Party of Death. https://t.co/WWBCGn2i6u
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) November 14, 2020
If your loved ones and/or family have decided that ‘Thanksgiving is too important *not* to celebrate as usual’, it’s probably too late to change their minds. But maybe some gentle advice from, say, the CDC, might at least help them minimize the aftereffects…
The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful and isolating for many people. Gatherings during the upcoming holidays can be an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends. This holiday season, consider how your holiday plans can be modified to reduce the spread of COVID-19 to keep your friends, families, and communities healthy and safe.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 epidemic is worsening, and small household gatherings are an important contributor to the rise in COVID-19 cases. CDC offers the following considerations to slow the spread of COVID-19 during small gatherings. These considerations are meant to supplement—not replace—any state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which all gatherings must comply…
Considerations for Hosting or Attending a Gathering
If you will be hosting a gathering during the holiday season that brings people who live in different households together, follow CDC tips for hosting gatherings. If you will be attending a gathering that someone else is hosting, follow CDC Considerations for Events and Gatherings. Below are some general considerations for hosting a gathering that brings together people from different households. Guests should be aware of these considerations and ask their host what mitigation measures will be in place during the gathering. Hosts should consider the following:Check the COVID-19 infection rates in areas where attendees live on state, local, territorial, or tribal health department websites. Based on the current status of the pandemic, consider if it is safe to hold or attend the gathering on the proposed date… If setting up outdoor seating under a pop-up open air tent, ensure guests are still seated with physical distancing in mind. Enclosed 4-wall tents will have less air circulation than open air tents. If outdoor temperature or weather forces you to put up the tent sidewalls, consider leaving one or more sides open or rolling up the bottom 12” of each sidewall to enhance ventilation while still providing a wind break… Encourage guests to avoid singing or shouting, especially indoors. Keep music levels down so people don’t have to shout or speak loudly to be heard… Provide and/or encourage attendees to bring supplies to help everyone to stay healthy. These include extra masks (do not share or swap with others), hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol, and tissues. Stock bathrooms with enough hand soap and single use towels. Limit contact with commonly touched surfaces or shared items such as serving utensils. Use touchless garbage cans if available. Use gloves when removing garbage bags or handling and disposing of trash. Wash hands after removing gloves. Plan ahead and ask guests to avoid contact with people outside of their households for 14 days before the gathering. Treat pets as you would other human family members – do not let pets interact with people outside the household.
That last item — dogs and cats can get COVID-19, and while they probably won’t pass it on to humans, it’s only fair to remind guests not to snuggle Rover or Muffy without washing their hands first, and afterwards.
Unfortunately, one of every pandemic’s greatest weapons has been the universal human insistence that ‘MY people are clean and strong; *we* couldn’t possibly carry or spread this plague.’ Also, too many people will tell you — will even believe — that they’ve been ‘totally self-isolated’… except for the housekeeper. Or that visit to the hairdresser. Or their condo’s book club. Or their golf foursome!
If you think a negative test result means you don't have coronavirus, you could be wrong. Here's what you need to know. https://t.co/jHISjjTMPa
— CNN (@CNN) November 17, 2020
People are infectious two days before showing symptoms.
That means you can't tell if someone is sick by looking at them or asking them how they feel.
Stay 6' apart and masked. https://t.co/xfTAoZ8s3x
— COVID19 (@V2019N) November 15, 2020
hello america this is what happened with canadian thanksgiving pic.twitter.com/iZd1Bok4j0
— patrick (@patwmurray) November 15, 2020
Another way to think about these lags is that some of the people who are infected on Thanksgiving will enter the hospital in the middle of December, and the morgue around Christmas. pic.twitter.com/S9kqHW981l
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) November 15, 2020
To be continued…
zhena gogolia
The replies to Grenell are all supportive and mirthful about his excellent joke.
Shalimar
If this is grandma’s last holiday season, wouldn’t a virtual Thanksgiving and a big Christmas be better than a big Thanksgiving and a funereal Christmas?
debbie
It won’t be a superspreader event if you’re not speaking to any of your goddamn family members because they all voted for Trump. So there’s that. //
mad citizen
We cancelled our trip from Indiana to California the other day–no reason to do any of this. Found out from my dad my RWNJ brother (we don’t talk much) had the covid a couple weeks ago (mild case, back to his HVAC work Wed). Fortunately my 87 year old dad and his wife said they probably won’t go to any family T-giving get togethers this year. I hope that holds. My wife and I not going anywhere.
From the dying thread: the Automat! I missed those, would have loved to have seen one. I remember those types of vending machines in the bowling alley I would spend time in Sunday nights as my parents bowled and I would kill time; late 60s.
There is a cool new version, Farmers Fridge (farmersfridge.com/) out of Chicago. You can see them in airports and they came to Indianapolis and located one in my building (I’m a customer). Alas, don’t go there no more.
They also deliver, but alas again, I’m a few miles outside their zone.
mrmoshpotato
LOL! Just gonna sit and laugh at that title for a bit. Bravo AL!
Sab
We had a natural gas generator installed yesterday, since days long power failures are becomimg a thing. Everything went smoothly. The generator is awesome. It did its first test run this morning.
BIG problem was the installers. They did excellent professional work, but twenty something and Covid deniers. Their masks were those useless gaiter things that they only wore sloppily inside when talking to us. They were in and out of my house all day, touching everthing, breathing everywhere, wiping nothing down. It’s winter now, so I don’t even know where to start on sanitizing stuff. Windows closed and furnace on so too late for bleach.
I had a plumber in earlier this year and it was nothing like this. He actually cared about the sanitation side. If I review their work this will be a big item, which is too bad because the actual work was good.
We hung out in the back room, but what about the rest of the house?
I think I will cancel all my elective dental stuff for December and January. I don’t trust the yoot at all for being concerned about anyone else’s health.
MrSnrub
I found the joke to be funny, or at least it would be funny under better context.
Baud
@Sab:
The virus isn’t supposed to be able to survive on surfaces for more than 24 or 48 hours. Can you sanitize the high use stuff and wait out the rest?
MrSnrub
@Sab: Our dentist retired mid-pandemic. She had asthma and other high risk issues. So my wife saw the other dentist in the practice, and he had a cloth facemask, but not one of the face shields which is supposed to be best practice for dentistry. She complained, he said he couldn’t see.
I cancelled my appointment, we are looking for a new dentist.
Charluckles
@Sab:
Can you open everything back up and get some ventilation going?
mrmoshpotato
That list of holiday precautions could’ve been shorter – “Hey assclowns! You can party your asses off next year! Cancel everything, and fuck Trump!”
Benw
@MrSnrub: thanks for reminding me to brush my teeth this week
Sab
@Baud: That is the plan. Concern is that as temperatures drop the wait is longer.
I am cancelling the dental stuff. No way am I openimg my mouth maskless for random dental hygienists.
My stepson works in an essential business that ships medical supplies. His idiot co-worker went to a baby shower (!?) where somebody tested positive. So everyone in his unit was tested. His employer wants everybody back to work until the test results come back.
(ETA tested Friday but didn’t want weekend shipping and testing rates so no results until Tuesday.)
I am beginning to think this is becoming the norm. Fine. I will stay home until y’all sort out the medical and ethical stuff. Good luck with the economy.
Percysowner
germy
These are the same people who screamed about DEATH PANELS when Obama rolled out the Affordable Care Act.
Yarrow
@Sab: Windows and doors should have been open during installation to keep air moving. Did you do that? You can still keep windows open today but it’s getting a bit late as the worst infection risk would have been yesterday. Any airborne virus likely would have settled by today. Wear a mask in your house to protect yourself for the next day and disinfect any surfaces you know they touched. Most important would be making sure plenty of outdoor air gets in to dilute anything indoors that could go through your ventilation system. And wear a mask to protect yourself. Definitely let the company know their safety practices are poor.
MomSense
We are having an extended family thanksgiving soon this year. I’m so sad I won’t be able to see my son and his fiancée. I miss them so much.
Percysowner
@Percysowner: Note to self don’t try to comment using phone while watching kiddo
Scout211
Zoom announced yesterday that they will suspend the 40 minute session limit for those with free accounts on Thanksgiving Day! Awesome! That’s how we will see our kids and grandkids. I am so looking forward to it.
Benw
I know most Jackals are sitting this holiday season out, but here’s a good tool to track COVID risk for gatherings (h/t Martin): covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
Sab
@Yarrow: It’s 30 degrees here. November in NE Ohio. We shut off the furnace all day so that air wasn’t blowing around the house, and we closed off whatever rooms we could.
ETA We would be a lot less stressed ( and at risk) if they had been a bit more careful.
I have no tolerance for mask bitching. I worked thirty plus years in fucking high heels and pantyhose dragging big heavy audit bags around. Don’t talk to me about discomfort.
gvg
@Sab: I was thinking about needing some things done in the house…had decided I would open the house wide open in the day after and stay outside to guard, then lock up and sleep in my parents RV currently parked in their driveway. do that 2 days and I think the house should be safe.
Now, I live in Florida and the weather is currently very pleasant with the highs supposed to stay below the 80’s for the next week, and not everyone has a family RV, but could you turn off the furnace and open up and stay…maybe in a hotel that is run well?
Keith P.
Yeah, right, like anyone actually enjoys the stress of cooking and/or hanging out with 20 various relatives, in-laws, and pity cases, eating a meal and then trying to find a spot to watch a football game with the Detroit F’n Lions. I love small Thanksgivings (or even solo Thanksgivings)….I get genuinely stressed out when someone insists that I have TG at their family’s house, since I might know a handful of people and I’m usually halfway across town at best.
Yarrow
@Sab: I understand it’s cold. But fresh air is the best way to reduce risk. Short term difficulty for longer term safety, I guess. Being cold for any length of time also carries risk. Sounds like you did what you could.
Amir Khalid
In Malaysia we’ve already sat out Eid al-Fitri and Eid al-Adha, and we just sat out Deepavali. It looks like Christmas and Chinese New Year, the next big holidays, are going to be the same. Sigh.
Sab
@Yarrow: The virus lasts much longer on cold surfaces. So it’s a tradeoff if we let winter into the house. We keep the ambient temperature at 60 all winter, so we aren’t exactly wimps.
ETA So we still don’t know if opening all the windows to have air blowing through the house (also upstairs) at 30 degrees and in and out of the windows would have been better, or sealing rooms off as we did was best. Them wearing effective masks and keeping in the limited space they should have been in would have been better.
Scout211
@Sab:
I had a tech guy come to the house for Dish Network. He was very careful. He wore a mask the whole time (several hours) and so did we. I opened every window in the house and it went well. I do think that national corporate companies have higher standards than local companies. The company sent me 3 emails with the required safety standards that they expect for the tech person and the homeowner. I was impressed.
Haroldo
@Sab:
Coincidentally, we had a LP gas generator installed yesterday as well. Given that we are in MA, there was a lot more Covid-19 awareness, thank heavens. (And the installation was in our semi-feral basement which has a large outdoor entrance, ie, bulkhead. At least we had some air circulation down there.) Our fingers necessarily crossed, however. Good luck and good health.
Gravenstone
@Sab:
His employer needs to be beaten about the head and shoulders until he understands the concept of quarantining until results are known. Fucking idiots undermining the entire purpose of precautionary testing.
Salty Sam
Exactly! I welcome and embrace Holiday Lockdown for exactly that reason!
Sab
@Gravenstone: Oddly enough, his employer, which I shall not name, is highly regarded in health circles, even on this blog.
He is utterly shocked. He thought they cared. Instead he is being treated same as his sister-in-law who works at a BP franchise.
I told him: there is a reaon there are unions. You employer is rarely your friend.
ETA We really need to get some standards and mandates in place. Employers will often do the right thing if they have to, but rarely if it puts them at a competetive disadvantage.
Fair Economist
@Sab: Surface seem to be an unusual way to transmit, but this is a fragile virus and lots of things kill it. Anything that says “disinfectant” would do the job, as would a 2:1 dilution of store peroxide with a little detergent. Wet surfaces, wait 5 minutes, then wipe. Even dishwashing soap plus water kills 99.9% if used that way, which is probably good enough
Open up and vent the house for a few hours, and any aerosols will be gone.
NotMax
Mom (92) is not at all bent out of shape over bowing out of the small spread my step-sister is planning (step-sis, her husband, his mother, son and his girlfriend). What she is majorly upset about is that it will be taken as some sort of insult.
I’ve talked her down from that ledge, I think.
Suzanne
I really enjoyed this piece by a former friend of Ivanka’s about the destruction of her image.
There was another piece (I think the one in the FTFNYT by Frank Bruni this week) with a great line about how Ivanka’s art collection has been devalued by her ownership. It’s tainted now.
Sab
@Fair Economist: Thanks. That is my plan. I didn’t want stuff blowing through the parts of the house they aren’t in which is why no wimdows open. We have gobs of soap and detergents and hydrogen peroxide, so that is the plan.
CDC is all about bleach, but it’s winter with windows closed and 5 cats. Didn’t seem sensible.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
This, and it’s not like they engaged in extended contact. It’s not as if they were gripping doorknobs nor leaning on tabletops or breathing on mirrors for half an hour at a time.
Kay
If Republicans were worried about election integrity they would look at the states Trump won instead of just looking at the states that rejected Trump.
But they aren’t. Because they aren’t concerned about election integrity.
That this absolute nonsense, where the only states they accuse of fraudulent elections are the states where Donald Trump lost, flies on the Right is a real indictment of their whole membership. It’s all so incredibly dumb. LOW quality. Rock bottom.
Kay
The members of the “conservative movement” are SO incredibly stupid Republicans in Congress don’t even put a fig leaf of legitimacy on this by also looking at election systems in states Trump won.
They know conservatives will swallow it whole, idiotic and transparently corrupt or not. No effort required. Just churn out shit and they lap it up.
Scout211
Iowa governor issues mask mandate. I did not see this one coming.
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/iowa-gov-kim-reynolds-issues-mask-mandate-after-disparaging-it-n1247972
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
Yup, that’s getting it exactly backwards. A half-step behind is only testing those with a fever or other symptoms. Too damn late!
My kid’s new college screened 100% of students, faculty and staff before letting them on campus (20-minute test results) and the kid has been tested something like ten times since August. It’s working, and it’s not cheap, but what cost does one pay for cutting corners?
Baud
@Kay:
He also probably called them to cover his ass for calling GA. Like when a sniper kills random people to hide who the actual target is.
Cathie from Canada
For Canadian Thanksgiving, on the advice of my Public Health professor daughter, this is what we did for my family of 7 adults from 5 households, at my home for dinner:
-we all wore masks throughout the evening except while eating. I had hand sanitizer available too.
– coffee and beverages were set up outside the kitchen, so nobody needed to enter the kitchen while cooking was going on.
– the menu was as pre-prepared as possible (turkey roll, frozen stuffing, frozen pie) to minimize our food handling
– one person (me) did all the food prep (NO POTLUCK!!!) and set everything out in bowls
– one person (my daughter, with mask and gloves) was in the kitchen to dish out when the food was ready, wearing gloves to touch utensils, dishes, etc. (This was just to give me a bit of a break)
– we went into the kitchen individually and said what we wanted and my daughter plated everything so that she was the only one who touched the utensils and bowls, poured the wine, etc.
– I had a raft of extra serving spoons available also, so everyone could use a new spoon if they needed to get a second helping, stir their cream into coffee, etc.
– we scattered around the living room and dining room to eat, so that we were as distanced as we could be in our house.
So it wasn’t quite as nice as gathering around a table would have been. But at least we were able to get together.
If we feel it is safe, we will do the same thing for Christmas dinner.
Kent
It seems that the Trump campaign is running out of lawyers. Today Rudy Giuliani is making a last-minute appearance in Federal court in PA. It will be his first time in a courtroom in 30 years. In front of an Obama-appointed judge. The other attorney is some conservative talk show host.
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pennsylvania-case-off-the-rails-trump-campaign-hearing
Should be good for some comedy gold. Apparently the hearing will be zoomed.
Cckids
@Sab:
Amen and lol. All the old ladies at the grocery store bitching about masks are EXACTLY the demographic who wouldn’t have stepped out of the house without pantyhose. Which are 500x more uncomfortable than any mask.
Kay
@Baud:
He’s lying:
Secretary Katie Hobbs
@SecretaryHobbs
·29m
This is false. I have not spoken with
@LindseyGrahamSC
.
Republicans Senators lie routinely now. The Trump collapse is complete. No one can believe a word any of them say. They lie as much as Donald Trump does.
NotMax
@Scout211
Now that tourism is kinda, sorta underway again Hawaii governor issued a new amended proclamation specifying, among other things:
Stores are not only required to refuse entry to the maskless; violation can result in business closure.
Hotels (broad category encompassing any entity providing guest accommodation) required to provide lodging – either on or off premises – for any guests testing positive or subject to quarantine after checking in.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: If the Russthuglicans were worried about election integrity, Moscow Mitch would’ve allowed a vote on the election security bill that kicked the Russkies in the balls.
randy khan
@Sab:
So, first, the good news is that surface transmission actually seems to be pretty unusual, and just not touching stuff for a day really cuts the small risk down a lot.
As for the rest, it seems to me that there are widely varying approaches to masking, etc. by people who do plumbing, heating, etc. We had a plumber in at one point and he was 110% pro mask and very careful all around; same for the HVAC guy a few weeks ago. But you hear plenty of stories about people who act like it’s not real. Personally, I’d tell them they have to leave if they won’t mask up, and I’d tell their company the same thing. I’m not interested in being the victim of someone’s willful ignorance.
Yarrow
@Kay: They’ve lied routinely for a long time. For some reason Lindsey Graham is getting caught now.
trollhattan
@Sab:
From what I’ve read, RNA fragments can be found up to a month after surface contamination but viable RNA only lingers up to a couple days (and all surfaces are not equally susceptible).
Particles and droplets in the air column should settle out within hours. Is there a mechanism for viable surface particles to return to the air? I have not heard one way or the other.
After two or so days there should be no lingering infection source but cleaning surfaces still makes sense.
IIUC the champion for transmissiblity remains measles, which can remain viable in the air for hours and has a very high infection rate. Very luckily for us, COVID-19 is not nearly as efficient.
different-church-lady
@Shalimar: If this is Grandma’s last holiday season, wouldn’t it be better to not be the reason it’s her last holiday season?
Kay
@Scout211:
We’ve had a mask mandate in our office for months. IMO, the people who make the biggest fuss about the masks are vain. They object to the mask because they don’t like how it looks. Ted Cruz would rather you die than miss seeing his repulsive mug. It’s vanity. They’re the people who wear cowboy boots because they like a high heel, or the people who constantly have to yank up their belt because the buckle weighs a pound and a half. It’s male vanity. 100%. They’re strutting, vain peacocks in tough guy clothes.
Yarrow
@NotMax: What does that second one mean? Hotels are required to provide lodging to people who test positive or have to quarantine? Aren’t they already checking in? Aren’t they already getting lodging? What’s the difference?
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
Simple: if granny catches the ‘rona, it was obviously Consuela the cleaning lady who gave it to her.
different-church-lady
@Scout211: At this point the Zoom people deserve a Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Just as soon as we have a president again, that is.)
mrmoshpotato
It seems that the Trump campaign is running out of lawyers. Today Rudy Giuliani is making a last-minute appearance in Federal Seasons Total Landscaping’s courtyard in PA.
Fixed.
Chyron HR
@Scout211:
Effective immediately the virus is Joe Biden’s responsibility/fault. There’s no longer a need to shun masks as a show of fealty to God-Emperor Trump.
randy khan
We decided a while back that we weren’t going to be able to do our usual 15-20 person Thanksgiving. It made us sad, but it was obvious that there wasn’t any other choice.
Our alternative is that we’re going to host a few people on our screen porch, in relays so they don’t come in contact with each other and also so that we can be properly spaced. We’ll just do appetizers and send them home with the turkey &etc. I expect that we’ll all stay masked while we’re not eating. Most of the people are in our existing pseudobubble and are careful themselves, so we figure the risk is pretty low.
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
Yeah, me no understand #2.
We’re friends with a long-haul commercial pilot who’s flown to Australia and New Zealand during the ‘rona. Her hotels have featured armed guards on each floor to make sure guests don’t sneak out.
Kay
@Yarrow:
I knew the brakes would come off the lying post-Trump. Graham doesn’t even care that this person he claimed he called exists and will most likely call him out for the lie. He says it anyway, knowing (now) that any lie at all will fly in the Republican Party and be swallowed whole.
They are all Donald Trump now. Once you throw out standards it doesn’t take long to hit rock bottom.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Laughing. Have never quite heard it stated that way, but you are not wrong.
These toxic vanity males might also think they have dominion over the ‘virus. Uh, no.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
@Kay: I hear tax cuts for the rich will solve all of our problems.
trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
“Joe Biden knew in January 2020 that the virus was coming, yet did nothing!”
“The deficit and debt have more than doubled since Joe Biden thought about running for president. Why does Joe Biden not care about our crippled economy?”
They just write themselves.
different-church-lady
@mrmoshpotato:
Really fixed.
raven
@trollhattan: Sounds like R&R in Sydney in 69!
Kay
@Yarrow:
The question post-Trump was “how do Republicans raise standards again?”
The answer is they won’t. They’re all now at Trump’s level. It’s hard to raise standards. That’s why people don’t usually jettison them. Once you’re rock bottom it’s hard as nails to climb back out. They’re not going to try. They’ll be living in the cellar from now on.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
What is this giving-a-damn-about-others attitude? Don’t you know a Republican asshole is currently squatting in the people’s house in DC?
trollhattan
@Kay:
I suspect Peak Lindsay Graham will occur in the Judiciary Committee hearings for Biden’s first SCOTUS nominee. He really, really wants revenge for the shabby treatment of wannabe rapist li’l Brett.
trollhattan
@raven:
You scamp! ;-)
zzyzx
Short of Trump conceding, this is probably the best case scenario. Trump is quickly fading into the background as he’s stopped trying to fight really (or – FSM forbid – help us) and Biden is ramping up. His cases are getting less organized and more just screaming, “I WON BECAUSE OF REASONS!!!” into the wind.
Getting out of this was always going to be sketchy but it could be far worse.
different-church-lady
@Scout211: I just had the joy of replacing the hot water tank this weekend. Asked about COVID procedures before the installation, was given assurances, and the install tech followed them.
And if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have let him do the work. It’s your home, they have to follow your rules or they can piss right off.
Yarrow
@Kay: He’s on to the next lie. They lie so easily.
different-church-lady
@Kay: The thing that worries me is that they may not be at rock bottom yet.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It’s 100% true. Show me a male mask refuser and I’ll show you a male who spends a lot of time in front of a mirror perfecting his tough guy costume.
To a MAN in this office, that’s been the truth. I don’t even have to look at what they’re driving. It’ll be a 60,000 truck with 72 payments. It’s all part of the costume.
Hey, I get it. I like a nice boot with a heel too. But I don’t pretend to be John Wayne.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: “I spoke with a secretary in the state of Nevada! Fake news!!”
Suzanne
@Kay: Katie Hobbs is pretty rad. One to watch.
Yarrow
@different-church-lady: We are not at rock bottom. There’s a long way to go. The good news is we’re seeing them flailing so they’re struggling to hold it all together.
Lindsey Graham is going to be thrown under the bus if he can’t get his act together.
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Yeah, he didn’t talk to Katie Hobbs (AZ Secretary of State), nor Adrian Fontes (Maricopa County Recorder), because they’re Dems. He called Doug Douchey, I’m sure.
different-church-lady
@zzyzx: I think it’s funny that he’s floating the idea of announcing a 2024 run during Biden’s Inauguration, because it’s completely contradictory to his continued insistence that he’s still going to be re-inaugurated that same day.
Haroldo
@raven:
What was King’s Cross like in ’69?
Kay
@Yarrow:
It’s just odd that all these conservative senators and lawyers and Great Thinkers are not thinking about the election systems in any of the states Trump won.
North Carolina? Not concerned. Georgia? VERY concerned.
If you’re a young conservative this is the bullshit you’re fed. This garbage thinking. They can’t question anything the leaders on the Right tell them because if they do it falls apart. They’re training up stupid people. The next generation of conservatives will be dumber than the last, and so forth.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: He’s likely only talking to R’s. He didn’t factor in the GA SOS having any kind of ethics. He probably encounters no Republicans who do so he didn’t even consider it before making the phone call. Oops.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
You are being logical. Republicans do not trust in logic and science. What do you take them for, Democrats?
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady: Thank you. I stand corrected. :)
Yarrow
@Kay: It’s true but unfortunately we all have to deal with them. The faster we make their lies and illegal activities have actual real world consequences the better it will be for all of us. The fact that they haven’t paid any price for those things for decades is a big part of our problem now.
Cckids
I’m in a union at the grocery store, and the rules are the same. We’ve had five people test positive in the past two weeks; unless & until you test positive, you’re expected to work. In addition, it was the end of freaking AUGUST before any distancing requirements were put in place for the break room. I ate many a lunch in my car.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid:
It’s why I’ll never get anywhere in life.
Kay
I’m not complaining- I think I’ve been lucky in the covid crisis- but I cannot tell you bad it is here in this 70% Trump county. Quarantines and infected people as far as the eye can see. People look stunned, which makes me think they actually believed the lying Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican leaders. I’m not generous enough to have much sympathy for them but I do wonder if this will make them, some of them anyway, see that they have been lied to. Brutally and cruelly misinformed, by the people they elected and pay. They will die for this cause, the cause of Republican power, and I’m not sure they intended to.
raven
@Haroldo: Well, it was August (I was there during the moon landing). We didn’t know shit so all we had we short sleeve khakis and some dopey civvies and it was cold as shit. We couldn’t find any herb so we tried to separate the green dots from Contact which was supposed to get you high but didn’t. I drank a lot and had a couple episodes with some working girls but all-in-all I wish I had taken advantage of the program that let you stay with an Aussie family. Young and dumb
A few years ago I found a blog run by a woman who had worked in a record shop in Kings Cross and wee had some nice communication.
Look, I found it
I’ll Always Remember!
Kay
@Yarrow:
I was encouraged by the end of Trump’s presidency that so many people knew he was a liar. I think all the fact checking and calling out mattered and matters, and I had given up on it as futile.
It does matter and I’m glad people had more faith than I did and kept doing it. We can discredit them. It can be done. We discredited Trump with better than half of voters and we can do it with the GOP Congress and their lawyers and their pundits. It just takes too long.
gene108
@Kay:
Trump has proven beyond a reasonable doubt Republican voters do not care about standards.
Some Republicans sort of pushed the envelope on gutting standards, like Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms, etc., and never paid a price for it, but they always tried to couch it something sophisticated sounding to have some fig leaf to cover their moral bankruptcy.
They no longer need to do it. Look for it to keep getting worse.
The only solution is for voters to reject Republicans for this, but I do not see that happening
Kay
@Cckids:
My daughter had the “baby room” shut down at her daycare because there was a baby who tested positive. Both she and her husband are health care workers so we were all freaking out with them not having daycare – I can’t get out of my stuff because it’s scheduled months in advance but my husband can get out if his, so the plan was he goes to NY and watches baby (which he would love) but then at the last minute her husband’s employer quarantined everyone so now he’s home with the baby.
I feel like millions of people are scrambling like this. Just crazy.
Ohio Mom
There is always a weird tug-of-war between my sister and cousin about who will host Thanksgiving — lots of subtext about the ancient family pecking order (I’m on the bottom, in case you wondered).
I’m glad to not be in the middle this year. That is one prop I’ll give my extended family, they all take Covid very seriously.
gene108
@Yarrow:
About 48% of the country loves them for these lies, and illegal acts. That has to change, otherwise reform is impossible
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@gvg: Yeah, we had a bathroom faucet disintegrate on us the weekend before last. I’d bought one a few years back for our upstairs pedestal sink and then saw a bunch of crappy reviews online and ordered a different faucet for that sink and had a plumber install it. So that faucet, which was compatible with the sink where the faucet failed, was sitting on a shelf in the basement just waiting for this moment. I was like…I can either have some plumber in the house or I can try to install this sucker on my own, which I did, and it went relatively smoothly with no leaks so far two weeks later. Plus I feel handier than I did beforehand. I figured worst case scenario is I can’t get it right, and then have to call in a plumber, but as the old faucet was completely unusable I figured installing on my own was worth a shot.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Is there a word missing from your first sentence?
Roger Moore
@Keith P.:
It may come as a surprise, but there are people who genuinely do enjoy that kind of thing. That may not be your thing, but don’t dismiss the possibility that other people live for it. Some people are incredibly social and love having a big party with all their friends and relatives. Other people love cooking and want to show it off. Traditions like big holiday dinners wouldn’t have survived if nobody loved them.
Kay
@gene108:
I don’t really think like this anymore. Everything stays the same until it doesn’t. Republicans only have a lock on their portion of the electorate as long as they have it, and then they don’t.
If you had told me in 2004 a Democrat would carry both Virginia and Georgia I would not have believed you. It’s a “red wall” until it’s not. No Party should think they have a “wall”. It’s more like some snow fence :)
Haroldo
@raven:
I got to know it a little in the early-mid ’90s. My record store of choice was on the other side of the CBD, Birdland Records. Loved that place.
Thanks for the website.
Green dots in Contact, eh?
Suzanne
@Kay: The craziness unfolds day by day, and it is exhausting. Y’all know that my clients are large health systems, ranging from very large urban teaching medical centers to small community hospitals. All of them are reporting that the conditions there are basically insane. I informed one client today that I would not be overseeing construction in person on site until this was under control. I have seen enough poor masking compliance ***in the hospital*** ***by the nurses*** to feel that it is not prudent to go down there. I will do field reports digitally or via photos until this is resolved.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: I was really looking forward to the holidays this year. Much of the reason we moved to PGH was to be nearer extended family. It sucks that we can’t get together.
But illness and death suck more.
Brachiator
Coming late to the thread. Another Thanksgiving reminder. If doing outdoor table seating, don’t mix households.
And try to have one person handle the food. Don’t do buffet style.
Kent
Just curious. Do they actually ask to see your test results and medical records? Is that allowed under HIPAA? Or do they just take your word for it that you tested positive?
gene108
@Kay:
I am discouraged.
Watergate was a year or two before I was born, but I remember all the adults saying Nixon did bad things, and they were still shook up about it ten years later.
I do not see any kind real unified outrage about Republican malfeasance in the last ten years, which is why I am not as optimistic as you are.
Kay
Lindsey Graham should be interviewed by law enforcement. In a country with a rule of law that functions this should happen. I don’t know what the FBI and the DOJ think about their credibility but if they want to retain some they are going to have to do the job, as uncomfortable and risky as that may be for them.
He appears to have committed a pretty serious crime. At the very least he should be formally interviewed. It either applies to everyone or no one. We now need to know not just what he asked the Sec of State in Georgia to do with ballots, but also what he asked two GOP governors to do with ballots. His fumbling attempts to explain this is just making it worse.
gene108
@Kent:
The relief bills from this spring carved out HIPPA exemptions for COVID related things:
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Very true. I know people who absolutely shine when it comes to planning and executing holiday dinners.
Kent
Reagan was elected in a landslide just six short years after Nixon resigned. It didn’t take most the country 10 years to get over GOP malfeasance.
Dan B
@Cathie from Canada: This still seems risky to me. Five households!?
My mind immediately thinks: How would I feel if someone gets sick and/or dies a few months before a vaccine? You were all inside breathing everyone’s exhalation. Masks are not fine enough to stop the virus. They only stop aerosols. They only reduce risk and in a residence the aerosols rise and then fall to face level unless there is rapid air circulation.
Zoom is the new safe.
Raven
@Haroldo: I guess it was contac
Active Ingredients: Day Formula: In Each Caplet: Acetaminophen (500 Mg), Phenylephrine Hydrochloride (5 Mg). Night Formula: In Each Caplet: Acetaminophen (500 Mg), Chlorpheniramine Maleate (2 Mg), Phenylephrine Hydrochloride (5 Mg). Day Formula: Purpose: Pain Reliever/Fever Reducer, Nasal Decongestant.
germy
Yarrow
@gene108: It will change when there are consequences, legal, professional and social (shunning) for those kinds of things. Biden’s DOJ must investigate and prosecute some of these people. Trump people should not be allowed to have jobs with any actual authority or power. And Ivanka etc. should not be invited to the Met Ball.
Roger Moore
@Chyron HR:
I don’t know if this is a “blame it on Biden” thing or a “it’s now OK to ignore Trump” thing. It may even be a “this is now so serious we have to deal with it rather than treat it as a way of showing our conservative bona fides” thing.
Yarrow
@Kay: Instead of asking Lindsay Graham, law enforcement should talk to the people he talked to and find out who else was on the call. Then talk to them. Ratchet up the pressure on Graham. The lower down folks will likely have less experience with lying and such a big spotlight. One or two of them may also have some ethics.
Kay
@gene108:
I’m not really “optimistic”. I’ve just watched this happen a couple of times now, where there are assertions that people know where this is going, and they don’t. No one in this Trump county thinks covid is a “hoax” anymore and that was definitely the position as late as September. All the screaming and yelling and debates about “liberty” have stopped. They’re scared, and they should be. It’s bad and it’s going to get worse.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I think they’re saying hotels can’t kick people out into the street because they have COVID. It’s a reasonable public health thing. It’s probably better for the individual hotel to kick out sick lodgers, but it’s terrible for public health as a whole.
Yarrow
Our system of government is just exhausting.
Kay
@Yarrow:
Good point. However they do it, they should do it. I’m in favor of due process. Maybe he didn’t cross the line and he skates. But they should interview him. They would it if it were a less powerful person.
Soprano2
True this. Like I said in another thread, I’m more concerned with all the other lawbreakers in the Trump administration than Trump himself. Let Biden’s DOJ look into all the lawbreaking by all the various staff members and cabinet people – it’s a bunch. There needs to be consequences for constantly breaking the law. Law and order party my ass.
Yarrow
@Kay: As you have said so often, we have an epidemic of white collar crime. We need to get it under control.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
When they hit rock bottom, they’ll break out the ANFO and start blasting. They won’t let a little thing like rock keep them from getting ever lower.
Peale
Looking at those Canadian numbers makes me wonder if the “spreading” activity we’ve been looking at is a bit off. Its not coughing, sneezing, shouting, singing. Instead belching after a large meal is the way its spread most effectively.
laura
@Roger Moore: I’m one of those. I worked my way up from the unscrewupable tasks – jello and beige and serve rolls. I learned the process for stuffing/dressing, preparing stock, deviled eggs – the whole 9. Its more comfortable for me to make and to serve than to be a guest. This will be the loneliest Thanksgiving ever and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I still make the meal, but small. I’ll still plan for others who are shut in. I’ll still listen to Alice’s Resaurant and cry over how much I miss my dad, and I’ll send the youtube of William S. Burroughs Thanksgiving Day poem to the nephews and other youngs. I’m going to feel as one with my long gone mother, Aunties, Gramma’s and Grampas Uncles real and unrelated. I’ll be thankful and count every blessing and I’ll be on the phone with the Roadie Brothers and our shared friends and oh how we will plan to be together again one damn fine day. But not now.
Yarrow
@Soprano2: You can tell Republicans aren’t he law and order party because they talk about it all the time. If they were they wouldn’t need to talk about it so much.
Honestly, it’s pretty easy to figure out what Republicans are doing that is bad. They tell you all the time. Either they accuse Democrats of it or they talk about something a lot, like way more than a normal person would. Just go look where they tell you. You’ll find the crmining.
Raven
@Haroldo: have you seen The Dish
Soprano2
My husband is one. He was raised in a big Polish/Irish family, and he still wants to make food for 50 people when there are only 10 of us. He loves cooking for a big group, it shows off what he can do. It’s a type of love for sure.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Republican voters have standards; they’re just not the standards they always said they were. Their real standards are how willing a candidate is to be awful to Those People and to own the liberals more generally.
C Stars
Our family of four is having thanksgiving dinner with my parents. I checked the risk tracker BenW posted above at 20, and our risk is somewhere between 4 and 8% . I think we may eat outside. In total there will be 6 of us. We’re all getting tested day after tomorrow, and will start a strict quarantine on Wednesday. The kids have been attending an all-outdoor camp one day a week, and that is what I am most concerned about, although we did take a small road trip last weekend during which we stopped at a couple of rest stops for bathroom breaks, which always makes me nervous. Fortunately, the area we traveled through has an even lower positivity rate, at or under 2%. We had previously been in a “bubble” with my parents before the kids started their camp, and I get the impression that they have been feeling quite lonely and isolated lately. I think cancelling Thanksgiving would be a big blow. I guess it is a risk we are willing to take. Everything is so hard and scary these days.
Soprano2
@Yarrow: It’s like voter fraud. They seem to be the only ones who do it, which is why they think everyone else is. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with them about mail voting, and how they all think it’s full of fraud, but when you actually start asking questions about exactly what they think is happening they can’t tell you. They just think it sounds like it would be easy to commit fraud that way, so they think Democrats are doing it. That, and it’s shorthand for “mail-in voting lets too many black people vote, we can’t be having that”.
Haroldo
@Raven:
We’d go for the innards of Vicks Inhalers – somewhat of an upper.
Cckids
@Kent: I don’t actually know, but my impression is that they’d need proof; not your records, but some doctor’s note. Like being in school.
Raven
@laura: Oh me oh my oh look at Miss Ohio
She’s a-running around with her ragtop down
She says “I wanna do right, but not right now”
Haroldo
@Raven:
Yes! But it’s been a long time…
I lived in Canberra, outside of which were/are space tracking stations. A nice little museum is attached.
Dan B
@gene108: It seems as though 48% of Americans dislike democracy because it means that “unworthy” people will get something. The unworthies should instead be punished because the punishment will make them better. They also seem to be unconcerned about chaos because they haven’t had the experience of living in anarchy. Most minorities have daily experience with the form if anarchy where state actors and laws fail to be applied fairly. In addition there is the stress of not knowing when you will be the victim. Randomness is a major stressor.
The privileged feel horribly abused by bad words but have rarely experienced injustice or a serious threat of harm. They cannot imagine what they have not experienced and empathy is a sign of weakness to them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Soprano2: I am thinking with the way Trump, Rudy and Graham are screaming they tried some serious vote fixing this time around and screwed it up.
C Stars
@Yarrow: This is something I’ve been really surprised by over the last four years. Almost inevitably, whatever they accuse others of is exactly what they themselves have been getting up to. It’s so noticeable I almost wonder if at some point a GOP consultant isn’t going to (or hasn’t already) advise them to stop broadcasting their misdeeds in this way.
ETA my grammar sucks
Tdjr
@Scout211: I was hoping they’d do that for the holidays. It’s smart for many reasons.
C Stars
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: YES. I’m sure something like this has been going on. I wonder if it’ll ever see the light of day. Encouraging that the Georgia SOS seems to at least have a shred of conscience.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Richard Grenell via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Kind of gives new depth to the classic riposte: It’s your funeral, Dick.
Dan B
@Suzanne: Sounds terrible if nurses are not masking properly. I was at our local butcher and a guy came in wearing his mask around his chin. I loudly told him to put on his mask and when he was slow to cover his nose I told him to do it properly, please. The woman in the shop gave me a relieved smile. Where’s my cattle prod?
Roger Moore
@Soprano2: @laura:
I’m at least a little bit in both categories: I want to show off some new form of cooking I’ve been learning, and I want to see the family members I haven’t seen in months. I’m not normally much of one for parties, but that’s because most parties are full of people I don’t know, and I’m terrible at meeting new people. That’s obviously not a problem with a family get together!
Baud
@gene108:
2020 is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen a lot of regular people have a BJ level awareness of what the GOP is. Hard to say if it will last or how it will play out.
Raven
@Haroldo: such fun
scav
@Lacuna Synechdoche: Thinking about it, it’ll be a turkey funeral followed by many more funerals for turkeys.
kindness
My inlaws are mostly Trumpers. They are doing the Thanksgiving this this year just like it’s any other year and none of them wear masks ever. I am probably going to pass on that one. I hope they understand but if they don’t, too bad.
Dan B
@germy: I wonder if cases are going to get close to a million a day before the vaccines. It’s easy to double the spread every month without strict laws and enforcement. It’s my chilling memories of AIDS. It took years to get people to take precautions.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Trump’s inadequate response to the pandemic was a bridge too far for some people and maybe led to some soul searching.
Ironically it also reinforced his death cult.
Kay
Time to formally interview Senator Graham. Obviously, pressuring state officials to throw out ballots is a crime.
Pretty brazen criminal activity here. Want to nip this in the bud before it spreads to the rest of the GOP Senators, who are very vulnerable to peer pressure.
Roger Moore
@Soprano2:
I suspect a lot of them haven’t really thought about voter fraud at all. They have just heard endless claims about voter fraud on Fox, or NewsMax, or InfoWars, or whatever “news” outlet they listen to, and they’re repeating what they’ve heard. That kind of thing is the whole point of having a right-wing media ecosystem divorced from the rest of the news media. It lets them misinform their people without having to worry the misinformation might be countered.
LongHairedWeirdo
That “gathering versus funeral” was perfect, Trumplike reasoning. It was *almost* as good as the school that followed CDC guidelines to report 15 minute exposure to anyone who later tests positive as requiring a test.
The school set an alarm at 13 minutes, to make students change seating. See, no one would be exposed to another for 15 minutes.
You might not fully appreciate this, so let me repeat it. THIS WAS A SCHOOL. An institution for LEARNING. A place where, we hope, students walk out with the ability to *think*. (Yes, authoritarians don’t want them to think *too much*, but you at least want a carpenter to understand 90 degree angles, and a plumber to understand “water flows downhill, or from higher pressure, to lower,” etc..)
But I’m probably just scandalized because I live on the “left coast” and like a good latte, and never really got interested in Nascar. (I confess, I’m not even all *that* interested in football, but since my lover is a big Seahawks fan, I do try to follow along, and understand (and be properly joyous or mournful, depending on the results). I even understood what an “onside kick” was likely to be, and why it was the right time to try it! I was even prouder when I figured out, on my own, why a touchdown that put you one point up meant you should try for a 2 point conversion – an extra point means you’ll still lose if the opposing team gets a field goal, so a 2 point lead is no better than 1; you want a full 3 points so a field goal only ties.)
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
It will be just my husband and me, with a Zoom call to a friend who usually hosts us.
mrmoshpotato
Gym “Ignorer of molesters” Jordan is an idiot and an asshole.
Kay
There’s another kind of interesting layer of lies here, and it’s the layer of lies where Republican members of Congress told major media figures “on background” that they were not, in fact, trying to overturn an election and install Dear Leader, but instead lying to their constituents about voter fraud.
Lindsey Graham was trying to overturn an election. I wonder if there are others. Do they lie even “on background” now?
Yarrow
@Kay: Who would have the ability to accuse him of a crime and get someone to interview any of these people and/or Lindsey Graham? Some Georgia voters, perhaps?
Steeplejack
I think I’m going to have to have the Thanksgiving conversation with my brother. Almost can’t believe it. He’s an ophthalmologist at a big HMO and is extremely rigorous about safety procedures, as he’s on the final glide path to retirement next April. But he has blind spots on the home front, e.g., he, his husband and a friend went to a bar in downtown D.C. for drinks last Friday. WTF.
Thanksgiving dinner originally was going to be him, husband and two kids, me and another couple (S. and K.) that I consider to be in my bubble. (Both of them are working from home and are safety-conscious—although K. is the friend who went for drinks on Friday.) I thought I would be okay with that.
Now it turns out that K.’s three 20-something sons are coming up from Florida. And one of them has already had coronavirus (mild case). Eek! The final touch: This Thursday my brother is flying to Las Vegas on family business—unnecessary, in my opinion, and too maddening to recount now—and returning on Sunday. So he could be a disease vector at the Thanksgiving table.
Given all that, I think I’m gong to take a pass. I’m okay with that—I’ve spent holidays alone before—but I realized that my concern is that the others, my brother especially, will take it personally somehow. Weird, but there you have it. It’s of a piece with a lot of what I’m seeing among friends and on blogs. Lots of: “Yes, we all need to take precautions, of course, but we’re okay.” Like I said: blind spots.
jackmac
@Scout211: Iowa’s Republican governor finally accepts reality. She’s still an idiot.
Kay
Another lie. Of course he “remembers the names” of the people he tried to pressure to throw out ballots.
Lindsey should get a lawyer. This is getting worse for him the more he stammers and dodges and lies.
I wonder if there are any competent lawyers left on the Right? Probably not.
Yarrow
@Roger Moore: And they don’t even have to know what “voter fraud” is or means. These kinds of words or phrases are like code words used to indicate you’re in the group. “Voter fraud! Socialism! Mah freedoms!” And like-minded people nod their heads knowingly.
mrmoshpotato
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Ahhh yes. Who came up with that fuckery needs to be catapulted for 3 points.
Immanentize
@Suzanne: just an fyi. When my University built a new building in downtown Boston, drones and remotes were the main tools of the inspectors. They even had a 24/7 live building feed. It was so freaking cool. And was a good way to keep an eye on the work and the progress.
Kay
“The polarization around the mask issue”
What that means translated from bullshit-speak is Republicans told their followers to ignore physicians and not wear masks, and Democrats wear masks. Both sides!
Immanentize
@Kay: Graham should not be interviewed yet. First, you interview the witnesses! Let Graham know witnesses have been interviewed. Let Graham spend these last days of disco begging Trump for a pardon.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Fixed.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: Trump will never pardon Lindsay Graham because Graham is weak and has nothing to offer Trump in return.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: I didn’t see your accurate response until after I wrote mine. Right on, brother!
Sure Lurkalot
Just received an invite to visit BIL and SIL for TG, along with another BIL and nephew. About an hour an a half away in the mountains.
“Hope it’s nice day so we can spend it outside!” Yeah, the high will probably be around 40…I’m sure we’ll spend the whole day outside, including dinner when it will be a balmy 25.
“I know how you FEEL about being mindful and safe…” You know dear SIL, it isn’t about how I or anyone else feels. Like..some people are risk takers…whatchagonnado when they feel like doing a doughnut on the interstate?
Kay
@Immanentize:
It may turn out okay. He’s lying his ass off, making it worse. I think they get sloppy when there are no standards, and make no mistake, there are NO standards.
It’s just become increasingly clear to me that we dodged a bullet this time. They tried their best to steal it, it’s just that they’re dumb and lazy and sloppy.
They were really planning on installing him. Jesus.
Gin & Tonic
I saw on Twitter that Rudy wants to be paid $20,000/day by the campaign for his “legal work.”
Kay
@Immanentize:
Which we should have know when the GOP Congress and Trump started screaming “stolen!”
Of course they were stealing it as they said that. Duh.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Sounds good, a bit sad, but wartime or pandemic is not the time to try to compensate for the sadness and stress with risk taking.
mrmoshpotato
@Sure Lurkalot:
Are we still too far out for snow to be forecast? (You can tell how much I give a damn about Thanksgiving this year.)
Immanentize
@Yarrow: That won’t stop him from grovelling privately and on FOX!
That’s entertainment…
JPL
@C Stars:My son and DIL are coming over with the little imp and we have always been diligent as a group. The imp is returning to daycare in January so the visits will stop then.
zzyzx
@Dan B: depends on how Thanksgiving goes but I doubt it.
The second derivative is already slowing and that’s before a lot of states added new restrictions. I suspect that we’re at or close to the peak of this wave… again assuming that enough people are going to be smart next week that the damage is mitigated.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: Grifting off the grifter. Griftception if you will.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic:
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!
Good luck with that, Ghouliani!
How about a pie to the face any time you’re in public?
ETA – how many days of yelling stupid crap does he want to be paid for?
Immanentize
@Kay: I’m interested in Perdue in GA. He seems to have quit his campaign against Ossoff. He was on the “it was stolen” bandwagon from day one. What had he cooked up with Kemp? What is he planning now?
Nelle
@Chyron HR: More exceptions and holes than a block of Swiss cheese. Does the day end in “y”? She can find an exception. And the “We are Iowans” mantra (which I find smug) has been replaced by scolding about being complacent, from the woman who didn’t even govern in October as she was busy doing high kicks, cheerleading for Trump, Pence, and Ernst. She said their wins were an endorsement of how she is handling (not handling?) Covid-19. She kept saying, “We have plenty of hospital beds.” One wag said it was like telling drivers not to worry about crashes because we have a lot of auto body shops.
JPL
@Kay: He is such a liar. I swore that I wouldn’t vote for another republican, but might have to change my mind. Raffensperger has stood firm against the assaults.
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
I think of what our parents went through in the Depression and WWII and I wonder what has happened to this country. What a bunch of spoiled brats.
Baud
@dmsilev:
We need to grift deeper.
JPL
@Immanentize: He won using nasty ads, and will again. Since as a percentage of the vote, black turnout was low. Maybe that will change because of Warnock, then Ossoff has a chance.
If Raven is around, he might be able to answer why the UGA support for Ossoff, seems low.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You’re not cheating on with other people, are you?
raven
@JPL: UGA support?? He was here Friday and had a really good turnout. That’s Athens, not UGA. The Hope Scholarship has UGA well stocked with snotty-ass frat heads that are their parents sons.
raven
Georgia election officials said Tuesday they no longer intend to make the results of the state’s manual recount the official tally in the presidential race.
The decision leaves little chance for election results to change much after the recount concludes…
Eunicecycle
@zhena gogolia: Seriously. When there were meat and gasoline rations. When you couldn’t buy shoes. When you might not see your loved ones, drafted, sent off to war for years. And there was no Zoom! Not to mention the many sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors themselves, including the ultimate one. The people who mewl and whine because they have to wear a mask and can’t go to a bar make me really tired.
Immanentize
@raven: hmmm. I wonder how many of those fratass students will be home during the runoff and won’t bother to get off the couch because no one is rallying them individually?
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Yup. Thankfully previous generations didn’t whine about things being too hard. (And we’re talking about wearing a damn mask here! And cutting back on parties for the time being.)
raven
@Immanentize: The term ends before T-day so they won’t be here.
Immanentize
@raven: I think they did that because Trump can still request an official “recount” regardless of what the hand audit turns up.
Phylllis
@LongHairedWeirdo: The ultimate example of when a measure becomes a target.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: ?
JPL
This is from the local ABC station trump needs to keep up the good work
Dan B
@Steeplejack: I am aware that people take caution personally. I’d still tell them that a vaccine is on the way and you don’t want to regret someone you love getting sick before then.
If they are still insulted they may get over it in a year and if they die you won’t get over it for a very long time, if ever. And when the daily counts are in the half a million, the economy tanked, the hospitals and morgues collapsing he may see the wisdom.
Gravenstone
Republicans never really had standards, per se. They’ve always been fond of the lowest common denominator. The problem comes when the LCD keeps getting lower and lower with each successive generation of Republicans. There truly is no bottom for them.
WhatsMyNym
A quick breakdown of recent contact tracing by our health department. My county is semi-rural on the North Olympic Peninsula, the smaller (by pop.) of two counties there.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t completely disagree with you, but I will point out people fought as hard against masks during the Spanish Flu epidemic as they are doing today. I think the kinds of sacrifices people are willing to make vary widely.
CliosFanBoy
My cousin lives near Dayton. She can’t find a roofer to fix her badly damaged roof because the contractors see her wearing a mask! The last told her “Good luck getting someone to fix your roof, libtard!” I told her to look for a roofer based in West Dayton (the majority African-American area.) She’s less likely to find a Trumpster contractor if it’s a black-owned company.
Suzanne
@Immanentize: I am looking into stuff like that. This project is all within existing interior space, so no drones. I’ve been on projects where we’ve done constant cameras. But I’m working with the contracting team to figure out more like a fly-thru or an easy video feed.
C Stars
@JPL: I hope you have a lovely time. I’m glad we’re not the only one trying to find a way to cautiously have grandparent time.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL: S! A! D!
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Yes. My father had Spanish Flu which left him with a 50 year infection. Then he started college at the start of the depression. His father died his freshman year of college. Then there was the war. He got transferred to small town Jim Crow Arkansas, quit over the racism at age 50. Didn’t get another job for a full year.
This pandemic is a two year blip and people are freaking.
And making it much worse.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
It’s an unfortunate situation, but you have taken the blind spots into account and need to do what is necessary to protect your own health.
Hopefully you and your brother will be able to look back on this and laugh about it because everyone came through it.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize:
Non-union labor? In my experience, even as recently as last week, unions fight harder to avoid being monitored than they do to get pay raises.
dnfree
@gene108: my dad spent his entire life believing Nixon had been framed by the press, and there wasn’t even Fox News to tell him that in the 1970s. There was even a t- shirt in 1984 that said something like “Nixon—he’s tanned, he’s rested, he’s ready”. I think it was meant to be sarcastic.
mrmoshpotato
@CliosFanBoy: Wow. That is stupid as hell. Especially in fall/winter when wearing a mask outside would actually keep your face warm.
But if they don’t want her money…
LuciaMia
For his legal expertise! ( bwah-giving a chef’s kiss.)
Rudy makes me think of a Civil War era slur- given by troops disgusted with an incompetent officer, “He couldn’t pour pee out of a boot if it had instructions on the heel.”
Dan B
@WhatsMyNym: Wish they had added a conclusion: It is most likely for you to be infected by friends and family. Stay home, stay safe!
Gary K
Richard Grenell seems to think there’s still time to audition for Beavis & Butthead.
Immanentize
@Suzanne: very cool. You have an interesting job.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL: nope. We are a union institution all the way. I never thought of that….
ballerat
@Kay: Even John Wayne pretended to be John Wayne. The war-avoiding actor named Marion Morrison, aka John Wayne, played macho war heroes in hollywood’s war movies. He also liked to go by the nickname “Duke”.
rikyrah
@Chyron HR:
Absolutely
chopper
@Sab:
i squeezed in a dental visit around june. my dentist had some hardcore protocols in place, plastic sheeting walls everywhere, hepa filtering in each cubby, double mask+face shield, lower speed/pressure on the instruments. and that was june, when we were in a bit of a lull, at least compared to today.
and it was still nerve-wracking. i wouldn’t do the same now.
ballerat
@Kay:
That’s amazing, isn’t it? By September they knew Trump had been lying about it for months, knew what the consequences were, and yet most of them still voted for him.
Truth, lies. All the same.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Here’s a hypothetical to explain it.
Someone checks in on a Tuesday, expecting to stay seven nights. The following Sunday they are forced to quarantine due to close contact.
The hotel is on the hook to provide them lodging for the remainder of their time here until they are cleared for release, health-wise, for the period beyond their original reservation.
Steeplejack
@Dan B:
Me! I don’t want them infecting me. I’m by far the oldest and have the biggest target on my back. And, like Sab upthread, I am generally skeptical of the yoots. It’s hard to believe that they’re super rigorous when their conventional wisdom is that they probably won’t get it but if they do it’ll be a mild case. I know not all of them think that, but you never know which ones you’re around. At least masks (or lack thereof) are a tell.
gvg
@different-church-lady: He talked about more than 2 terms from the beginning. It was always obvious he wanted to rule forever. One more reason to be angry at all his voters. Red alert.
raven
@NotMax: My friends are on their way to Maui as we speak.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: dog may have had a mini-stroke. Any advice on taking him to UGA vet school? Probably better than our vet in Atlanta and saves a long drive.
Gravenstone
@CliosFanBoy: Guess none of the good ol’ boys needs a paying job? Funny how they shoot themselves in the foot like that maintain their “purity”.
Sm*t Cl*de
@trollhattan:
Your friend is exaggerating about the armed guards, in NZ at least.
Uncle Cosmo
which in fact happened on July 20, 1969. Lunar Stonedard time IIRC. :^p
I dunno, maybe it’s the contrapositive to that old hippy meme (attributed to half the multiverse) If you remember the 60s you really weren’t there.
laura
@Immanentize: there’s a big difference between being supervised and being surveilled as Steve in the ATL ought to know. Supervision should include training and direct observation. Workers who feel the constant surveillance can be prone to accident by dint of the panopticon. Many, many years of conversation and representation of Union Members who felt the stress of the increasing presence of data collection and decrease in time spent working under and with their supervisors. I’ve seen the hollowing out of public works departments as the respect for experience and succession planning gives way to efficiency and data driven solutions, and the savings that never really show up
That said, watching the building of the downtown basketball palace from dirt to completion -all filmed by drones was something to see.
Steve in the ATL
@laura: I concur on all counts (I’m not just a management stooge!)
J R in WV
@Kay:
I agree that they should interview everyone else even potentially involved, get them on the record, and then watch Lindsey very closely to see if he agrees with all the other witnesses. If not, squeeze him in a second interview with a meaner attorney. Much meaner.
J R in WV
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Gosh! Ya think??? I do too~!~
ETA: Wife agrees with us — no way those guys didn’t try it, they can’t believe it didn’t work for them, won’t believe everyone else didn’t do it also, too.