Trump mused about sending infected Americans to Guantanamo, seeking to keep COVID numbers down, @yabutaleb7 @damianpaletta report in their gripping new book, “Nightmare Scenario.” https://t.co/1BW2OY575o pic.twitter.com/bkSQJta7pH
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) June 21, 2021
Thank the gods of bureaucracy, without the civil service, things could have been even worse:
… The book — which draws on interviews with more than 180 people, including multiple White House senior staff members and government health leaders — offers new insights into last year’s chaotic and often-bungled response, portraying the power struggles over the leadership of the White House coronavirus task force, the unrelenting feuds that hampered cooperation and the enormous efforts made to prevent Trump from acting on his worst instincts. The Post obtained a copy of the book ahead of its June 29 publication.
The book offers new insights about Trump as the president careened between embracing miracle coronavirus cures in his quest for good news, grappling with his own illness — which was far more serious than officials acknowledged — and fretting about the outbreak’s implications for his reelection bid…
Trump’s rages frequently distracted senior officials and slowed the national response, the authors found, with the president touting his hunches and eventually turning to handpicked advisers including the radiologist Scott Atlas, who had no infectious-disease or public health experience. But the book also depicts the president as ineffectual and out of touch while his health and national security officials tried to manage the worsening outbreak…
… Rather than fire Fauci, White House officials increasingly tuned out the advice from him and other top health officials, the book says, with Trump instead leaning on Kushner, an array of economic advisers and other trusted allies who lacked infectious-disease expertise.
Trump’s top deputies adopted a similar strategy of issuing threats or isolating their rivals, undermining efforts to manage the outbreak, Abutaleb and Paletta write.
Kadlec, who had overseen the purchase of 600 million masks, took the plan in late March to Kushner — who exploded in anger, throwing his pen against the wall in frustration when he learned the masks would not arrive until June.
“You f—ing moron,” Kushner reportedly said. “We’ll all be dead by June.”…
I would very much like to see Young Prince Jared grilled, on camera, by lawyers representing some of the people who lost loved ones while Kushner played ‘Master of Industry’ with his HBS friends. Unlike his reprehensible father-in-law, Jared is just smart enough to realize how much of a criminal trail he left during the first desperate months of the pandemic.
PenAndKey
So let me get this straight: TFG and his supporters have been arguing for over a year that anyone so much as wearing a mask around them is “infringing on their rights”, yet he was privately contemplating forcibly isolating the infected in a concentration camp outside of US borders? I knew the guy was a narcissistic sociopath, but just ONCE I’d love to be able to think, “at least Jeoffrey Lannister would have been worse”. And then he does this, and I’m reminded that he, in fact, really is that depraved and stupid.
JoyceH
Beyond the idea of quarantining the infected on an island, did he honestly imagine they could send medical patients to GUANTANAMO and not immediately conjure up images of shackled prisoners with bags over their heads?
Alison Rose
@PenAndKey: “The Lannisters send their regards” in this case would not be a threat but rather a statement of impressed approval. “Over half a million dead? Well done, indeed!”
Alison Rose
@JoyceH: He did not. That would require him to have an actual imagination. Which requires a functioning brain. Plus, you think he’d give a shit? His groupies are the type to think anyone with a vaguely Middle Eastern name/appearance should just be shipped off there with no questions asked and no end date.
Shakti
I yelled at my screen “Are you fucking kidding me?” I guess this was a daily occurrence for years and that’s why I take blood pressure meds?
All of these right wing bastards screaming about “lockdowns” and masks and social distancing and vaccines and “vaccine passports” and not being able to travel willy nilly infringing on their freedom killing them and making them mentally ill but meanwhile this asshole is:
“But WHaT IF we iNTErN pEOPLe IN gUANTAnamO indefinitely? oUttA sIGHT OUT OF mInd!”
One reason I still keep wearing masks indoors in public places and won’t fuck with cruises is I don’t want to get sick and if I’m on a cruise and someone gets sick there’s no guarantee they’ll let me off the damn boat. It might not be covid-19, it could be norovirus.
Kent
I can’t even imagine the disaster that another four years would have wreaked on this country. We would be a smoking wreck of a nation if Trump has gotten re-elected because that would have been “Trump Unleashed” without the motivation of re-election to keep him even slightly sane.
[Shudder]
Suzanne
….did he also not realize that Guantanamo is, like, nowhere near big enough?!
Good Lord.
Peale
So that mess at the airports in April 2020 would have involved rerouting all the international flights to Cuba? Yeah, that would work.
jonas
I mean, it’s nice to see this on the record now, but it’s also completely unsurprising. We all knew that Trump was a fascist moron who immediately treated Covid as a political, rather than a public health, problem. *Of course* he wanted to ship Covid victims off to a prison camp. That’s what tinpot dictators do.
Poe Larity
What if we just gave everyone a wall?
Kay
Thinking back, I believe we got a clear warning on how conservatives would handle a pandemic or infectious disease outbreak. Remember how they immediately politicized Ebola and starting pulling campaign stunts to get on the news?
It’s a bigger problem than Trump.
dfh
How much of this evil bullshit was known BEFORE the election? I know, these books don’t write themselves but good lord, after Bob Woodward finally revealed what TFG knew and when he knew it, I think the nation would have been better served if this info had come out sooner.
I could be alarmist, but I have good reasons.
Ohio Mom
I am surprised to hear about a panicked Jared screaming “We’ll all be dead” if the masks don’t arrive until June.
Up until now, I imagined him too busy plotting ways to make a buck off Covid to worry about anyone’s welfare.
Did we ever hear the final version of the governors’ mad scramble for ventilators, and them bidding against one another? I also have a vague memory of a governor (Massachusetts?) meeting a plane at the airport to make sure his supplies weren’t stolen out from under him.
Anyway, I thought that was what was occupying Jared, the black market in ventilators and all sorts of PPE — but if my memories are wrong, someone please correct me.
Brachiator
These people were all incompetent monsters.
Gravenstone
I can almost appreciate that young, callow Jared seemed to be terrified by the prospect of the virus. That whole “dead by June” outburst does not reflect the thoughts of a calm, controlled Master of the Universe. Rather, the hindbrain ranting of a cornered animal who sees DEATH lurking in every shadow.
Steve in the ATL
@Alison Rose:
Is this a lawyer joke?
boatboy_srq
@PenAndKey: Joffrey Lannister every day plus Daenerys Targaryen on her last day. THAT level of insane, malicious and petty.
(spoiler alert)
And no Olenna Tyrell there to halt the madness.
Gravenstone
@Suzanne: Likely thinks that Guantanamo comprises the whole of the island. Which would be most unwelcome news to the actual Cubans.
Old School
Can we still send Trump to Guantanamo? Let’s not dismiss this idea too hastily.
Gravenstone
@Brachiator: Don’t forget schemers and opportunists…
Ohio Mom
Kent:
Now that Trump wasn’t re-elected, I am haunted by the image of future middle schoolers learning about Trump in history class, the teacher closing the unit with, “…and then he lost his bid for a second term to Joe Biden. See children, our amazing Constitution created a system that works!”
boatboy_srq
@Suzanne: Either he thought Guantanamo was all of Cuba, or he thought it was Puerto Rico – and he’d made such a mess of PR already who would notice a million quarantinees?
sukabi
@dfh: you’re not an alarmist…saving stories for a book has become a priority for a bunch of these “journalists”….cashing in seems to be their primary goal.
Almost Retired
@Ohio Mom: That was how I recall it / interpret it: That Jared was scheming to profit from the coming mask and ventilator shortage.
Maybe by “we’ll all be dead by June,” he meant “we” (the Kushner Krime Klan) will be “dead” (financially) by June.
I find him loathsome. I’ll bet he wishes he were able to grow a mustache, so he could twirl it.
laura
Waiting on the day that a Kushner or Trump cannot walk outside without being pelted by rotten garbage or flaming bags of dog shit. 600,000 to 900,000 dead, unknown number of permanently impaired from Covid and from jumpstreet, not one single iota of concern for the public safety or welfare- nothing but self-centered concern for his own stupid self and staying in office for the grift and the legal safe harbor.
Sitting here still shimmering with rage since tfg murdered John Prine.
Ksmiami
@laura: I sometimes don’t think that our political representation esp in the senate really understands the level of rage and anger us sane people have towards the right. Seriously- I think it’s madness to share a country with these people
boatboy_srq
@Ohio Mom: you get the impression that the COVID rate in the WH was worse – both in numbers and degree – than has been reported. This is also taking place after the Summer of BLM. So it’s likely that Jared the Lessor was simultaneously imagining lingering death from the disease and envisioning hordes of angry citizens standing up guillotines on the National Mall.
VOR
@dfh: People would not have believed it. Fox News would not have covered it.
We already had him refusing to let cruise ship passengers enter the country. Already had him musing about nuking hurricanes. He had already been impeached for coercing a foreign country to make up dirt on a political rival. This would not have been the straw which broke the camel’s back.
The Thin Black Duke
What surprises me is that people are surprised.
Gravenstone
@Ksmiami: Well, Ol’ RonJohn got reminded of how poorly he’s thought of over the weekend when he made the questionable decision to show up to Milwaukee’s Juneteenth parade. So there is a minor glimmer of understanding there. Or there would be, if the recipient weren’t an ambulatory brick with ears.
Unfortunately, that likely means he’s leaning towards running again if he’s out there taking the political temperature.
Steve in the ATL
@Almost Retired:
You forgot to add “Zing!”
Alison Rose
@Steve in the ATL: It’s a Lannister joke, as noted.
West of the Rockies
Trump was no doubt terrified of losing power and facing consequences for a life spent shitting on people.
I’d love a resource that spells out how close certain people are to facing the music: Trump, Stone, Gaetz, Guiliani, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: Lannisters, lawyers. Whatever.
jonas
Have any of them actually left their homes/country clubs for anything but the occasional appearance before groups of adoring MAGA cultists?
MisterForkbeard
So basically – everything we thought was true is true. Good to know.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Most would have died on the trip there so in sum, they might not have needed much space.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Suspect my shortcoming is while I presumed it was 24/7 clusterfuck, I am not able to imagine how breathtakingly inept and evil they were acting at the time.
Actually take comfort in that, because it takes a sociopath to understand a sociopath.
As to how bad Trump’s case was, when they rushed him to Walter Reed they showed their hand. That the bastard survived is just more proof we can’t have nice things.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Lawn chairs, lanyards…
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: They might have just gassed the patients as they got to Gitmo, so they would never have run out of room. I really wouldn’t have put it past him.
Brachiator
@Gravenstone:
That was there from the beginning. I was used to that.
But I have noted that I previously had feared that Trump’s arrogance and blindness might pull us into a war, especially as the protection he got from GOP officials increasingly inflated his ego and made him think that he could do anything.
But his mishandling of the pandemic crossed a line for me. Trump revealed an astounding ignorance and lack of imagination. Unable to deal with the crisis in any meaningful way, he fell back on grift, the only thing he really knows well.
And he let people die, because of his foolishness and ignorance and obstinacy. He let people die.
Monster.
Ksmiami
@Gravenstone: Rt wingers always try to use our compassion against us. Well that ship has sailed.
MattF
I may actually buy the book. We all suspected (i.e., knew) that the Trump White House was a circle of Hell, but hearing about it from the howling denizens who were there may be informative. Not sure, maybe, maybe not.
Bostondreams
@Ohio Mom: speaking as a Florida educator, social studies teachers are going to be too afraid to discuss anything relating to the Trump era, if current trends continue…
Sure Lurkalot
Probably all who agreed to talk under condition of anonymity. I’m going to guess I’m not the only one sick to shit of this shit. It’s beyond not being accountable, it’s accessory to murder. You were in a position to do something, the very least, quit, and yet, you stood by while the cruelty and incompetence not only continued but increased.
piratedan
@Brachiator: he had already shown his stripes with how he handled the Hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, with that as a baseline, I had zero hopes that he would handle a pandemic any differently. He’s at the root (along with every GOP legislator that enabled this to continue) of so much needless tragedy and death all at his petty narcissistic feet.
dmsilev
I hate hate hate books like this. Reporters who knew things and sat on them for a year rather than, you know, reporting them at the time. Knowing this might have been useful for the rare species of “undecided voter”, for instance.
germy
@Sure Lurkalot:
I agree with you.
The book might have value to future historians, though. This stuff needs to be on the record, however late the author is.
Mike in NC
I just started on “Siege: Trump Under Fire”, by Michael Wolff. His second of three books on the depraved lunatic that FOX News and Vladimir Putin installed in the White House. The final volume comes out next month.
Another Scott
@jonas: +1
These “revelations” would be surprising to someone who just woke up from a 6 year coma. Not to anyone who lived through it.
He wanted to keep infected people on cruise ships out to keep confirmed case numbers in the US down. He wanted there to be no testing to keep confirmed case numbers down. Later he held rallies to try to convince his people that there was no issue with the virus infecting and killing people, and it almost killed him. And still his public pronouncements didn’t change.
It’s a day ending in “y”.
Woodward’s long-after-the-fact revelations were more shocking, only because they showed that he actually had some understanding of the problem. But even then his reaction to it was totally predicable – he is who he is.
Cheers,
Scott.
eachother
Interesting. The vaxless may have segregated themselves without intending. With the Delta variant breathing down their necks, fenceless hospital cages may soon await them.
waspuppet
The entire Trump White House was populated by those guys who think “Brilliant, talented, creative people can sometimes be jerks; therefore, I will be a total jerk, and that will mean I am brilliant, talented and creative.”
PS:
Of course.
MisterForkbeard
@waspuppet:
Bolded for effect. THIS was what mattered. Not actually doing good or helping, but getting newspaper headlines about it. And you can see this with the rest of their response, where they downplayed everything but simultaneously hyped their own response to it. “Not really a pandemic but look how amazing we are at combatting it!”
Frankensteinbeck
I am unsurprised by any of this. My takes: First, this insane Guantanamo thing. My observation from the Trump years was that he was a nonstop wellspring of deranged ideas. His question about injecting bleach was a peek into the actual workings of the White House. Most of these horrifying quotes of ideas he floated sound like awful things others had to put a stop to, but they’re just examples of thousands of rock stupid asshole thoughts that Trump flings around constantly, then forgets seconds later. Now, they are good descriptions of how much dumb and mean he is, but they’re not the dodged bullets they sound like. Take two: Kushner’s quote isn’t evidence he was afraid, it’s Bad Boss screaming something hyperbolic at a subordinate who can’t break reality to deliver the impossible things Bad Boss wants.
@trollhattan:
Should I be getting myself tested?
MomSense
@Kay:
Some friends of mine took her into their home because she was getting death threats. It was fucking insane. She decided to leave the state after that experience.
Brachiator
@piratedan:
Fair point. But even more than with hurricane relief, with the pandemic Trump panicked, did stupid stuff and actively hindered federal, state and local efforts to respond to Covid-19.
I had hoped for a hot second that Trump would have had enough sense to at least get out of the way and let capable people do their jobs.
Anyway, we all know what happened. But hell, even appointing Pence to be part of the pandemic response team was a dumb idea.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: With the exception of the pandemic, TFG had a relatively crisis free Presidency.
Baud
In the spirit of bipartisanship, Biden should send the unvaccinated to Gitmo.
Quiltingfool
I need some clarity here. Government contracts were given to a variety of businesses to provide PPE, masks, ventilators, etc. during the worst of the pandemic, correct? The government officials involved, mainly Kushner, awarded said contracts (I assume). It isn’t a stretch to think there were kickbacks, or worse, money received but the agreed upon amount of product didn’t happen. So, is there any way the government under the new administration can figure out if there was any malfeasance or theft, and if so, then prosecute the bastards, seize properties, holdings and bank accounts and then slam the prison door shut?
We know, in our bones, that Kushner et. al. was making bank off the pandemic. I want to strip those people of every goddamned asset they have. I want them to walk out of prison broke as shit and be shunned by their crowd. I don’t want them dead, that’s too easy. I want serious consequences dropped on their grifting heads.
Shakti
@dmsilev:
I’m just recalling this dude who belongs to one of my local business networking groups and runs an internet marketing firm who posed as an “undecided” voter several times in order to garner attention for his podcast and e-books. He’s a rock-ribbed Republican.
I really don’t know how many truly “undecided” voters there are. They probably don’t vote and if they do, I suspect they are like “independent” voters who 90% of the time vote one way or the other.
Kent
@Baud: Or perhaps Texas
“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell”
― General Philip Sheridan
Kent
Herd immunity only really works if there is one herd.
What the anti-vax MAGAts have actually done is create their own separate herds, in their own states and communities where everyone is unvaccinated. It doesn’t matter how many people are vaccinated in Seattle or New England. If rural Missouri goes unvaccinated they are vulnerable and a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. Apparently Branson MO is poised to be the next hot spot.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
mrmoshpotato
Wait a minute! This is the same pasty-faced motherfucker who said the national stockpile of PPE was “our stockpile” while states fended for themselves and scrambled to keep their residents safe, right?
AM I REMEMBERING THAT CORRECTLY?!
And then struck in his pasty fucking face a few times with a claw hammer.
The shit that’s being revealed now feels like these fuckers deserve to be charged with 600+ million counts of negligent homicide.
This is just appalling. And that’s on top of the previous 3 years of death and destruction.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ksmiami: Congratulations – you’ve capitulated to the hatemongers by becoming** one yourself. They’ve succeeded past their wildest dreams with assholes like you.
** Or maybe “continuing to be” – sounds like you were a pretty fucking hateful SOB before you showed up here.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
As I noted earlier, I watched as Trump became more arrogant and reckless as he escaped being held accountable for any of his bad actions. With the connivance of Republicans he avoided being impeached, avoided deeper investigation in to his Russian connections, etc. And in his rallies he began to pop off more about what wild stuff he might do and get away with.
My original fear was that he would drag us into some military misadventure. And Trump seemed to be fixated on having the biggest military with the biggest weapons. But I believed that if he stumbled into some significant military adventure, he would crumple if there were American casualties. As it is, I think that this is one reason that Trump actually disappointed neocon fools like Bolton and did not launch an attack on Iran or something equally foolish. It would be hard to lie about deaths and casualties, and Trump’s greatest fear is looking bad.
So, my big worry was that because of his arrogance and stupidity, Trump would ultimately create a big mess that would hurt the country.
I never imagined anything like the pandemic or Trump’s startling ineptitude.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: It is true that everyone who goes to Branson is an anti-science, right-wing bigot.
Mike in NC
Recall that after calling the pandemic a ‘Democrat hoax’ made to make him look bad for two months, Trump later mused about doing absolutely nothing. Letting it “wash over the country”, they were saying. Someone estimated that 3 to 5 million people might die. Trump seemed to not give a shit.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, at least the 80% who are unvaxed are.
I would allow that there *might* be some normal folk there for the work or whatever, who are probably double-vaxed to protect against contact with the MAGAts.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve long suspected that the Venn diagram of Branson visitors and anti-science, right-wing bigots is a perfect circle. Also people with low brow taste in music and…pretty much everything.
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
At the beginning of his presidency Trump ordered a special forces raid, apparently thinking if Obama could do it and get praised, Trump could, too. It was a disaster. He didn’t even get all that much flack for it, but it showed him he could lose. He was too chicken to do anything that wasn’t a show put on in collaboration with Putin for years, and his press on those sucked as well. He got his nerve back enough to assassinate Sulemeini, and it also blew up in his face. Trump is a coward of mythic proportions. As much as he wanted to bomb the shit out of brown people and talked about it, he didn’t have the guts – thank goodness.
StringOnAStick
@Gravenstone: I think RonJon went to that Juneteenth celebration to get some “see? I’m hated by these scary melanin enhanced people so re-elect me! We hate all the same people!” video for campaign ads. He wasn’t there to show what a attentive public servant he is.
trollhattan
I award this the chef’s kiss.
Mike in NC
@Omnes Omnibus: After visiting Branson they’ll want to check out the Creationism Museum in Kentucky, I imagine.
catclub
@JoyceH:
I find it amusing that no one thought of Puerto Rico
as an island we own.
catclub
@Kent:
I wonder if I can drop into Walmart and get a new vaxccination every week.
I enjoy that spelling.
StringOnAStick
The book I want to read about the pandemic is Andy Slavit’s book, and it’s out now. Plus he didn’t save up the juicy stuff that was important to sell a book; he did his job, left the Biden administration when his work was done and then released the book.
Almost Retired
@Steve in the ATL: I was actually thinking about taking a side trip to Branson next month while in St. Louis for a wedding. For shits and giggles, of course. With enough moonshine, I might enjoy…oh say…Yakov Smirnoff’s cutting-edge jokes about the Soviet Union, or a few tunes from one of the lesser Osmonds. But, alas, the coronavirus appears to have rescued me from my own bad idea.
boatboy_srq
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Whut?
First there was the whole Ukraine election thing.
Then there was the “let’s just let Russia take Crimea from Ukraine” thing.
Then there was the NATO thing.
Then there was Hurricane Maria, complete with lobbed paper towels in lieu of actual aid.
We’re still in 2017 BTW.
There were plenty of crises, and plenty of horrific events. They sailed past the US collective consciousness thanks to their sheer quantity and pace, sloppy bothsiderist journalism, and more white-hot stories about The Wall and BLM and AA people getting killed by cops. They came so thick and so fast there wasn’t time to absorb them all, even if the sorry-ass US press had been doing their job and not portraying treasonous MAGAts as “colorful”.
catclub
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
ummm, most presidents are impeached fewer than two times in 4 years. Trump created crises at the border, with NKorea.
catclub
I will repeat my rec for Michael Lewis’s new book The Premonition.
Surprising and fascinating.. Someone else said it reminded them of the New Yorker
Annals of Medicine feature.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think that there is something more at play here. Trump leaned towards being anti-war, but not for any intelligent reason.
He of course avoided military service. But he sees war as a matter of winners and losers, but with a whole lot of losers. He fears and hates the idea of getting wounded. But this is an inevitable result of war. So too is some forces getting captured. But again, Trump sees people who get captured as losers. And ultimately, the war dead, those who sacrifice their lives for a bigger cause, are losers as well.
Trump loves having generals at his beck and call. He loves having lots of big, shiny missiles and aircraft and military gear. He loves the idea of unleashing massive strikes against an enemy.
But he also knows that war is not a game that you can win by making a backroom deal with another rich asshole.
Unlike most Republicans or the neocon assholes, I don’t believe that Trump naturally gets off on the idea of bombing people. This is why Bolton was so deeply disappointed that Trump did not go wild in the Middle East or elsewhere.
There is a local talk radio host, with some military background, who absolutely promised his right wing audience that before he left office, Trump would give Bibi the OK to attack Iran, and would support this with US forces.
Never happened. Was probably never a chance of it happening. Any allied casualties would have made Trump look bad.
Kent
I have cousins who have time shares in BOTH Branson MO and Gatlinburg TN.
How does that fit into your theory of the singularity of stupidity
Every year I get Facebook updates about how nice their suite looks, and then plenty of shots of line dancing and whisky.
Kay
@MomSense:
Certain relatively minor things they do bother me more than others and that was one of them.
So obviously political theater and yet everyone had to pretend that Christie is this Serious Person and what he really is is just fucking mean spirited and nasty.
Christie himself was too stupid to take ordinary, easy precautions and as a result caught covid. What happened to his grave concern about infectious disease?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@boatboy_srq:
@catclub: I’m thinking major crisis that get the news media’s attention, like a severe economic downtown, a war(though the media likes those until the bodies pile up), a 9-11, or some thing like that.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
There’s still a huge amount we don’t know, even about our own planet.
(via darth)
Cheers,
Scott.
boatboy_srq
@?BillinGlendaleCA: An entire territory flattened by a single named storm, and not rebuilt for three years afterward, seems pretty major to me. Also, attempting to back out of every single treaty because reasons seems pretty extreme, as does hanging allies out to dry, and manufacturing crises out of ADHD-cum-Alzheimers. And we haven’t even covered the two impeachments, which others have pointed out being less-than-usual occurrences.
Then again the tRump pResidency was all about quantity over quality. And (again) the derelict press corpse didn’t pursue any catastrophe without blanding away the sharp edges.
trollhattan
O/T Stress-testing an aircraft carrier. Wow, would that have been embarrassing if it had rolled over and gone down. Do you suppose they warned the fish ahead of time?
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Plans for harvesting it to grind up and feed to farmed fish appear in 3…2…1….
artem1s
gotta say it, but no way TFG was contemplating sending every Covid victim to Gitmo. I do believe he was probably having wet dreams about sending his perceived enemies to Gitmo. The Obamas, Hillary and Cuomo were definitely on the short list. The China virus creators, Mexicans, BLM, all of Manhattan probably.
Rich white jet setters fleeing Europe – he had no problem letting them back into the county without quarantining. So yea, I buy it that he said it. But I think it was probably 1000x worse than it actually sounds.
Kathleen
Quiltingfool
@Almost Retired: I’m a Missourian and have been to Branson many times in my life. When I was younger, I liked it. I really liked the downtown area when it was “normal,” a part of Branson tourists didn’t visit. Hollister, a small town right next to Branson, was pretty neat, too. Now, forget about it. The whole damned town is tourist attraction and the sheer amount of schlock is sickening. The sad thing is the landscape is beautiful, but all the cheesy strip malls are a huge blight.
I know Missouri is a hot mess because of conservative politics, but damn it! My state has so much beauty, so many different landscapes. I love my state, I just hate how screwed up people have made it.
MomSense
@Kay:
LePage actually took it to court. He just did it for the political theater before the election.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@boatboy_srq:
One would think so, but probably since it’s not a state and half the press(I’m being generous) doesn’t actually know it’s part of the US…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Well, it’s namesake had a tendency to trip and fall down.
Quiltingfool
@Kay: This is seriously OT, but I read one of your comments below telling us you spent time on the Auglaize (for your birthday, Happy Birthday, btw!). Now, I believe you live in Ohio, yes? Well, we have a small river here in Missouri called the Auglaize! Actually, they shorten the name to Glaize, and it ends in the Lake of the Ozarks. Very pretty little Ozark river, with several springs along it.
Maybe some Ohioans moved to Missouri long ago and named the stream after the one from their original home….
boatboy_srq
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Which is my entire point. There were scandals and catastrophes a-plenty, but the US’ bothsiderist butteremails journalistic outfits either couldn’t be bothered to report on them with the urgency they deserved or decided that some Dem’s parking citation was somehow worse.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@boatboy_srq: But it wasn’t the type of thing that usually gets the media’s attention.
Ksmiami
@Uncle Cosmo: Nope, not hateful at all, but my patience and tolerance is reserved for good people- not MAGATs.
Ksmiami
@Brachiator: Depraved indifference is an actual crime. The USA has the worst toll on the planet. The worst and it’s all due to Republicans /Trump.
Almost Retired
@Quiltingfool: Thanks for the info!! Kansas City and St. Louis are two of my favorite places, and are wildly underrated as destinations. I’ve just never ventured into the rural areas, except for the Katy Trail around Boonville.
boatboy_srq
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Since when are US citizens either dead, or homeless or living without basic utilities for months on end, not a situation that captures the press’ attention? Time was that would be front-page news and a global embarrassment for Washington.
Steve in the ATL
@catclub:
I was skeptical, but the math checks out!
Steve in the ATL
@boatboy_srq: since Reagan closed the mental hospitals, W let New Orleans drown, Abbott let Texas freeze then bake…I could go on
Baud
TFG is
greenorange with envy.boatboy_srq
@Steve in the ATL: The Abbott thing was afterward, but the trend is noted.
Quiltingfool
@Almost Retired: If you wander through the Lake of the Ozarks area (no, don’t go on the Lake, it’s crazy), take a little time to visit HaHa Tonka State Park. Very pretty, and a fine example of many karst features (caves, sinkholes, springs) in a very small area. Plus, the remains of a “castle” built on the top of a bluff overlooking a beautiful spring, and part of the lake. I used to work there as a seasonal naturalist, and the state has done a good job taking care of it.
Well, it would be out of your way, traveling from St. Louis to KC, but that park, and Ozark Caverns (a very pretty little cave – also a state park) are a couple of places that show the beauty of the Ozarks. I’ve also worked at Ozark Caverns as a cave tour guide, I recommend it.
Almost Retired
@Quiltingfool: This is great info! After the wedding, we’re driving from St. Louis to Wichita, Kansas (long story), and wanted a backroads alternative to the 70/35. That plan birthed, and then killed, the Branson idea, but the State Park route looks fabulous.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Autocrats gonna autocrat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: What do you know about math?
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: 2+2=5. Got a degree in advanced math stuff from trump u. Go Grifters!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Makes sense.
evodevo
@trollhattan:
Exactly….
leeleeFL
SiubhanDuinne: Tumbrils, gibbets……gallows, blocks. Endless possbilities!
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Autos gotta crat.
Olis gotta garch.
Albus gotta … querque.
Soprano2
It already is, like the rest of SWMO. They’re not all bad in Branson, but the majority of them are unvaxxed.
Soprano2
No, this is not true. Don’t become like them.
Soprano2
@Almost Retired: You could visit Silver Dollar City and watch the craftspeople, or go to the Titanic Museum. You could spend time at Table Rock Lake fishing or water skiing, or you could drive to Dogwood Canyon. I took my mom there for her birthday the first week of June. It’s quite beautiful. There are other things to do, too.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: I agree, it is beautiful here. A float down the Current River on a warm, sunny day is a fantastic experience.
Soprano2
@Almost Retired: If you enjoy canoeing, we have a lot of rivers that are great for it. You can float the Current even in the middle of the summer because it’s spring-fed.