Amazing details in this Kushner scoop:
– his team followed leads from "Fox&Friends" on where to find PPE.
– took 30% of national stockpile for drive-through testing site plan that failed.
– had no experience in health care, procurement, supply chain etc.https://t.co/jaoiropprA— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) May 5, 2020
Devastating indictment of Kushner from an ex-employee: “When I knew him, he seemed constitutionally incapable of considering the humanity of other people as a starting point.” https://t.co/oLRonQt83x
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) May 8, 2020
The nation’s preeminent Fortunate Son-in-Law has been all over the news this week, because no Trump Crime Cartel story is complete without a little Kushner in the mix:
… In any normal administration, an adviser with Kushner’s string of failures would be fired, but Kushner, like his father-in-law, keeps crediting himself with imaginary successes. Most recently, he declared the administration’s coronavirus response “a great success story,” a mind-boggling assertion that raises the question of what, if anything, Kushner thinks failure looks like. He has also continued to bash the actual experts, disputing their assessments and implying that they, not he, are the amateurs, and he is here to clean up their mess.
This is basically Kushner’s modus operandi, and it’s painfully familiar to me because he was my boss when I was the editor in chief of the New York Observer, which he had bought when he was 25…
… [H]e apparently can’t register the grief millions of Americans are experiencing now as their lives are upended by covid-19 and people they love become sick and die. It’s what enables him to lie on camera about the state of what’s happening — to view the coronavirus response as an opportunity to trade favors and not a necessary and vital obligation of the federal government — and why he will cast himself as a begrudging custodian of problems other people created even as those problems metastasize all around him as a direct consequence of his mismanagement…
On some level, Trump and Kushner appear to believe that whether they are really doing their jobs is irrelevant. But they have no reason to believe otherwise; they’ve never faced any consequences for not doing what they’re supposed to do except bad press. (Or, in Trump’s case, an impeachment that quickly led to a pro forma acquittal.) As of today, Kushner’s string of failures have not resulted in any kind of demotion or reprimand, much less dismissal. (Whatever happened to the Office of American Innovation? What has it done? Who’s demanded results?) They act like they think they should get credit for any effort at all, for stooping to bother…
Instead of doing what’s necessary to respond to the pandemic, the White House has chosen to punt and made noise about winding down its covid-19 task force, which under the circumstances is akin to dropping out of a marathon at mile 2.4 and expecting a medal for having made any effort at all. Now that he’s failed to get PPE and ventilators out quickly, Kushner has been tasked with accelerating vaccine development, another job for which he has no qualifications or expertise. The project has been named “Operation Warp Speed,” ostensibly a descriptor of its ambitions for getting a vaccine to market quickly. But if it proceeds the way Kushner’s shadow task force has so far, it may simply describe the velocity with which the task force’s efforts slam into logistical walls because the driver is an amateur who shouldn’t have the keys to begin with.
If that happens, expect it to be cast as a spectacular success. Maybe we never needed a vaccine because herd immunity was the strategy all along. And then Kushner will be given even more responsibility — because in the administration’s perverse calculus, he’s racked up enough failures to earn it.
I hope that Kushner is as successful at saving Trump's re-election as he's been at saving lives.
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) May 6, 2020
.@espiers? warned in March about having Jared in charge:
“Kushner is incurious, not inclined to defer to experts, & surrounds himself with yes men, so he is unaccustomed to being told that his decision-making is bad.” https://t.co/5UC7kv2yqY
— Alexis Goldstein (@alexisgoldstein) May 7, 2020
the media agrees with Jared because they’re bored now https://t.co/dVfUufLdUw
— local jack please ban the nazis person (@pleizar) May 7, 2020
Incidentally, we may’ve discovered the GRU’s code name for Young Prince Jared:
#TodaysRussianCussWord
Zabit hui (zah-BEAT HOOY)
Literally: "To pound dick (on something)"
Meaning: "To give something, usually a task, no attention; to treat it without urgency; to approach a job or information in a careless manner; to live without worry; to be a pokhuist"…— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) May 8, 2020
Using "zabit" (to pound, to drive through) makes the phrase sound more aggressive. It is no longer an expression of Russian fatalism, it is an active life philosophy of being a committed pokhuist (click the hashtag for the earlier entry).
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) May 8, 2020
debbie
Trump couldn’t have found anyone more incompetent than Jared. Other than himself, of course.
Lacuna Synechdoche
WaPo via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Oh, that’s easy – four deaths under a Democratic President is a failure of massive proportions and consequence, while only 100,000 unnecessary American deaths under a Republican President is a wild and tremendous success.
different-church-lady
I used to think Trump lit on to Kushner due to nepotism and laziness, but now I think it’s more that he saw a kindred spirit.
different-church-lady
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
Also:
“Failure is when I cut my finger. Success is when you fall in an open sewer and die.”
— not quite Mel Brooks
Mike in NC
Kushner — sniveling little shit, 98-pound weakling, loyal unto death to his idiot Big Daddy — is the perfect face of this disaster of an administration.
rikyrah
Just got word.
My cousin’s ex-wife, a nurse, has COVID-19. She is not doing well. She’s only 42.
Their baby girl is just a couple of months younger than Peanut.
Asking for prayers ?
different-church-lady
@Mike in NC: Beg your pardon: Trump himself is the face.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: I don’t do prayers, but here’s as much energy as I can transmit through the ether.
rikyrah
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
Jared calling it a success story needs to be an ad.
Period
Baud
@rikyrah: All the best to her.
evap
I’m normally not a hating person, but there are no words for how much I hate these people. I want to see Jared and Ivanka forced to walk through DC naked while people fling shit at them.
evap
@rikyrah: so sorry, sending an atheist prayer to her.
different-church-lady
@evap: Aw christ, don’t you know about rule 34?
MattF
Kushner’s little smirk just makes me see red. Bad for my blood pressure.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
I will pray for her.
zhena gogolia
@MattF:
This tweet never gets old:
Nora
@evap: I think you’re too kind. I wouldn’t let them walk. And I wouldn’t limit it to shit, either.
zhena gogolia
zhena gogolia
SFAW
@Mike in NC:
And it’s a Gesicht desperately needing — nay, begging for — a Backpfeife
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: I’m so old I can remember when Rahm Emanuel was the worst pick a president could possibly make.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Sending prayers. ?
Baud
@different-church-lady: Are you suggesting he wasn’t?
Nelle
I used to think that hoping for something (meteor, virus, rogues Sectet Service agent whose child just died of Covid-19) was inviting bad karma. Now I begin to think that it is an act of humanity, a hope for the saving of many lives.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@rikyrah: on it.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Worse than Goebbels, Jr.?
JPL
@rikyrah: Sending prayers.
rikyrah
Someone or multiple someone’s don’t agree with this Administration’s re-opening of the country based on bullshyt.
Please note that it was leaks that we found out about the valet and Miller’s wife.
And, right in time for the Friday night news dump, they actually gave us THE actual story:
THE LARGE NUMBER OF SECRET SERVICE AGENTS WHO ARE INFECTED
Think on the quantity of SService agents who are infected ???
different-church-lady
@Nelle: That certainly is an interesting spin on the trolley problem.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Genocidal bitch Noem has ordered the Lakota to remove Covid checkpoints FROM THEIR LAND. If that doesn’t work maybe she can pass out blankets.
Spanky
It’s nearly noon on May 9, it’s 40 degrees, and the wind’s blowing 30 with higher gusts off the river.
Fuck this shit.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
MomSense
@rikyrah: ????
germy
@Spanky:
So much for “global warming” eh, lib?
different-church-lady
@Spanky: Go fly a kite.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: So sorry to hear it. : (
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Or an Ohrfeige.
billcinsd
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
she was banned from entering the reservations because if her racist policies, so this is not really a surprise
bemused
Jared and Ivanka are both weird, made for each other. Even when they do smile, it gives me the creeps. I feel sorry for their kids. I don’t remember ever hearing her father laugh. None of them are normal or have normal senses of humor.
Spanky
@different-church-lady:
Is that “How many times must a trolley run over Jared’s face for it to be enough?”
rikyrah
@bemused:
They have the
CHILDREN OF THE CORN
expressions
rikyrah
The head of the FDA has The Rona?
neldob
Meanwhile McConnell is trying to indemnify businesses that open up. Let them open up if they want to but don’t make our gov’t responsible if they don’t open under fairly specific safety precautions. There’s an Against Tyranny or something drive parade near here led by a couple of small businesses. Meanwhile a spike in cv-19 infections.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: Why not “all of the above”?
Mary G
@rikyrah: I will never forgive the people who voted for Twitler, third party fringe candidates, or stayed home four years ago. I know it’s not good for me, but I hate them.
I will pray.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Sending good thoughts.
neldob
@Lacuna Synechdoche: This is beautiful, hope it’s ok if I steal it.
bemused
@rikyrah:
Omg, yes!
Virginia
Every flipping one of these creatures is just disgusting. Money is all that they care for.
My fervent hope is for them all to be stripped of everything and every dollar they have. For each of them to spend the rest of their miserable lives penniless and in jail.
With rats.
germy
@Virginia:
Hungry rats.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Good one. I also like “Jared looks like the ghost of the boy who died in the old house you’re visiting.”
Nothing about the clinical sociopathy description is surprising. And if Ivanka is a daddy’s girl, she found a daddy clone in Kush.
Baud
@Virginia: Why do you want them to have so much more then they deserve?
neldob
@rikyrah: I am sorry. Many prayers and good vibes.
Emma from FL
@rikyrah: May Raphael, the Archangel of Healing, brush her with his wings, comfort her in her suffering, and lend skill and grace to the hands of her healers.
Bex
@rikyrah: On the list.
Duane
@neldob: It’s too bad there’s no science based guidelines for businesses to follow. Then they could show they did everything possible to protect their employee’s. Or better yet, no sick employees to sue them.
debbie
@rikyrah:
I’m hoping for the best for her and for good people everywhere.
Sure Lurkalot
I had a 35 year career in real estate development…municipal approval coordination, asset and project management, acquisition due diligence and finance…I’ve worked with dozens of Jared Kushners. Self assured, entitled, arrogant, largely incompetent and bigly lazy. I guess I was lucky that at least to the best of my knowledge, none of them approached this level of sociopathy. I agree there should be an ad showing all of these creeps congratulating themselves on a job well done aiding and abetting the deaths and illness of millions of human beings
PST
Adam Serwer, who is always perceptive, has a new article in The Atlantic, The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying. I don’t think I have mentioned it here before. The title itself is a good tl;dr summary, but it is well worth reading in full. The fact that COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting people of color is true, deplorable, and well worth exploring in detail; however, maybe it would have been better if news hadn’t reached the top. I think Serwer is right that the mania for “opening up” can be attributed in large part to a perception that the wrong sort are suffering and dying more than the right sort. This point of view is, of course, almost as dumb as it is immoral. Plenty of white folks, especially those at the bottom of the pecking order, have died and will die, but overlooking that is the very encapsulation of Trumpism.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I am so sorry for her and your family. I am sending healing thoughts in your direction.
PsiFighter37
Poster boy for idiotic rich white people who were born with a silver boot up their ass.
Ruckus
Jared seems just like shitforbrains was when he was younger. So I’d bet that is why he gets all these gigs – and fucks them all up. The thing that would make another narcissist acceptable to shitforbrains is that his daughter is married to him, so neither of them can do anything wrong. But the biggest issue is that shitforbrains is guilty of is that he of course thinks that everything he’s done is the greatest. If it didn’t have an actual positive outcome, he just lies about it. Lying about it is totally normal, he makes his own truth up, because he can do no wrong. Jared is a chip off of daughter’s shoulder.
It’s the personality disaster family. Into it’s third generation.
Wouldn’t be the first one, won’t be the last.
Immanentize
@neldob: I actually do not mind indemnification. If an industry is really necessary to the nation, the federal government should stand ready to take care of the sick and their families if they are working for the good of us all. It’s like a version of the draft?
But what I cannot stomach is just deciding there will be no liability for reckless acts by employers. That is just wrong.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike in NC: Yes, what’s with the Trump admin being filled with guys who look like they are extra’s from the evil frat in Animal House? Hasn’t there been stories that Wall Street brokers find young Jared souless and amoral?
Another Scott
@debbie: Donnie has to have a family member in charge, because that’s the only way he can get his vig and be protected from “disloyalty” to Donnie’s fragile ego.
Remember when Ivanka had to sit in on the meeting with Abe in November 2016? It’s the same thing.
Probably the quickest way for Donnie’s house of cards to collapse is for Javanka to be
locked up while awaiting trial, er, out of Donnie’s reach.Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@PST: He’s right.
Brachiator
It just stuns me how Trump is constantly putting Young Jared on some committee or panel or group, to make sure the family gets its cut of the grift, and Trump supporters just nod their heads approvingly.
Immanentize
@Virginia: I am starting to warm to the idea of a big beautiful parade in DC of the collaborators who are killing us. Shaved heads and all?
Miss Bianca
@Virginia:
@germy:
Did someone say…RATS?
Kristine
@rikyrah: On it.
Immanentize
@PST: AIDS redux
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah:
I am very sorry. I pray that she receives the best of care and comes through this.
I pray that you and your loved ones stay safe and well.
danielx
@Immanentize:
I’m thinking tumbrils.
bemused
@PST:
Pretty predictable they believe or pretend to believe virus will infect “those” people more than them. It’s the same as their belief that republican cuts to Medicare and Social Security, food stamp, etc. will predominately affect “those” people far more than themselves.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: I’m very sorry to hear that. Strength and good luck to her.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Immanentize
@danielx: You are so kind and generous. I say skip the tax payer financed ride and make them walk.
PST
@Immanentize: Good point. In a sense AIDS was the reverse. The nation ignored a disease that was only killing gay men, then woke up more and more as fear emerged that straight men could also be exposed.
JPL
@Immanentize: Maybe take selfies with the president.
germy
@danielx:
Isn’t a tumbril an unnecessary luxury?
I mean, they can’t walk?
EDIT:
and Immanentize beats me to the gag.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
I think he looks exactly like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
lumpkin
A malignant fool was put in charge of your life by a pathological idiot because he’s married to a vapid twit.
This sad state of affairs was brought to you by the republican party.
Mandalay
I was surprised to see his vile wife tweet this yesterday:
Black-Lives-Matter-Barbie finds her voice!
Why have Republicans collectively decided that this particular murder of a black person is a bridge too far for them? Their fake outrage is getting embarrassing.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Very sorry to hear this. I send all good thoughts.
danielx
@germy:
Too hard to see them in the crowd if they are on foot. I want everyone to have a great view while they are being pelted with garbage and manure. Great television, as I’m sure anus tangerinus would agree.
Auntie Anne
@rikyrah: Sending all the good thoughts and energy her way.
Another Scott
@PST: … and Haitians. Remember?
It was the “perfect” disease for the racist preachers and politicians to use as an illustration of divine punishment. Until Rock Hudson got it, and then Nancy and Ronnie started – finally – paying attention.
Grr…
I had hoped that after January 2000 that the RWNJ racist preachers would have far less sway (since Jesus didn’t return, no rapture, none of that stuff they’d been telling us for years), and maybe they do now, but they still have far too much.
Grrr…….
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@lumpkin:
I saw this reader comment over at LGM:
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I got into it on the phone yesterday with my brother-in-law yesterday, who voted for Trump.
They are in Michigan and he’s mad that their governor is being too strict. Mad that he can’t buy paint. Mad that he can’t use a golf cart when he golfs. If he can use a golf car, he’s mad that he can’t share a golf cart. Really mad that he couldn’t share the golf cart even if he was golfing with his wife, my sister, who WOULD NEVER GOLF anyway.
Then economy, economy, economy.
I tried to explain that it’s helping to keep them safe but he doesn’t care. I explained that if we open too early we are back where we started from. He said he didn’t care: people were losing their businesses.
I asked him to get back to me with a list of the people he was okay with dying in order to save the “economy”. He said: “anyone I don’t know.”
Then I asked if he would vote for Trump again in November, and he said yes. I blurted out “I can’t even talk to you then.” He said “fine”, and hung up the phone.
We used to be very close, but I do not understand how anyone that is not racist or heartless or brainless could vote for Trump again.
ziggy
Here’s some speculation as to why Jared appears so strange:
https://www.yourtango.com/2020333303/did-jared-kushner-get-plastic-surgery-botox
Something has definitely changed, maybe evil does manifest itself on your face!
SiubhanDuinne
R. I. P. Little Richard.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Nah, his Ohren are pretty run-of-the-mill. But I agree with your sentiment.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
I’ve been saying this forever. They are the exact same kind of dimwitted, superficial asshole. They listen to each other and go “You’re a genius!” Jared is Trump’s best friend.
Oh, no. Hillary was a target of opportunity. When Benghazi didn’t catch on, they shifted to her emails. The point of the Benghazi outrage was that Obama, the Anti-American Kenyan Muslim, willingly and gleefully let four Americans die because he agrees with terrorists and wanted to help them kill Americans.
Frankensteinbeck
@ziggy:
It does. I’ve seen it. In Kentucky, I’ve gotten used to seeing how hate distorts your facial features over time. You can see it in Sarah Palin, the blocky, mummified look.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl:
Well, at least he’s honest in his sociopathy.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
you can come sit by me
social distancing, of course :)
I think a whole lot of people don’t quite understand the sea change that has happened on our side. They still haven’t caught up, and continue to want to deny it, especially in the MSM. They still live in their delusional world where our natural empathy can be used against us. No longer.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Sad, chilling and honest.
The efforts to halt the spread of the virus were too successful. If more people got sick and had to be hospitalized, or had died, maybe the reality of the pandemic would be more real. But for a lot of people, it’s just something that they watch a news clip about, and so it is easier to dismiss the severity of the problem
And it’s weird how many people are convinced that the virus is somebody else’s problem.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: Ms. Rona don’t care who he knows or doesn’t know.
Jinchi
Not that the title is wrong, but it’s weird that they’re kicking down instead of focusing on the real problem.
I would have gone with:
MomSense
@ziggy:
I was going to bring that up because not only have I become full of hate, but also sooooo petty. Dude had cheek implants, fillers and Botox and ended up looking like the world’s best known fictional villain, Tom Riddle.
indycat32
@MomSense: Perhaps that was the goal.
Sloane Ranger
@rikyrah: Sending mine her way. I hope she gets through this.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
The stupid reaction of “religious” people in America has been inconsistent and fitful.
There is not a lot of “the pandemic is God’s punishment for … something” stuff, and more “God doesn’t want us to wear face masks” and whining about their inability to get shoulder to shoulder in church.
West of the Rockies
@lumpkin:
All too well said.
Ruckus
I just got an email from the committee to reelect shitforbrains. I found it in the junk filter. Good computer.
This is my reply. Not sure if it’s worth sending.
You ignorant fuck.
You are only capable of making everything you touch, everything around you and yourself worse because you are a horrible human.
You are only good at being a failure and have been for your entire life.
You have killed tens of thousands of American citizens by your bullshit and ignorance.
You have killed more people with your stupidity, ignorance, inarticulate bullshit and inaction and theft in less than 5 months that nations at war killed in 10 yrs, in a war that your father paid for you not to have to bother with.
You are a disgrace to the human race, a 300+lbs of far, far worse than useless bag of shit.
You lie about everything, because you only know how to lie.
You are so full of shit that there isn’t a possible description that fits.
Thoughts? Should I send it?
Cameron
@Mandalay: What embarrasses them is the cops wanted to arrest these guys. In the Republican dream scenario, cops will always side with the white dudes. This one kinda lets the air out of their deification of people in uniforms (well, people in uniforms who carry firearms).
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: Well, there goes what’s left of the food supply…
NotMax
One of those knobs who believes arranging a meeting solely to discuss having another meeting is the pinnacle of management.
different-church-lady
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Come to think of it, why not “All of the above, plus some other things too”?
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
I’m so sorry to hear this. Holding her and her family in my thoughts.
different-church-lady
@NotMax: Wondermark c1268.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Put Eric in charge of everything!
Fuck these fucking sociopathic Soviet shitpiles.
different-church-lady
@Baud: And yet, also so much less.
Wapiti
@WaterGirl: I expect your BIL has built a worldview, over time, that is racist and heartless. He had help, but only he can walk himself away from that worldview.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay: Wow, if only, she like, knew some people who could lead change on this kind of issue. Oh well..
Tdjr
@Ruckus: I see no downside.
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus:
Run that baby!
The Pale Scot
@ziggy:
That’s what selling ur soul looks like. Would love to have video of the dark shadows dragging him away when the contract comes due
leeleeFL
@different-church-lady: Me as well. Sending healing thoughts her way. So sorry, rikyrah
Jinchi
I realize it would fall on deaf ears, but you could point out that every country that took this seriously, like Australia, Japan and Germany, have knocked the coronavirus back. South Korea nearly eliminated the outbreak in 40 days. Even Italy, which was the definition of worst-case-scenario early on, has gotten it’s caseload to drop 5-fold.
The worst performing countries (Brazil, Russia and the United States) are the ones with governments that are in denial. For them, there is no end in sight.
The economy won’t recover until the pandemic is crushed.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Earlier this week my conservative christian sister told me “I’m glad the models were wrong”. I wrote back and said that the models weren’t wrong – they were the models of what would happen if we DIDN’T stay home and DIDN’T wear masks.
So the fact that we haven’t ended up there YET was because we stayed home and wore masks and did social distancing.
Deaf ears. This is bringup up all the bad feelings re: most of my extended family voting for Trump, or staying home, or voting third party, all of which brought us Trump
edit: not a good week in the land of WaterGirl.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: Maybe delete everything after “You ignorant fuck” and send it 12 times.
Brachiator
@PST:
I’m not sure that it would have made much difference. Trump never showed much interest in the pandemic. From the beginning, before there were any cases here, he was dismissing the importance of responding. And it certainly was not the case that the poor and the nonwhite were mainly the ones dying in China, Italy or Spain.
Trump was constantly looking for a way to avoid doing anything while taking the credit for everything.
And conservative deniers and asswipes soon began looking for all kinds of pseudo-Darwinist reasons to rationalize accepting the deaths. One California idiot seized on the notion that the virus was “naturally” wiping out the old (including old white folks), the weak and the useless (a mix of nonwhites and homeless people) so that the worthy people in society could live better.
I can imagine that all kinds of variations of this appeals to Trump, even down the the basic notion that because he is rich and the president, it is fine, natural and wonderful that he can buy all the tests and protection that he needs.
But it is also clear that Trump doesn’t particularly care whether anyone not in his designated friend zone gets sick or dies from the pandemic.
Sadly, the message has not quite got through to his base how little he cares about them. Even his obsession with the economy is less about putting Americans back to work than it is about making sure that he and his plutocrat buddies can continue to live high on the hog.
Trump also needs his ritual praise of how great he is and how much he has done, better than any other president now and forever, amen.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
We can’t choose our families, our relations, or how they turn out as adults. They have the same free will we do. What they choose to accept or deny is up to them. Say for example, scientology. Or racism. Or conservatism. Or narcissism. Or other unseen disasters of personality. Or the draw of faux news. Or even all of the above. It’s the nature of life, the randomness of it all, the ability to accept/believe pure bullshit and see it as the ultimate truth.
I’ve lost a sister to one of the above. I’m sorry about your brother.
different-church-lady
@The Pale Scot:
Holding on to the one-ring will do that to a fella.
leeleeFL
@evap: With Nancy Pelosi eepeating “SHAME” like the Boss she is. Thought of one of the few scenes from GoT rgst I have seen. Too violent for me.
NotMax
Paraphrasing Peter Schickele, “His gross incompetence is limited only by his faulty technique.”
debbie
@Another Scott:
Harrumph. Better Eric than Jared.
Ruckus
@Tdjr:
@West of the Rockies:
@different-church-lady:
I get my healthcare from the VA.
SS is over half my current income and what I’ll need to actually retire.
I’m comfortable with the words and the concept. I’m just not sure a vindictive asshole with his federal power and only hate is the person to piss off at this moment. Nor one of his sycophants. Also not sure it’s the exact right thing to do…….
Jinchi
Well that’s demonstrably true. Remember one of the earliest responses to the coronavirus by this administration.
leeleeFL
@evap: With Nancy Pelosi eepeating “SHAME” like the Boss she is. Thought of one of the few scenes from GoT rgst I have seen. Too violent for me.
BBA
Kushner makes Zuckerberg seem human by comparison.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Ruckus: Of course!
We get RWNJ mail for my late father in-law. NRA Judicial Watch, Ollie North’ latest scam, you name it. I like to send it all back, postage due, with similar warm thoughts. As long as it comes, I’ll keep telling them to piss off
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So in maybe the least surprising news of the quarantine era, Ivanka married her daddy
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
I’m sorry your relatives have decided to wear blinkers and ignore the raging fire all around us. My younger brother and I speak on occasion, he’s quite conservative and loves living in Texas, which means I will never visit him again.
But one thing this tragic situation makes obvious:
All Republicans are a cancer upon both society and the planet.
There is no question about it, and anyone who doesn’t get that is part of the problem, and eaten up with that evil to at least some degree.
@rikyrah:
So sorry to hear about your cousin’s family! Hope she does well, all is not lost yet. Take care and keep in touch with them as best you can. That’s all we can do right now. Best of luck to all of them!!
Another Scott
@Jinchi:
Yup, but they don’t really care about the economy either. They care about their own privilege, their own bank accounts, punching down, and little about the rest. McConnell and the GOP strangled the recovery from the housing bubble crash. They didn’t care about speeding the recovery – the most important thing was to increase their power to punish others.
Now, the screaming about opening up the economy only started when there was danger of people actually getting reasonable unemployment and stimulus dollars, and when the reports came out that the risk of dying was higher for minorities and the disadvantaged. Then all day everywhere it was OMG Teh ECONOMY and OMG Teh TYRANY OF ME NOT BEING ABLE TO SPIT ON PEOPLE!!1 Do what we want, and we want states to slash their social benefit programs, so do what we want!!1
As always, their words are just mouth noises. What matters are their actions.
[/rant #13342]
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
It is maddening to try to talk to people who don’t even try to understand the science of pandemics. There are also people who stupidly make shit up. Like people who still want to insist that the Corona Virus is just the flu. And then there are the people who claim that nobody wore masks when the Spanish Flu happened, even though there are tons of photographs from the era showing people wearing masks.
And cities that did not quarantine people or take other measures were hit harder by the 1918 flu.
Fortunately, my friends and family are mainly liberal.
But I have co-workers who used to claim to be hard-headed, pragmatic conservatives who became unthinking, rabid Trump supporters.
But sadly, a lot of these people lost their minds when Obama was elected. I remember a woman in the office telling me how she and her father were convinced that Obama was going to take everything that her family had worked for and give it to “unworthy” people. I think that Trump fed and exploited this fear. And continues to do so.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I just don’t want to believe that so many members of my family, who are otherwise smart and caring people, have this ugly side to them. All the evidence is right in front of me, but I don’t have a way to make those things fit together.
Baud
@WaterGirl: I’m sorry.
jimmiraybob
he was probably just tired from bring lasting peace to the Middle East.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah: sorry. Sending lots of good & healing thoughts & hopes you & your family’s way. -Best wishes & virtual hugs to you all.
Captain C
@Spanky: However many times you’ve done it already, plus one, recalculated after each iteration.
Ksmiami
@different-church-lady: I know some people here are pacifists, but these guys need to hang.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I know a lot people who tolerated the bigotry of their family and friends, and I don’t judge this harshly. It is not easy to acknowledge this in people you care about, and a lot of times, it was words and conversation, not overt acts of bigotry against a real person.
But for some people, starting with Obama’s presidency, they saw that they had to make a choice.
I was listening to a podcast featuring a woman who has long been a respected figure in the tech industry, talking about her life and achievements. It was not meant to be a major part of the interview, but she talked about how she had been a lifelong Republican, like everyone in her family, and also her husband. An old fashioned moderate. Maybe even a (gasp) Old School Original Recipe Hillary Clinton Style Republican.
But she liked Obama and happily voted for him. And the scales began to fall from her eyes. People in her life stopped talking about mainstream values, but spouting stuff that was angry, mean and bigoted. She had to re-examine a lot of her assumptions and walk away from some of these people.
And she was very happy that she did.
The interview was illuminating because this woman had always tried to be fair, kind to other people throughout her career.
I guess maybe she found that she had not changed, and she even was living the positive values that her parents had taught her. But where some of her family were tribal, good stuff only for the right people, she presumed that good values were universal, not the special property of any one group or tribe.
ETA: Most people in my life have been liberal. Tolerant about most stuff. But some had to learn to give up their homophobia. This was interesting to watch. And a lot of it was inspired by Obama’s shift on gay marriage.
scav
My first real hard break with respecting the ‘Mercan public en masse as being fundamentally worthy, if often uniformed, people was earlier, under W, when so many were eager, if not even proud, to openly support torture. There were a few flutters of hope after Katrina but then after Obama, those flutters were stomped on repeatedly. I really haven’t trusted the neighbors — without evidence — since.
jl
From reading about the Kushner fiasco, seems like the biggest problem was that he picked people who were almost as arrogant and dimwitted as he is. I don’t think just youth and inexperience can explain all, maybe even most, of the lethal idiocy
Edit: makes the callow ideologues who W picked to run the Iraqi reconstruction look like George Marshall and Truman put together. And since W was a total disaster, shows that truth is stranger than fiction, and unimaginable can happen. I’ll be on the watch out for the once in a google google google google years even of Mt. Everest quantum tunneling over to Kansas. Maybe Trumpsters could get quantum tunneled into the middle of the Sahara, but we won’t be that lucky.
Another Scott
@Jinchi:
Cheers,
Scott.
Tenar Arha
@WaterGirl:
There’s nothing I can say to make it better, but I offer my sympathies.
jl
@ziggy: He is definitely a weirdo, besides being stupid and arrogant. Legacy admissions to Ivy League a clear public health and national security risk at this point. Need to outlaw them.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
i wonder if it has ever occurred to him that there are tens of millions of like-minded selfish stupid asshole-Americans who (a) don’t know him and (b) don’t know anyone he knows, who are thinking and saying the same thing.
glory b
@Mandalay: They dont want a repeat of the voting in Wisconsin. They don’t want the protests to turn into voter registration drives to remove the offending elected officials.
These two or three white guys are a small price to pay for mollifying the black population.
Brachiator
@Bill Arnold:
RE: I asked him to get back to me with a list of the people he was okay with dying in order to save the “economy”. He said: “anyone I don’t know.”
This sent my mind reeling and I had to chase down what this reminded me of. Fortunately, my Google-Fu skills are strong.
The Richard Matheson short story, “Button, Button,” and various incarnations on tv and radio. Twilight Zone version:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Should have to told him to stop being a wuss, man up, get out there and get an essential job in the front lines instead prancing around like pansy with a golf club and stop crying like twat.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@ziggy: Beauty is only skin deep by ugly goes to the bone?
glory b
@jl: I read that the counselor from his high school told the admission office at Harvard not to admit him, but a large check from his family took care of that.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
YEAH? WELL ALL THOSE PEOPLE WORE MASKS AND THEY STILL HAD THE SPANISH FLU! CHECKMATE LIB!
The Lodger
@Immanentize: Can the parade go past a school book depository?
SFAW
Peripherally related to Jared the Moron:
The Murderer-in-Chief, no longer content with murdering thousands of persons he doesn’t like, or who don’t like him, or both, has now set his sights on a bigger goal: murdering democracy, starting with California.
Yes, I know he’s been trying that for years. Now he’s becoming somewhat more blatant about it. Thanks, Moscow Mitch!
SFAW
@Immanentize:
I know you mean well, and I expect/hope you’re talking about skinheads et al., but that mental image reminds me of certain sites in Poland and vicinity, circa the 1940s.
David Evans
@ziggy:
Good and evil keep very exact accounts… and the face of every man is their ledger.
James Branch Cabell, in Jurgen
Brachiator
@SFAW:
While looking over the story about California mail-in ballots, I also saw this, which I did not previously know about:
Funny how regular Americans don’t need these guidelines that work so well to protect Trump and his family.
Chris Johnson
@ziggy: Maybe he’s literally a Russian almost-lookalike and the previous Jared is dead.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
Were the Murderer-in-Chief having the government test five or 10 Million persons (minimum) per day — rather than doing his utmost to murder Americans he doesn’t like — I would be relatively OK with this maladministration testing itself on a daily basis. But since he (and Jared, and Miller in a different sense) is doing his Dalek impression every day, I hope his tests return false negatives, and that they all die gasping for oxygen.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Brachiator:
The initial pandemic-response strategy was “Hey, hydroxychloroquine makes the COVID go away so we’ll buy lots of that and sell it to states with a mark-up.”
Then “Vaccines. Some company in Germany has a vaccine almost ready so we’ll grab that.”
It’s been magical thinking all along. There is no place for a pandemic in our plans, therefore we can make it just go away again with this One Simple Trick that Doctors Don’t Want You to Know.
glc
@Ruckus: Sure, send it, if it doesn’t just go to a bounce address, but to me it seems a little too subtle and way too long, too tightly reasoned.
I’d just keep three sentences, and use his name, since your text is ostensibly written for his attention and as is well known he does not read documents that do not have his name in them.
In particular I’d be concerned that he, or they, might misread the following part as complimentary – safer to leave it out:
ziggy
That’s what it looks like to me. A direct line to the Kremlin indeed!
susanna
@WaterGirl: Perhaps you would like to read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankel. While the setting is mostly in a concentration camp, it’s about how to live, especially in dire times, but it applies to our mindset, regardless of circumstances. And it’s about the how of handling negative situations . I took it seriously. I changed.
The main part takes up ½ of the book, so quick read, the latter half or third is regarding his methods, which I didn’t read.
Sorry about your brother-in-law. My very religious sister……..
@WaterGirl:
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I appreciate your thoughtful replies on this.
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s part of what’s crazy. He is pissed that he can’t get back to work at his part-time retirement job – where he does resets in grocery stores. He is over 65 and he has multiple preexisting conditions and his doctor is telling him he is too high risk to go back.
It’s just mind boggling. I can’t make sense of it. He is like a brother to me; i have known him since i was 13.
Aleta
@rikyrah: ? ?