Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Fauci On Stage

Fauci On Stage

by | 239 Comments

This post is in: ,

Seems we might need a bit more thread.

So here’s some news from the Hub of the Universe to kick off a new round of chat.

There’s an event going on in (virtual) Boston just now, a “Summit” sponsored by STAT–the Boston Globe biomedical news spinoff that’s been doing great work covering the pandemic.

Fauci On Stage

Anthony Fauci was the big get today, and he both admitted to error and gave a hint of how things will improve on January 20th.

The error first–a big one. Fauci acknowledged the consequences of failing to test adequately early in the outbreak…

“Community spread doesn’t stop spontaneously unless you do something about it,” Fauci said in an interview with STAT’s senior infectious diseases reporter, Helen Branswell. “It is easier to stop when the level is relatively low. The only way that you can get at community spread is that you need to test people who are without symptoms, in order to show what the degree of penetrance of infection is.”

This, of course, didn’t happen in the United States. The primary reason is that Trump and his inner circle didn’t want it to happen. But Fauci feels he could have done more:

Fauci said he raised the idea of mass testing early in the U.S. response, but that his message was not heeded. He acknowledged, however, he could have tried harder.

“Deep down, perhaps I should’ve been much more vocal about saying, we really absolutely gotta do that,” Fauci said.

“I said it, it went nowhere, and maybe I should have kept pushing the envelope on that.”

I don’t know if it would have made a difference. Trumpian disdain for anything that does not directly, materially, and obviously benefit him is a tough nut to crack.  But I weep for the loss and pain that still flows from that failure, and it’s clear to me that Fauci has real regrets here.

Looking forward, however, I think that  Fauci thinks we’ll have a chance–though not before the current crew digs the pit two-months-worth deeper.

Here he is on the incoming administration.

Asked about his experiences working with President-elect Biden, Fauci said the former vice president has a “considerable, in fact, if not profound” grasp of and appreciation for science, though he said the two have not spoken since Biden left office four years ago.

And finally, he had cautious and minatory optimism on the vaccine news. The money graf:

“A vaccine should not be considered as a total substitute at this point for public health measures,” Fauci said. “In my mind, it should be an incentive for people who have Covid fatigue and are really tired of public health measures to say, you know there is light at the end of the tunnel, help is coming, let me hang in there a bit longer.”

That should be the one message every voice in the old and new administration delivers. It isn’t. And folks will die because of that lapse. But good on Dr. Fauci for trying.

Talk about that, or anything else.

Image: Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada,  1868.

Reader Interactions

239Comments

  7. 7.

    Victor Matheson

    I love Bierstadt, btw. He is the also the only artist who has a fourteen thousand foot peak in Colorado named after him.

  10. 10.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    RE Dr. Fauci admitting he could have done more.  It takes a confident and accomplished person to admit regrets.  For me, such an analysis only increases my trust.  We are fortunate to have him.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I would phrase that just a bit more forcefully and somewhat less family orientated. Or as the 5 year old asked his mom, “If trump is gone are you going to say fuck any more?”

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    @Patricia Kayden: The good lawyer seems to be someone who fights the good fight when it comes to things like lawsuits against newspapers, but general Constitutional balance-of-powers type things seem to be outside his work.

    https://www.foley.com/en/people/c/conway-michael-m

    Hillary worked on a Watergate committee, too, but that doesn’t mean that her opinion on pardons these days should be given special weight.

    I’m not inclined to click over and read the NBC piece, myself.

    YMMV.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    Meanwhile, in Wayne County Michigan,

    The Republican chair of the board, Monica Palmer, literally just said she would be open to certifying the vote in “communities other than Detroit” https://t.co/YQqRmIABOI
    — Nancy Kaffer (@nancykaffer) November 17, 2020

    I fucking hate these people. From top to bottom, with only a few notable and honorable exceptions.

  20. 20.

    LesGS

    @lamh36: I voted for Feinstein last time she came up for election, sort of grudgingly, but knowing her seniority might be helpful. Now, I don’t wish Covid on her, but if her foolishness takes her out, at least California can put a younger, more forward-thinking person in her seat.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dan Zak @MrDanZak · 1h
    Update from U.S. district court in Williamsport, Pa., one of the Trump campaign’s last stands:

    GIULIANI: “I’m not sure what ‘opacity’ means. It probably means you can see.”

    JUDGE BRANN: “It means you can’t.”

    I guess the Williamsport Tavern mixes a mean lunchtime bloody

  23. 23.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Tom Levenson: 

    Image: Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada, 1868.

    That’s an early Bob Ross, right? And some people say I know nothing of art….

  25. 25.

    Benw

    Trump said straight up that he wanted no tests so there’d be no positives, even if it means an uncontrolled deadly virus. Fauci wasn’t going to win that one.

  28. 28.

    Dan B

    @Ruckus: Feinstein’s behavior seems like early stages of some form of dementia. It reminds me of my mother once she passed her mid 70’s.

  29. 29.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I think it’s normal for Fauci to feel he could have done more, but the fact of the matter is, the important people were in possession of all the facts, and latched on to the absolute worst one to guide all of their decision making: that the vast majority of cases are mild, and even asymptomatic.

    We need to remember that the entire Republican Party was just happy as pigs in shit with huge case counts, huge numbers of deaths, and insisting that all that suffering and death was just a hoax intended to harm Trump’s reelection chances. They never so much as pushed back against *any* of Trump’s lies, much less pushed back on the notion that it’s okay if the federal government abandons people to their deaths.

  38. 38.

    Dan B

    @WaterGirl: She seems to be exhibiting signs of dementia.  There are other anecdotes to indicate it’s likely.  This can manifest in behaviors that seem disrespectful but are as much about cluelessness and personality changes

    At RBG’s funeral she tried to hug Kamala who extended an elbow.  Feinstein stood there and looked confused.  She doesn’t seem to be remembering recent events

  41. 41.

    craig

    @Patricia Kayden: What exactly does that guy think Biden should pardon Trump for doing? Just a blanket pardon for breaking any and all federal laws up to now? When people say Trump will just pardon himself, same question. Is it just some crazy 3 Muskateers shit?, “By My Hand, and for the good of the State, the bearer has done what has been done.”

  42. 42.

    hitchhiker

    “A vaccine should not be considered as a total substitute at this point for public health measures,” Fauci said. “In my mind, it should be an incentive for people who have Covid fatigue and are really tired of public health measures to say, you know there is light at the end of the tunnel, help is coming, let me hang in there a bit longer.”

    Jeebus, that just made me imagine how I’d be feeling today if those trials had come back with mixed or disappointing results. I really am sick of this, and I expect that somehow knowing it can be over within six months or so is going to make those months even harder.

    It’s kind of like the way you can be very patient throughout a long process, but as the time near the end approaches you suddenly realize how much it’s been making you insane.

  44. 44.

    raven

    ATLANTA — A second Georgia county has uncovered a trove of votes not previously included in election results, but the additional votes won’t change the overall outcome of the presidential race, the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday.

    A memory card that hadn’t been uploaded in Fayette County, just south of Atlanta, was discovered during a hand tally of the votes in the presidential race that stems from part of a legally mandated audit to ensure the new election machines counted the votes accurately, said Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state’s office.

    The memory card’s 2,755 votes are not enough to flip the lead in the state from Democrat Joe Biden to Republican President Donald Trump. The breakdown of the uncounted ballots was 1,577 for Trump, 1,128 for Biden, 43 for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen and seven write-ins, Sterling said

  45. 45.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    Since this thread is open, I will just mention that the thought of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior fills me with joy. Elections have consequences and this would be a damned fine one, for a change. She always seems so calm and thoughtful. And sane.

  46. 46.

    Gravenstone

    Fauci said he raised the idea of mass testing early in the U.S. response, but that his message was not heeded. He acknowledged, however, he could have tried harder.

    “Deep down, perhaps I should’ve been much more vocal about saying, we really absolutely gotta do that,” Fauci said.

    “I said it, it went nowhere, and maybe I should have kept pushing the envelope on that.”

    And had he done this, Trump would have sidelined him. Trump didn’t want to know the numbers because he was convinced they reflected badly upon him. Early on, that would not have been the case. The uncontrolled spread we see after his months of malign neglect, absofuckinglutely they now reflect badly on him. A shame he’ll never be held to account for the outcomes, because as multiple others here have pointed out, this is now a genocide.

  48. 48.

    Splitting Image

    @Tom Levenson:

    I wish him as speedy a course through his affliction as he gave to the Garland nomination.

    He’s 87. He’s more likely to get the speedy sort of course that he gave the Barrett nomination. And good riddance.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @craig: IANAL but I went back and read Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and it sure looked like a general, blanket pardon, if time-limited

    As a result of certain acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the Office of President, Richard Nixon has become liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States. Whether or not he shall be so prosecuted depends on findings of the appropriate grand jury and on the discretion of the authorized prosecutor. Should an indictment ensue, the accused shall then be entitled to a fair trial by an impartial jury, as guaranteed to every individual by the Constitution. […]

    Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.

    trump will make sure Barr and Kellyanne work in the word “unfair” seven times, and at least one “witch hunt”, but I’m sure this will be the model

  53. 53.

    catclub

    @Baud: i was thinking pardon him. Force him to testify against his fellow criminals. Convict him of perjury after the pardon.

     

    Or throw him jail for contempt of court, if he does not testify.

  54. 54.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Patricia Kayden:the best way to unite the nation is for everyone to just sit the F down and shut the F up about anything a Republican does in office? Was Michael Conway born that stupid, or was he dropped on his head or something? (Oh, wait, this should have been my first guess: is he a bad faith actor, and a Republican (the latter of which assumes the former, of course)?)

    Why do major media producers present propaganda for Republicans? I thought propaganda was supposed to be paid advertising, clearly marked.

  55. 55.

    Barbara

    @craig: He could consider pardoning him after a thorough investigation of the political and financial corruption that permeated his administration if Trump cooperates. He won’t cooperate.

  57. 57.

    Dan B

    @Sab:  Nooooo driving for Feinstein.  She doesn’t seem to be tracking or processing info about her environment.

    When my parents moved from Ohio my mother drove us around our little town 5? stoplights.  She drove through a couple stop signs.  She’d lived there 23 years!

  58. 58.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: Yeah, the screams of “but why are they* getting it instead of me?” will be fucking epic.

    *with they being anyone not including the people doing the screaming

  59. 59.

    catclub

    @Dan B: just today I saw a driver turn left into the left hand lane of the two lanes running opposite of his direction. Probably old.

  61. 61.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @White & Gold Purgatorian:

    She always seems so calm and thoughtful. And sane.

    Deb Haaland is all those things, and a good person to boot. Geminid was also suggesting her for Interior in the morning thread. While I would love the optics of her appointment, I demur, on the grounds that presumably the role requires significant administrative chops which I’m not sure she has. She was NM state party chair and rescued the organization from debt inherited from her predecessor, but I’m not aware of other major executive roles. I would prefer someone with experience running big bureaucracies. I’m tired of government as Amateur Hour.

  62. 62.

    japa21

    @Gravenstone: Interestingly enough, all the Trump supporters I know say they will not take the vaccine.  So they won’t be doing the screaming. Well, maybe from their death beds.

  64. 64.

    catclub

    @Gravenstone: Yeah, the screams of “but why are they* getting it instead of me?” will be fucking epic.

     

    I think when it goes to frontline health workers first, they will get shouted down pretty effectively.

     

    Once Trump is no longer president the people who refuse it because of Bill Gates and whatever QAnon lie, will be a larger group than those demanding it early.

  66. 66.

    Cheryl Rofer

    The evening tantrum is in progress. Krebs has been getting out information about election security that contrasts with the Orange One’s ego. His firing has been expected, but it’s not good.

  67. 67.

    Sab

    @Dan B: Right before my Mom died my Dad got lost driving home from a restaurant two blocks from their house. They had been eating there two or three times a week for fifty years. Left turn, next right, then left up your driveway to home. He went right while we all screamed “left”.

    I had a friend whose very scrappy mother got lost on a similar trip and was found five hours later three counties over. When they finally got her home and said ” We are taking your driver’s license! ” she said “I would certainly hope so!”

  69. 69.

    PsiFighter37

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: It is a good pick, but if I were Biden, I would really be keeping count of congressional people he is putting in the Cabinet. It is quite possible that the Democrats come into the next session with only a majority of 3 or 4 – so taking out Richmond and Haaland makes that majority even smaller, at least until their special elections are held.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    @lamh36: And they don’t even have a pretense of actual evidence of any fraud. They just ‘know’ that ‘those people’ were up to no good, and that’s enough.

  73. 73.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    @O. Felix Culpa:  Your (probably valid) reservations notwithstanding, Biden’s transition team is apparently vetting her for Interior. I am still joyful. Such a contrast to anything that would have been possible the last 4 years. Or forever, really.

  74. 74.

    Miss Bianca

    @lamh36: What I’m wondering about is legal options. These fuckers getting hammered with lawsuits and getting dragged into a courtroom is the least I’d like to see happen to them.

  75. 75.

    Yarrow

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I would prefer someone with experience running big bureaucracies. I’m tired of government as Amateur Hour.

    Yes. This. People who get the big positions should be experienced and able to step in and take charge the first day. The Biden administration is going to inherit a complete mess. We need the most competent and experienced people possible who understand how these big departments work and can do what’s needed to be done to get them working properly again.

    Same goes for any ambassador positions. No more donor appointments. Ambassadors should be experienced diplomats who understand the countries where they’re being appointed. Our international standing is in tatters and we need the best people we can find to help fix what we can.

  76. 76.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I don’t have an answer to “always this stupid/dropped on head” but I do have an answer to “bad faith actor”.

    The money quote:

    American democracy cannot tolerate the prosecution of political opponents.

    No one is *asking* for the prosecution of political opponents. They’re asking for the prosecution of *criminals*.

    It’s the Republican Party who is trying to frame evidence-led prosecution as “prosecution of political opponents”.

    So Conway is, in fact, saying “one rule for Rs, a different rule for Ds, suck it, libtards, y’all were dumb if you thought I was differe… uh, is this my out-loud voice?”

  78. 78.

    mrmoshpotato

    @dmsilev: Drop a fucking house on her!  That is such bullshit!

    Hey, why not just certify the Illinois counties that Dump won?  Do the same for NY and CA!  Hey look!  Dump won CA, IL AND NY!

    ????

  79. 79.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Cheryl Rofer: I understand, although sadly our federal delegation will soon include that corrupt hack Yvette Herrell. :(

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: It is indeed refreshing that the Biden administration is considering a diverse slate of candidates for top positions. I love the contrast to the outgoing administration, which can’t be outgone soon enough!

  81. 81.

    Ksmiami

    @dmsilev: I’m actually done thinking we deal with them nonviolently. They need to to face tribunals and firing squads for their malfeasance

  83. 83.

    Yarrow

    @Patricia Kayden:  That is the dumbest of dumb ideas. It would blow up Biden’s presidency and instead of “healing the nation” would blow a hole wide open in the Democratic party. This guy claims he’s a Democrat but he’s got zero understanding of politics if he thinks that’s a good idea.

  88. 88.

    PsiFighter37

    So I am now starting to get worried that the Michigan GOP is simply going to steal the electoral votes in the state. I am looking at what happens next, and the state board is also split 2-2. You can bet dollars to donuts they will vote against certifying, which will come up right against the certification deadline. Then what?? The state GOP legislature is going to simply appoint a Trump slate?

    Fuck the GOP. Honestly. They deserve to be fucking burnt at the stake.

  92. 92.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Gravenstone: I think the best route here is to basically just announce ahead of time who’s getting first whack at it:

    • Health-care workers
    • The Elderly
    • People in high-risk jobs or who have high-risk medical conditions

    Honestly, I’d love it if they were very clear that “customer service” positions are in the high-risk section and get preferential treatment.

  93. 93.

    wkwv

    We have a poster of this Bierstadt in our dining room! It’s a little much first thing in the morning, but my husband used to hike regularly in the Sierras and he couldn’t resist bringing it home.

  94. 94.

    Dan B

    @lamh36: It’s amazing that the racism is so blatant from so much of the GOP.  I remember an architecture school trip to Detroit in 1968.  We ran around on the streets at night because there were zero cars.  White flight in Detroit was the worst I ever encountered.  I wonder if any of the burbs are getting more diverse.

  95. 95.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: It makes me concerned. And the fucking NYT already reporting it as a ‘minor victory’ for Trump. NO, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES, IT’S A MAJOR LOSS FOR THE LEGITIMACY OF DEMOCRACY.

    I hate the fucking media, treating politics like it’s a goddamn sport and NOT like it is something that actually affects people’s lives.

  97. 97.

    MisterForkbeard

    @PsiFighter37: The “Minor victory for Trump” is that a Republican Party apparatchik has said she’s open to just not counting the votes from a majority-black, majority Democratic city and throwing the election to Trump?

    Yeah. That’s fucking repulsive. And completely damn disingenuous – you’re right, it’s a big fucking loss for America and Democracy.

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    A follow on tweet says it goes to the state board for certification, where hopefully the GOP members have some integrity.

    Also, apparently the governor has the power to dismiss members of the state board for malfeasance, which I think would be justified in this case.  Just the threat of it should be enough to keep them in line, though.

  101. 101.

    Dan B

    @Sab: My mother got lost on the 3 block walk to the grocery store in Seattle.  A “very nice man” helped her get home.  We put her in a nursing home while we went on vacation and that was it.

  109. 109.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @lamh36:

    There’s a solution to the chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers – I wouldn’t shed a fucking tear if she shed this mortal coil, violently if need be.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Between that and what Roger Moore said, that’s quite reassuring.

    The lengths the Rs are going in their attempts to steal this election are downright shocking.  And I say that as someone who was pretty sure they would try to steal it.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    I just saw this headline from Martin Longman at the Washington Monthly:

    Biden’s Suburban Victory Should Worry Both Parties and the Country

    I’m not linking because I’m not reading it, but what the hell happened to Martin Longman?  That headline is NYT-worthy.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud:

    Almost all certification boards are split along party lines, I believe.  It’ll be ok.

    Which means that once they ALL get the idea they can really swing this by deadlocking…

  118. 118.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    It is reassuring. Though the fact that a Republican Party apparatchik even said something like this is dangerous to democracy

  119. 119.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    In Eastern Kentucky, there was an unspoken adage in every murder case – did the victim need killing? If affirmative, the grand jury wouldn’t even return an indictment.

    That’s how I feel about Ms Palmer.

  122. 122.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Which means that once they ALL get the idea they can really swing this by deadlocking…

    I mean they could, but then they’d have to worry about being targets for the rest of their lives

  127. 127.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Patricia Kayden: Pardon Donnie for what? I thought Donnie was innocent of anything he’s been accused of and any accusations were democrat fishing expeditions. I am so confused.

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I don’t think we will.

    It’s become clear that it’s the Dems who are patriotic and love their country, and this democracy of ours.  I don’t see how anyone can forget how the Republicans are defacing our democracy.

    To me, what the Rs have done – and are still doing – to steal this election in plain sight is absolutely horrifying.  How could anyone forget?

    The Pod Save America guys talked last week about having known how critical this election was but had come to a realization that we were ever closer to losing our democracy than we feared.

    And last night I was finally able to listen to Garry Kasparov on Preet’s podcast – I was afraid to listen to it before I knew the outcome of the election – he tells some hard truths about how bad it has gotten.

    I truly think we were on a hair’s breadth away from losing our democracy.  That’s a very sad, and quite terrifying, thought.

  133. 133.

    GoBlueInOak

    @WaterGirl: Anyone familiar with how reactionary, racist and right wing the Michigan GOP is (and how much the Michigan GOP has infected every corner of Michigan state government, including its courts) is probably feeling a little nervous.

  136. 136.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Roger Moore:

    Also, apparently the governor has the power to dismiss members of the state board for malfeasance, which I think would be justified in this case. 

    Big Gretch with the big beatdown of the Michigan Nazi party!

  140. 140.

    cain

    I suspect this woman’s life therein Wayne County is going to be a living hell soon. The entire city of Detroit is going to be fucking mad and I can easily see a full on strike and protests. Black people have fucking had it, and so have the rest of us. Fuck them.

  143. 143.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Well, violent rhetoric, I guess?

    “It’s their heads in the guillotines.”

    Can’t remember if you said it or not, but I remember reading, “Their guts will be exposed to the winter sky”, if R state legislators vote to overturn election results in the key states Biden won

  145. 145.

    GoBlueInOak

    @cain:  Unfortunately, if past is prologue, folks will take to the streets – completely understandably – in their own backyard and not in the backyards of the malfeasors.

    Which means riots in Detroit where it won’t do any good instead of riots in the backyard of GOP chair of the Wayne County election board.

  146. 146.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: I had never seen her until the get out the vote event with Biden or Harris where she gave a speech during that last week.  Holy shit, she is awesome.  And smart. And charming.  And charismatic.  And beautiful.  And, like Kamala, she laughs and shows joy when giving a speech.

    I’m not saying I have a crush, but damn, she is something else.

  149. 149.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl:

    I disagree.  The people who participated in the trials weren’t asked to do anything extra risky as part of the trial.  The only risk was in receiving the vaccine at all, and that had been vetted as well as possible in the earlier stages.  In contrast, the front line medical workers are putting their asses on the line every day.  The people who participated in the trials deserve to be pushed up in the queue, but the front line healthcare workers need to be at the front for very practical reasons.  I will put need ahead of deserve.

  150. 150.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @GoBlueInOak:

    No, I’m talking car bombs. Shootings.

    Illegally stealing an election so blatantly would piss a lot of people off. Not all of the left is “tote baggers”

  151. 151.

    WaterGirl

    @GoBlueInOak: That almost sounds like black people are so stupid and out of control that they loot and riot and destroy their own neighborhoods.

    Please tell me I had totally misunderstood what you are saying.

  152. 152.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: In other words, it okay to talk about violence in the streets when you are talking about violence in the streets.

  154. 154.

    danielx

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Just saw that.

    A senior agency official called Krebs’ firing “a sad day” for the agency and said he had resisted calls to echo misleading claims.

    “Chris didn’t compromise himself or this mission,” the senior official said.

    Clearly not sympatico with the Toddler in Chief.

  159. 159.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: Yes, but here she’d just be doing her most basic duty of defending democracy (and smacking some Nazi trash as part of the job.)

  160. 160.

    WaterGirl

    @Roger Moore:

    The people who participated in the trials weren’t asked to do anything extra risky as part of the trial.

    I think this is where we differ.  I think participating in a drug trial like that where they have no idea about possible side effects is one of the bravest things a person can do.

    You make a good point, though, about need vs. deserve.  And about the highest risk day-to-day.

  164. 164.

    Rokka

    @Steve in the ATL: That view doesn’t exist. The left side is based on Hetch Hetchy Valley with a lake added in but no high mountains are visible there. The highest mountain is similar to Cathedral Peak south of Tuolumne Meadows.

  165. 165.

    Calouste

    I’m fine with pardoning the shitgibbon for a list of crimes he has confessed to and well documented. Then used that list of evidence to prosecute his accomplices in those crimes, as well as himself for  any crimes that can derived from that list but are not explicitly mentioned. For example, pardon him for violating election law by accepting contributions from foreign sources if he confessed to that. Then prosecute him for laundering money for those sources.

  167. 167.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    We’re talking about the hypothetical overthrow of our democracy. Not an excessive capital gains tax cut.  It will lead to violence if it happens.

    That’s what I thought was the difference. However, I do remember getting poohed poohed before 11/3 when I suggested mass demonstrations to overthrow the Trump admin and the GOP if they stole the election. Maybe because the possibility of the end of American democracy became more “real” (well, at least with much of the GOP refusing to recognize the election results), I guess? I’m not calling you out or anything, just thinking out loud

  173. 173.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m not advocating these things. But like Baud says, if the R’s blatantly stole the election, I don’t think sternly worded letters would be written. People would turn to violence because it would mean the death of democracy. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think the MI state board will certify the election

    ETA: Why are you two picking on me about this?

  176. 176.

    Steve in the ATL

    @WaterGirl: one of my lawyer teammates who lives in Ann Arbor and used to work for the NLRB assures me that Whitmer is simply a democratic version of trump.  He’s still my teammate but is totally off my Christmas card list.

  177. 177.

    Amir Khalid

    @Patricia Kayden:

    As I understand, presidential pardons are traditionally given only five years after you’ve served out your sentence, and only if you have shown remorse for your crime(s). If I were President Biden, I’d wait at least that long to pardon Donald Trump.

  181. 181.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m not saying I have a crush, but damn, she is something else. 

    LOL

    I look forward to ass kicking coming to the MI GOP.  LOLGOP is gonna love it!

  185. 185.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    You talk about that so often, Goku, that it makes me want to not read your comments. Just speaking for myself.

    I don’t actually, to my knowledge. I used to, but not much anymore

    edit: Not that there’s any reason you should particularly care whether I read your comments or not.

    The truth is, I actually do care. I like people to read my comments and interact with me. I consider all of you to be my friends and I enjoy the conversations I have here very much for the most part. I apologize if my comments make you uncomfortable and I’ll try to not do it as much in the future

  187. 187.

    Kay

    @danielx:

    He’ll get a mainstream job though, unlike the Trump people who are all going to be on the Right wing grift circuit. He’s ethical and he has real courage. Legitimate employers don’t seek out and hire pathological liars and cowards. That’s why the low quality Trump hires are clinging desperately to Trump- no one else will hire them. They’ll behave exactly as ethically and honestly in their next job as they did while working for Donald Trump. No employer needs that problem.

  188. 188.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @GoBlueInOak: A moral person would say burn Grosse Pointe to the ground – every fine home, every country club, every evangelical church. There needs to be genuine fear.

  189. 189.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: It seems to me that he’s always been a bit of a contrarian, and seemed to drift farther that way over the years.  I think his brother’s death (in late October 2015) changed his writing as well.

    Just my $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  190. 190.

    GoBlueInOak

    @WaterGirl: You cannot be that stupid.  Riots are what happens when the dispossessed have no other options except to rage.  And the dispossessed in this case are not Republican suburbanites in Wayne County.

    Every time there is a major riot, its in a city – its not out in the suburbs.  Its not “black people are rioters” – its black people are the ones repeatedly getting the short end of the stick and black folks are highly concentrated in urban areas – especially in highly segregated places like Wayne County.

    And people riot in their own backyard – where, frankly, it winds up doing little good.  Rioters aren’t organized armies – its anarchy and emotion.   When what’s really needed probably IS an organized army of Detroiters marching on suburban Wayne County where the Republican malfeasors actually live.

  194. 194.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    Kay, have you read about the clusterfuck in PA with Giuliani? The man was a US Attorney and he was totally incompetent!

    Dan Zak

    @MrDanZak

    ·
    3h

    Update from U.S. district court in Williamsport, Pa., one of the Trump campaign’s last stands:

    GIULIANI: “I’m not sure what ‘opacity’ means. It probably means you can see.”

    JUDGE BRANN: “It means you can’t.”

  196. 196.

    Kay

    Next Presidential election we need to remind voters that if they hire a Republican it is hell on earth to get rid of them. They’re like psychotic stalkers who will not go away without a restraining order.

    We have two solid months left of this shit. CANNOT get rid of them once they burrow in.

  199. 199.

    Baud

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    However, I do remember getting poohed poohed before 11/3 when I suggested mass demonstrations to overthrow the Trump admin and the GOP if they stole the election. Maybe because the possibility of the end of American democracy became more “real” (well, at least with much of the GOP refusing to recognize the election results)

    Right. Before the election, it was hypothetical and we had a different job to do rather than indulge in hypotheticals.  Now we’ve done the job and the rest of the process should be mechanical, but the GOP is playing games with that process

  201. 201.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @GoBlueInOak:

    You cannot be that stupid.

    I think somebody needs to get the banhammer. Aren’t you GoBlue72? And I notice you never replied to my reply to you

  202. 202.

    GoBlueInOak

    @SiubhanDuinne: If the GOP actually are successful in staging a coup, YES.   Are they there yet? Not yet.  Have they just taken the first step.  Yes they have.

    If you can’t defend our democracy in the face of a coup d’etat except with sternly worded letters to the editor and a bout of the vapors, you aren’t much use when the shit hits the fan.

  203. 203.

    Kay

    I no longer believe Republicans in Congress don’t support Donald Trump’s attempted coup. I think they’re hoping he succeeds but they’re such incredible chicken shit cowards they’re hoping Trump will subvert an election for them.

    They’ll never intervene. They’re hoping he succeeds. They want the coup. They just don’t want their names on it.

  205. 205.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: I didn’t click the link but I remember that post as if I had read it yesterday.  Just remembering brings tears to my eyes.  He meant so much too Booman.  I cannot believe that was 5 years ago.

    I didn’t notice the change right way, but by some point in the sunup to the 2016 election, I started reading more and more infrequently.

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    @Matt McIrvin: @Rokka: My dad had a framed “reproduction” of that painting.  It’s quite a sight, especially once one realizes the high peaks would have to be about 50,000 feet high.  Albert did take some liberties!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  210. 210.

    Kay

    .

    @BenSasse
    continues to try to carve out a space for a not-Trump GOP.
    New statement tonight: “Chris Krebs did a really good job — as state election officials all across the nation will tell you — and he obviously should not be fired.”

    One of the chickenshit cowards speaks! No matter. Everyone knows Republicans won’t defend anything or anybody.
    Weak people who lack character. All of them.

  211. 211.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m one of the optimists on LGM.

    Club-goer to Townes Van Zandt: Play some happy songs!

    TVZ to club-goer: These are the happy songs, darlin’!

  212. 212.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Well, this is the same person who just had to shit on trans people few months back:

    I took the participation (that big Open Letter about Cancel Culture) by people like Atwood and Rowling to be about the shrieking howls of outrage they get for being openly sensitive to feminists (particularly those who’ve faced a lifetime of pushback on their efforts to create space for women to feel safe) being excoriated for not warmly embracing entry of the trans community into those hard won spaces

  216. 216.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid: “I pardon you of all of your Soviet shitpile mobster conman crimes, but HAHA! New York don’t give a fuck!  Enjoying dying in state prison, fuckface!”

  219. 219.

    Kay

    Jake Tapper
    @jaketapper
    ·41m
    3/ Krebs learned he had been fired when he read the president’s tweet this evening.

    The Republican Party is standing by and allowing all of this to happen. Day after day. It gets worse every day but none of them can find the courage to do anything. So they bleat weak excuses and allow Donald Trump to run roughshod over the country.
    They refuse to defend the country from the reality tv show host they worship.

  220. 220.

    Miss Bianca

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Well, I don’t live there anymore, so go ahead.

    Or actually, don’t. Because altho’ Grosse Pointe was a watchword for white privilege and red-lining when I was growing up there, the last time I spent any time there (earlier this century), it looked like it was finally integrating.

    And my fancy private day school was, in fact, integrated, back in the 70s – which is more than could be said for GP public schools.

  221. 221.

    Steeplejack

    Re Feinstein: I wonder if she’s maybe not so much confused as cosseted. Maybe a combination. A lot of high-level pols seem to have an attitude that the bad stuff happens only to the little people. They are above it all at the Olympian heights. Even Pelosi was going to throw that dinner for the incoming representatives! Talk about clueless. What could possibly go wrong?! ?

    P.S. I bet that Feinstein, like most VIPs, hasn’t driven herself anywhere in years, if not decades, so no worry on that point.

  226. 226.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    Remember that archaic term “common decency”?

    Gone the way of the antimacassar and the passenger pigeon.

  228. 228.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Miss Bianca: Seriously, over on LGM I’m right now pushing back against the idea that they can throw the election to a state-by-state vote in the House (which Trump would win) by keeping enough states from certifying electors at all, so that nobody gets to 270.

    This idea seems to be getting thrown around a lot, there and on Twitter and sometimes in mainstream media, and it baffles me, because as far as I can tell from reading the literal text of the 12th Amendment, this isn’t possible. You need a majority of the electors actually appointed, not a majority of 538.

    Case law is weird and I guess judges might interpret “electors appointed” as “electors that could have been appointed”. But I don’t see how.

  232. 232.

    Matt McIrvin

    btw, the Wayne County board seem to have backed down on condition of a state audit of the unbalanced precincts, which is about as good an outcome as could be expected.

  233. 233.

    PsiFighter37

    @Matt McIrvin: Fucking GOP idiots on the canvass board didn’t realize they’d become persona non grata in such a public fashion, so had to save face somehow. Morons.

  237. 237.

    frosty

    @raven:  My last month before retirement, I taped one of these up outside my cubicle every day. Did a little bit of research to find them — that was one of them. You short-timers waiting for the Freedom Bird had a lot of good ones.

  238. 238.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Chilling firsthand account of bullshit behavior from Michigan Rethuglicans on Election Day:

    On Election Day, I was one of the hundreds of credentialed “challengers” at the Absent Voter Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit. I volunteered with the Democratic Party of Michigan, completed two training sessions and was excited to help protect the integrity of the election, the ballots and the dignity of the workers.

    What I saw was democracy in action, ordinary Americans working hard to count hundreds of thousands of ballots. It was a process so layered with checks, balances and hundreds of observers that fraud was nearly impossible.

    But what my fellow challengers saw was conspiracy and fraud. That’s because they are Republicans and came determined to find it even if it wasn’t there.

    Shortly after I arrived, a group of five GOP challengers arrived in my area of the ballroom. They came with clipboards, coolers, unofficial printouts from the GOP about what to scrutinize and an air of suspicion.

    They said hello, but then immediately began asking questions. They wanted the names of inspectors, where they lived and questioned how ballots are processed.  When an inspector’s answer about processes differed from what the GOP-provided printouts said, one challenger began to cause a disruption.

    The counting hadn’t even started yet; the ballots hadn’t yet arrived at the counting boards and already it was clear that the GOP challengers were there to sow confusion and suspicion.

    By the end of the night, the GOP challengers were left with nothing but the majesty of democracy: ordinary people working as a group to uphold the integrity of our election. It is not perfect, but it is pretty darn close.

    h/t https://www.bridgemi.com/guest-commentary/first-person-i-was-detroit-poll-challenger-gop-came-make-havoc

  239. 239.

    Mart

    Should have paid Trump .02 cents for every mask sold, and a nickle for every test. We’d be swimming in them.

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