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We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Come on, man.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Republicans do not trust women.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

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Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

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

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / GOP Stupidity Open Thread: Public Safety Warning

GOP Stupidity Open Thread: Public Safety Warning

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If you live in, or near, any of those cities, your ‘safe to leave lockdown’ clock will reset accordingly.

Actually, I suspect at least some of these ‘protests’ won’t happen, or will be restricted to a handful of noisy nitwits surrounded by masked-up law enforcement. This is the Repub version of ‘virtue signalling’ — pretending to be an active miscreant, rather than a whiner on social media.

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  3. 3.

    JoyceH

    Interesting that they’re willing to make it blatantly political, rather than pretending to be local groups concerned about their constitutional rights.

  4. 4.

    James E Powell

    Truly the 2020 Tea Party.

    It’s the Republican practice of giving the angry white people a target other than themselves. The press/media invariably go along with it and promote it as genuine, authentic Heartland Americans expressing themselves spontaneously. It’s been working for a very long time.

    We’ve got nothing like this, do we.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    @JoyceH: They tried that originally but were clumsy enough at disguising the coordination that even main-line political reporters started scoffing.

  8. 8.

    TS (the original)

    Just watching Rachel on the meat plants – and also prisons. What a cluster f…

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Hawaii’s governor has been doing well in this crisis but he did drop the ball on this one. Yes you can. No you can’t. Wait – yes you can.

    Florists statewide will be allowed to deliver flowers in plenty of time for Mother’s Day. Gov. David Ige has given permission for florists to get back to business May 1, this after the governor himself revoked just two days ago a special exemption florists got for a 10-day window around Mother’s Day.

    The change of heart comes after a flurry of pleas from the public and business, detailed questioning from Always Investigating, and support from all four mayors for letting flowers get to moms.
    [snip]
    “When the exemption came in, all the florists here put in our orders with farms around the world,” Pereira said. “When all of our orders went in, we all had to pay up front, so depending on the size of the florist you’re talking about a couple thousand dollars to more than $20,000 in product that we committed to for Mother’s Day.”

    The orders blossomed immediately

    “Once it actually hit out there, within 48 hours we had 500 orders already in our system,” Pereira said, “so it was staggering the response how quickly it came in.”

    And then Gov. David Ige said this Saturday at a midday press conference: “That permission was granted prematurely, and so I was not aware it was actually granted. That person authorizing it did not have the authority.”

    The exemption had been rescinded.
    [snip]
    A legal expert told Always Investigating the state could be liable either way for the florists’ expenses because they were given a legitimate exemption, however brief.
    [snip]
    And then, this update from the governor’s office just before this story went to air on KHON2: “I just wanted to announce tonight that I’ve discussed this with the mayors and we all believe that florists certainly is one of the businesses where the risk is low,” the governor said on a Facebook Live broadcast.
    [snip]
    “Florists will be in the first phase of reopening,” Ige said. “They will be amongst the first businesses that will be allowed to reopen May 1 provided they implement these procedures that would assure the safety of all.” Source

  12. 12.

    Redshift

    @James E Powell:

    We’ve got nothing like this, do we. 

    You only need to lie about who’s to blame for people’s troubles when you’re the ones who are to blame. So, no, we don’t have anything like that.

  13. 13.

    Patricia Kayden

    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said in her state, it will be considered a “voluntary quit” if an employee refuses to return to work once businesses reopen, thereby losing access to unemployment benefits.A similar situation will soon play out in Texas. https://t.co/qGmapbLBzi— scott immordino (@ScottImmordino) April 28, 2020

  14. 14.

    Eunicecycle

    One good bit of news: Melissa Ackison, one of the “tyranny!” protestors in Ohio who made the news by being pictured screaming into the Ohio Statehouse, is losing her bid to become a  state senator-badly. She primaried the sitting Republican state senator. It was the picture of her and her fellow protestors that earned a comparison to zombies in The Walking Dead.

  17. 17.

    Barbara

    Do they really not get the difference between engaging in what is essentially performance art, e.g., tea party activism, and demanding the right to expose their friends and neighbors to a dread disease?  How people might react differently to a perceived existential threat to their own well-being?

  18. 18.

    Woodrow/asim

    @schrodingers_cat:  As a fomer sudent in that region — yeah, the area is blue-as-can-be, however nearby areas, like Springfield and Worcester, have a bit more..variety, let us say?

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    Surprise, Arizona is the town where the residents opposed having a Boys & Girls Club built because it would bring too many of Those Children.

  20. 20.

    Anne Laurie

    @schrodingers_cat: Northampton, the home of Smith College is deep blue. I would be really surprised if they get much of a response there.

    Yeah, I saw that, and assumed some ‘prankish’ collegian bored with being on lockdown decided to see if they could attract enough counter-protestors to make the local news, for the lulz.  Hey, it worked for that Randroid jagoff in Worcester ‘protesting for men’s rights’ in Boston, din’it?

    ETA:  Or, what Omnes said.

  21. 21.

    SectionH

    Parts of San Diego County (including the city) just reopened some beaches on Monday, with many “let’s be sane here” rules – and a protest rally like that would be beyond NOT OK. (Yes, arrests have already happened, most recently for a protest at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas on Saturday.

    edited for detail

  22. 22.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I still think these reopen protests are grandstanding so these groups can hit their idiot rich donors up for more funding. All the places listed the rates of infection are done and the communities are working on plans to reopen already. This way they can say “look we told the Libetards to open San Fransisco up, and look, a week later they allowed construction work to start!”

  23. 23.

    HumboldtBlue

    One of the reasons I’ve never really liked Biden is that I was once a constituent of his in Dover, Delaware where I graduated high school.

    Dover is a military (USAF MAC) town and the state capital surrounded by rural enclaves and places like Little Creek and Milford.

    They’ll have the same jackasses every other collection of dipshits has across the country. It’s amazing how interchangeable they are.

    Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, on the other hand, is still fucking amazing.

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    Watching Maddow.

    Listing the top 15 hotspots in the country for COVID-19.

    Five of the top 10 ARE IN RED STATES WITH MEAT PACKING PLANT BREAKOUTS…

     

    UGHHHHHH

  29. 29.

    Joe Falco

    Ha! I live in Georgia. Thanks to Governor Yeehaw, my “safe to leave lockdown” clock is reset daily!

  30. 30.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    There have to have been at least a few cases that needed hospitalization, too. Very sad. There’s already been at least 1 death

  32. 32.

    Robmassing

    Even if there are a grand total of 12 people in 6 cities it will be the top story on every network and a Page One headline of every newspaper.

  33. 33.

    Redshift

    @Barbara:

    Do they really not get the difference between engaging in what is essentially performance art, e.g., tea party activism, and demanding the right to expose their friends and neighbors to a dread disease? 

    They do not. They have right-wing media telling them it’s no big deal, it’s no worse than the flu, and all of this is just “government overreach.” And since right-wing media has been telling them for decades that all other sources are “biased” and they should ignore them, they’re not hearing that it’s a deadly disease and they’re endangering their friends and neighbors. I saw this from the Daily Beast just today.

  35. 35.

    FlyingToaster

    I suspect that if anyone shows up in Northampton, the cops will be photographing them and their license plate and sending that info to Public Health.  When the Hazmat team shows up at their door at dinner time, with a “Oh, we’re quarantining your sorry ass, here’s the court order, the ankle bracelet, and this weeks box of canned food.”

    Today in Cambridge at the eastern end of the Commonwealth, the “too cool for masks” crowd were hanging around the StahMahket parking lot bitching because tomorrow the “Wear your fucking mask, asshat” ordinance goes into effect.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    The stated reasons for the protests and political agendas of these AstroTurf groups are never the real reasons.  The only reason to push people to go back to work and to open everything is to stop paying unemployment benefits.  I’m sure there are a bunch of oligarchs who are worrying their taxes will go up to pay for the covid safety net. There seems to be an endless supply of idiots who will go along with these bullshit schemes because they are selfish and want to own the libs.

    If the result were that only these fools became sick and died, I wouldn’t care at all – and I hate this new aspect of my personality.  But these assholes will get good people killed,  so I’m forced for the best.

  38. 38.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    The protesters (if any) in Limerick PA should get a *special* tour of the inner containment of their nuclear power reactor.

     

    Then seal the door.  I hear it’ll protect them from the Karmavirus.

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @TS (the original):

    Just watching Rachel on the meat plants – and also prisons. What a cluster f… 

    In a sane world, this “risk death or starve” order would kill dead any belief that conservative anti-union policies (so-called right to work etc al) are motivated in any way by what’s good for workers (freedumb!). Of course, in a sane world, it would have been dead long ago.

  42. 42.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @rikyrah:

    Im thinking that the meat packing plant issue may teach some important things about the commodification of the entirety of the national food chain and the dangers posed by the monopolization of processing.

    American companies stopped striving to be best several decades ago- they just buy out or destroy competitors.

  43. 43.

    Eric U.

    If the workers do show up and get laid off, then the unemployment is on the business.  These red states are going to screw someone, they don’t care who.

  44. 44.

    Redshift

    @MomSense:

    The only reason to push people to go back to work and to open everything is to stop paying unemployment benefits. 

    The other reason is for Trump to try to put the blame for the bad economy on (mostly Democratic) governors. This requires Trump and his cronies to be evil enough to try it and stupid enough to think it will work, which, unfortunately, they are.

  45. 45.

    L85NJGT

    Survey USA has Biden +5 in North Carolina.

    The GOP is gonna have to throw a whole lot more bullshit on the fire.

     

    Biden is a also clocking Sanders in Ohio.

  46. 46.

    Suzanne

    So between Pence saying that he didn’t wear a mask at Mayo Clinic today because he wanted to “look them in the eye”, and the other people complaining that wearing masks inhibits free speech…. it made me realize that these people apparently think we’re asking them to wear blindfolds and ballgags.

    It’s always projection with these people. Always.

  47. 47.

    Raoul

    So what time tomorrow do we think the outrage machine will have settled on the “Liberals were disrespecting Mike Pence! He was just out there doing the Lord’s work and people hate him.” squid ink?

  48. 48.

    Persistent Illusion

    @schrodingers_cat: Having matriculated from Smith, you’d be surprised.  The female offspring of the Masters of the Universe go there. (I was not a MoU, just lucky.) These are people who in the 70s took private planes to Martha’s Vineyard. From Nhampton.

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    @Raoul: Actually, MikePence doesn’t sound too bad!!

    I am forever hopeful, but it couldn't be any more painfully obvious that our supposed leaders have no fucking idea what they are doing, and that is terrifying.

    — Staying home is pro-life! (@mikepence) April 27, 2020

    +1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @HumboldtBlue: We were once driving back from the Eastern shore and had some extra time. Passed by Bombay Hook and said what the heck, it’s a beautiful day. So glad we stopped in.

  52. 52.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Redshift: This requires Trump and his cronies to be evil enough to try it and stupid enough to think it will work, which, unfortunately, they are.

    Depends on how many of their dumb voters they can rile up and how many of ours they can prevent from voting.

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    Still with the stale 1930s ‘America First’ crap stolen from celebrity Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh? They just plagiarize everything.

  54. 54.

    FlyingToaster

    @MomSense: The Chelsea numbers were the wakeup call for Brookline, Somerville and Cambridge; population density is a freaking nightmare with 20K+/sqmi.  So they’re going to mandatory mask wearing outside of your property, including hallways and stairwells in multifamily buildings.

    The mobile testing labs (Mass National Guard and Broad Institute) are supposed to finish testing all of the residential facilities this week.  So your relative will soon have a reliable sense of “is this joint safe” than currently exists.

  56. 56.

    Leto

    @Suzanne:

     

    it made me realize that these people apparently think we’re asking them to wear blindfolds and ballgags.

    Well they are always talking about things being shoved down their throats…

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @Leto: God. People with weird sex hangups are just the worst. So damn tiresome. Just get laid and get freaky, or don’t, but stop the psychodrama around it.

  60. 60.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s never not amazing.

    It’s where I first learned about conservation and how the efforts to protect natural resources really came down to local people recognizing their local worth.

    Nixon gave us the Clean Water Act and I gotta say that watching people from various social and political circles come together to create the refuges and preserves still color my outlook today.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    These fuckers gonna have to get in line behind the gun people suing Newsom because the CHP has stopped issuing Capitol event permits because the assholes last week didn’t honor safe distancing and PPE. “Mah freedom!”

    Jerks

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    Just checking back in for the day, and I have to say, is it possible that the entire republican party, from the top down is going for craptacular, over the top, pure and prime bullshit, in the hope that we are so overloaded that we give up in disgust?

    Because I have no idea how much more absolute fucking stupidity and ignorant bullshit that I can take. It isn’t any one thing, it’s every damn thing, every damn word, it’s like drunks trying to play with dolls, except they’ve torn off all the heads and shit for brains is humping the torsos. (I worked on Barbie doll molds when I was a kid, but even then I recognized that her proportions were how do you say, not normal. A job I did for most of a summer was help build the molds, I cut the metal for the body. I was 12. This may have scarred me for life. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    How can they stop? If you took that away from them, and left them with their actual mental abilities, they would have zip, zero, the sum of nothing. They are the people that your parents warned you about. Unless your parents were them……..

  68. 68.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ruckus:

    is it possible that the entire republican party, from the top down is going for craptacular, over the top, pure and prime bullshit, in the hope that we are so overloaded that we give up in disgust? 

    Absolutely.  Trying to make us suffer from bullshit fatigue!

  69. 69.

    Logan Brown

    @L85NJGT: It does help that the clowns with RepopenNC are the usual bunch of grifters, anti-vac, and conspiracy theory. They have managed to clown themselves on TV twice now and have experienced quite a bit of backlash even with the last 6 “sane” Republicans. The Independents want NO part of this nonsense and seem to understand that we can’t return to “normal” until it is safer.

    The fact that the Governor is sober and level headed doesn’t hurt either. Competency matters and I shudder to think how McCroy might have handled this. Hell, the GOP General Assembly is even mumbling about potential expansion of health care.

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