emphasizes it.
Fucking This!!!!!!!
Fair Economist
@cain:
Even though Cali is now below average in cases per capita. We should be restricting people coming in from FL/GA/LA/MS/AL/TN rather than the other way around (not that it makes any difference in any particular direction at this point).
This thing is moving really fast, as always. Thursday Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama refused additional distancing provisions because “we’re not California”. I suspect she didn’t realize AL had already passed CA in cases per capita, even with inferior testing. Events had left her behind. Lots more of that coming.
Fair Economist
@Another Scott: Thanks for the pointer. That is a really good thread, at least for somebody with a smattering of epidemiological modeling.
I was thinking those models looked optimistic. Ugh, 81,000 dead is optimistic.
Just Chuck
@JMG: Merely voting T out is not the justice he deserves to be served. Nor should we have to wait that long to get it.
Emma from FL
@J R in WV: At the time of the brouhaha, a french acquaintance asked me to explain, so I gave her the salient points. She stared at me as if I were speaking sanskrit. “Are you seriously telling me you are going to kick out a good president because of une affaire de coeur?” I pointed out I thought it was more of une liaison sexuel. She snorted. “Americans are insane.”
Ruckus
@Martin:
Company I work for wasn’t and isn’t and can’t.
There is no way I can install a working machine shop in my apartment. Not even one machine, not with all the support equipment that requires. Also not without a much bigger front door.
Around here the most obvious public businesses still open are car repair shops.
Martin
@Another Scott: Yes, that’s an excellent thread. I have similar concerns regarding the assumption that lockdowns will occur nationally and the Farr’s Law pitfall.
Farr’s Law says that epidemics follow a roughly normal distribution, even if you don’t know anything about the mechanics of the disease. Basically, it’s an observation that some mechanism intervenes to slow the rate of infection, in most cases a collective realization by the public to stop doing certain things, which they in their self interest stop doing. Alternatively, it achieves this by infecting everyone and herd immunity kicks in. So, in the most trivial case, it’s an observation there are fixed number of people in the population to kill, so the observation that the epidemic will slow down is of little comfort. Of course it will.
One reason why Farr’s Law is a pitfall is that it’s no longer 1830. We are much more mobile now, and communication is much better. That can be used to slow an epidemic through increased communication or worsen it through propaganda. And it should be noted that almost every disease that was a source of epidemics in the past we’ve overcome which means that the normal markers for why a population responds are now cultural rules. But Covid is spreading despite those cultural rules. In some ways that makes it unusually hard to fight because not only are we bad at adopting new cultural rules, it’s hitting at a time of widespread public opposition to any new cultural rules (#MAGA).
As I outlined the other day, i’m taking a region going in lockdown as the mechanic that drives R0 below 1. It’s possible states can get there without a lockdown, but there’s no evidence to back that up. There is evidence the lockdown works. I’m not willing to grant those states the assumption their plans will work.
I’m trying to identify the inflection points from the properties of the virus and the mechanical actions by the public. Extrapolating the rate of response is impossible with what we know. It’s clear there is enormous economic pressure to reopen to early (or to resist closing at all), so CA may see a nice normal curve like that, but the nation won’t. I think 81K fatalities by mid April isn’t unrealistic. I think probably higher, but if it was 50K I wouldn’t be surprised, nor if it was 150K. There’s no changing the April 15 fatalities number short of a new treatment or a partial collapse of the healthcare system (which I’m expecting, which is why I’d be betting 150K over 50K if I had to).
Martin
@Ruckus: Oh, yeah, certainly. There are tons of jobs that can’t make that shift, but if you have a job that can, and didn’t prepare for that, well…
But yeah, for what you do, you’re just screwed.
cain
Indeed. Although it isn’t like McConnell is limited by rules of the Senate. He’s steamrolled a lot of things.
But the gist you are right, in this world of pandemic – the same rules do not apply anymore.
Duane
@Chris T.: Cardboard caskets or toilet paper? Tough choices must be made.
cain
This is more like him burning his own crops because the serf who toiled there was not obsequious enough. He will burn down his own kingdom and everyone in it.
ziggy
So Trump has to go into quarantine to visit Mar-a-Lago? Oh please, he needs a visit! Unbelievable.
The Moar You Know
@Just Chuck: Wow. I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream. Read that in junior high. Terrifying.
cain
@Fair Economist:
Absolutely, and so should oregon and washington. Hard to manage, but yeah.. luckily alabama and all those are pretty far away.. but no flights should be coming from there that’s for sure. The west coast is closed.
But you can bet that Trump will have reaction to that because those are his people, and they will applaud as he plays big daddy and try to bring these western states to heel.
cain
@ziggy:
Er? whats this now?
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
Lewton was pretty good at doing non-gory, non-in-your-face horror/thrillers. I saw Zombie (or maybe it was Cat People? my memory has faded as to which) about 40 years ago. It was intense (although a tad dated when I saw it). Definitely a cut above (sorry) the run-of-the-mill slasher flicks.
Another Scott
@Martin: Let me pile on with my thanks for all of your comments and information you’ve provided here on COVID-19 (and earlier).
We cannot count on things getting better without actual concerted action.
The UofW modeling framework might be useful, but it seems clear that they need much more realistic input parameters (and error bars!!).
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Martin: Looking through the graphs, I was getting a sense that the model makers were accepting the too-low official numbers in Florida and elsewhere.
@Another Scott: Thanks for that thread. Set aside to read through once I get some sleep.
SFAW
@Martin:
My wife is a nurse at a nearby community hospital. She said her department has been asked/tasked to come up with plans re: how to handle patient populations of 60-90, 90-120, and greater than 120. She said a population of 60 is at the upper limit of what they can handle with current staffing. And, of course, the administration has made it clear they will not be getting any additional personnel to help.
I’m hoping she and I stay healthy, because that’s the hospital where we’d end up, if we get COVID-19, and our symptoms are bad enough.
PIGL
@The Moar You Know: Funny, that’s almost how I feel about Republicans. Well, I mean more generally, their equivalents throughout the world….cause every society has plenty of each of the two sorts of depraved individuals who combine, feeding off each others loathsomeness and excrement, to form “Conservative” parties.
All must die.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Fair Economist: To be fair to Kay Ivey — unpleasant as she is — she certainly said “we are not California,” but she did it while increasing the social distancing measures in effect in Alabama. She ordered all non essential businesses to close, effective this evening, and remain closed until at least April 17. That is a pretty big thing in this state because only two of Alabama’s 67 counties have the authority to order such closures, and those two had previously done so. I suspect the “we are not California” business was a fig leaf to cover a substantive action which is not in line with Trump and ticks off a lot of the good ol’ boys. She’s not a great governor, but we could do so much worse … looking at you, Mississippi.
Geminid
@eemom: Not surprising that Val Lewton was ahead of Margaret Mitchell on race. He was born in Yalta, the Crimea and lived in L.A. She was born and lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I said she was “a woman of her time and place,” not “product of her time.” I cannot say that if I was born white in 1900 and raised upper middle class in Atlanta my attitudes on race would have definitely better than Margaret Mitchell’s. Can you?
Skepticat
@Bruuuuce:
YES! I can only imagine her comments.
Martin
Ok, today’s data came in.
I’m working on a LA vs Santa Clara model to see the earlier actions in the Bay Area relative to the later ones in LA. I know LA is afraid of being the next New York, but I suspect that won’t happen. Need to do the data, though.
I’m probably going to add a Florida one as well, because, damn.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Well I am if I don’t just not go. Which the boss is fine with. I think work is a little slow, I normally work part time, I’ve got SS coming in so the reality is that while I’m impacted it’s not that bad. Had this happened 8 yrs ago it would have been far worse. This on top of a massive recession? I’d bet there would have been bodies in the street. I lived/worked in Marin county and the number of people existing out of backpacks and less was growing at almost what looked exponentially. My retail business failed from customers not being enough customery, not that a lot of them could. This on top would likely have been the shit storm of the century.
OSweetMrMath
@SFAW: (and others discussing the IHME paper)
Speaking as a) a lurker, b) coming in at the end of a dead thread, c) a statistician but not an epidemiologist, I am more optimistic in my interpretation of the IHME paper than most of you.
There are some huge caveats here. First, the most important conclusion is that the demand for hospitalization will massively exceed capacity in at least some states in the next two weeks. Demand for ICU beds will massively exceed capacity basically everywhere in the US in the next two weeks. The paper doesn’t try to estimate demand relative to capacity for either ventilators or hospital staff, but the news probably is not good.
Walking away with the conclusion that the US will “only” suffer 81,000 deaths in the next 4 months would be a significant misreading of the point of the paper. The Twitter thread by @CT_Bergstrom linked above indicates that this is already happening, but the fault there lies with the interpretation, not the paper itself.
Looking at how they draw their conclusions, the paper makes big assumptions about social distancing (essentially that the entire country will adopt measures with equivalent effectiveness to those of Wuhan within the next week or so). On the one hand, this seems unlikely to happen. On the other hand, there’s insufficient data to predict the future course of the virus in places that are not locked down.
My takeaway is less the projected values and more the size of the error bars. When the mean predicted number of deaths after 4 months is 81,114, but the UI is 38,242 to 162,106, the uncertainty is so large that I don’t trust even the estimates of the uncertainty. Things have the potential to get a lot worse. The good news is that the authors say that they intend to update the conclusions of the paper as more data becomes available, so just checking how the predictions change over time will clarify how accurate the predictions are.
Let’s talk about how the paper draws its conclusions. The data for Wuhan is fit to Farr’s Law. I haven’t yet read the appendix, but the assertion of the paper is that they considered other functional forms and a Gaussian curve is the best fit of the data. It’s important here that Wuhan is now at 0 reported community transmission per day, so the entire curve is actually represented, unlike that paper about AIDS which Martin has cited which forecasted the peak of the epidemic while the number of cases was still rising.
Next, the model assumes variability in the shape of the curve for each state or region considered. To some extent this can be thought of as compensating for differences in how the social distancing policies are applied. The variation is estimated by the currently available data. As a technical point, states which have a low rate of deaths up to this point estimate the variation in a different way than states which have a higher rate of deaths.
Once the model is built, run the computations and make the forecasts. And there we go.
The forecast is only as good as its assumptions. And even with those assumptions in place, there’s a large degree of uncertainty. But this also feels like a more meaningful attempt to model the future course of the disease that to just assert that the infection rate will show exponential growth until it doesn’t, which is what many forecasts amount to.
Martin
Ok, preliminary on L.A. vs Santa Clara, neither looks terrible. These ever smaller data sets don’t help make this more accurate, so this is mostly a guesstimate.
Santa Clara is on a very gentle trajectory, relatively speaking. They looked like they’d be a real problem early on, but it looks like they have a slower spread than, well, any other place I’ve looked at. Finding an inflection point might be pretty hard.
L.A. looks a bit more gentle than the state overall. I don’t see them blowing up like NY. In fact, I’m not sure the Mercy should even be in L.A. I’d have it hauling ass over to NYC. That’s not to say CA hospitals aren’t going to be pushed to their limit, but NYC is already past that point.
TerryC
@scav: Miscanthus requires incredible feats of strength and slice-yness. Good luck. I’ve used axes, sledgehammers, and ditch diggers
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: I think it’s an open possibility that mass death everywhere in the country will just make Trump more popular. Thinking about death makes people more right-wing and more authoritarian. They want Daddy to tell them things are going to be OK because he’ll fight the bad people who did this, and Daddy can tell them who that is (Asians, liberals, illegal immigrants). Think 9/11 but every single day everywhere.
It’s possible that we will just walk into the fire with a smile, praising Trump for killing us. That on some level, Americans respond positively to being killed.
I don’t believe it will happen but I can’t exclude the possibility that it will happen.
Daddio7
@Aziz, light!: It is not pesonaltity worship, it is fear of what the Democrats want to inflict on the country. You know exactly what I am talking about. Enough voters might change their minds or be nationalized so they can get what they really came he for.
Then the problem will be keeping power, as someone said, many people really do not like living under Democratic leadership, it is too restrictive and expensive. They vote it out as soon as they can. I foresee plans put into place to protect the nation from bad voters.
Matt McIrvin
At some point it’s going to be impossible to get food without getting infected, and that’s when everything really crashes, because you can lock down everything else but you can’t keep people from needing food. In China they had the military delivering food boxes to locked-down people, but I can’t see that happening here. You can’t even get a Peapod slot now.
Martin
@OSweetMrMath: I take those points. It just seems a bit too early to try and model the back end of this given that even basic lockdown and travel restrictions are yet to go in place in a lot of areas.
Further, I think we can anticipate the timing for when the lockdowns bring us an inflection point, but we have no data to tell us how well they work and how to model that. Wuhan is a scenario that can help us with the timing, but there’s no reason to believe that the US will be anywhere as effective at reducing cases. Italy is probably our best shot at setting those assumptions, but it’s too early to use that data.
So, I seriously question the assumption of a gaussian function, even in states like CA that I assume will be better fits for Wuhan’s data than anywhere else. For one, I have no idea how we intend to address the problem of reinfection from other parts of the nation, and I see no scenario in which we can use lockdown alone to get to 0 community spread, and I’m waiting for what the new containment strategy is going to be. So we have a lot of mechanisms that are completely absent. I’m more than happy to base assumptions around plans, but we don’t even have plans.
Matt McIrvin
Looking at the data for Massachusetts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Massachusetts#March_26%E2%80%9328
here’s the thing I don’t understand. A friend brought it up on Twitter, and it puzzles me. The confirmed covid-19 cases increase and the tests increase, and the fraction of tests that come out positive stays almost constant at around 10%. Apparently the situation in California is similar in this one regard.
Why is that? Is it a coincidence or is there a reason? What are those 90% of negative test results–is it people with the flu? If so, why is the number increasing in almost exact synchrony with the covid-19 cases? Are people more driven to seek testing as the real case rate increases? Or are people with covid testing negative? If the numbers are just driven by testing capacity, why isn’t the positive fraction increasing as testing saturates?
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: This is uncomfortable for me to say, but the feeling I get is that Donnie thinks that as the disaster worsens he will be able to ride a wave of people panicking. “Somebody do something!!” And Donnie and Barr deciding to break down all the remaining norms because it’s an Unforeseeable Crisis that Demands Bigly Action!!
“Let no crisis go to waste.”
I think Donnie’s mumbling today about maybe quarantining NY, CT, NJ was a trial balloon. I expect more such balloons as things continue to worsen.
These are dangerous times, for many, many reasons.
We have to vote the monsters out!
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t agree with this. Assuming the lockdowns knock R0 < 1, then the riskiest time to get infected in CA was the day of the lockdown. It’s gotten safer every day. But the reason it gets safer is because people are still doing what they are supposed to, so people can’t stop doing that.
Don’t fall into the fallacy that the cases and fatalities climbing indicates that it’s getting more dangerous. It’s not. Those infections happened a week to 3 weeks ago. The whole point of lockdowns is that it gets safer with each day.
But if you’re in a non-lockdown state, then yes, it is getting more dangerous every day.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: CA’s strategy is to reserve tests for hospital admits and healthcare workers.
So, for one, that leaves us testing a lot of likely sick people. You are testing pretty much everyone who might have the flu or a cold. But you’re also testing doctors and nurses regularly hoping they’ll keep coming back negative. There is some community testing, but it looks like they are low priority for processing right now.
So, this is effectively a self-selection bias. Not because the population is selecting into the test, but because the policies for who to test has a similar effect. To extrapolate the test data, you’d infer that 4 million people in CA are infected, and it’s no where near that high.
It’s not actually driven by testing capacity. There was a question early on how to do community testing. If you open it up to anyone like Trump suggested, you risk social unrest as healthcare workers can’t test 300 million people as quickly as 300 million people want to be tested, and unless you’re doing something like drive through testing, inviting everyone to come to the clinic to get tested is a great way to get 19 healthy people to get infected from the one sick person there. So states like CA and MA decided to limit testing.
The lockdown is doing the work that testing and tracing would normally do. We’ll get back to community testing in a few weeks.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not sure that’s going to work because it’s the virus that is setting up the situation, it will be the lack of beds, medical staff and all that that is going to be doing the killing.
Yeah, you could point to china and asians, but that’s not going to stop death that is happening right now because they know the disease is spreading from one person to another not asian to another.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
Possibly, but that is a very extreme example. You can get to a store just fine and not get infected by wearing gloves and keeping social distancing and other tools. But the populance must believe that is what needs to be done. If they listen to the president or fox news that try to minimize the problem then they will indeed get sick.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Seems like Trump can’t cut his losses, they are already fatal politically, but he can’t help but try and double down. But I’m curious: I believe we both live in Virginia, but that you live in a more populous area. We as a state are not in a lock down per se, but around here it seems pretty close to one. Are people staying home where you are? Do you think Northam should order a stricter, formal lockdown?
cain
@Another Scott:
By law the feds can’t do shit in the states. They can do something with the highways and all that. But it is still “States right”. They can try to do a power grab, but they honestly cannot contain it because the places they have to do the power grab is in the states that are having a total melt down which are likely going to be the red states.
But I think if he tries we are going to be in a constitutional crises and absolutely if the Supreme Court says that it’s ok for the federal govt to take over completely without respect to the separation of powers, that is going to be a big concern. That will likely lead to a civil war in a middle of a pandemic.
OSweetMrMath
@Martin:
I have to figure out what I’m trying to say. Basically I feel like what you are saying is true and at the same time that this paper’s conclusions should be taken seriously.
At a minimum the conclusion that nationally we will need between 8,000 and 250,000 more hospital beds than we actually have, and we will need between 2,400 and 58,000 more ICU beds than we actually have, by two weeks from now, should be taken very seriously.
Fair Economist
@Martin:
That’s the problem. A week ago I felt confident it would. With the Italian plateau and the only mild slowdown in Cali weeks after meaningful distancing started, I’m not confident about that.
Another Scott
@Geminid: I’m in NoVA. My neighborhood seems pretty quiet – kids playing in the streets, lots of cars parked in driveways, etc. But I saw more traffic on the major roads and the highways than I expected when I went to work briefly to check on some equipment today.
I said a day or so ago that it was “arguing semantics” to say that Virginia wasn’t on “lockdown”. Now I’m not so sure.
I do believe that the more people that stay home, the quicker this (early cycle?) of COVID-19 will be over and the fewer people will die. If enough people do it. But I don’t know if it’s possible, especially at this late date, for enough people to do so.
I thought Northam acted a little late [initially] (maybe closing the schools, and the 10-person limit thing starting a week earlier would have helped). [But,] I was surprised that he went from closing the schools for a month to closing them for the rest of the year pretty quickly.
I don’t know if doing more would help in Virginia. But I do wish people took it more seriously and there were fewer cars on the road. We’ll know by mid-April where we stand…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
E
The most recent Fox poll has him loosing to Biden by 9. It’s from yesterday.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Thanks. I am hoping the bad news from NYC scares people into compliance until the bad news right around us scares them worse. I want to keep working, at least part time, but I work alone outside and don’t really need to even see my customers, just their weeds and dirt. But I think I’d better get through as much as I can this week.
OSweetMrMath
One nice thing about the IHME model is that it makes testable predictions and some of the important predictions are coming soon. The model at this point incorporates data up through March 24th. The projected total deaths in New York for today is 722.5. The number of actual deaths (per Wikipedia) is 728. So far, so good.
The real test is that the death rate per day in New York is projected to peak on April 7th, at 547 deaths. There is vast uncertainty in this. The earliest and lowest number is 317 deaths on April 4th. The latest and largest number is 1357 on April 13th. We will know which of these is correct, or whether the model is fundamentally flawed, within two weeks
Another takeaway from this model is that even assuming the current social distancing measures are sufficient, we don’t get back down to today’s level of infection until the third or fourth week of May. There’s no way social distancing can end before then.
sdhays
@Matt McIrvin: When “Daddy” is sitting on the floor in his underwear covered in his own feces on a meth high shouting at the TV while the house is on fire, some people may not find running to “Daddy” is as appealing as they otherwise would. Particularly as it becomes clearer and clearer that “Daddy” is the one who ignored the fire alarms, disabled the sprinklers, and sold the fire extinguishes, and tried to extort the fire brigade while they were trying to put out the fire.
OSweetMrMath
@OSweetMrMath:
As a counter to the apparent accuracy of the projection for New York, I feel obligated to point to Florida. The upper bound on the total deaths in Florida by March 28 in the IHME projection is 40. (The mean is 32.3.) The actual number of reported deaths by today is 56. Only a 40% error!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@OSweetMrMath: The Florida graph was where my sleepy brain started saying “waitaminit” and wondering what I had missed. I had clicked around for a bit and only found a generic “explanation” of how the model was created.
I R inginier. Gimme numbers, and gimme assumptions, and gimme error bars. Only then can I say whether I will trust your conclusions.
low-tech cyclist
And what are the Democrats doing? That’s what really drives me nuts. Here’s a new Biden ad, talking about how Trump’s ego/incompetence/etc. will cost lives due to his handling of COVID-19 – so we should vote for Biden in November.
The disconnect really stunned me. Biden wouldn’t become President until January 2021. Those people who will die of COVID-19 on account of Trump? They’ll die in 2020.
The crisis is now, the need to replace Trump is now, and the Democrats need to make that case now: they should tell the GOP that either Trump resigns or they invoke the 25th by Friday, or they will impeach him that day in order to give the Senate the opportunity to remove him before it’s too late. (No need for protracted hearings – a two-hour presentation summarizing what Trump’s done and left undone in the face of COVID-19 should suffice.)
Instead, I gather they’re off on recess. Doesn’t anybody on our side know how to play this game?
This, more than anything else, is what’s driving me nuts nowadays.