Mildly NSFW:
.
Anyone else finding it harder to get motivated, these mornings?…
Trump's approval is seriously underwater in every poll I've seen come out today.
Navigator: -10 (44-54)
Morning Consult: -9 (44-53)
CNN: -7 (44-51)
Economist/YouGov: -6 (45-51)
Monmouth: -5 (44-49)
Rasmussen: -5 (47-52)The already small "Trump Bump" is rapidly dissipating.
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) April 8, 2020
“In poll after poll this week, increasing percentages say they think Trump is doing a bad job, and his administration hasn’t done enough to protect citizens from the effects of Covid-19.” https://t.co/gfGi1n2B4x
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 9, 2020
In the spirit of Clarence Darrow, I will note that faithless friend and Bar Bush superfan Linda Tripp has joined the choir invisible. Fortunately for those of us who remember her days of dingy infamy, the papparazzi’s attention was mostly busy elsewhere this time.
OzarkHillbilly
Washington Co finally has it’s first covid case.
Blech.
ThresherK
On a call, can’t play video yet.
Does mildly NSFW mean it’s Starship’s We Built This City or Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now?
ETA: I know it’s Nicky Minaj, I’m just going for the cheap laff.
Geminid
Hey Annie Laurie. How about a Green New Deal respite thread sometime? It’s a positive issue, relevant to upcoming legislation, and could for a while pull people out of the Covid-19/Trump maelstrom we are swirling around in. There is a dynamite interview of U. Mass. economist Robert Pollin in the March 2019 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled “We Need a Better Green New Deal.” A few excepts would provide good grist for the mill. (note: The Bulletin etc. are the folks with the doomsday clock on the cover).
Keith P
This would explain why he’s pivoted away from trying to shift blame via calling the thing the “Chinese virus”, to making the whole crisis out to be a federalism issue where each state is on their own (whilst at the same time, he slow walks help to blue states). Federalizes responsibility (blame) but nationalizes positive credit.
debbie
Guess his “gut” is working against him. //
Amir Khalid
Per Politico:
This is a gross understatement. Trump isn’t merely not doing enough; he’s actually sabotaging the national fight against Covid-19 in so many well-known ways.
MrSnrub
@ThresherK: in the current work from home environment, I think NSFW loses a lot of meaning.
Baud
The virus hasn’t even hit Trump areas that hard yet.
raven
Well, I spend 30 minutes doing Lil Bits eyes twice a day. She’s having “issues” so she wears a diaper and sometimes I get to clean that up too. I went to the sports med doc and he found no structural damage causing my quad pain so I’m doing an hour of core work. I’m still working on rebuilding my window sill, I ordered parts for the broken window slides and, amazingly, they worked! I finished Travels With Charley and The Western Flyer so now I’m back to the Log of the Sea of Cortez. I had forgotten that Travels goes from sort of a breezy travelogue to a chronicle of racism during school integration in New Orleans. Steinbeck writes a perfect description of “the Cheerleaders”, women who gather every morning to scream at the little girl and the white’s who go continue to go to the school. Bored. . . hell no but then I was preparing for retirement anyway.
JMG
The idea that the President is actively trying to kill Americans, either through incompetence, malice or as is the fact both is just cosmically awful for many voters, not all of them Trumpers by a long shot, to grasp. But if they ever do, and the longer this goes on the more likely that gets, look out.
donnah
Dr Tom Friedman, former director of the CDC, was just interviewed on CBS This Morning. He expressed his distress and sadness over the lives lost so far, explained how we will have to keep maintaining social distancing, and what recovery as a nation might look like.
In a few minutes, he expressed compassion and empathy, He provided information and reassurance on a calm manner.
In this brief interview, Friedman did everything that Trump cannot do. Trump stands in front of a camera every day for ninety minutes and lies, brags, and pretends that the country is ready to go back to normal. He should be falling in the polls. He should be lower than he is.
NotMax
Couple of off the beaten track streaming movies noted for those with a taste for the mordant.
1) New to Netflix is The Death of Stalin. Delicate balance of dark-draped satire and somber Sovietism. Leans far across the rail, flirting with but pulling back at the last second from going overboard.
2) The IMHO woefully underrated, both byzantine and caustic political thriller-slash-caricature Winter Kills (director’s cut) is to be found on Prime. John Huston’s character is lusciously malevolent.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m one of these people that has no problem speaking ill of the dead.
Linda Tripp died? Good. Not soon enough.
joel hanes
Lewinsky’s public remark on Tripp’s passing was adult, gracious, and compassionate.
randy khan
The COVID-19 briefings are like a self-created trap for Trump. He can’t resist making himself the center of attention at them (partly because he’s lost the outlet of his rallies, partly because he really believes he knows everything), but they’re exactly the kind of thing that exposes him, and because it’s actually life and death, the media are less inclined to give him a pass. And they create a daily record that’s not just easy to check, but easy for people to remember, of his bluster and lies.
I never in a million years would have wished this on our country or the world, but this is the kind of emergency that uniquely exposes how bad he is.
JAFD
Happy Appomattox Day, everyone !
Also, 41st ‘birthday’ of WBGO, ‘world’s greatest jazz radio station’ (try wbgo.org, too (note that internet couple of seconds behind radio, putting radio one side of room and computer on other not stereo, just weird.))
Inevitably, two days rain and wind, most of Newark’s cherry blossoms* knocked down, puddles of pink petals left.
New Jersey now: primary election postponed a month; max customers in stores half former capacity, and everyone wears masks.
Stay cheerful, wash hands, and don’t take any wooden nickles !
*Did you know Newark has more ornamental cherry trees than Washington ?
WereBear
@JMG:
Yes. Apparently, the Republican superpower is being outrageously callous to their own followers — that wasn’t supposed to be the deal!
And then told, “Who are going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
joel hanes
@raven:
Have you read Steinbeck’s Cannery Row?
Baud
@donnah:
Should be, but a large portion of Americans don’t share our moral code.
WereBear
Dang, I loved that one. Thanks.
germy
I’ve never watched the show, but I’m tired of the tiger king
OzarkHillbilly
I don’t think he is capable of that kind of malice aforethought, as @donnah: notes,
The actual deaths of people is just a byproduct.
International Mikey
The Linda Tripp comment – unnecessary. I feel sorry for her husband, Dieter, who is truly a gentle soul. I can only pray that your meanness is never seen by him in his time of grief. Didn’t you have anything better to write this morning? A nasty swipe at Linda Tripp and a stupid dance class video? You’re a lot better than that.
germy
Eural Joiner
@NotMax:
The Death of Stalin (which I haven’t seen yet) is made by the same brains behind VEEP and Avenue 5 if you didn’t know. My wife and I have almost finished the first season of A5 which is really, really, sadly, way too on point – imagine the Titanic in space but with Trump in charge (and played for laughs). I really liked VEEP so if you enjoy that style you’ll get a kick out of this (my wife didn’t but she does like A5 which is less profanity laced).
Amir Khalid
@International Mikey:
With all due respect, I doubt your opinion of Linda Tripp’s widower will change anyone’s opinion of Linda Tripp herself.
Sally
@NotMax: I loved Death of Stalin. I took a very elderly friend who can be a bit confused. After she got over the shock of the language, she enjoyed it but kept insisting she had seen the movie before. No, I had to always say, you haven’t seen this movie before, you just lived through it in real life.
MattF
I try to avoid fancy psychologizing of Trump’s bad behavior— it’s a diversion and a dead end, IMO. But this NYT essay caught my eye.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Damn, I’d forgotten all about Winter Kills. Had to watch the trailer. Now I want to see the movie again.
Eta for clarification
A Ghost to Most
@International Mikey:
Fuck their feelings. Did Tripp ever apologize to Hillary?
O. Felix Culpa
@JAFD:
Yes I did! I spent my early years in Newark and somewhere there’s a picture of small me on my tall dad’s shoulders, reaching for a cherry blossom in Branch Brook Park. You can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you can’t take New Jersey out of the girl. :)
germy
Jerry Falwell Jr. says warrants are out for 2 journalists after critical stories on coronavirus decision
The president of Liberty University, which he partially reopened to students during the pandemic, accuses a NYT photographer and ProPublica reporter of trespassing.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah, it turns out trying to stick it to the liberals is a bad plan for contagious problems. Hoocoodanode!
Frankensteinbeck
I watched some of Trump’s early coronavirus briefings, the ones right when he got the bump. It is no surprise to me that the bump happened, or that it’s dying. The briefings sounded impressive. It sounded like the virus had gotten his attention and the government was scrambling massive efforts. It’s quite easy to do that when you’re willing to lie nonstop, hour after hour and day after day. Now enough time has passed, people are realizing none of the stuff he said is actually happening.
clay
@Frankensteinbeck: “Everyone who wants to be tested will be tested.”
Soprano2
Fuck Linda Tripp. I said that when she was alive, and she didn’t become a better person just because she died. She’s one of the worst things someone could be – a person who pretended to be Lewinsky’s friend so that she could get her in a shit ton of trouble, all to bring down “that man”. Lewinsky is a much better person than I am.
I think the daily press conferences aren’t doing Trump any favors except among his worshipers. A regular person cannot think it’s normal or good for him to be fighting with reporters and airing his grievances when he’s supposed to be talking about how the government is taking action in the middle of a serious pandemic. A normal person who listens to Trump talk unfiltered for more than five minutes surely can see that there’s something seriously wrong with him. He often contradicts himself within the same paragraph!!! That’s not normal under any circumstances.
There’s a kerfuffle here; the local city council instructed stores to decide for themselves which items they sell are “non-essential”, and to quit selling those items. The consensus seems to be that Johnny Morris, owner of Bass Pro Shops, got pissed because he was told his store couldn’t stay open (although they could sell firearms if they wanted to), so he prevailed on them to put pressure on other stores to quit selling stuff that is also sold at Bass Pro. Some “non-essential” items – an inner tube for a bicycle tire, mosquito repellent (have they been outside during an Ozarks summer?), any camping equipment, any exercise equipment, and the list goes on. I personally think it’s dumb – no one is going to WalMart just to buy camping equipment, but if you happen to need something in that part of the store why shouldn’t you be able to buy it? I mean, really – you can’t buy a camp stove, but you can buy as many rifles as you want? It’s super dumb. And yes, I know you can buy stuff from the internet, but that’s not the point. Then I read in the paper that someone from the city said that if a store is already open because they are considered essential, they can sell whatever they have in stock. So, it seems that no one knows what’s actually supposed to be happening with it.
germy
Uncle Cosmo
@JAFD: And Happy Happy Happy Birthday #5, Lena Bean, Unc’s absitively posolootly favorite** grandniece!! We can’t be there today, sweetie, but we’ll have a bang-up party for you when things settle down!
** Said without a hint of avuncular favoritism – since she is my only grandniece. (And FTR, I’ve been a great-uncle for decades, but for the last 5 years I’ve been a granduncle too. :^p)
JAFD
@International Mikey: She betrayed the confidences of someone who thought she was a friend.
She helped end “our national nightmare of peace and prosperity”
But she inspired a lot of ‘sex education’. As the cartoon went (Lynda Barry ?)
“… Doing inappropriate
Intimacy.
She told Linda,
Linda told Ken,
Now I can tell you,
And I’m only ten.”
germy
@Soprano2:
This is true, but what bugs me is when i visit Aaron Rupar’s twitter account and see a long clip of Trump absurd rambling unfiltered, and then later I tune in to the network TV news and see the same clip, but edited to make him seem normal and decisive.
germy
@JAFD: And I’ve encountered her type so many times: resentful conservatives who try to spend their whole lives burrowed deeply into a government, taxpayer-funded job.
She was pissed off because they moved her into a different, higher paying government job.
Eural Joiner
For those who might be interested check out the following clip – it’s got some profanity and you learn the fate of a few characters (but it’s not going to really spoil the show, it’s not one of those high intensity dramas). Great skewer of the lunatic right (and sometimes left?) as passengers on the ship get the idea in their heads that they are in a simulation and just need to exit out of the airlock to free themselves…disconcerting hilarity ensues…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skXaeucDYHo
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WereBear:
There is a golden opportunity here that I hope doesn’t get squandered in chasing old progressive hobbyhorses in the relief bills.
Right now, the PPP money and EIDL money isn’t moving at all. Shit, they haven’t even gotten the survival money out yet. Trump and McConnell talk about success while all the shuttered bars, restaurants, salons, retailers and others are all drowning.
They’re not going to be able to hold out while SBA, Treasury and the Fed microscrutinize them while shoveling money out of helicopter doors for big players.
In essence, a demographic that trends conservative now understands the anxiety and roadblocks that the poor face.
If you start focusing on them first, you gain the whole of government. Once you do that, you can then address the hobbyhorses – and these are generally good people who’ve had a dose of serious reality of what poverty feels like, and how adding layers of testing bureaucracy make it all worse. Plus, they’re more likely to pay it forward.
The SBA PPP program is a failure – the layoffs have already occurred; it isn’t a fair thing to expect laid off employees to come back in and do no work, only to wind up unemployed shortly again, and to have to reapply. The EIDL, stripped down as it was by the miserable incompetence of Jovita Carranza (all while she speaks glowing tweets about it) is a failure as well.
If this doesn’t get dealt with, this government needs to fall by violence.
MattF
Monologue in your afternoon shower.
tybee
@International Mikey:
i’m not.
Bruce K
On a completely different topic, turns out I can’t mail my absentee ballot to New York from Greece. I thought they might have long delays, but no, Hellenic Post isn’t even accepting letters to the US right now. And the diplomatic pouch from the US Embassy two blocks from me is apparently borked as well at the moment.
satby
@JAFD: Good one!
ThresherK
@donnah: If I’m him, I’ve got business cards and letterhead which say “Dr. Tom (No Relation) Friedman”.
Steeplejack (phone)
Sloane Ranger
Just returned from taking my life in my hands, previously known as my weekly shop. It is manic out there! The queue to get in the supermarket snaked half way across the car park. Wipes for the trolley were only available once you actually entered the store. Fortunately I had brought my own plus hand sanitizer.
As for spacial distancing, forget it. People passing each other in narrow aisles, clumping together to examine cuts of meat and cheeses and two people standing in the middle of the aisle complaining about the inconvenience of it all. I was tempted to tell them that dying was even more inconvenient but, being English, ended up just glaring at them.
Once shop completed, another queue around the shop to pay and get out.
Stuff now wiped down and put away.
Every week I say I’ll shop online but – no slots so I have to go over the top again.
Right vent over. Please return to your normal scheduled programming.
A Ghost to Most
Is “gentle soul” the new “good German”?
Sorry, I just referred to my half-brother as “that gutless nazi” in a text, so I might be a little pissed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Back from a grocery run. It’s hard to breathe in my thick homemade mask. The store was reasonably stocked, though there was no toilet paper. I believe they had everything else we needed.
MattF
There’s a problem here.
germy
MattF
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Did that yesterday. Most things were there, but no TP, no ice cream, not much frozen vegetables although I found spinach in a separate freezer. About half the customers wore masks. Not crowded. Self-checkout was uneventful.
sanjeevs
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The SBA program was always doomed . Their budget is less than 700 million normally. It was run by Linda McMahon of the WWF until recently.
Not a chance in hell they could step up and save a huge swathe of small businesses
SiubhanDuinne
@ThresherK:
No need. His name isn’t Tom Friedman, it’s Tom Frieden.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
The
murdersbeatings will continue untilmoralehis polling improves.Bruuuuce
One last tear for John Prine. John McCutcheon, himself an awesome talent (he wrote “Christmas in the Trenches”) knew Prine well and wrote a memorial song. Caution: Five Kleenex.
Chyron HR
@International Mikey:
Linda Tripp was, at best, an unwitting dupe for the widely successful conspiracy to install white nationalist governments in every western democracy. She’s lucky that unlike fellow loose end Chelsea Manning, she was old and straight enough that the nazi government she helped put in power let her live out her life in relative comfort.
NotMax
@MattF
Coming up on on the monthly Costco run (usually on or adjacent to the 10th of each month). However I overbought last month, to the extreme upper limit of fridge and freezer capacity, enough to put it off for another week or so if choose to. Whether they’ll have more or have less stable inventory by then is the conundrum.
No idea whatsoever what I may find or not find there in either case.
pluky
@MrSnrub: Not if you’re VPNing to the work servers.
SFAW
@ThresherK:
Those two would be NSFPWASoMT*
*Not Safe For People With Any Semblance of Musical Taste
pluky
@germy: The woman in the red dress is awfully young to have such well developed side-eye fu.
The Moar You Know
What’s been going with Rasmussen? They keep reporting numbers in line with everyone else’s. They never do that. Always a good 5-10 points in favor of the GOP. Did they get sold off or something?
bemused
@germy:
I had to look up who/what tiger king was.
What the hell…who was the stupid questioner?
mali muso
So my toddler’s BFF and family all came down with COVID a few weeks ago and are now fully recovered and past the infection stage. Wondering if we can have a real live playdate since they are known quantities. The kiddo would be over the moon to have some interaction with other kids since she’s an only child and getting pretty stir crazy at home. Hmmm.
japa21
@NotMax: Recived a pseudo flyer for their next sale period in the mail yesterday. Actually it was a card that said they aren’t sending an actual flyer this month due to questionable stock. Instructed to go online next Wednesday instead.
That has been a problem for them. Supply chains are totally messed up.
germy
@bemused: Someone from the NY Post
(Murdoch newspaper)
WereBear
I’ve been hitting the big grocery in the next town as soon as they open. It tends to be sparsely customered at such times, and they have been trending fully stocked except for TP. Wipes out front for carts, and there are shields up for the checkers.
The big Aldis, cheaper, is both more packed and less stocked. The little grocery downtown, cheaper, is much too small for sufficient distancing; I haven’t gone there since this started. Especially since a friend who works there reported a jerk teasing her with coming too close until she had to verbally tell him off.
I am literally trading money for safety.
bemused
@germy:
The movie Idiocracy keeps popping into my head but that at least had a happier ending.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: Wow. Imagine having to change your own name just to avoid being mistaken for that hack.
Zeecube
@Keith P: This weekend’s Responsible Party is WHO.
OzarkHillbilly
That’s why suburbs were profitable. It’s the American way.
germy
Two black men say they were kicked out of Walmart for wearing protective masks. Others worry it will happen to them.
The Moar You Know
@International Mikey: Truly so sad. She’s dead, already forgotten and rotting in a funeral home somewhere, and the Clintons are alive and in full possession of the fruits of their labors.
I bet that just chaps your ass raw.
CindyH
In this morning’s STAT newsletter, I saw the following about anger among physicians –
“I’m livid. This is all being mismanaged, and we’re being put at risk unnecessarily,” said Barry Schapiro, an orthopedic surgeon practicing in Palm Beach, Fla. “We had ample time to prepare. It didn’t have to be like this.”
I know plenty of physicians that vote repug because MONEY – hope those that don’t shame the ones who do.
International Mikey
@Amir Khalid: – respect granted. I just thought it was a cheap shot. She’s a minor figure in history at this point. Why trash her after she’s passed on?
raven
@joel hanes: Oh yea, I’ve read most of his stuff, even a collection of articles they published. I’ve also read his Vietnam War stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Steinbeck-Vietnam-Dispatches-War-John/dp/0813934036
WereBear
@International Mikey:
Because the evil people do is not interred with their bones?
SFAW
@International Mikey:
Um … you don’t seem to understand how “with all due respect” works re: subject/object.
Who helped the corrupt Republican Party try to take down Clinton on what amounts to a made-up issue/charge. That she was a pawn is immaterial. As someone else here noted: did she ever apologize to Hillary or Bill? I would hope that she at least apologized to Monica Lewinsky, but I wouldn’t even bet a beer that she did.
Tell you what, I’ll meet you halfway: I won’t trash her “gentle soul” of a husband if he passes before I do.
SFAW
@WereBear:
Is there a way to Marc that comment?
mrmoshpotato
@International Mikey: I feel sorry for her widower, but fuck everyone that took part in Consensual Blowjobgate ’98!
What a bunch of horseshit that was!
different-church-lady
That’s some Betty Cracker quality stuff right there!
different-church-lady
@germy: They weren’t kicked out for wearing masks. They were kicked out for being black; the masks were just the convenient excuse.
cwmoss
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: On FB, I advocated giving her the send off she deserves: dump her filthy corpse in a fetid gutter.
catclub
wow!, everybody should know about that day, but doesn’t.
Soprano2
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
This is true, plus the in MO the extra $600 a week on unemployment means that most of my employees won’t want to be called back to work a shorter shift so we can have carry-out. In fact, they won’t even want us to send them checks since I guarantee you that MO unemployment plus $600 a week extra is a lot more than I can ever pay them. So I’m thinking that those loans/grants, while well-intended, won’t help us at all. Now a loan to help us pay our other bills while we’re closed down would help a bunch, but I can’t get that money without also paying all the employees, who again won’t want to be paid less than they can get from unemployment. So this is a program that, while well-intentioned, would have been better passed before all the massive layoffs happened.
psychobroad
@joel hanes: Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday are 2 of my favorites