Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Not all heroes wear capes.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

This really is a full service blog.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Books are my comfort food!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We will not go back.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Excellent Thread: Protests During A Pandemic — Balancing the Risks

Excellent Thread: Protests During A Pandemic — Balancing the Risks

by | 205 Comments

This post is in: ,

Dr. Spencer is an ER worker in New York City, and an Ebola survivor. So he knows what he’s talking about here:


Reader Interactions

205Comments

  1. 1.

    Lapassionara

    Here in Missouri I am unaware of any plans to contact trace. And if the federal government is doing this work, it is not boasting about it.

     

    I went to the thread, and some people responded that the increase in cases is a result of increased testing. So I guess it is good that we are testing more, but how do we know what the true status of the spread is?

  3. 3.

    Major Major Major Major

    I believe we have El Bloombito in charge of our young contact-tracing program, but I haven’t really heard anything about it lately.

    Trevor Bedford, who does great work, had a thread yesterday where he gave a Fermi estimate for the dangers of protesting.

    I'd give a highly speculative "more than 50 and less 500" estimate for the number of eventual deaths for each day of protests. 8/11— Trevor Bedford (@trvrb) June 8, 2020

  4. 4.

    zzyzx

    The one thing that’s confusing me is why the deaths are so relatively low these days. Is it lying about stats? Is it us catching more casual cases? Has the virus changed somehow (less likely)? Is it just a case where we just have to wait a few more weeks to see them increase? It’s not what anyone was predicting so it’s weird.

  5. 5.

    Sab

    What with all the complications last year, I have Two Balloon Juice pet calendars. One is on our wall. The other is my contract trace diary. I think every responsible person should have one. I don’t have a lot for my entries, and my husband has almost none. Where we went today and who we met. Why wouldn’t everyone keep one?

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @zzyzx: My personal guess would be that ‘we’ are catching more mild / asymptomatic cases through increased testing.  And, hopefully, that more experience means healthcare workers have a better idea of which treatments — and how much PPE — are required to keep infections from spreading in places like nursing homes and hospitals, where victims are most fragile & likely to die.

  7. 7.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    What do you all think of think of the arguments that hospitalizations are a better metric than case numbers and any spikes in cases can be attributed to increased testing? To me, they sound like excuses to ignore what’s actually happening on the ground. The WHO has recommend focusing on positive test percentages, which I trust more, provided enough tests are being performed in the first place

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    @Lapassionara:

    So I guess it is good that we are testing more, but how do we know what the true status of the spread is?

    The main thing to do is to look at both the total number of positives and the percent of tests that come back positive.  If the actual rate of infections is going down but you’re seeing more because of increased testing, the percent of positive tests will go down rapidly.  If the actual rate of infections is going up while testing is increasing, you would expect the percent of positive tests to drop only a little bit, stay steady, or increase, depending on how rapidly the number of infections is growing relative to the number of tests.

    This is why, for example, the situation in Arizona is so concerning.  Between Monday, 25 May and Monday, 01 June, they had about 40,000 tests and about 3,500 positives, which is about 9%.  Between Monday, 01 June and today, they had about 60,000 tests and about 7,500 positives, which is about 12.5% positives.  An increasing percent of positive tests even as they’re ramping up testing is a sign the disease is growing faster than their testing can keep up.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    worldometers.info/coronavirus/

    Spain, Italy, and the UK are heading toward 600 deaths/million. US deaths have slowed, but it’s not clear to me that they’ll continue falling – especially with so many apparently thinking that the danger is over.

    If that trend hold here as well, then 600/M x 330M = 200,000 dead in the USA.

    And their numbers keep going up.

    And nobody has had a second wave yet.

    :-(

    Be careful out there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    Major Major Major Major

    @zzyzx: @Anne Laurie: It’s my understanding that the death count is low(er than three weeks ago) these days because most of the deaths were from clusters that have since been tamped down. The rest of the country is now seeing spikes, especially places like Florida, so it balances out into a flattish line. We don’t have one coronavirus epidemic, we have at least 50.

    This hasn’t been too surprising to the epidemiologists I follow on Twitter at least..

  14. 14.

    Nicole

    That was an excellent thread! Thanks, Anne Laurie.

    We went to two rallies this weekend, both a few blocks from our home. They were marches after the rallies but we participated only in the rally part because it was easier to stay a distance from other people.  People were really good about wearing masks.

  16. 16.

    Barbara

    @Lapassionara: There are studies under way in a few places, but any estimates thus far have been based on unreliable, maybe unknowable models. If the rate in a hard hit place like NYC is 20%, let’s say, it won’t be any higher anywhere else.

  18. 18.

    raven

    I had my teeth cleaned today and I was happy about the precautions they too and I assume that’s why it cost $300 with X-rays.

  24. 24.

    Leto

    @Cheryl Rofer: There’s 12 new cases here in Bucks County, PA and we’ve contact traced them to 12 people who were all together at the Jersey Shore over Memorial Day weekend. It was rainy over that weekend so they were all indoors together. I’m sure we’re going to see more cases like this (or not, where they’re not doing contact tracing).

  25. 25.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    The polling has gotten worse because Trump still hasn’t figured out how to handle the politics of the protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. Axios reported the campaign is debating whether Trump should talk about national unity.

    Yes, national unity, like invoking Floyd’s name to say he’d be happy about the economy improving under Trump

  27. 27.

    joel hanes

    lack of strong federal leadership

    This is an extremely mild take.

    Trump’s policies and actions have been consistently deleterious.

  28. 28.

    Sab

    @Sab: My stepkids and their SOsare all in essential industries. Thank Glad they have jobs, but all are at risk. One works in a convenience/ gas station. One is in a slowed down machine shop. One is a therapist to special needs kids. One does logistics, shipping, mostly medical supplies and medical machine parts.

    We are ordering once a week outtake from our favorite restaurant. Leaving huge tips, but that doesn’t help the waitresses laid off.

    Our local ancient movie theater that has been showing first run movies for twenty years in a glorious  old theater ( with a bar!l)  just posted on its marquee “closed for good”. A gazzillion people in a bunch of industries have been without income for two + months. I know most of them never gave a rats ass during my downturns, but still these are weird times and I am sorry for them. I qualify for Social Security this year. I ain’t rich but I have food and a small steady income and my house is paid for. I am okay, but lots of people I respect and like are not.

    A lot of tension is that not everyone is a pensioned retiree. George Floyd tried to pass off a fake 20 dollar bill to feed his family. Who knew that was a capital offense?!

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @Sab: And he may not even have known it was a fake.  Most people don’t know.

    The $20 bill was one piece of the story I did not know until I read your comment.  That’s right up there with having a bag of skittles.

    If you’re black, you can get the death penalty for almost nothing.

  30. 30.

    Mallard Filmore

    @debbie:

     

    Great news on his freaking out, but brooming Parscale would be even better news.

    But, but, but … who will be the Big Data contact with Russia? Who will do up the nuts and bolts of cheating Trump back into the White House?

  32. 32.

    Sab

    OT: Police “strategically deflating” tires isn’t strategic and isn’t just deflating. They slashed those tires and those suckers ain’t cheap. I have a lot of cop friends (my husband went to an inner city parochial school.) Don’t come to me for any kind of charity event ever again.Y’all are doing enough damage to keep my checkbook at work for the rest of my life.

  34. 34.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Downstairs, it was brought up about the bystanders in Minneapolis becoming frantic and begging the officers to let Floyd up, and whether they might regret not rushing the police to save Floyd’s life despite the risks.

    It’s a difficult situation as a bystander to witness such obvious injustice as what happened to George Floyd. What about instead of rushing the officers, a bystander had thrown, say, a full or half-full 20 oz water bottle at Chauvin to startle him from sitting on Floyd’s neck? If I had been in the situation, that’s probably what I would’ve done after pleading and shouting with them didn’t work. Would my being a white male have mitigated the consequences? White privilege is terrible, but can be used for good to protect non-whites. Would that action have potentially saved Floyd’s life?

    It’s hard to say, but it was so inhuman how those cops did it the prescience of bystanders and didn’t stop when confronted

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Sab:

    FDR said:

    People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

  36. 36.

    piratedan

    @zzyzx: ok… a lot to unpack here…

    remember above all else, numbers are malleable and you have to remember to understand what numbers you’re looking at and what they profess to tell you… not an econ major or a statistical guru, but what I can attest to is that there is not one direction that we are being pulled at and that the numbers from three months ago are not the numbers of today..

    I will speak anecdotally but I firmly believe that the experience that I see in my job can be more or less translated across this great land of ours…

    so at first, there was a COVID 19 test, by PCR, but not the accepted WHO model, but a hybrid with input from US providers/laboratories/medical entities… has to be done on a sterile naso-pharyngeal swab.  that had to be coupled with the testing protocol set up for a specific laboratory instrument with ranges of detection that would classify said result as positive or negative, but there was some wiggle room for results that could be interpreted as “inconclusive”.  It could only be performed at a state/regional health center. (late Jan thru Mid Feb)

    from there we evolved to other types of specimen classifications being allowed, oral swabs, sputum samples… (late Feb)

    introduce this being done at only some of our biggest laboratories and reference labs, but more testing being done overall than before (late Feb)

    from there we introduced POC testing (not as reliable or accurate as the other tests, but kits were scarce) (March)

    now, if you have the appropriate instrumentation, you can (mid March) perform the testing at your local hospital

    still finding out that obtaining testing kits is a bottleneck (March thru April)

    now we’ve introduced serum anti-body testing to determine if you’ve already been affected and if you have antibodies present (May)

    so… as a hospital system, my employer has changed the type of data that we’re sending to the state department of health roughly 15 times in the last four months that is COVID related, and how the numbers are being tracked has also changed, from including only positives to also including inconclusive results; to those being done solely in house, by hospital, to those numbers being a system aggregate, from having the numbers be not just from in house testing, to including those sent to reference labs, to including POC data, to excluding POC data; and from there to include not just positives but to all instances of any kind of testing being performed.

    This is just what we’ve seen from one hospital system… multiply that times 50 states and how certain states may choose to represent their numbers and what they may be actually counting.

  38. 38.

    Sab

    @WaterGirl: That’s what I think. He may well have thought it was real money.

    Damn. Everything about him makes me so sad and angry. I would have loved to have known him. He seemed like such a nice guy. And his family bereft. The teenage son. The tiny daughter. Her mother. His brothers.

  41. 41.

    Zelma

    @Leto:

    I think I posted this before but I live at the Jersey shore and the hordes have arrived and there are very few people with masks outside.  A friend ran into an acquaintance who informed her that, “Since the virus is over,” she has a houseful of people.  My friend was polite and said, “I hope you are right.”  She thought, “You are an idiot.”

  42. 42.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    You know, here’s a question….

    Which came first, Right-wingnut media saying “relax, it’s just a cold, or maybe the flu”, or Trump announcing it was nothing to worry about?

    Was Trump an imbecile, and the ass kissers fell in line with their imbecile in chief?

    Or did RW media start the lies, and Trump just assumed they *had* to be right?

    As a practical matter, it’s not that important, but it’s irresponsible to make false claims about an unknown disease; it’s even more irresponsible to cover for a incompetent imbecile making the claim; and if there’s a maximal level of information-irresponsibility, it’s realizing the incompetent imbecile is listening to you, and refusing to find some way to set him straight.

    Now, for an interesting point: the RW was fine with killing foreigners, out of  sight, out of mind.
    They’re now fine with killing Americans, so long as they don’t see them, or know who died as a result of their irresponsible hate.

    Now, we can guess they’d try to spin another Kent State (or worse) as “a harsh, but necessary, response to arson and looting”, and quickly spin up rumors that the people who died are horrible (within a day, I hear-tell Kent State heard such “no angel” rumors about the murdered protestors).

    This is a dangerous place, folks. With Bush, the oathbreaking party was good with torture and needless, damaging, wars; with Trump, they’re good with a lot worse. There really aren’t too many *short* steps between Trump and $Famous_Historical_Dictator… and they’re still trying to tout Trump as a hero, which will prove the next guy should be even crazier.

  43. 43.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    And he may not even have known it was a fake.  Most people don’t know.

    That’s a very good point. Normally, we’d be hearing all about how Floyd wasn’t a “perfect angel” as if that somehow justified cold blooded murder. That’s terrifying that the police could kill you (black men especially) for fucking nothing. That’s what living in an authoritarian regime is like.

    I bet the person who called the police feels like fucking shit right now. It makes you not want to call the police. I’d hate to feel responsible for something like this

  44. 44.

    Major Major Major Major

    My friends in Williamsburg have decided to have a housewarming party this weekend (“masks on unless actively eating or drinking”), needless to say that basically means “no masks” (I’ve seen how these people behave in parks) and I will not be attending.

    I did use the restroom there and hang out on the fire escape last weekend, so hey at least I was at the pre-party.

    Needless to say I’ll be avoiding all attendees for a little while.

  45. 45.

    Zelma

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    According to an interview I saw with the store owner, it is a requirement in Minnesota to call the police if a counterfeit bill is passed.  The clerk who called it in is 17.  And both the owner and the clerk feel awful,.

  46. 46.

    Mary G

    I still worry about reporting shenanigans, for example:

    Effective May 6, 2020, counts of Orange County COVID-19 tests performed replaced the count of people tested for COVID-19. This change more accurately reflects testing conducted by Public Health, clinical and commercial labs.

    So since people have a test to confirm they have COVID19, and a test, or more than one, to confirm they’re recovered, it looks like test numbers went up, but they really didn’t? Our number of people in ICU hit another high today at 136, but we have 703 beds available, so are we flattening the curve?

    I can’t find it again now, but someone on Twitter said Texas reports 4x more deaths from pneumonia than they did in each of the last four years, and I have to assume they aren’t the only red state doing this. If someone throws a blood clot from the virus that causes a heart attack or a stroke, will cause of death be heart attack or stroke with no mention of the virus?

    I have leaks under both the kitchen sink and one of the bathrooms, so for the first time tomorrow I have someone beside the housemates coming into the house since March 5. I’ve used this plumber before, and I will wear my mask and stay far away while he’s here, and wipe down everything he touches, but it feels very strange.

  47. 47.

    Sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They couldn’t have done anything without being at risk of death, arrest with serious consequences, or serious injury. This is the reality in American cities without white privilege.

    I have two white stepsons who behaved very very badly in their twenties. The cops knew their dad and always called him to take the handcuffed raging drunks home. They probably would have shot my nurse’s aides kids, who were ever so much nicer people.

    White privilege is a very real thing. I would call it toxic, but the kids it saved were my own.

  52. 52.

    Sab

    @WaterGirl: Supposedly it was pretty obvious. But the cashier couldn’t have known it was a death sentence.

    This freaks me out everytime I think about it. He was trying to feed his family. I personally find going to the grocery a bit unnerving. He did that and they called the cops, who killed him slowly.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: I feel for you.  I had my fridge go out during lockdown, and had to have a new one installed.  Same thing with my washer, with clothes stuck in it.

    I was very uncomfortable having people in the house, both times.  They refused to wear masks because the iL governor wasn’t requiring masks at the time.

    I was counting the days after they left.

  57. 57.

    Fair Economist

    @zzyzx:

    The one thing that’s confusing me is why the deaths are so relatively low these days. Is it lying about stats? Is it us catching more casual cases? Has the virus changed somehow (less likely)? Is it just a case where we just have to wait a few more weeks to see them increase? It’s not what anyone was predicting so it’s weird.

    Two things IMO:
    1) Testing has improved. Flat reported cases actually indicate substantial decreases in actual case. So fewer deaths.

    2) Improvements in treatment. Anticoagulation helps, and is pretty standard now. Also, although there never were formal trials of moving from ventilators to high flow supplemental oxygen, I think that helps (by avoiding the harm from ventilation).

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @Sab: I don’t look at my bills closely when I pay with cash.  So who knows? ?‍♀️

    But if you’re deliberately passing a bill you know to be counterfeit – particularly an obvious one – you’d have to be an idiot to do it at a place people know you.  From what I’ve heard, he did not strike me as dumb.

    The whole thing makes me sick.

  60. 60.

    Kent

    Here in Washington State the numbers would actually look really good except for the damn food processing industry which keeps having massive outbreaks.  It isn’t just the meat processing plants in eastern Washington.  There are new outbreaks here in the western side of the state on factory trawlers and vegetable processing plants.  A big one here in Vancouver at a fruit/vegetable processing plant doubled our county numbers in one day.  Down in Oregon their daily numbers shot up due to an outbreak at 5 fish processing plants in Newport.

    What they all have in common is immigrant labor working in tight quarters.  ESPECIALLY on the factory trawlers.  You’d think they would know by now but they all just keep those plants open until their entire workforce is infected.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    Acyn Torabi
    @Acyn
    · 2h
    Kushner: The law enforcement community heard the cries from the community, saw the injustices in the system that needed to be fixed and they responded by coming together to fix it

    Gibberish.

  63. 63.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Major Major Major Major: 
    Definitely the right thing to do. My mom keeps talking about getting together with family (probably 10 or less) for like the 4th of July, social distancing and being outside as much as possible. I can’t see it working tbh. My relatives are not as careful as I am and mistakes will be made

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major:  So they both got it?  I didn’t remember that part.  I’m sure you hang with a smart crowd, but maybe they are book smart and not street smart? ‘Cause they seem like risk takers to me.  (with all i know about them, which is at least 2 sentences worth!)

  65. 65.

    Fair Economist

    @Mary G:

    If someone throws a blood clot from the virus that causes a heart attack or a stroke, will cause of death be heart attack or stroke with no mention of the virus?

    In the red states trying to cover up deaths? Absolutely! Even in states being honest, probably. It’s hard to demonstrate causation.

  68. 68.

    Major Major Major Major

    @WaterGirl: they’re gay men in their twenties so they’re complete idiots when it comes to every disease but one, which there’s a pill to prevent now.

    it’s too bad though i’d been looking forward to their housewarming party for six months.

  69. 69.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Sab:

    I have two white stepsons who behaved very very badly in their twenties. The cops knew their dad and always called him to take the handcuffed raging drunks home. They probably would have shot my nurse’s aides kids, who were ever so much nicer people.

    White privilege is toxic, but it can be used for good. Recently, white women protesters put themselves between POC protesters and the police, being an example. I meant in the scenario if a white person had thrown a water bottle at Chauvin, that there might’ve been a chance Floyd could’ve been saved and the risk of getting shot minimized

  70. 70.

    Roger Moore

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    I think it started with Trump and the right wing noise machine followed along, but there’s obviously a feedback loop with these things.  It doesn’t really matter who starts it.  The sycophantic media uncritically repeats what Trump says, and Trump believes what he hears in the right wing media, even if they’re just repeating his lies.  Once the lie gets started, it gets amplified and distorted by the feedback loop.

  72. 72.

    JaneE

    We reopened, within guidelines, and promptly developed 3 new cases.  One of the guidelines was sufficient contact tracing capability, so I assume we actually did.  Our protest (on, cancelled, brought back by highschoolers) seemed to have reasonable distancing and masking, but it was hard to tell from the photos in the local news.  Oldsters didn’t even get the message, so the participants were at least in a slightly less vulnerable category for Covid-19.  We are still going to open further, both state-wide and with our local approved variance.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Sab:

    White privilege is a very real thing. I would call it toxic, but the kids it saved were my own.

    Minority kids who did the same stupid stuff as your kids could get the same treatment if the police were willing to offer it.  Your kids weren’t being saved from death by white privilege as much as minority kids are being condemned to it by white supremacy.

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:

    TRUMP IS THINKING OF REPLACING HIS SON-IN-LAW

    Let me be the hundredth in: “Oh, thank you, daddy!”

  77. 77.

    Barbara

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Apropos of the same theme, my husband once showed me the website of someone he knew in high school who had worded for various investment firms after getting an MBA and then became a financial advisor.  I think this was likely his personal page, but it had all his professional affiliation.  Anyhow, it was filled with stories of what we might refer to as youthful highjinks — but some of the things it talked about with an irreverent and mocking tone were things that were, in impolite terms, felonies against property, drunk driving, waking up in jail and getting bailed out by the old man, and so on.  It made my blood boil because he thought it was funny and he assumed that no one would think less of him or avoid him socially or professionally.  I wanted to join his page and ask him, “what if you had been African American?  Do you think this would be your life?”  My husband wouldn’t let me.  He did tell me that the guy had removed most of the material after a while, so maybe I wasn’t the only one who had a negative reaction.  But still. “Youthful mistakes” for whites are fateful if not actually fatal tragedies for people of color.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Kent:

    You’d think they would know by now but they all just keep those plants open until their entire workforce is infected.

    They know. They just don’t care. They think the workers are disposable, so they aren’t going to do anything to protect them until they’re forced to.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @Major Major Major Major: Not the little blue pill I’m more familiar with!  :-)

    Yeah, I remember being in my 20s and having concert tickets an hour away in a terrible snowstorm and they were closing the highways and i REALLY wanted to go to the concert, but i knew I shouldn’t.  My friends went, but I did not.  That was the night I decided that being grown up wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

    Stand your ground, a party is one night, but dead or a permanent health problem is forever.  I know you know that, and I also know that doing the right thing isn’t always fun.

  81. 81.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @zzyzx: Has the virus changed somehow (less likely)?

    Not impossible, natural selection puts the pressure on the virus to be less deadly so it gets the most chances to spread.

  82. 82.

    Kent

    Just noticed that today my 401(k) has recovered all of its March losses and is in the black both year-to-date and year-over-year.

    How is that even fucking possible?

    It’s like the elite are completely oblivious to what is even happening in this country.

    Unfortunately for me, the 401(k) is still way too small to do much with so I gotta keep working.  But the 1% who live off investments?  For them it’s like this pandemic never even happened.

  84. 84.

    zzyzx

    @Fair Economist: Improvements in treatment. Anticoagulation helps, and is pretty standard now. Also, although there never were formal trials of moving from ventilators to high flow supplemental oxygen, I think that helps (by avoiding the harm from ventilation).

    I’m hoping that that’s a factor. Making this less deadly would mean that we really can open things back up. I really miss my life of a few months ago.

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara:

    When I hear about white privilege, I’m reminded of an incident from when I was in college.  My best friend and I had a tradition of celebrating the end of finals with a late night dinner at a 24 hour restaurant.  Neither of us had a car, so we would walk the mile and a half or so to the restaurant, have dinner, and walk back at an ungodly hour.

    One time on our way home, we were stopped by a very aggressive car full of Pasadena’s finest who demanded to know what we were doing walking down the main street in town at 3 AM.  We explained ourselves and, thankfully, another cop had seen us leaving the restaurant and could vouch for our story.  We were let go with an explanation that we met the description of two people who had been seen breaking into cars in the neighborhood.

    This went about as well as you could possibly hope given the way it started.  I just shudder to think about what would have happened if we had been two black college students doing the same thing.  I sincerely doubt we would have been allowed to stand there on the sidewalk giving our story.  We most likely would have been arrested and interrogated back at the station, if they had bothered to ask us anything instead of just assuming we were guilty.  That’s what white privilege looks like.  It’s not that you’re given some secret key to all the good stuff.  It’s that you’re given the benefit of the doubt when a minority would be presumed guilty.

  88. 88.

    gene108

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    There were three other cops standing around. Chauvin was in charge. Unless you have a really strong throwing arm, you’ll do little more than inconvenience Chauvin, while a couple of the free cops roughed you up a bit, and arrested you for assaulting an office and whatever else they could charge you with.

    There would’ve have been consequences for anyone interfering.

  92. 92.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    The owner said he told employees not to call the police for fake $20s, but I guess the employee at the time was very new.

  93. 93.

    gene108

    @Kent:

    Just noticed that today my 401(k) has recovered all of its March losses and is in the black both year-to-date and year-over-year.

    How is that even fucking possible?

    One explanation I read is that large cap stocks, which make up the S&P 500, Dow Jones, etc. have some companies doing great, like Amazon, that outweigh the losses other large companies, like airlines, are suffering.

    This really does show how disconnected the stock market is from the rest of the economy, as well as how many people are employed by small businesses.

  94. 94.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl:@Kent: If your stuff is now in the black, then their investments?  They surely made off like bandits.

    I just have a plain Jane Vanguard target retirement index fund like a lot of ordinary folks.  And have a long way to go before retirement. The really wealthy though, who live off of dividends and stocks rather than working?   For them this is just another year in which their money is working harder for them than the rest of us.

    I just find it astonishing that we can have 20% unemployment and stock markets pushing to an all time high.  The wealthy who own the bulk of stocks are just betting that corporate America is going to be just fine and will grow, coming out of this pandemic.

    They may not be wrong.  My nightmare is that all the mom and pop restaurants around here get replaced by Olive Garden and Panda Express.  Multiply that across the entire economy and the future looks dystopian.

  97. 97.

    Jay

    but my people! we can still ask common sense questions! such as! why are we talking about banning chokeholds when NYPD banned them in 1993 but still used one to kill Eric Garner? why is Chicago's mayor bragging about how many of the #8cantwait policies we've already adopted?— wikipedia brown, a tired person (@eveewing) June 6, 2020

  99. 99.

    Kent

    @gene108: What is is that Churchill famously said?

    “Never waste a good crisis?”

    Apparently that’s more true now than ever.

  101. 101.

    bluehill

    @gene108: $5 trillion dollars or so of Fed liquidity pumped into the markets plus similar responses from other central banks. That’s a lot of stimulus.

  102. 102.

    Barbara

    @Major Major Major Major: The last time I looked it was 20%, but it’s only getting higher.  Even at 25%, that is well below what would be required for herd immunity, and that came at an enormous cost.

  107. 107.

    bluehill

    @trollhattan: I actually hope he keeps Jared in place. Much rather have some that thinks they are smart and isn’t than someone that is actually competent in charge. IIRC Trump’s 2016 campaign was heading for a cliff until Bannon and Conway came in and Manafort and Lewandowski left. Huckabee in for Spicer. Barr in for Jeff Sessions. Sometimes the replacements have been effective and that’s a problem.

  108. 108.

    Martin

    @zzyzx:  Once you’ve burned through the nursing homes and killed off the high risk population, the death rate starts to drop.

    Purge the weak is not the strategy normally employed and trumpeted by leadership, but well, here we are.

  110. 110.

    Martin

    @gene108: This is one of those situations where a general index fund is a disadvantage. Those work great to insulate you from events that you can’t see as an investor, but the impact of the pandemic was fairly predictable. All service industries were going to get massacred, unless they were delivery oriented. All businesses that played into remote work benefitted. Some odd outliers like craft stores. Movie studios and sports would get clobbered.

    But if you moved out of the service stocks and into the tech and Amazon and streaming and the like, you did well. And if you thought the impact would be short-lived, any of us could look at Trump and recognize that was unlikely and make the jump before a lot of other investors.

    But that’s the easy part. The hard part is figuring out if you should stay with those, or move back to the other sectors as things recover. A lot of those gains will be given back by those who guess wrong.

  111. 111.

    randy khan

    @zzyzx:

    So because I’m kind of obsessive about some things, I’ve been tracking cases and deaths in the U.S. since the end of April.  The seven-day moving averages of the two curves have been surprisingly closely correlated, except for a period around the third week of May when deaths dropped relative to new cases, and then started moving more or less in synch with new cases again.  Both cases and deaths ticked up recently, but even using 7-day averages you have to recognize that the numbers are a bit lumpy and dependent on what gets reported when, so I can’t say there’s any reason to draw a conclusion about it.

    For what it’s worth – probably not much – my guess is that the drop in deaths relative to new cases probably was some combination of doctors having learned some tricks over time (and that stuff gets circulated really fast) and a ramp in testing.  But for perspective, even the week with the fewest deaths is the equivalent of about 300,000 deaths in a year or about 170,000 new deaths between now and the end of 2020.  The numbers are pretty crummy.

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    Reuters:

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Navy investigation into the spread of the coronavirus aboard the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier has found that about 60 percent of sailors tested had antibodies for the virus, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, suggesting a far higher infection rate than previously known.

    In April, the Navy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started conducting serology tests to look for the presence of specific antibodies that are created by the immune system’s attack response to the presence of the virus and remain in the blood for a period of time.

    More than 1,100 aboard tested positive for the virus as of April, less than 25 percent of the crew.

    The spread of the virus on the ship put into motion a series of events that led to the captain of the ship being relieved of his command after the leak of a letter he wrote calling on the Navy for stronger measures to protect the crew.

    One sailor from the ship died from the coronavirus and several others were hospitalized. But broadly, sailors, who are generally healthier and younger, faired better than the general population and most showed no symptoms whatsoever.

    The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that about 400 volunteers participated in the serology tests, lower than the 1,000 volunteers that were sought, but enough to provide statistically relevant data about how the virus spread aboard one of world’s largest warships.

    The Roosevelt has about 4,800 personnel on the ship.

    The officials said a formal announcement was expected as early as Tuesday.

    The Navy declined to comment.

    The serology test results appear to track closely with data from the Roosevelt in early April, which showed that 60 percent of the sailors who were testing positive for the virus itself – not antibodies – were in fact symptom-free.

    Medical groups, such as the American Medical Association, have warned that serology tests can lead to false positives.

    The CDC has said that definitive data is lacking on whether individuals with antibodies are protected against reinfection from the coronavirus.

    In addition to the serology tests, volunteers were also swabbed again for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, as well as asked to answer a short survey.

    [ image ]

    Captain Brett Crozier was fired by the Navy’s top civilian, then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, against the recommendations of uniformed leaders.

    Modly resigned after a series of events, including his going aboard the carrier and questioning Crozier’s character in a speech to the Roosevelt’s crew, which was leaked to the media.

    The Navy has completed a broader review into the events leading to Crozier’s firing and is expected to release the results of that investigation in the coming weeks.

    (Emphasis added.)

    It’s good that the illness and especially the fatality rate was low, but it’s a caution that opening up without testing and tracing is dangerous (because the general population isn’t as young and healthy as the sailors on the TR).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    J R in WV

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    Now, we can guess they’d try to spin another Kent State (or worse) as “a harsh, but necessary, response to arson and looting”, and quickly spin up rumors that the people who died are horrible (within a day, I hear-tell Kent State heard such “no angel” rumors about the murdered protestors).

    The 4 students killed were not protestors at all, they were busy students hurrying from one class to another, or to their cars after finishing a class. None of them were protesting at all, they were just shot down like animals by National Guardsmen who shouldn’t have been issued ammunition at all.

    Here in rural WV there are lots of people who moved here from Ohio to buy relatively inexpensive land through the 1970s, and some were in Kent at the time. Immediately after the murders, the authorities shut the whole city down and searched door to door in a futile attempt to find some anarchists, or commies, anyone, really that they could blame the murders on. Other than the Authorities and the National Guard.

    Obviously, we know that attempt failed completely because there were no show trials of the wicked conspiracy that forced the Anthorities to put the depraved conspirators down quickly and painlessly.

    Can you tell I am still angry? Will always be angry? Republicans have no morality, they are so near to the German Nazis that without uniforms and a language test you can’t tell the difference.

  115. 115.

    JMG

    The money has to go somewhere. With interest rates at zero or close to, the only securities offering any return are stocks. Ergo investors buy them. FWIW, the financial community has developed three beliefs about the current situation. 1. The Fed will keep the economy liquid at any cost. 2. The recovery really will be as fast as the coronavirus crash was. 3. A vaccine is coming soon. It’d be great if these beliefs come true, but they strike me as having an element of wishful thinking, maybe trauma-induced thinking. After all, Wall Street is in the city with the world’s worst virus outbreak — so far. As conditions improve in New York City, it’s natural these guys would see that as something happening everywhere. Few New Yorkers as provincial as Wall Streeters.

  116. 116.

    Jay

    Medics in Capitol Hill last night report that a young woman lost her pulse several times after being hit in the chest by a police projectile.As medics were doing CPR, cops threw multiple flash bangs into the area where the medics worked. #seattleprotestst.co/uU5VyDY0BT— Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (@PugetSoundJBGC) June 8, 2020

  117. 117.

    The Pale Scot

    @Kent:

    How is that even fucking possible?

    The Fed is pipelining what will be 2-10 trillion dollars buying private securities. Which it has never done in 100 years. Worse they’re buying junk bonds. Really, the government is buying junk bonds to keep assets prices at their previously already ridiculous levels, going by historic P/E ratios. If you’re in the black sell, move it to a FDIC insured account until it’s clear whether a vaccine is possible or not. If you have a stockbroker check to see do they have a fiduciary relationship with you.

    After that I got nothin’.

    Fan of the Louis Rukeyser school of investing

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    Fingers crossed. My Q1 statement losses were more than two years’ takehome pay, and my kid’s starting college in fall. (She’d already done all the FAFSA paperwork last year and I was asking, “Do-overs?”)

    No it makes zero sense. And my mortgage broker spouse can’t keep up with all the work. Huh?

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @JMG: Good points.

    I think another one is: The DJIA and most of the S&P500 are multinational corporations.  Much of the rest of the world has figured out how to recover from COVID-19 in a sensible way, and their economies will recover even while the US’s is languishing far longer than it should.

    Plus, in the Before Times, stocks would look 6-9 months ahead.  Biden will be President Elect or in his first 100 days with a Democratic House and Senate if we do the work for it.  When the US Government is actually working on a problem, it has a good chance of solving it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Martin

    @Kent: The other dynamic you’re missing is that most affected economic output isn’t in publicly traded companies. Restaurants are generally privately owned or franchises, they’re losing all of their value, but the market doesn’t reflect that because they aren’t part of the market.

    Some large businesses are suffering, but most would have been able to weather this even without intervention. And no assistance is being offered to the smaller businesses because the GOP only cares about the Dow.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat:

    We supported Harris, then Warren for president. I do not support Warren for VP, because of her age and abilities. I do support Harris for VP, because of her age and abilities.

    I want the VP we elect this fall to be elected President in 2024/’28 and I think Warren is too old for that role. I’m fine with a black former prosecutor in the VP office, especially right now.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    BlueVirginia.US:

    SENATE TO TAKE UP WARNER BILL TO CREATE MORE THAN 10,000 VIRGINIA JOBS BY ADDRESSING MAINTENANCE BACKLOG AT NATIONAL PARKS

    ~ The Great American Outdoors Act would address Virginia’s national parks $1.1 billion maintenance backlog and create up to 10,340 jobs in Virginia, according to study ~

    ~ The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 underscores need to pass infrastructure legislation that boosts job creation and spurs economic development ~

    WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Senate voted 80-17 to take up the Great American Outdoors Act, a bill championed by U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) that would permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and address the $12 billion maintenance backlog at National Park Sites (NPS) across the country. The bipartisan legislation includes Sen. Warner’s Restore Our Parks Act, which would help tackle the $1.1 billion in deferred maintenance at Virginia’s parks and create up to 10,340 jobs in the Commonwealth alone. Today’s procedural vote – known as a “cloture vote on the motion to proceed” – sets up the bill for a final up-or-down vote in the Senate later this week.

    […]

    Elections have consequences.

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Martin:

    Barr ratted out Trump for the lie about the bunker, but it really doesn’t matter, because in the same interview Barr was lying about the level of the threat to Trump, so it’s a “lie wash”.

  129. 129.

    Fair Economist

    @randy khan:

    But for perspective, even the week with the fewest deaths is the equivalent of about 300,000 deaths in a year or about 170,000 new deaths between now and the end of 2020. The numbers are pretty crummy.

    Which would make it the #3 cause of death in the US, after heart disease and cancer, and twice the rate of #4 (accidents).

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @schrodingers_cat: If memory serves, the blue MA legislature rewrites the law every time a vacancy comes up to ensure it goes the way they want.  It’s shitty, but I’m not willing to unilaterally cede the high ground.

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    Donnie has run at least 3 ads in the last hour or so on “Home Town” on HGTV.  He must be worried if he thinks he has to keep the Laurel, Mississippi vote…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @J R in WV: Fair enough, re: not protesting; I should have just said “students”.

    My real point was, if I’m informed correctly, people started spreading lies, to support the powers that be, within a day, and that was way before the internet made it easy for bad actors to be anywhere and everywhere.

  136. 136.

    PJ

    I was walking around in Brooklyn earlier, seeing a lot of people gathered in small groups without masks, and every cop I saw was not wearing a mask (including a group of 4 talking closely together).  Stores can enforce the mask policy when people enter, but that’s about it.  I’m getting the feeling that public health measures against coronavirus are basically done, and it’s up to individuals to protect themselves as they can.

  137. 137.

    randy khan

    @Fair Economist:

    Which would make it the #3 cause of death in the US, after heart disease and cancer, and twice the rate of #4 (accidents).

    Yeah.  *sigh

  138. 138.

    Kent

    @J R in WV:

    We supported Harris, then Warren for president. I do not support Warren for VP, because of her age and abilities. I do support Harris for VP, because of her age and abilities.

    I want the VP we elect this fall to be elected President in 2024/’28 and I think Warren is too old for that role. I’m fine with a black former prosecutor in the VP office, especially right now.

    My sentiments are exactly identical.  I also started with Harris and switched to Warren and then, of course, Biden by the time the road show got to WA.

    Biden’s VP becomes the presumptive front-runner in 2024 or 2028.  That means we need someone who will be still in their prime by 2032 or 2036, the last year of their second term.

    Elizabeth Warren would be 82 or 87 in the last year of her second term, respectively.   Kamala Harris would be 66 or 71 in her last year of her second term.

  139. 139.

    Patricia Kayden

    Worldwide solidarity.

    Over the weekend, demonstrations took place around the world, with thousands of people outside the United States marching to show solidarity with American protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Via @TheAtlPhoto: t.co/EyRC4ru1lb— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) June 8, 2020

  141. 141.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:

    @Kent:

    Fingers crossed. My Q1 statement losses were more than two years’ takehome pay, and my kid’s starting college in fall. (She’d already done all the FAFSA paperwork last year and I was asking, “Do-overs?”)

    No it makes zero sense. And my mortgage broker spouse can’t keep up with all the work. Huh?

    I’m guessing most of the mortgage business right now is refi not new purchases.  I’m right in the middle of a refi to drop our interest rate from 3.75% to 2.625%  Interest rates are at all time historic lows because of the Fed.  So lots of refi action happening now.

  143. 143.

    Kent

    @Martin:

    @Kent: The other dynamic you’re missing is that most affected economic output isn’t in publicly traded companies. Restaurants are generally privately owned or franchises, they’re losing all of their value, but the market doesn’t reflect that because they aren’t part of the market.

    Some large businesses are suffering, but most would have been able to weather this even without intervention. And no assistance is being offered to the smaller businesses because the GOP only cares about the Dow.

    I’m not missing anything.  I actually do understand what is happening.  I’m just shocked at the divergence of our economy between main street and wall street and just commenting on the phenomenon.  There was a time when we talked about a rising tide floating all boats.  Those days are long gone.

    I’m guessing the recovery of the stock market is also at least partly why the Senate GOP has put the brakes on any new stimulus packages.  None of them personally are feeling any pain anymore.  And most of their golf buddies aren’t either.  Aside from the purely cynical reasons of not wanting to help out the poor and working class, I expect they are no longer feeling the urgency.

  144. 144.

    Martin

    @schrodingers_cat: Understood, and I agree with you 100%, btw. But MA has an uncanny ability to ensure their vacancies don’t get screwed up. Granted, I trust CA to handle it better. Gonna take a while to forget Scott Brown.

  145. 145.

    Kent

    @raven: We are refi-ing our house from a 30 year to a 15 year which is something we couldn’t afford when we bought it 4 years ago.  Would like to have it mostly paid off by the time we retire.  Luckily I’m married to a primary care doctor and there is zero chance she will lose her job in this.  My dad had rentals when I was growing up and I’d rather eat a bullet than make a living that way.  Too many traumatic memories of working weekends during HS trying to clean out vacated units reeking of cat and dog urine.

  147. 147.

    Jay

    To recap: Mayor Durkan’s police department just tear gassed a sitting member of our city council after promising a 30-day moratorium on tear gas JUST HOURS after a gunman attempted to drive his car into the crowd and shot someone.This all happened in the last six hours. t.co/H7p0ymtXoD— Tae Phoenix is an Anti-Fascist (@TaePhoenix) June 8, 2020

  149. 149.

    burnspbesq

    @Kent:

    Not quite. The Dow is still 2,000 points below the February high, and that ain’t chopped liver.

     

    The phrase “the stock market is not the economy” has never been truer than it is today. I’m always shocked when someone who appears to have three or more functioning brain cells doesn’t get that.

  150. 150.

    Jeffro

    I’ll say it again (free messaging here, Dems!  although between the Biden campaign and the Lincoln Project, nobody needs my help): trumpov’s ineptitude, spite, and corruption are like a $5T/-30M job fine this country has paid…a trumpov Covid tax…with trillions more in lost productivity and happiness/thousands more lives lost yet to come between now and January.

    We are losing 5k people a week to this thing and doing absolutely NOTHING at the federal level to bring that down, much less eliminate it.  That’s the weekly trumpov tax in lives…should we keep paying that for another four years?

    We are about to make incredibly massive cuts to state budgets that will drag on our kids’ educations for a decade or more.  My kids will be paying that trumpov tax into their late 20’s, or later…should we let that happen?

    I know the TCNJs and RWNJs will never figure it out, but for want of decent leadership and a little investment in epidemic/pandemic prevention…we wouldn’t have spent the past three months in lockdown, and wouldn’t have added a few $T to the national debt.  Putting the Ill Douche into office might just be the most expensive (un)natural disaster ever to hit this country.

    Like Uncle Joe said…let’s go win this thing!

  151. 151.

    Jeffro

     

    @Kent:

    My nightmare is that all the mom and pop restaurants around here get replaced by Olive Garden and Panda Express.  Multiply that across the entire economy and the future looks dystopian.

     

    Isn’t there a sci-fi movie where all the restaurants are Taco Bell?

  152. 152.

    Jeffro

    @Martin: I’ve been ‘sharing’ and ‘retweeting’ that far and wide…it’s excellent.

    Next time let’s hope the protestors breach the gates.

  153. 153.

    Martin

    @Kent: I think it’s always been this way. Just, we rarely see it play out so starkly and so quickly. From the NYT:

    ABOLISH THE POLICE
    The debate in the House on the Army Appropriation bill last Tuesday was the occasion for the display of a great deal of massive Western intellect. Mr. Sparks, of Illinois, Wanted the Army to be, reduced so that it could not be used to oppress the noble working man. He said that “money
    monopoly could oppress labor, and could bring about a state of things which it was manhood to resist,” and he was determined that, if he could prevent it, “manhood,” in this holy act of resistance, should not be thwarted by Federal bayonets. Mr. Banning of Ohio, insisted that to use the Army to interfere with people engaged in burning cities and sacking shops would be “converting what is a Government of the people into a Government of force.” He pictured the capitalists of this country as those “who, sitting in comfortable armchairs, steal railroads” – and then want “an army to enable them to keep their ill-gotten gains.”

    That was 1878 – 13 years after the end of the civil war.

  154. 154.

    Jeffro

    @J R in WV:

    We supported Harris, then Warren for president. I do not support Warren for VP, because of her age and abilities. I do support Harris for VP, because of her age and abilities.  I want the VP we elect this fall to be elected President in 2024/’28 and I think Warren is too old for that role. I’m fine with a black former prosecutor in the VP office, especially right now.

     

    @Kent

    Biden’s VP becomes the presumptive front-runner in 2024 or 2028.  That means we need someone who will be still in their prime by 2032 or 2036, the last year of their second term.  Elizabeth Warren would be 82 or 87 in the last year of her second term, respectively.   Kamala Harris would be 66 or 71 in her last year of her second term.

     

    Just a thought: people have been focusing on how Biden might only serve one term.  It’s not impossible to think that a VP Warren might also decline to run in 2024 – there is a LOT of shit to clear up, and both of them are advanced in age – which would truly clear the way for the next generation of D leaders.

    It’s also kind of silly to worry about at this point.  We’re going to crawl over broken glass if that’s what it takes to get Biden elected no matter who he picks as VP, and after he is done, may the best Democratic candidate win, and win again; and after that, may the best Democratic candidate win, and win again; and…you get the idea.

  155. 155.

    Martin

    @Jeffro: Demolition Man. But just in one city.

    Olive Garden is a real concern, but Panda Express are franchises, so they’re all going under like other restaurants.

  158. 158.

    Fair Economist

    @burnspbesq: Stock market is down, but bonds are up due to the immense and unprecedented Fed intervention. Typical individual investors are around even.

    BTW, the fact that the Fed can just spend 4.5 trillion as of two months ago (probably more now) and the markets predict inflation below 2% for 30 years is about as clear a proof of MMT as you can ask for. Federal spending is not constrained by taxation.

  159. 159.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @Jeffro: Just a thought: people have been focusing on how Biden might only serve one term.  It’s not impossible to think that a VP Warren might also decline to run in 2024 – there is a LOT of shit to clear up, and both of them are advanced in age – which would truly clear the way for the next generation of D leaders.

    Fuck that.  Ted Kennedy’s reanimated corpse 2024.  Only the oldest white men possible.  That’s the only way to win, amirite?

  161. 161.

    Fair Economist

    @burnspbesq: Man, how many people know about Taco Mesa? It only has three branches. Weird to see a family chain sort of walking distance from my house show up on a national blog multiple times.

  162. 162.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jeffro:

    Yes, and it’s a fun movie. ETA: Stallone, Wesley Snipes (remember Wesley Snipes?), Sandra Bullock, and Sir Humphrey from Yes, Minister.

  163. 163.

    Martin

    @burnspbesq: I wouldn’t go so far as uninhabitable, we still have Olemendi’s, and a bunch of others, but it would indeed leave a large hole in the community.

    I understand they’re doing okay – lots of takeout and delivery. When shit goes down, people give up on the marginal places and focus on the good stuff.

  166. 166.

    Martin

    @Fair Economist: Well, there’s 3.5 million people in OC, about 1/100 americans, so decent odds quite a few people have been to a relatively must-visit restaurant among locals.

  168. 168.

    Jeffro

    @Amir Khalid: I remember Wesley quite well!  I watched New Jack City way, way too many times back in the day.  I think only Die Hard and Goodfellas beat it for overall rewatching numbers* back then.  =)

    *the original Star Wars movies excluded, of course

  169. 169.

    Jeffro

    @Patricia Kayden: But…I thought it was always ‘Democrats in Disarray!’

    What happened to my precious ‘brokered D convention’?  Bloomberg buying the nom?  Wilmer going 3rd party?  So many TCNJs promised me!  LOLOL

    Now we have the Lincoln Project, and Mitt/W/Powell saying ‘no way’…Murkowski, bless her heart, is ‘struggling’.  Are there any prominent Dems ‘struggling’ to support Uncle Joe?  Gee I think not.

    What say you, national snooze media?  Care to ask trumpov at his next Rose Potemkin Garden conference about this turn of events and expectations?

  170. 170.

    Another Scott

    @Fair Economist: There’s too much money on the sidelines, and too many people who have money are too afraid to spend it.  That’s why people are willing to buy CDs paying < 1%.

    There’s not enough demand from people who have the money.

    The US and state governments should either spend much more on things of value, or tax money that is doing nothing productive.

    This isn’t hard…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  172. 172.

    West of the Rockies

    I wish Joe would announce VP soon. Let Harris or Abrahms or Demmings begin shaking Pence like a tattered rag doll NOW.

  173. 173.

    rikyrah

    From a Republican friend in Alabama (who is not on Twitter) via Text:"Y'all had Trump down on the mat, the ref was counting to 3. The Defund Police shit is helping him back up and putting a bandaid on him. I don't get it."— Sally Albright (@SallyAlbright) June 8, 2020

  176. 176.

    Jeffro

    @Another Scott:The US and state governments should either spend much more on things of value, or tax money that is doing nothing productive.

     

    Completely agree.  Raising tax rates on the well-off and corporations (among so many other things, like taxing stock trades and stock buybacks) have to be in President Biden’s top 5 goals for the first year.

    I’ll have to check Twitter – it may already be ‘trending’ or whatever – but where is the #DefundTheBillionaires hashtag?  Let’s make that a thing, and soon.

  178. 178.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: Sally (and your friend) are right.  But the Biden team seems to be pretty savvy.  I give them until Wednesday latest before they adopt the Camden slogan: “Rebuild. Reform. Right Now.”

    They’re actually getting a fair amount of help (relatively speaking!) from the national snooze media about it, and the public is on the side of the protestors to begin with.  I am cautiously optimistic here.

  179. 179.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jeffro:

    I am unimpressed that Murkowski is “struggling” over whether to support Trump. There should be no struggle. It was painfully obvious — long before George Floyd was killed, long before the pandemic struck, long before Trump even considered running — that he was unfit for the Oval Office.

  180. 180.

    burnspbesq

    @Amir Khalid:

    Convicted on multiple counts of income tax evasion. Did time. Lost virtually his entire net worth in the subsequent civil proceedings.

  181. 181.

    Jeffro

    @Amir Khalid: Of course/totally agree.

    She must think that somehow her ‘struggle’ will bring him back to some semblance of what passes for normal governance here, to rethink his past actions and change his future actions.

    Only consequences do that.

  182. 182.

    bluehill

    @Fair Economist: 
    Interesting thing is that long term treasuries have rolled over while junk bonds have bounced back, still below year highs but not by much. Gold has been on a tear too. This looks like a reflation trade. They better get a vaccine and hope the second wave isn’t too bad.

  183. 183.

    Martin

    @Jeffro: I think her struggle only has to do with which way the winds of her voter base is blowing. Let’s be honest here, that’s the only principle any of these folks can stand on right now. She’ll firm up her position once she gets some better polling in AK.

  185. 185.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    she’s back

    Sarah Cooper @sarahcpr
    How to lobster

    I think I hear more of his crazy through her than I have in a while, cause I tend to hit mute when he comes up on my television

  188. 188.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Texas reports a record number of hospitalized coronavirus patients after state reopened early

    Texas reported a record number of coronavirus hospitalizations Monday — weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott took the lead among governors in easing social distancing measures to help bring jobs back.

    There are currently 1,935 Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the state, topping the previous hospitalization record of 1,888 patients on May 5, according to new data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

    Texas was among the first states to relax its statewide stay-at-home order, allowing it to expire April 30 and some businesses to resume operations May

    The coronavirus has infected more than 75,400 people in Texas, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The positivity rate for Covid-19 tests in Texas reached a low of 4.27% toward the end of May but has since jumped to 7.55%, according to the state’s health department.

    While hospitalizations are increasing, there are more than 1,600 open intensive-care beds and more than 5,800 ventilators available for critically ill patients.

    Some infectious disease experts say hospitalization numbers could be a better way to track a state’s reopening performance since it’s more difficult to skew than testing data, which fluctuates depending on how many tests are being run.

    “Looking at things like how many ICU admissions and deaths are probably some of the strongest and most reliable (data points) because they are the worst outcomes that could happen,” said Dr. David Hardy, an adjunct professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who specializes in infectious diseases.

    There’s that “hospitalizations are a better metric” argument again

  190. 190.

    Kent

    @rikyrah: From a Republican friend in Alabama (who is not on Twitter) via Text:”Y’all had Trump down on the mat, the ref was counting to 3. The Defund Police shit is helping him back up and putting a bandaid on him. I don’t get it.”— Sally Albright (@SallyAlbright) June 8, 2020

    Concern trolling by the Alabama GOP? OKAYYYY.

    Any time you hear a white southerner start a sentence with “you people” or “y’all” you should probably stop listening. I spent enough time in TX to learn that lesson.

  191. 191.

    Bill Arnold

    @Fair Economist: 

    In the red states trying to cover up deaths? Absolutely! Even in states being honest, probably. It’s hard to demonstrate causation.

    It is, however, more difficult to fake death counts. So excess deaths analyses will find the lies under-reporting in general even if not deliberate.

  192. 192.

    Yutsano

    I posted this in the dead thread below:

     

    I: if it hasn’t been reported yet: I’m not doing so well. Something neurological is going on. I’m trying to rehydrate myself to see if if that helps, but so far it’s not working. Gonna try to get some good sleep tonight and see if that works but if not I’m hitting urgent care tomorrow. They’ve probably send me to the ER but we’ll see what happens. I’m not in any danger of dying so that’s good. You

  193. 193.

    Jay

    Since the Ferguson Uprising, the number of people murdered by the police has not budged. Despite the de-escalation trainings, procedural changes, body cameras, and other reforms, the number of killings actually increased in 2019 pic.twitter.com/eopObXf5P5— Jackie Wang (@LoneberryWang) June 8, 2020

  197. 197.

    Jay

    This is the state of things in #portland: police run towards protestors, some protesters run in fear, some strut, like Danielle, yelling “if these motherfuckers want peace, they gonna have to give us some motherfucking justice” early in the morning, in the 11th day of protest pic.twitter.com/dEdg1h7c0O— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) June 8, 2020

  198. 198.

    Jay

    some white dude with a gun drove into the crowd of protesters in capitol hill, shot a black protester in the arm, walked over to the police, police calmly apprehend him, and everything returns to normal? what the fuck #seattleprotest— DEFUND THE POLICE (@lim1tededition) June 8, 2020

  200. 200.

    Calouste

    @Jay: 

    Sounds pretty typical for Seattle. I think a white guy with a gun has to shoot a cop before the SSPD will shoot at him. Black people of course only have to breathe.

  201. 201.

    Jay

    These are clearly test samples for a construction site. They are in coffee cups not ice cream containers. The writing on the side is the composition of the mix. But NYPD LIED about what they were and the post printed it and now people are scared again. ugh. pic.twitter.com/FYwBLh8ZYP— Nikkita Bourbaki is sick of winning. (@futurebird) June 8, 2020

  205. 205.

    Jay

    For a second day in a row yesterday, Seattle Police attacked and destroyed the medical supplies being used to treat injuries caused by police weaponry at the East Precinct. Let me say that again: THEY ARE ATTACKING MEDICS AND DESTROYING SUPPLIES MEANT TO KEEP PEOPLE SAFE. pic.twitter.com/NKzFIicIvf— Spek (@spekulation) June 8, 2020

Comments are closed.