Biden is talking about sending people to your house to give you a free vaccine, and some point you're going to have to ascribe agency to individuals.
— Reinstated Doorknob Licker (@agraybee) July 28, 2021
I’m all for doing anything it takes to convince people to get vaccinated, but when someone gets really mad at, say, drunk drivers, is there an army of people who come out to lecture the person about this not being the most effective way to get them to stop driving drunk? pic.twitter.com/cCxspTnVZA
— Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) July 27, 2021
Telling it like it is Madam Speaker!
House Republicans refuse to follow new mask mandate, leading Pelosi to call McCarthy a ‘moron’ for his comments https://t.co/JfvSWFbeKJ
— Elissa Greene : lets go. vaccinate everyone! (@Far_fromNormal1) July 28, 2021
No lie told — McCarthy’s letting his worst members act out like toddlers, because he has no control over them:
… In an email sent late Tuesday to all offices in Congress, the Office of Attending Physician, Brian P. Monahan, reinstituted the mask mandate in all House office buildings, meeting areas and the chamber to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among members and staff.
While he suggested that “well-fitted, medical-grade filtration” masks be worn in the Senate, Monahan stressed the immediate requirement of use on the House side of the Capitol given the “collection of individuals traveling weekly from various risks.” Masks, however, are not required when an individual is alone inside a room or outside.
Many Republicans have declined to say whether they have been vaccinated, although they represent areas with the biggest spikes in infections…
Democrats shot back at Republican complaints, noting that the Capitol physician was following the advice of public health officials.
“We always just follow the guidance of the Capitol physician. There is no discussion about should we do it, should we not for one reason or another,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. “It’s the decision of the Capitol physician, who is following the guidance of the CDC about the masks.”…
Later in the day, Republicans met with Monahan to voice their concerns about his decision. In the meeting, which lasted about one hour, numerous members asked the Capitol physician why he would institute a mandate if D.C. has a lower transmission rate than most cities. Monahan responded that the Capitol complex should be seen as a different entity given how many people who travel to and from different parts of the country interact with one another, according to two Republican aides in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting…
Yes, the idea was to free ride off of herd immunity while complaining about the Biden administration attacking their liberties. And a lot of them were actual rooting for the pandemic to get worse so they could blame Biden for the midterms, but didn’t think it’d hit them directly
— Erik Halvorsen (@erikhalvorsen18) July 28, 2021
“Research has found that the biggest predictor of whether Americans view Covid-19 as a threat is not their scientific literacy or demographics, but whether they trust Fox News and Breitbart over CNN and The New York Times” https://t.co/c1dRwPButV
— Jorge Guajardo (@jorge_guajardo) July 29, 2021
Every single American who dies of COVID-19 right now died because someone lied to them, or someone they knew, about the vaccine – in all likelihood, someone who got the vaccine themselves.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 29, 2021
Yes, a causal chain will always theoretically exist for vaccinated people to spread the virus to unvaccinated ones. But while the R number will never be zero, it should be self-limiting by now. Like polio.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 29, 2021
And the main reason we lost that race was because certain people with big megaphones spread doubt and fear for their own advantage.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 29, 2021
if you are vaccinated and get covid, but have no symptoms or mild symptoms, that is tbh not a breakthrough case. that is the vaccine working as intended. again:
q) what do you call a virus that doesn't make people sick?
a) who cares?— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) July 28, 2021
you should have a choice on vaccines! one choice costs you thousands of dollars a year and restricts your access to the barest minimum and the other choice does not
— kilgore trout, terminal hiccups patient (@KT_So_It_Goes) July 27, 2021
RaflW
McCarthy has no control of his loon members, but I’m also fairly sure he doesn’t want to control them. He definitely acts like a guy who agrees with the anti-mask and anti-vax tactics.
Oh, and McConnell this morning saying he never imagined people would need convincing to get vaccinated? That’s a pretty shocking admission of his failure as a leader.
NotMax
As the saying goes, empty barrels make the most noise.
debbie
I say the House Dems switch to N95s and just let the GQPers kill themselves off. Enough already.
NotMax
FYI (emphasis mine).
Amazon’s older Kindles will start to lose their internet access in December
Dorothy A. Winsor
If an employer says get vaccinated or lose your job, can a person who’s fired collect unemployment?
p.a.
@debbie: Heh. I advocated more… um… active measures and got a 3 day fbook ban.?
A Ghost to Most
The single biggest predictor of traitors is church membership. But saying it upsets God Botherers fee-fees.
cintibud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In general, if one is fired they cannot receive unemployment
mrmoshpotato
Edward had better hope slap-someone-upside-the-head-over-Twitter technology never comes to be.
Betty Cracker
Josh Marshall yesterday at TPM:
He’s right, but is there a way to do that given that effectively pro-COVID governors control so many states? Here in FL, the pro-COVID governor is suing cruise lines that want to follow CDC guidelines and require passengers to show proof of vaccination. It’s nuts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@mrmoshpotato: To quote Nancy Pelosi, what a moron.
raven
@cintibud: ”
Can You Collect Unemployment If You Get Fired?
State law determines whether a fired employee can collect unemployment. Generally speaking, an employee who is fired for serious misconduct is ineligible for benefits, either entirely or for a certain period of time (often called a “disqualification period”). But the definition of misconduct varies from state to state.
OzarkHillbilly
@cintibud: If one is qualified for a job when hired, and then later fired for (in one case I personally know of) for incompetence, they still qualify for unemployment. They were incompetent when hired, incompetent for all those years of work. What changed? The employers expectations. That’s on them.
I suspect that if an employee is fired because an employer suddenly expects them to get vaccinated where as they didn’t when they hired the individual, they will be eligible for unemployment.
Especially when the vaccine is still under EUA.
MomSense
Maine is 72% fully vaccinated (12 and up) and the state has done everything including bringing the vaccine to people at their homes. The unvaccinated – 28% is pretty fucking close to the crazification factor.
The Thin Black Duke
@debbie: Patience, grasshopper. I don’t like it either, but eventually Reality will have the last word. I mourn the innocent lives that will be lost because of their stupidity. However, in the end, their stupidity will kill more of them than us, so who am I to stand in their way?
Professor Bigfoot
@A Ghost to Most: For white people.
Millions of Black folk are church members but would never contemplate trying to overthrow the government.
Kay
Republicans have now redefined “ultimate winner” to include Trump, who lost reelection as President.
Just wacky, delusional people. None of the words they use mean anything. He seems to have actually convinced them he has an unbroken win record, despite that rather large loss last November.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: There’s always a fly in the ointment.
mrmoshpotato
Yes, and extra points for using “boneheads.”
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not masking up for them. I’m protecting myself from them. Nothing more than that.
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost to Most: I’ve been an atheist since I was 13, so my fee-fees aren’t an issue here, but can you point to any data that supports that assertion? I can easily believe that 99% of insurrectionists call themselves Christians, but so do millions of Democrats. That makes me skeptical about religious affiliation being a particularly useful predictor. Belief that the 2020 election was rigged, white supremacist views, owning a stockpile of guns, etc., are probably better predictors, IMO.
MattF
I’ve gotten to the conclusion that McCarthy is just stupid— and everyone knows it. No competent person wants his job, so the only qualification is ambition. The Trumpists (and Trump himself) probably ‘promised’ to support him.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: usually no. IANAL, but I researched this for our office.*
*also depends on the state. most red states have few worker protections and employees can be fired for no real cause. As AL states below. The “at will” phrase was what I was trying to remember.
debbie
@The Thin Black Duke:
Zen is not what I’m feeling this morning.
debbie
@satby:
Doesn’t eligibility still require that it not be “for just cause”?
Anne Laurie
Not in an ‘at will employment’ state, I would think. Which is most states — especially among the ones currently running high rates of infection.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: White evangelicals are particularly resistant to the vaccines. See this Google search. That’s one reason why we had such a big outbreak in SWMO, and why I was heartened to see the biggest Assemblies of God churches around here go all-in on promoting vaccination to their members. It’s definitely a thing, and tracks closely with support for TFG.
satby
@Anne Laurie: And in an at will state, an employer could easily claim it wasn’t vaccine refusal per se, but a more general “insubordination”.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I read an interesting study of political beliefs among self-described Christians in Iowa. The survey found that among this group, the unchurched were more radical than the church goers.
OzarkHillbilly
trnc
As with everything these days, people think they’re awesome at risk analysis because they have an internet connection and a tv. It doesn’t occur to them that they might be overly influenced by insane people yelling at them through it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
The Jacobin(lol) dipshit is muting replies because they’re “making his blood boil”.
This one (which is in agreement with his moronic original premise) made me guffaw:
According to Jacobin types, we’re supposed to have empathy for the herrenvolk over their bad ideas and cruelty.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Back in May, when the CDC said it was okay for vaccinated people to stop wearing masks indoors, we knew there could be breakthrough cases among the vaccinated. Some folks decided to keep wearing a mask to mitigate that risk. Others decided the low level of risk was acceptable.
From what I’ve read, it’s not clear to me yet how much the delta variant has increased that risk. Just anecdotally, it seems a lot higher, but if there’s hard data on that, I haven’t seen it yet.
It will be quite a conundrum if we get to a point (via booster shots or whatever) where masks don’t reduce the risk to vaccinated people, i.e., if mask guidance is entirely about protecting the oppositional defiant-disordered babies who refuse to protect themselves.
trnc
Yes, how a significant number of people came to trust right wing BS over science based govt guidelines is a real mystery, Mitch.
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie: It all depends.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Tend to agree. Chances are high that antivax folks not working in a health care setting will draw unemployment benefits in most states.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
In Ohio, the employer is contacted by the state unemployment agency if there’s a question. The key on the employer side is “notice” to the employee, so written notice of a new mandate, then a series of warnings if there non-compliance, then termination. That applies for ordinary firing too. The employer needs a record to show the employee knew his/her actions would result in termination. Employers have an incentive to both avoid terminations (by doing better hiring) and avoiding unemployment claims because the employer-side contribution to unemployment insurance goes up with a lot of unemployment claims. It’s a risk analysis, like how your car insurance goes up if you have a lot of speeding tickets. Employers were held harmless on covid unemployment claims with the federal covid package, so their rates didn’t go up but I don’t know if the safe harbor would apply in for these claims.
Jeffery
Anyone of age who isn’t vaccinated is responsible for their own health state. If they get COVID and die or have long COVID that’s on them. Hopefully the deaths will be mostly voting age Republicans.
mrmoshpotato
@RaflW:
Insane asylum member has no control over other insane asylum members. :)
Fucknuts’ turtle jaw will hit the floor when he learns about the past 40+ years of Rethuglican bullshit.
OzarkHillbilly
We got the J&J and I have been pondering the possiblity of getting an mRNA vax too. Didn’t because I didn’t want to be a Vax hog and take it from someone who needed it more. Read somewhere that the J&J is not as effective against the Delta variant but a single mRNA shot is good as a booster.
We have appointments for the Moderna next Wednesday. Pretty damned obvious my neighbors aren’t so anxious to get it.
Citizen Alan
No. In an employment at will state, you can fire someone for any reason ior no reason. But, you can only deny them unemployment benefits if they were fired for cause. That said, the initial denial of benefits is made by a non lawyer in response to Questionnaires sent to the employer. If the employee fails to follow the appeals process after an initial denial, he can still be denied unemployment benefits even if even if fired without cause.
sixthdoctor
@OzarkHillbilly: Interested to hear how that works as I received the J&J as well. I did ask my doctor and he said they follow CDC guidelines so he didn’t recommend it at this time. So I’m just waiting and seeing at this point, but it helps that I live in Maryland. If I knew I was going to, say, Florida I’d probably give it more consideration.
cain
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I have the mRNA one so I feel well protected.
Visiting my folks in Indiana, largely no masks here. But also nobody is hassling anyone who is wearing a mask.
trnc
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I read it more as suggesting we recognize that some of the hesitant are dupes. IOW, it’s one thing to cheer when any fox personality gets covid, and another to cheer on the death of some indoctrinated grandma. While I believe that some people choose to be lied to, they’re still victims of an effective propaganda machine. Bottom line – I’d be psyched to hear about any unvaccinated repub MOC getting a bad case, but more frustrated than happy about the schlep fox viewer who gets it.
Citizen Scientist
@MomSense: Really glad to hear about Maine’s rate as we’re scheduled for a weeklong visit in August. PA is still struggling to get to 60%, but I hope we’ll get there in a few weeks, as one dosers continue to get their second shots. I’ve had multiple conversations with my brother about getting vaxxed, but no dice yet. I always hear the same 3 things: “long term affects”, “spike protein” not sure what that means; and “you’ve taken microbiology courses…” yeah, way more than you, which is why I got vaccinated. :/
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
High volume and high turnover employers- fast food, big box, Amazon, have blanket policies they draft to meet the requirements so they avoid an individual analysis. So, notice when hired that one no-show/no call is a voluntary quit, 3 out of uniforms is a voluntary quit, not completing safety training, voluntary quit, that sort of thing. The employee can still contest, and they hold a telephonic hearing with the employee and employer- not both at the same site.
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: Kevin McCarthy exposed his lack of moral courage when he kowtowed to trump after the insurrection. Even the trumpers in McCarthy’s caucus know he’s gutless. Now McCarthy is just head of the fundraising commitee, and their spokesman.
trnc
Is there any data to back that up? Seems like it’s awfully early to make that pronouncement.
stacib
@cintibud: This isn’t correct. If you are fired for cause, there is a possibility that you won’t get unemployment, but there is a ton of gray area once you go into arbitration. Even if you quit your job, and have a good reason, you can still make a case for unemployment, and it’s then up to the arbitrator to decide how much weight to give your reason. For example, if you’re the victim of sexual harassment by your supervisor, you will be able to get benefits, but if you quit because you just don’t like that person, you get nothing.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: that is seriously old. Are those the Kindles where you order a book and monks type the text into your device?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Steve in the ATL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: unemployment is a matter of state law so eligibility requirements vary in each state. Also, states interpret their unemployment laws in different ways. As I recall, Maryland for example gives UE benefits to almost everyone under almost any circumstance, whereas most southern states do not if you were fired for cause.
mali muso
@NotMax: I got the email about this from Amazon as I have one of the super old (OG!) Kindles. I think I’ll just make sure to download any content I still have hanging out in the cloud and then just treat it as a static library.
On the topic of vaccinations, etc. I have been masking in public places throughout, because I have a 4 year old who is not yet old enough to get the shot. I have international travel coming up this weekend for work that required me to get a PCR test, and the experience of being poked up both nostrils made me think that mandating those every week for the un-vaxxed would bring the compliance number up real fast. It is NO fun.
OzarkHillbilly
@Citizen Alan: Yes, that is the way it is here in Misery. The one time as a union carpenter* I had an employer challenge my UE claim I really wanted to file the appeal and was really looking forward to the hearing as I was gonna slap the piss out of their “firing for cause”. Unfortunately I got another job first. :-(
eta* union carpenters get hired and layed off on an hours notice all the time. It’s so contractors can easily man up a job for a week or a month and pare it back down when the crunch is over. In return they don’t challenge our UE claims. In general.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Noble working class whites led into false consciousness by Capitalists and corporatists.
schrodingers_cat
Guess who is giving the Orange Clown company in dissing the bipartisan infrastructure deal?
Puddinhead
@Citizen Scientist: I love how people assume without evidence various risks associated with getting the vaccine, but assume that not getting vaccinated is low risk or risk-free. Everything they fear about the new Voldemort (aka spike protein) should be a fear they have about SARS CoV-2, because it contains spike protein. And what the hell is “you’ve taken microbiology classes” even supposed to mean?
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@trnc: They quoted some numbers but just as I can’t remember exactly where I read it, I don’t recall the particular numbers. I can say it was a reputable source. It may have been speculative but it was informed speculation.
Frankensteinbeck
@RaflW:
McConnell was telling obvious lies to the press damn near every time he opened his mouth long before Trump came on the stage.
@Kay:
Because when they say ‘Trump’ they mean ‘us.’ If anyone else wins, that is by definition cheating. They are absolutely, frothing-at-the-mouth furious that reality won’t acknowledge that.
Kay
The DOJ could really do a lot more. This stuff is absolutely within their purview. I think they could have done a lot more in the Arizona “audit” – go ahead and make a federal case out of it. There’s a federal law, the Help America Vote Act, that addresses voting systems and processes. I just find it hard to believe the low quality Trump contractors were real rigorous about checking all those boxes.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s an appeal to the science of which he has researched so much of on the internets.
Barbara
@Anne Laurie: Unemployment is generally available for anyone who loses a job unless they are fired for “good cause,” or whatever term the state uses — which gets interpreted differently in every state. If you are fired for some kind of incontrovertible offense, like attacking a co-worker at work, then for sure, you aren’t going to get UI. But you can be accused of doing a lot of stuff that is hard to prove, so generally, unless it’s really obvious, most people get UI even if they have been fired. So refusing to follow the employer’s policy might or might not be disqualifying. Let’s say you refuse to work on Sundays or on the day of your sibling’s wedding. You are flouting your employer, but I think most people would say you shouldn’t lose UI. So it’s not cut and dried.
Robert Sneddon
Scotland — 1,398 new cases of COVID-19 reported, 13 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive. Test positivity rate is 4.6%. 60 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19, that’s about the same as the past few days.
About 21,800 vaccinations were carried out in Scotland yesterday, about 10% of those were first-dose. That means 70.6% of 18+ adults in Scotland are fully vaccinated with another 19% having received their first dose. Scotland’s vaccination program is progressing at a similar rate to the UK national average with a little more of the adult population having received their first dose and a little less being fully vaccinated. The Young Immortals are more reluctant to get vaccinated for whatever reason compared to us old crusties (over 90% of people in Scotland aged 40+ are fully vaccinated now).
Just off the BBC website:
JCVI = Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation, basically the top group of scientists, medical professionals, mathematical modellers etc. who advise the government but are not appointed by them so not politically driven like the US CDC.
Van-Tam is also warning of problems this coming winter although he’s not certain there will be an actual fourth wave as some are predicting.
raven
USA, USA!!!!
Just Chuck
@Puddinhead: It has the word “spike” and spikes are sharp and therefore bad to have in you. That’s the extent of their cognition, except the word “therefore” is too fancy for some of them to say.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a couple of weeks ago here, a regular here got surprisingly nasty when I suggested that “progressives” (i.e. those who have been increasingly successful at narrowing that term to describe themselves to the exclusion of heretics like me) might want to look at election results and become a bit more pragmatic in their approach to politics
Matt McIrvin
@Puddinhead: The one that drives me nuts is “I have a strong immune system.” Good, that means the vaccine should work great! That’s how it works!
It’s like giving an army advance intelligence of the enemy. No matter how strong an army is, why would you want it to walk unprepared into an ambush? It’s going to be more effective if it’s aware.
trnc
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I figured you weren’t going for bs sources. :-D I read recently that some vaccinated people may be carrying enough covid to test positive, but that they really shouldn’t be counted as cases because they aren’t really infected. Strikes me as the same sort of thing – sounds awesome, but trying to reserve judgement until there’s more data. Tough to do in our instant gratification world.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I’m getting pretty tired of NBC’s jingoism. Yesterday they were touting some US weightlifter in the 73(?) kg class, calling him the Michael Jordan of weightlifting. Kid got *smoked.* Lifter from China easily lifted at least 10kg more in both snatch and c&j, breaking his own world record. NBC showed *one* lift by the silver medalist (Venezuelan) and didn’t show the bronze medalist (Indonesia, IIRC) at all. Yet we got every attempt by the American, who was obviously never in the running.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: There are some particularly scummy employers who just make blanket challenges to every terminated employee’s unemployment, so they won’t have to pay some of it. The assumption is that most of them won’t push back in court (if you do, they just fold).
Danielx
Does anyone have any information on the efficacy of an additional Pfizer booster shot?
Obligatory: “Pfizer produces Viagra. If they can raise the dead, they can help the living!”
Thank you, try your servers, tip the veal.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Almost no one (here) disagrees that they should, but boy am I surprised to see them actually doing it. Their unwillingness to do it was their proud rallying cry until now!
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Aw, they just babble to fill the time. I didn’t want to spoil nuthin but I’m watching Peacock!
Just Chuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Might be they finally looked at Sanders’ rather thin record of ever getting a bill passed and want someone who actually gets something done instead of just yelling and wagging his finger at it.
Most of the True Believers have already latched onto AOC so when Bernie shuffles off, they can still keep their belief system untainted by success
zhena gogolia
@sixthdoctor:
Yeah, our doctor said not to as well. We’re in CT where it isn’t so bad — yet.
Ken
@Robert Sneddon: For children, the main holdup in the US is that the vaccines aren’t approved for the under-12 cohort yet. I think the trials have been done and the data is being evaluated. Has Britain finished tests and approvals for a vaccine in that group?
BTW I was surprised that separate trials were needed for the under-12 group. Then I read (probably on Derek Lowe’s blog) about some early cases where people said “Oh, this works in adults, should be fine for kids” and found out otherwise. They’re not small adults, and have a bunch of active genes and that are turned off in adults with extra potential for adverse reactions.
raven
We’re having a mini-split put in upstairs and they are starting to take apart the old unit behind the knee-walls and it hot as shit already. I guess if you are an HVAC tech you are used to hot!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Someone young?
Kay
It’s a new environment for voting rights and the federal government is going to have to change how they approach it. I don’t know why they aren’t more aggressive. It’s not the end of the world to try something and get your hand slapped. They have to test the limits of the tools they have. The VRA isn’t the only federal voting law. Start trying things. A wingnut judge rapping your knuckles is not the end of the world. To me it would be an indication they’re trying new approaches. We don’t know the limits of the Help America Vote Act or the ADA as to voting. Let’s find out.
Matt McIrvin
@Danielx: It’s not clear. Pfizer is touting declining antibody titers and pointing out that a booster dose produces a strong antibody response. But, as actual experts in immunology have been saying, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a dramatic increase in effectiveness (or even that effectiveness is dropping in the first place), and the announcement was clearly timed to pump Pfizer’s stock.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin:
My friends in Russia keep getting “antibody tests” to see if they’re protected. I haven’t heard of anyone here doing that. Is that a thing? One of my friends there said his doctor told him to get vaccinated again (with Sputnik, of course) because he didn’t have enough antibodies.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Tell that to LGBT and particularly the trans community, who have medical rights now because a brilliant lawyer knew exactly the argument that would make Gorsuch agree despite his bigotry. You get exactly one shot with the Supreme Court and it affects a whole slew of cases. I try not to judge the DoJ for taking it slow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
are you seeing reports of a drop-off in Delta infections? I see certain corners of twitter talking about it (also in the UK), but not yet sources I trust
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: People do it, but people who know things seem to think it’s a bad idea–the immune system is more than antibody levels; even antibody effectiveness is more than antibody levels. Your level of COVID antibodies can be undetectably low and you could still be fine.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Yes.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: So it’s on a level with some other Russian medical practices, gotcha.
@schrodingers_cat: And beautiful?
mrmoshpotato
@Just Chuck:
LOL!
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I went Andy Slavitt’s twitter– he’s one of the sources I trust even though he’s not a scientist– and he just interviewed the CEO of Pfizer (so… grain of salt) about that booster shot. Dr Ashish Jha– a scientist and a voice I trust– said on MSNBC yesterday (I think I have this right) that looking at the data out of Israel he thinks a booster might be indicated for particularly vulnerable populations, I think he said the elderly with underlying conditions or living in communal settings.
mrmoshpotato
@schrodingers_cat:
@zhena gogolia:
Is Vlad sounding off about American infrastructure?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I wonder if mistermix will do a post condemning her.
Robert Sneddon
@Ken:
The trials are continuing, no results yet. I think the trials are going down to children aged 1 year and over but obviously children of that age don’t work the same biologically as ten-year-olds, never mind teens. It will take a lot of number-crunching before even preliminary results are announced, never mind making recommendations for children to be vaccinated routinely (some 16 and 17 year olds perceived to be at risk of certain medical situations are already being vaccinated). Dosages and vaccination intervals for children and babies are another thing that needs to be determined before going ahead.
I’m surprised you’re surprised… pediatric medicine is a very different thing from regular medical practice, ditto for geriatric medicine. It was only recently that the UK’s advisory committee said it was OK to vaccinate pregnant women whereas a number of other countries had been doing this routinely for some time. Then again the UK was one of the countries that fucked up big-time with thalidomide so wariness in that regard is perhaps understandable.
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato:
Is he young and beautiful?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: he’ll have to play catch-up with Big Pharma spokeswoman and Mercedes-Benz radical Susan Sarandon
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: New cases in the UK are dropping–they seem to have had a high but pretty sharp and narrow peak.
I haven’t seen any place in the US that is there yet. Maybe Arkansas but it’s too early to say if that is just noise.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
He is to Trump.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Love that!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia:
I know at least one as-yet-unindicted Florida retiree who thinks so.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
@Baud: Haha, well done.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk_VszbZa_s
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: the numbers are over at Derek Lowe’s site and the numbers against Delta for J&J are appalling. I’d get both Moderna shots were I you.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: He will white knight for her and condemn me instead for daring to question Our Lady Perpetual Grievance.
dr. bloor
@Just Chuck:
Oh goodness no. They’re already going the Full Jacobin.
Robert Sneddon
@Matt McIrvin:
I have a rather biased, unscientific and cynical view on such matters — Scotland led the rest of the UK into the current third wave of tested infections, hospitalisations and eventual deaths, beginning a short time after the Euro 2020 (sic) football and the England-Scotland game which resulted in tens of thousands of drunken Scotland supporters travelling down to Wembley and then back home again, packed to capacity in coaches and on trains and drinking all the way.
The Euro 2020 final was held at Wembley a couple of weeks later where famously a large mob of drunken England supporters outside the stadium attempted to break through the fences and get into the ground. About a week after that debacle the English COVID-19 figures started to climb.
The US had July 4th a few weeks back. Guess what’s happened in the former colonies since then…
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is a minor pivot by Our Revolution. They want provide cover to the squad and Sanders from attacks from the left. They will still back attempts by Bush, Ocasio-Cortez and others to undermine more moderate Democrats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nina Turner, who spent much of the last five years calling Obama a failed president, is now running ads with pictures of her and Barack and trying to erase the damage she did to his legacy. Shades of Bernie and Warren back in the SC primary. Let’s hope it does her as much good as it does them
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: Again, I believe those are antibody titers–they do not necessarily indicate the vaccine is much less effective against Delta!
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She really should take the win of not having to live through a Hillary Clinton presidency and throw herself into the Sun.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Prediction: Warren gets a serious primary challenger in 2024.
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Susan Sarandon: Ratfvcking queen, or dumber than every character she’s ever played on screen? Discuss.
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: Self-described Christians who don’t do church are more likely paleo-Christians against the whole concept of churches. Some of them are genuinely free spirits, but I suspect most of them, at least in the population they polled, are the types inclined to homeschool their kids to keep them out of the clutches of godless liberalism. That’s the mindset that goes with paranoid conspiracy theories.
I’d want to see the methodology and crosstabs. Before Nate Silver became an insufferable pundit, that was his constant refrain: show me the data or GTFO.
Betty Cracker
What has AOC done to arouse the ire of the Balloon Juice AOC Haters Club this time? I know she complained about the bipartisan infrastructure committee being 100% white people. She also crapped all over Sinema for preemptively registering objections to the price tag. Have I missed something?
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: There is no AOC Haters Club, but Bernie certainly belongs to a Democrat Haters Club, and AOC as his Anointed Successor…
Honestly I find her a lot more pleasant than Bernie, and even a bit more pragmatic. Her thin legislative record speaks for itself though. Accomplishment is not something that matters among the True Left.
Just Chuck
@dr. bloor: Por que no los dos?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: How many non-white people are in the Senate? Would it make her happy if Tim Scott was among the senators making the deal? Her criticism of the bipartisan deal is facile.
Why is disagreeing with idols of the left, hate? Do we have to sing their praises no matter what they do or say to undermine Democrats.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Mostly she is incidental to a discussion of @Jim, Foolish Literalist reporting at comment 67 that some of the purity ponies are publicly declaring Biden is progressive enough. A few people are bitching about AOC in the process, but mainly she’s a detail offered without judgment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: promoting the shape-shifting, rat-fucking, Jill-Stein-endorsing, trump-enabling self-serving opportunist Nina Turner, who besides calling Joe Biden a bowl of shit said Kamala Harris was “Wall St’s candidate”, and with typical self-awareness, criticizing candidates who seek support from outside their district, because apparently Cleveland is part of Queens now, or something (that literally laughable shit starts at 1:20)
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: She criticized the bipartisan deal because all the senators who brokered the deal are white.
https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1420562222317768705
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She also criticized Harris on immigration but nary a peep for the xenophobic old coot and a regular guest of the Lou Dobbs show whose voting record on immigration prior to 2016 rivaled Sessions.
Cheryl from Maryland
My spouse and I, despite being fully vaccinated in a county whose vaccination rate is between 70% and 80% are still masked because, 1) that percentage is just for our county, 2) maskholes can come from everywhere, 3) and most importantly, he is on the list for a kidney transplant and has been told that getting any form of COVID could jeopardize his chances. I’m sure this is the same for any immunocompromised person. We’ll probably keep being masked until he gets his transplant and is past his first year of immunosuppressant drugs.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: You haven’t missed anything. People are mad about Ocasio-Cortez’s complaint regarding the whiteness of the twenty infrastructure negotiators. Some see it as an attempt to undermine the bill. Others see it as an example of the lefties’ hypocrisy over “identity politics”: one day they are for it, the next day they are against it. Some days they are both for it and against it.
People are channeling their passions over broader intra-party differences into animus towards particular antagonists. I know this because I do it all the time. But I have been following the thoughtful Mangy Jay, and want to temper my animus. Not sure I will be successful. I found this forum when I was grudge-researching Justice Democrats, and ran across a post by some guy named Silverman on an oddly named blog.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You know who else endorsed Turner? Jamie Raskin. Look, I’m not a fan of Turner either. I hope she loses the primary. But we’ve got to let this and similar damnations by affiliations go as a litmus test for who’s legit. It’s damaging, IMO.
@schrodingers_cat: Without looking it up, I don’t know how many people in the Senate are non-white (I know it’s very few), but since the bipartisan committee includes the likes of Lindsey Graham, maybe Tim Scott wouldn’t be such a bad choice?
No one is asking anyone to sing AOC’s praises — I don’t agree with everything the woman says and does either. But sometimes I do think the negative fixation on the part of some Democrats on our lefty fringe is at least as harmful as the lefty fringe’s fixation on “centrists” — and just as susceptible to distortion and misinformation.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I have quoted her directly, how is that misinformation. The lefty fringe gave us the Orange Clown. BS bros came up with the rigged election bullshit before the Orange One did when he lost the primaries.
And they are trying their best to lose the House by coming up with genius slogans like Abolish Prisons, because Defund the Police didn’t quite do the job.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
That is disappointing. More so than Katie Porter.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure why Raskin, Porter and Jayapaul endorsed Turner. It may be that they believe in her. Or it could be they just want to add another vote to the House Progressive Caucus. But if I were a constituent of Raskin’s, his office would get an earful from me as a Democrat. I’m not, so I’ll just say that Jaime Raskin should be careful what he wishes for.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed. Also Ted Lieu.
Baud
I made a point of noting having the vapors whenever Manchin or Sinema make a statement, so I’ll do the same for AOC. Sooner or later, there will be a vote on a bill, and it will pass of fail. That’s all that matters.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: You’re ruining my day.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Right thanks, I’m aware of the concept of precedent. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about an enforcement action, so rules based, not a dramatic Supreme Court case.
So, for example, in this instance where the DOJ warned the Arizona nutters not to bother voters at their homes and now the Pennsylvania nutters ARE bothing people at their homes the DOJ enforces.
I want them to enforce each and every voting regulation, rule or law and to explore whether some civil rights laws that don’t directly address voting can be applied to voting. In other words, I want them to be creative and aggressive lawyers. No witch hunts. Just a rigorous review of everything these fuckers try and then follow up. They’re emboldened because they’ve become confident there are no consequences. They’re testing limits. Push back.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Don’t they have God assembled yet?? What’s taking them so long?
Maybe the instructions in the box weren’t very clear.
(I’ve long had this vision of a big box they received that says “GOD” in big letters on the outside, with a pic on it like the @TheTweetOfGod, and underneath in small type, “some assembly required.” Be patient, they’re working on it.)
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: ICYMI – latest from the AP about the rebranding of Our Revolution. See if you can spot the slanted framing!! ;-)
Here.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: I think you are correct here. Democrats have to gear up to do real time pushback against Republican election subversion. It will be rife in 2022, from the voting precinct level on up. This will entail thousands of individual fights.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Here is something uplifting, big kitties on the World Tiger Day.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: What a beautiful kitty!
Ksmiami
@debbie: Tom Nichols has a very good thread with comments about this very issue on the Twitter this am. Basically the civic minded are either enraged by or indifferent to the anti vax idiots. Clear the gene pool already we won’t stand in your way
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
The private liberal groups that sue on voting go thru the voting laws and administrative process and look for a violation or a group that are harmed- homeless is a big one. Then they sue on that.
So just on the surface you would think “that’s a homeless rights advocacy group” not a voting rights group – if you didn’t know there were a whole line of voting process cases based on access for homeless.
That’s what’s possible. They’re not limited to “Manchin’s proposed Voting Rights Act passes wingnut judge review”. That’s not true. This is not a swing for the fences approach. It’s a paper them to death with enforcement/regulatory actions in every jurisdiction approach. Go interview the Pennsylvania voters who were interrogated by Trumpsters. Were they intimidated? Did they believe the Trumpster was a state offocial? Did they think they were compelled to provide the information?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Co-sign.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Maharashtra’s current CM used to be a professional photographer. Tigers are awesome.
Baud
@Baud:
noting = not
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: You didn’t quote her directly in this thread, at least not that I saw. You started with a guessing game that seemed to compare an unknown statement from AOC (the all-white committee, I guess?) with Trump’s efforts to tank the bill. That’s a false equivalence, IMO. If the infrastructure bill ever comes up for a vote, AOC is more likely to be a yes than someone like Manchin or Sinema.
A lot of folks seem to find it entertaining or helpful or righteous or whatever to crap all over Sanders and AOC, etc., more than they criticize Republicans. That’s their right, and they are entitled to their opinions. But I reserve the right to be a wet blanket on that activity occasionally, and to express my opinion, which is that it’s pointless and destructive.
Geminid
@Geminid: It’s never to early to start fighting Republican election subversion wherever it is. This will be a war up until next November. Election Day 2022 will be like D-Day. The days and weeks after may be like the Normandy campaign. Hopefully they will also end up with the fascists in retreat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup. A shockingly stupid thing to do that has changed my opinion of him. I genuinely can’t fathom it. Same goes for Katie Porter and a few others.
You know who else has made a de facto endorsement of Nina Turner? Ohio’s very trump Attorney General, cause unlike political romantics– the most benign case I can make for Raskin’s lapse in judgment– he knows a useful idiot when he sees one.
“damnation by affiliation”? does that mean we should pretend Nina Turner isn’t a toxic, narcissistic political troll, or that we should pretend that AOC’s campaigning for her isn’t just further evidence that she’s the same? after 2000 and 2016, how much more damage does the anti-Democratic left have to do before we’re allowed to stop pretending ?
is it “distortion and misinformation” that Ralph Nader and his supporters helped elect George W Bush? That Bernie and his little merry band helped elect trump? I don’t want the past to be prologue.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I have included a link to her tweet dissing the bipartisan deal. I expect more from her than the Orange person because she is a Democratic Congressional representative. And it didn’t sit well with me that she immediately started undermining what could be an achievement for the Biden administration.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@NotMax: explains the whitepower reign of john kelly, & then his sidepiece kirstjen nielsen, at dept of homeland security.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker:
NPR from Tuesday:
The CDC Breakthrough page has several caveats:
Infection =/= Illness
Infection =/= Case
Delta is different than Alpha because the vaccinated can have high viral loads if they have a breakthrough illness. (I haven’t seen anyone say that one can be fully vaccinated, asymptomatic, and have a high viral load with Delta. I don’t know if they have the data yet. Maybe it’s in the table above. (One of the things that is weird is why would one be hospitalized unless one was having symptoms (unless one was hospitalized for something non-COVID related, and then why would one show up in the table?))).
One has to be careful about the statistics and read the footnotes, especially with this data!
Cheers,
Scott.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Professor Bigfoot: in fact, it’s those churchgoing, generally older blacks, whom both the bernie left & maga right blame for all the evils of the world.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: the jacobin is the federalist for people who enjoy edibles.
just pure whitepower propaganda.
Kay
@Geminid:
There’s good and effective private legal orgs for voting rights litigation and enforcement actions and then there a bunch of grifter shit. You have to vet them which you can do because the cases they file are a public record. General rule? Ignore everything the Green Party files. Never, ever donate to that.
JohnC
@trnc:
Does anecdata count? I am close friends with a co-habiting couple – one got the J&J, the other the Moderna. The J&J-getter travelled to Florida to see his 80yo mother after 18 months. Days after he returned, he got sick with Covid (tested positive, various mild symptoms including loss of sense of smell.) His Modern-having partner did not even test positive, though they share a bed and he was the nurse for his ill partner. My friend was sick for about 4 days at home and has since experienced a full recovery from all symptoms, so the J&J vaccine did its job. He hasn’t had any variant-specific testing, so we don’t KNOW that it was Delta-from-Florida, but the chances seem high.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s also a blinkered approach, IMO. Things change. Democrats will have a tougher time with public approval on immigration than they will on the now famous “defund the police” slogan. It’s been pointing straight down since the election. It was nuetral or a net positive for Democrats during Trump. It seems to have gone down since then.
They’re getting traction with this. It’s essentially flipped +/- since January. It’s his single worst polling.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: Ha!
lowtechcyclist
@Just Chuck:
She’s served one and a quarter terms as a Representative. What sort of legislative record is typical for a Representative at this point in their House career? Because I would have guessed: thin to nonexistent.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: You’re on a roll!
Kathleen
@Geminid: Of course they will. They pride themselves to be the Tea Party of The Left
lowtechcyclist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Let me put it this way: I know a lot more about AOC, Jamie Raskin, and Katie Porter than I do about Nina Turner. I have a very positive regard about all three of the former. So if they endorse Turner, my thought is that maybe there’s more to her than the jackals here see, rather than thinking that trio must be worse than I’d thought.
I’ll be straightforward: I know almost nothing about Turner, other than she was high up in Bernie’s campaign (I think; I’m kinda fuzzy about even that much) and she endorsed Jill Stein in 2016. It’s enough so that I wouldn’t be supporting her in a race I know fuck-all about to begin with, but those others are in a position to see things I don’t. No way I’m judging them on account of something like this.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: Other people may approach it the exact opposite way. They may know a lot about Turner, but not that much about the others. Their informed opinion about Turner could very well color their opinions about her endorsers. A lot of diverse knowledge bases here. Current and firmer Ohioans may know Turner better than they know, for example, AOC.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lowtechcyclist:
which is precisely why those endorsements are so stupid, self-indulgent and irresponsible. The give low-info voters a false impression.
@lowtechcyclist: personally, I find counter-productive, narcissistic politics and self-righteous self-importance as off-putting in a dyspeptic and shouty old man as I do in the purity-left version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: I would posit that she has the temerity to continue breathing. But that’s just me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gravenstone: or because of what she’s doing, and has done, to the Democratic Party and its agenda, but…. sure.
Fair Economist
@trnc: Not aware of any specific studies on J&J, but Pfizer+Astrazenica produces 6 times the neutralizing antibodies of just Astrazenica, and I’d expect J&J to be similar, since they’re both using weakened viral vectors.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay: Of course they are getting traction on this. Right wing media has blamed EVERYTHING on migrants… coronavirus surges, bedbugs, lice, crime, etc. They are obsessed with it. Plus, this is a divisive issue for Democrats as well. Biden will get bashed for not letting more migrants in by some and for letting too many in during a pandemic. He can not win.
VFX Lurker
I suspect this is why folks admire Representative Underwood so much. Since she took office in 2019, she sponsored three bills that were enacted.
As you note, this is not a typical legislative record for a newcomer.
steve g
Isn’t it amazing that we have experts on how to do mask mandates for coronavirus pandemics? We are so lucky people decided to specialize on this topic decades in advance, so they would be experts on the subject if it was ever needed. Of course it is only some experts saying something may happen, but still.
MCA1
Maybe an unpopular take, but I think the biggest mistake the Biden Admin. has made was not embracing vaccine passports right off the bat. The did great work to create the vaccination infrastructure/rollout and get the thing in any willing arm with impressive speed, so I don’t think it would have been difficult for them to also create a national vaccination registry. I don’t know exactly how it would have worked, but I imagine showing up to a Red Sox game, being asked for my driver’s license right after my ticket, someone scanning the bar code and waiting three seconds before their tablet flashes a big green checkmark and then they wave me past the turnstiles.
I assume the preemptive screeching about big gummint and HIPAA violations and whatnot was the reason for not doing this. Either that or a misplaced confidence in the responsibility level and honesty of the populace. But actual conservatives (as opposed to today’s Republican elected officials, who are alternately libertarian absolutists or just plain radicals) should have been in favor of a solution that would have allowed private businesses, especially those in the medical field, to easily exclude the dangerous people who refuse to take personal responsibility and do their civic duty. And it would have relieved the responsible adults of the burdens we’re now bearing so as to allow the unvaxxed to continue being selfish fucks, by making the incentivization immediate: get the shot and you, too, can resume normal life; until then, you can stay outside and be shunned – everyone’s going to know why you can’t join them at the pub that’s now open indoors for the vaccinated. Instead, we’ve been intermingling with these people who are all too happy to lie about whether they’ve gotten the shot so they can take off their masks in public.
Another Scott
@MCA1: The politics make a federal document impossible.
WH.gov from March 15:
I haven’t heard anything about private initiatives to create such documents, but the Biden White House isn’t going to spend any political capital on it. I think it’s the right choice. The EFF is against digital vaccine passports.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.