Readership capture:
https://t.co/a4ExlPm4xx pic.twitter.com/G3chjCwopv
— counterfactual (@counterfax) February 17, 2021
The Democrats’ $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package is advancing in Congress over Republican complaints about the price tag. Here's a look at highlights of the bill. https://t.co/z9GKni2PYX
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 17, 2021
Jen Psaki says Joe Biden supports the creation of a 9/11-style commission looking into the Capitol insurrection.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 16, 2021
President Biden has reinstituted a White House standard mothballed by President Trump: preparing vigorously before calling foreign leaders. Biden’s changes to phone diplomacy have been about style and substance. https://t.co/kXH2yWUOga
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 16, 2021
NEW: Biden White House slights Saudi Arabia's MBS. "The president’s counterpart is @KingSalman," @PressSec says–a shift from Trump and @JaredKushner, who stayed close to the crown prince and avoided blaming him for opinion writer Jamal Khashoggi's murder.https://t.co/X2orSJQD3Z
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 16, 2021
That sound you heard was Jared Kushner's head exploding. https://t.co/pXiLNLBd28
— katrina mulligan (@NatSecMulligan) February 16, 2021
So grateful to have a president with empathy once again! Watch @POTUS Biden answer this second-graders’ question about coronavirus vaccines.??????#BidenTownhall
— Dena Grayson, MD, PhD (@DrDenaGrayson) February 17, 2021
Baud
debbie
Loving that slight to MBS! May all despots be treated similarly!
Baud
I’m sorry I missed the town hall last night. I should learn not to take those things for granted after the last four years.
debbie
@Baud:
Hopefully, it was MAGAt-free.
Zzyzx
@Baud: the great thing is that you don’t actually have to watch if you don’t feel like it. The terror that the president will announce the invasion of Seattle or insult our allies or declare racists to be wonderful is gone!
Baud
@debbie: Doesn’t matter. Joe could have handled them.
@Zzyzx: I never watched Trump. Too disgusting.
lowtechcyclist
This week should be something we’d practically forgotten about – a quiet news week.
The impeachment trial is over, Congress is in recess, and we have a President who doesn’t feel like he has to be the center of attention every minute.
It feels weird, and I’m sure not used to it, but I think I like it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I missed it too (was on a regularly-scheduled monthly Zoom get-together with all my former counterparts from Canadian Government days). Feel certain, though, that CNN will make it available, and I hope to watch the whole thing later today.
OzarkHillbilly
No comment on the charges being dropped except to wonder if a black person would be treated with a similar leniency (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. No I don’t) but I do want to say that lawyers like Barnes make me think maybe Shakespeare was right.
Baud
Claire McCaskill on MJ predicted that minimum wage would not be part of Covid bill, but would happen in some form later. I guess she thinks there are 10 Republicans who will deal on the issue.
RandomMonster
And thus he spoke for the whole nation.
OzarkHillbilly
I saw this tweet yesterday:
How’s about he was trying to keep his family life separate from from his all consuming presidential life?
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Be nice!
Baud
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Did she refer to the $15 number or just minimum wage? I can see 10 GQP voting for a watered down version with a lesser number, maybe $10/hr.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I can’t believe Obama didn’t have a single sleepover.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Just minimum wage. I guess the current conventional wisdom is that they can get something passed if it’s less than $15. Or maybe a longer transition period.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
That last bit from her attorney? Fuck him.
SFAW
@Baud:
Seconded, thirded, fourthed … to infinity and beyond!
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: That was me being nice. No worries, I have too many lawyer friends and I might yet need one of them to help me out of a jam at some point.
RandomMonster
@Baud: I’m imagining an Infrastructure Week that lasts only a week.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yeah, I may well be overly optimistic about the possibilities.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Off topic: one of the frozen Texas reports talked abut Rice, which led me to wonder if the Immp is warm and safe. How is he?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I suppose we could get lucky and the parliamentarian will conclude that the increase satisfies reconciliation rules. I don’t know what Machin will do then.
Baud
@RandomMonster:
And actually gets us infrastructure.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Yep, winning isn’t enough, he has to rub it in.
rikyrah
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I expect you already know that Shakespearean utterance was more Trump-like (as in, January 6th-like) than whatever Barnes deserves.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@debbie: Not totally but they were housebroken. Just gave their talking points. Like the business owner saying that $15/hr minimum wage would bankrupt him.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Yes. He’s warm and safe. My in-laws are not. I heard that report too. It was about the vaccine that was going to spoil because of power outages in Houston — it was distributed to places with lots of people who didn’t need to drive to get anywhere. Tall order for Houston. Rice got 1000 doses and the Immp got his first jab Sunday. Moderna.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@OzarkHillbilly: Is it an “odd picture”? I’d like some info on previous presidents before drawing conclusions from a single data point.
debbie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Or at the very least, it would prevent him/her from buying a second vacation property. //
Immanentize
@Baud: I think Manchin’s thinking on the minimum wage itself would be: “I was opposed to a sudden increase in the minimum which would have hurt our struggling economy after the virus. But with this timeline, I’m satisfied it’s the right thing to do.”
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Oh yeah.
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly:
Obama had minor children living with him. Biden does not.
rikyrah
OzarkHillbilly
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yep, I didn’t even bother bringing up the stupid Tester point. Pretty sure there is more than a few congress critters who for one reason or another have yet to be in the Oval Office.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m getting my second Moderna shot in an hour or so. Then we’re picking up groceries before coming home to wait out side effects.
One of my lunatic neighbors says she’s not getting the second shot. In her opinion, the side effects are a sign that we’re not meant to take that much vaccine. She plans to just take hydroxychloroquine.
Two conclusions:
Trump did a lasting damage
People are crazy
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Glad he’s OK, sorry to hear about your in-laws, I hope they make it through OK.
I have a cousin in Austin. As of yesterday AM, she still had power and heat, but said there was another ice storm due. I should probably call her today. My brother and I are pretty close (familial-love-wise, not geographically of course) to her and her sister.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: there is some advice — my doctor talked about this with me — of taking a benedryl before the second shot if that is something you are ok with. It reduces slightly he histamine effects of shot number 2.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: Except it was a character who says it, one of the low born rabble in a history play as I recall. I have to say I squirm at the idea of attributing character speech to the author. Some characters are meant to be bad!
Immanentize
@SFAW: my father in law is just too frail for this horror. Unknown but it has been suggested that the power didn’t “freeze” in Texas, rather they stopped buying on the spot market for excess needed electricity because prices shot way up. Now they are actually trying to get rate increases from the very people left without power for days. ENRON’s ghost.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
As Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote: “Think of it as evolution in action.”
As long as YOU (and Mr. DAW) have been vaccinated, I’m OK with them hoping to kill themselves through stupidity.
raven
So, if you have gotten both vaccines does that mean
NotMax
The stupid runs strong in this pair.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Power outage map from Austin this morning:
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Understood, but (assuming I’m recalling correctly) the utterance was aimed at killing all those in charge of making sure the laws were intact/enforced — without them, the rabble/MAGAts could take over. I don’t think they were talking about shysters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I just looked and we don’t have any benedryl. Thanks for advice though.
I was interested to hear the Immp had such a strong reaction. Maybe that’s because young people have a better immune system.
OzarkHillbilly
My legs have been sore as hell the past couple days. I finally had the light bulb moment: “Duh! It’s the snow.”
My trash hasn’t been picked up in 2 weeks because company is afraid to turn their garbage trucks loose on our roads, UPS notifies me they aren’t making deliveries and I am waiting on 2 time critical items. And it’s snowing again.
Predicted high for next Tuesday: 53.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: That’s my recollection too. It’s been a long time since I read that.
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I just felt shitty the day after pfizer #2 but it was no big deal.
Chyron HR
@OzarkHillbilly:
Donald Trump being a syphilitic nazi rapist paints an odd picture of his social graces, but sure, Obummer lubba dub dub.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Or maybe a year of tight quarantine kept the young uns from building other immunities like to flu, etc. Or maybe he is too thin? I need to fatten that boy up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages
Much stupidity at the link, like
Anya
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know if my tl is full of wankers or if there is some sort of POV that is being developed about how Obama was this cold hearted, arrogant and aloof man who gave everyone the cold shoulder. These stories always crop and used as an unfavourable comparison to Biden. It’s not helpful at all. Why can’t the two men are different but both of them decent? Why must they make one an asshole. Having said that, not inviting Jon Tester to the White House was a huge oversight. Not sure why that happened.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Dear god, just went and checked out twitter and got an ad for anti-allergy medication. Big brother is not watching me, oh no
ETA: Off to our 8:15 vaccine appointment.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I can’t tell you how mad that is making me. Renewables in texas may provide 10% of the State power. Even the energy company admits that the failure has been in the NG, coal and nuclear production which is mostly unregulated. But consumers should pay those liars more. Abbott needs to get off Fox and get his head in the fucking game and solve some problems.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Thanks. It looks like there are 2000-plus customers without power in the large area shown on the Austin Energy map, I hope she’s not one of them.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: g’luck!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: yeah, no mail here either. The post office is open though, if I could get out of my driveway through the alley. I was hoping a bigger truck would go down it first, but I guess my neighbors aren’t any more anxious to dig their Ford x50s out if they get stuck than I am.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
The Moan Star state.
What about all the other frozen states which have wind and solar generation — and power?
Next up: “This never happened when we had real light bulbs.”
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:. @Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yikes. I read that you should NOT take benadryl before the second shot because it can mask the early signs of a bad reaction, and if you are going to have the bad reaction, you want to have it in the 15 minutes while someone is on hand to take action if needed.
WaterGirl
@raven: No.
What Can I Safely Do After Vaccination for Covid-19?
Anya
@OzarkHillbilly: Most annoying part, they’ll convince a large segment of the population that this is a reality not Texas deregulation and free markets being the cause of substandard electric grid.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: yup
Here in VA the brilliant minds in the legislature, as well as the Gov, are under the impression that it’s “just a vocal minority” that wants to keep schools operating virtually until teachers (or possibly everyone) are vaccinated. Uh-uh. It’s like 80% of teachers and 60%+ of the public.
(article is about the brilliant minds’ brilliant idea to bring people into the teaching profession…by paying them nothing)
NotMax
@WaterGirl
FWIW, Mom’s doc recommended an antihistimane before both shots for her.
Strongly suspect it is not a one size fits all thing, is more dependent on the scope, type(s) and history of allergies.
SFAW
@Anya:
Yeah, so cold-hearted that when he found out Joe had some very-large expense (medical, maybe?) that would have stressed Joe and Jill (financially), that he told Joe to come to him (with the implication that Barack and Michelle would help, financially).
Yeah, I know it’s not you claiming he was cold-hearted.
Jeffro
I saw that Tucker Carlson actually ran a segment on how the Bidens’ marriage is some sort of PR-driven thing, they’re not really all that in love, etc etc. Wow. I mean…after watching the past few years of the orange moron and Ms. 10-year-resume’-gap’s obviously loveless arrangement…this is what he chooses to go with?
I’m picturing him, Cruz, and DeSantis all trying to out-asshole each other for the GQP nomination. After several months of that, we Dems might just pick up Kentucky, Alabama, and Idaho in ’24 ;)
sab
My clock alarm just went off, and my catloaf in my bed is seriously pissed. He was sleeping!!!!
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Maybe, but do you know how long it will take him to extract his head from either Trump’s or his own ass?
Gin & Tonic
@raven: My dear wife, who is a pharmacist and has gotten both doses, was reviewing the CDC guidelines last night and said if you’re two weeks after your second dose, you don’t have to quarantine if you’ve been exposed, but you should continue to mask up as before.
OzarkHillbilly
First off, I’m pretty sure he’s been to the White House on any number of occasions. He had never been in the Oval Office before, and if he had never had a specific reason to meet with a President in the OO, why would he have?
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: Where did you read that? Do you have a link? I will send it to my PCP.
satby
@WaterGirl: Especially people prone to severe allergy reactions should take an antihistamine before potential exposure, it can buy time for medical help to be effective and lessen the severity, but it won’t stop a true anaphylactic reaction.
OzarkHillbilly
No way, that’s what DEMs do. Dawg forbid he might get called a RINO.
satby
@Immanentize: someone said it here on the blog, maybe Martin?
satby
@NotMax: Yes, it depends on allergy reaction hx.
Edit: nothing available OTC would be strong enough to stop an anaphylactic reaction, and if you had a history of that, there’s a whole different protocol for that vaccination, I’m sure.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I read that some doctors were recommending that early on, and they discovered that wasn’t a great idea. ?♀️
Another Scott
@Baud: I heard an NPR news summary last night that said something like: “Biden is traveling to Wisconsin to explain his $1.9T plan to the country and to try to convince Republicans in Congress to pass it…”
The Framing!!!11
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m pretty sure the whole point of taking a benadryl, is to make a bad reaction not so bad. I always have benadryl in my first aid kits because in a pinch it can work as an emergency substitute for Adrenalin. An epi-pen is far preferable but not everybody has them.
CarolDuhart2
This has been feeling like a week when you’ve opened up an office that has been closed for weeks, and now its blowing off the dust and opening the windows for fresh air.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I don’t know if this is the article I read previously, but it does at least seem to contain the same information.
Article
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW:
snoey
@OzarkHillbilly: Some of this is Tester messaging to Montana that he has an in with Biden.
OzarkHillbilly
@snoey: Probably, everything is politics.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks, that’s what I was thinking of.
satby
@WaterGirl: so the entire article basically reiterates what I said previously, including a different protocol for those with previous anaphylactic reactions. The specific thing you mentioned referred to not taking more of an antihistamine (doubling up, which no one should do anyway). A single dose of Benadryl is not going to mask a severe raction, just as it states in that article.
WaterGirl
@satby: I read it differently.
If you are regularly on antihistamines, then take them as usual. If you are not on them regularly, then this seems to apply:
I don’t want to quibble or quarrel about this – everyone is free to read the article and judge for themselves.
A Ghost to Most
Reason # eleventytwo to avoid Texass like Floriduh. Everything is corrupt and corrupted. This was not only predictable, but predicted. So was blaming wind turbines. The assholes truly are bigger in Texass, bless their hearts.
H.E.Wolf
The total combined electoral votes are 21: KY 9, AL 8, and ID 4. See the handy front-page map at https://electoral-vote.com/.
Let’s work toward winning FL (29 electoral votes) in the 2024 presidential election… and let’s work on voting-rights issues and GOTV in the meantime, with the Democrats of GA as proof that we can do this.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I don’t know…. Maybe people should check with a doctor about their particular situation before getting the shot.
LurkerNoLonger
@Jeffro: It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: it’s all projection with these people. Turnip and Melanoma had a loveless, sham marriage that was obvious to anyone with two eyes and common sense.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, the article says that if you have any questions, you should contact your doctor.
satby
@WaterGirl: S’cool, my training ( nursing, EMT) in the area and my years of working in healthcare certainly can’t hold a fucking candle to a WebMD article written by…(checking) “a Los Angeles-based journalist specializing in health, fitness, and behavior topics.”
Robert Sneddon
@NotMax: Britain has brought in new quarantine rules for travellers from ‘red’ countries including criminalising things like lying on forms saying where they have come from. Breaching the rules garners fines of up to £10,000, the worst cases can get up to ten years in prison.
stinger
Who among us has?
Seriously, who DID get invited to the private residence? Did the little girls have sleepovers with classmates? Did Mrs. Robinson have friends over? Did Michelle host small luncheons? My impression was that the private quarters are for the family to escape the fishbowl of publicity, prying eyes, cameras, autograph hounds, Secret Service, etc. and just be themselves. That may or may not include having over your second-in-command. How many people get invited to their boss’s home anyway?
ETA: I recall that Obama invited Republican congresscritters to watch the Superbowl, basketball games, etc. — which they all refused — but I don’t know if that was in the private residence or elsewhere in the White House.
VOR
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have a colleague at work who consumes a lot of right-wing media. He said I was uninformed when I told him CNN was my go-to news channel. Apparently I miss a lot of the important information on OANN, Breitbart News, and Newsmax.
Anyway, he thinks all this fuss over COVID is all some sort of Dem conspiracy plot. All we need to do is take hydroxychloroquine, which has 1000s of studies proving it is a guaranteed cure for COVID. He often refers to COVID as the “plandemic” so he’s bought into that crap too.
Anya
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s an honor to have someone and Tester deserved it. He’s from a red state and he never makes an ass of himself and he always supported Obama and his agenda.
dnfree
@raven: when I had the two-dose shingles vaccine a few years ago, my reaction to the first shot was much like my reaction to the first Pfizer shot. But the second shingrex shot had me down for three days with a severe flu-like, fevers, chills, muscle aches reaction. So I’m not looking forward to my second shot this time.
Platonicspoof
@WaterGirl:
Your quote from the WEBMD article is much like the CDC advice on not taking antihistamines before vaccination:
(Under ‘Patient Counseling’). ETA, Last updated Feb. 10, 2021.
As others have said, ask a doctor(s) familiar with your conditions, and use the internet only for creating questions about the trade-offs between, e.g., tolerating minor reactions versus suffering severe anaphylaxis