Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Let there be snark.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

He really is that stupid.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Republicans don’t trust women.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Lord Help Me

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    University of Georgia faculty were instructed not to alter the location or format of their class if a student tests positive for COVID-19, according to an email obtained by The Red & Black on Sept. 2.
    The email, sent on behalf of Provost Jack Hu and Vice President of Instruction Rahul Shrivastav, emphasized that if faculty are made aware that one of their students has tested positive for COVID-19, they should not report it to the rest of the students in the class.
    “Faculty should not notify others about the positive test as it may violate student privacy, even when a name is not specified in these messages,” the email said.

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    @raven:

    Vice President of Instruction Rahul Shrivastav

    Fuck.  A fuckin’ shonda, this jamoke is.  A shonda.  I’m embarrassed.

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    So the UGA administration thinks it’s preferable that the other students continue to do … whatever they do, blissfully unaware that they may have been exposed and need to be tested? JFC.

  6. 6.

    raven

    @Elizabelle: Well, I have tons of faculty friends who are in and uproar (and blaming it on football) and saying it’s that the university administration. the fact is the board of regents set policy for all of the state institutions and they are appointed by Kemp so. . .

  8. 8.

    Keith P.

    One of my neighbors keeps reposting the “CDC says only 6% blah blah” stuff on Nextdoor.  ND deletes it, so he reposts it along with a screed about how the establishment is pulling the wool over our eyes, etc. The shit gets pretty old pretty fast, and he’s reposted at least 5 times in the last 2 weeks.

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    Today my kid is two weeks into college. On campus. So far so good but I won’t say it’s not nerve-wracking. The fires didn’t make it there, so we have that.

  13. 13.

    Quaker in a Basement

    It’s like the old business about jumping off a tall building: “It’s not the fall that gets you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    Teri Kanefield is a good follow on Twitter for summarizations of books you don’t want to read yourself. She’s doing Melania’s “friend” today who claims to have been set up as the fall guy for the theft of inauguration money and adds this aside regarding the usual suspects:

    A lot of people are pointing out that @maggieNYT was one of the journalists who “broke” the false story about @SWWCreative.

    I should also point out that Ken Vogel, the other author, was pushing pro-Kremlin, Ukraine-Hunter Biden conspiracy theories. . . https://t.co/QDlc3Dd68R
    — Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) September 3, 2020

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    James Madison U, in Harrisonburg, VA (beautiful area in the foothills, maybe 30 miles as the crow flies (over a mountain) from Charlottesville) — welcomed students on-campus, and just told them to head home and do virtual classes earlier this week.  COVID reared its head.

    I was a little surprised they opened at all.

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    Not even sure I want to know what caused this:

    AHHHHHH WHATTTT’— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 4, 2020

    Phew, it’s apparently about a basketball thing in Toronto. [Emily Litella voice] nevermind.

  21. 21.

    Keith P.

    @Baud: Part of me wants to engage the guy with a “Well, *I* have a co-morbidity, so FUCK YOU!”  but that’d just be giving him oxygen.

  22. 22.

    raven

    Penn State clarified comments made earlier in the week by Director of Athletic Medicine, Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli regarding COVID-19 side-effects among Big Ten athletes that have contracted the virus. The Centre Daily Times first reported the story on those comments Thursday morning.
    Speaking to the State College Area School Board on Monday evening during a prolonged conversation about the district’s own fall sports season, Sebastianelli mentioned that 30 to 35 percent of Big Ten players who tested positive for COVID-19 were also diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that has long been connected to the coronavirus.
    At the time, Sebastianelli referenced a larger study, although which one was unclear at the time.
    “During his discussion with board members, he recalled initial preliminary data that had been verbally shared by a colleague on a forthcoming study, which unbeknownst to him at the time had been published at a lower rate,” Penn State said in a statement to ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle: My (undergrad) alma mater!  Yup, they just charged right into it – no pre-arrival Covid-19 negative test required (unlike UVA and others), not a whole lot of tough-love guidance to students, no real plans for shifting students into quarantine dorms, etc etc.  Oopsie.

    And now everyone’s going home ‘temporarily’…the word that went out is that they may resume in-person instruction and campus life in early October.  Fat chance of that.

    JMU had a great reputation for being student-friendly, always took great care of its students, earned “most recommended” awards, etc.  I have a feeling that reputation won’t be the same going forward.

  37. 37.

    Ken

    @Keith P.: Yeah, a country where over 40% of the adult population is obese and another 35% is overweight shouldn’t be casual about co-morbidities.

  43. 43.

    randy khan

    @Keith P.:

    If it’s the same CDC meme I’ve seen, it literally makes no sense if you have the slightest idea how health statistics work.  Among many other things, it calculates the death rate as a percentage of the population, not as a percentage of the people who contract the disease.

  44. 44.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Today, Covid-19 has laid its finger of death on my family, I’m heartbroken and don’t have the energy to hate these horrible, horrible people.

    Is it any wonder why they will happily vote for a disease of a human that calls our honorable military dead and injured, “Losers and suckers”

    I’m done for tonight. Maybe tomorrow I can find some outrage…

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle: Yes.  I don’t have a whole lot of insight into why they were so relatively blasé about the whole thing, but whew.  Someone or someones were clearly not following the science, the varieties of problems that were sure to occur, and…well…there they are.

  48. 48.

    mad citizen

    @NotMax: Broken promises maybe, but he passed the Veteran Care Act of 2014.  Why he said so yet again in tonight’s rally.  (See aaron rupar’s twitter for many excellent clips of the superspreader Latrobe event.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Oh no, TaMara. I’m so dreadfully sorry. Please take good care of yourself and come back only when you feel like it. In the meantime, may your family member rest in peace, and may all the rest of you be comforted by good memories.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    Following Dolt 45’s train kiddy car of (for lack of a better word) thought, I guess the firefighters who dashed into the World Trade Center were also “losers.”

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    I think we have done this here at Balloon Juice multiple times, but I’ll give Rampell the credit for using her platform and putting together a tight op-ed: Here’s How to Put trumpov’s Failures Into Numbers Republicans Can Understand.

    The number of lives lost to covid-19 is roughly equal to the death toll of 60 9/11 attacks…or about 46,000 Benghazis. Somehow, for years, the four tragic deaths in Benghazi consumed the agenda of six GOP-controlled congressional committees and the programming of the most-watched cable news channel. But today, a deadly shock magnified by government ineptitude that has led to 46,000 times as many lives lost “is what it is.”

    Similarly, perhaps we could put recent jobs changes into perspective by using much-ballyhooed, Trump-approved benchmarks.  For example, shortly after winning the presidency in 2016, Trump took credit for saving approximately 700 jobs at an Indiana plant run by Carrier.  Last week alone, though, 1.6 million people newly applied for unemployment benefits. That’s the equivalent of 2,300 Carrier plants.

    It’s really well done and a nice return to form – bravo, Ms. Rampell!

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    trumpov is melting down on Twitter right now, trying to deny/explain/lie about his calling US service members “losers” and I for one am excited at the prospect of him stroking out while doing it.

    Keep the focus on Mr. Unfit, nation’s media!  All the stories are true, everything out of his mouth is a lie.

  61. 61.

    Emma from FL

    @TaMara (HFG): I am so sorry.Take your time. Hold your loved ones close and grieve together. Breathe deeply. Share happy memories. In times like these, it’s important to step away from the melee and focus on the really important things.

  66. 66.

    Bill Arnold

    @NotMax:
    Hillary Clinton testified for 8 hours (11 but with breaks) about 4 Benghazi deaths. If my calculator isn’t broken, for the current death total, that’s 125 years at 8 hours per day and 365 days per year. Is Donald J. Trump up to it? Will we need to work out how to keep his brain alive in a jar? (We’re adding about 250 days of testimony per day.)

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    @Jeffro:   Trump didn’t write that tweet.  That’s his crack White House staff at work.

    I do not see how he comes back from this.  It is too believable, and we have seen pieces of this behavior over and over again.  Goldberg’s story puts it all together, with more detail.

    Some of those sources might go on the record in coming days.  Defeating this execrable traitor is that important.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    Trump tells us he does not read The Atlantic.  Quel surprise.

    Weird statement in the dark from beside AF1.  Calls the Atlantic sources a bunch of losers.

    I hope this takes Trump down.  I think it will.  You don’t fuck with dead soldiers.

  70. 70.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    they caught trump on the tarmac in NC, a story in a magazine “I don’t read” (as opposed to….. Hustler? Town and Country?…..) just some failures who failed in his administration who he got rid of

    smart way to talk about John Kelly when he’s already gone this far

  71. 71.

    Peale

    @Jeffro: Doesn’t matter. Seriously. The GOP does not care about veterans. They want to privatize the VA. They run bogus charities that are never investigated to “help veterans” and “support the troops” so that they can claim that its Democrats who spit on the troops when they come home. If I recall one of Trump’s early set of backers were just those types. Had that big fundraiser for him on the Intrepid or something. Bogus Veterans and 9/11 First responders charites that maybe build one ramp for one injured veteran so they can have a video to use when raking in the rest.  It doesn’t matter to the emo for the troops types. Because they know its the Liberals who spit on veterans in 1968.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    @Peale:   Take the sackcloth and ashes somewhere else.

    Yes, this does matter.  It is going to peel off some Trump supporters.  Trump knows that.

    Trump has got a floor, and there are some morons who will always support him.  Who will not believe this story.  But they are maybe 35 to 40%, if that.

    I don’t see the swing states liking this behavior from Trump, either.  This will not draw voters to him.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Peale: I’m done predicting trump’s demise, political or… but if John Kelly wasn’t the source for this (and I’d bet half my quatloos he is), then he at the very least told the source to be a source. Kelly and Mattis trigger Beltway Daddy Issues in a way that Barry McCaffrey and William McRaven (that one being a real head-scratcher) don’t.

    Someone speculated here today that W might make a splashy statement against trump. I doubt it. There’s another Bush out there to restart the Oedipal cycle of that well-mannered but terribly destructive family. But i wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Mattis is planning to try a reverse Jim Comey.

  78. 78.

    Mai naem mobile

    The US death toll of COVID19 is about the size of my city. I live in one of the smaller suburbs of Phoenix but keep in the mind the bigger ones are over 300K. Anyhow, when I think of my whole city wiped out, I mean it’s difficult to imagine. I believe it’s around 40 square miles pretty much all developed and quite a bit vertical. I can’t imagine seeing my neighborhood empty much less the whole city.

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: Made me look…

    I even sent Air Force One to bring his body, in casket, from Arizona to Washington.

    That makes it all better now, doesn’t it? “In Casket” even!! What more do You People want??! Why are you so ungrateful??!!!

    Grrr…

    Yet more evidence that he’s brain damaged.

    And it’s not even Friday yet… Will he make it to January? Or November?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    dmsilev

    @Peale: It does matter, on the margins. Will the sort of people who un-ironically enjoy John McNaughton’s “art” be swayed by this? No. Will a “well, I’ve been a Republican most of my life but this guy is embarrassing” type be swayed? Maybe. And it won’t take many of those to shift a swing state or two from Red to Blue. Or to swing a state that is marginally Blue into “safer from electoral fuckery” Blue.

  81. 81.

    Patricia Kayden

    My great grandfather Theodore Roosevelt jr (and his brother) are buried in Normandy. Even as sons of a president, born into privilege, they understood they had an equal obligation to serve this great nation.There is a “loser” here, but it is not anyone buried in Normandy. https://t.co/EHo0k4jRPu— Ted Roosevelt V (@RooseveltTed) September 4, 2020

  82. 82.

    Martin

    BTW, I 100% support the Georgia policy.

    Faculty are terrible at getting these kinds of policies correct – they are detailed and ever changing and faculty have too many other things on their plate. They will fail to notify students that didn’t attend class, they will miscommunicate, they will have no idea what to tell students that have concerns, etc.

    It’s much better to have that information go to an administrator who can *guarantee*  that the students are told the right thing, that nobody is missed in that information, and can follow it up with correct information for what the other students should do. Student health is an administrative function, full stop.

    If one of my faculty notified their class a student had Covid (and didn’t notify an appropriate administrator with that information) I would destroy them.

  84. 84.

    dmsilev

    @Another Scott: Oh. My.

    ….John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020

    Who among us can doubt the sincerity of an oath sworn on “whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on”?

  86. 86.

    dmsilev

    @Martin: Cosign this. We’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that communication of such things needs to be done consistently and in full accordance with a long laundry list of guidelines and therefore let the designated office handle it. That office has been doing a pretty good job communicating COVID developments with the entire campus community since about April, so there is a fair amount of trust built up as well.

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @Elizabelle: Won’t matter. Not really. 6 hours ago the story was Trump telling his base to commit voter fraud (a felony) and now it isn’t.

    Conservatives won’t care because Trump still has their back, and that all they care about. If evangelicals will ignore ‘grab them by the pussy’, they’ll ignore this. This is how conservatism works – Trump is willing to punish those they want punished and they think he’ll protect them as well, and that’s all that matters. That he’ll turn on them immediately is something they’re too cowardly to address.

    To them Trump is power, and it will either be used to help them or to hurt them, and they’ll side with him believing it won’t hurt them. If demeaning veterans is how they stay on his good side, they’ll go with it. Just because they swore that vets were to be revered at all costs yesterday, doesn’t mean conservatives believe that today.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G:

    She’s good. I don’t have a Twitter account, but I signed up for her blog. Looks interesting and well-written. Thanks for introducing me to Teri.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    interesting….

    David Freedlander @freedlander
    Ann Romney will join Michelle Obama on TV to encourage people to vote this fall

  95. 95.

    Another Scott

    President Trump on Ed Markey tonight: "They even elected a person that nobody ever heard of…”Ed Markey was first elected to Congress in 1976. One of his former donors? A businessman named Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/T5PbF8qKwo

    — Matt Viser (@mviser) September 4, 2020

    The man has dementia. How much more evidence do we need?

    Yet more dangerous days are ahead. :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    dmsilev

    Washington Post:

    The White House released a sharply worded statement defending Trump — who has insulted POWs, traded barbs with grieving families of the dead and said before he was president that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was his own “personal Vietnam” — against accusations that he doesn’t respect the military.

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    Here’s my promise to you: If I have the honor of serving as the next commander in chief, I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice. Always. https://t.co/wMFHHscD51

    — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 4, 2020

    This is how a President talks.

    138 days to go…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    gwangung

    @Martin: Doesn’t matter if its the straw or not.

    It’s more like death of a thousand cuts. Every new story, every sin peels away a chunk of his support.

    In the meantime, we still act like we’re two down and this news will do nothing. We work like hell AND BURY THE BASTARD.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    mike freeman @mikefreemanNFL ·3h
    Just remember, as you read this, Trump spent four years saying protesting NFL players were disrespecting the military.

  101. 101.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: lets see.  1000 students pay tuition room and board for half a year: $10M lump sum the college needs  to pay their employees.

    That is if average is $20k per student per year

  102. 102.

    Steeplejack

    On Lawrence O’Donnell’s show Zerlina Maxwell made the great point that Trump is just digging himself in deeper with his defensive statement(s). “I would never call our soldiers losers,” but then he immediately calls the article’s sources (including military officers) losers. She said that it is quintessential Trump to deny saying bad things about one person and then immediately say (the same) bad things about another person, and at this point everybody knows that’s his pattern.

  103. 103.

    James E Powell

    @Steeplejack:

    What Trump says, what people say about what Trump says, and what Trump says about those people. That’s what’s been “news” for four years now in this degraded nation.

  105. 105.

    joel hanes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It wasn’t even the thought of living through an HRC Presidency to which they objected — they viewed (and some still view) voting as an exercise in identity-creation through brand choice — as if their self-expression was the critical thing, and the future of the nation secondary.

    Being able not to care about outcomes is one definition of privilege, which is why Black voters so often get it right and soi-disant leftists sometimes don’t.

  108. 108.

    Jay

    @TaMara (HFG):

    so so sorry TaMara. We love you and are here for any support you need. And after your struggles with Covid,

    fuck 2020,

    fuck Covid,

    fuck Dumph and all his enablers.

  109. 109.

    HeartlandLiberal

    My little brother called me yesterday from Alabama, to tell me he has bladder cancer, has had chemo, and will have to have his bladder removed. I told him I hoped everything would go as well as possible and he would be there to argue with for many more years.

    I had to really hold my tongue at the end of the conversation, because he launched into a defense of Trump trashing CDC and FDA guidelines for developing vaccines, because, as he put it, their bureaucracy were always slow and Trump just cut through the read tape.

    He then proceeded to quote the latest right wing myths on how we were getting treatment under control, and cases and deaths were falling rapidly.

    Le Sigh!

    I have kept in touch over the decades with both my brothers, who stayed in Alabama (we fled in 1969 after college), but it is sometimes hard, because they have both drunk the grape koolaid of the current incarnation of the GOP.

    And, given the current state of little brothers health, kind of hard to tell him to pok gai.

    Again, Le Sigh.

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