Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Petty moves from a petty man.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Bark louder, little dog.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Masks OFF!

GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Masks OFF!

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That’s okay, I was never gonna get on a plane again anyways…


TFG’s ‘legacy’ lingers as if a tomcat had sprayed all the heating vents.
GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Masks OFF!

GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Masks OFF! 1

Extremely mom voice: If all your little friends jumped off a bridge, would you do *that*, too?

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  3. 3.

    JML

    UGH. I’m heading to England in a few weeks. Would like the mask mandate to come back on for my international flight.

  5. 5.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    The politics of this suck. Doesn’t mean our politicians can ignore the politics or employ wishful thinking about them. If we don’t win first, not much point in the rest.

  6. 6.

    Betty

    As one doctor on Twitter noted, this applies to buses and trains as well. It affects many more people and in often more crowded conditions than the people on planes.

  7. 7.

    bbleh

    *Sigh*  Government by and for the stupidest kids in junior high school.

    I suppose we are blessed that the opinion wasn’t rife with references to freedom of religion and the presumptive unconstitutionality of requiring True Believers to cover their faces, which are like unto the Lord’s since we are made in His image.  Or something.

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    Idiot wingnut Trumpy judge. We flew three times last year and never saw one person ever complain about wearing a mask in an airport, on a bus, or on a plane.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    And this judge is one of many of her ilk seated by Trump at the behest of the Federalist Society.  The distortions and warps in Federal law over the next 30-odd years are going to be epic.

  11. 11.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    “Don’t blackmail me over judicial nominations. My vote is mine and must be earned! And if it takes a couple of hundred Federalist Society judges who think they’re the President, then maybe the whole thing falls apart faster.”

    Anybody still think the Founding Dickheads were very smart?

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike in NC:

    I take the train to work every day.  While I haven’t heard anyone complain about wearing masks, plenty of people just ignore the requirement that they wear one.  Sadly, this includes plenty of LA Deputy Sheriffs, who are the people who in theory should be enforcing the requirement.  LASD have far surpassed LAPD as the worst big law enforcement agency around here, which is saying something.

  15. 15.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @CaseyL:

    Every time we get a policy win based on electoral strength, the win will be struck nationwide by some drawling pukebag.

    Karma’s a stone cold bitch. With luck, she’ll visit a lethal version of COVID on the Mizelle family.

  18. 18.

    RSA

    Well, that’s fucked up.  I have a business trip on a domestic flight coming up.  I don’t know what my airline will do, but if they dispense with masking I’ll cancel and find out if there’s any blowback from my organization.

  19. 19.

    RaflW

    I had mapped out a driving trip Minneapolis-Portland & return because the airfare in late June was absurd ($1,100 in “economy” x2 of us!). But wrangled dates and used airline miles.

    Now considering cancelling and going back to driving. Yes in total risk, driving is probably worse. But long Covid freaks me out bigly. And even ppl with mild or no symptoms can develop heart problems, etc.

    Absolutely the shittiest decisions. And by a hack Trumper judge. Gah!

  23. 23.

    RaflW

    @JML: My brother was just in the U.K. He says the overwhelming prevalent attitude is “BA2 is a bad cold. Whatever. Fuck it. No masking!”

  25. 25.

    RaflW

    @RSA: Every major US airline has already dropped masks. Some pilots reportedly announced the end of masking mid-flight (cockpits get ACARs texts from their airlines en route).

    In a way, not shocking as so many pax are connected in flight and would start bugging flight attendants while in the air as soon as they read Twitter or logged in to news sites.

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    That Trump-appointed federal judge really blows.  Horrible woman.  Not qualified, for sure.

  29. 29.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    I got bad news for all of us – based on the reaction of people on the plane I just boarded in Chicago, Mizelle could be elected President tomorrow no matter how many people this kills.

    Of course, the flight is overwhelmingly white.

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    Rachel Maddow is en fuego tonight. She’s about to have Jane Mayer on to discuss the group behind the smear campaign against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

  31. 31.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Also bad news based on my week in the Seine among older travelers – the sorts of white sociopaths who donate GOP, own boats and live them some Trump also love Governor Death Sentence and his doctored Florida numbers.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW:

    Ben Dietderich@ben_dietd · 2h
    “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. This is the most important announcement I’ve ever made. The federal mask mandate is over. Take off your mask if you choose!”

    A wonderful moment mid flight on @alaskaair today!

    “the most important announcement I’ve ever made” what a hump

    @karlitaliliana
    I cannot imagine what it would have been like for me to have made plans to fly, believing as an immunocompromised person I was safe – then discovering that I wasn’t – mid-air. With no ability to change my plans. What a nightmare.

  34. 34.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    I’m hearing babbling drawling white voices happily burbling on.

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    James Fallows @JamesFallows 27m

    Aviator-world perspective: Any professional pilot who claimed “this is the most important announcement I’ve ever made” needs a session with supervisors. This is like getting a political message from your surgeon.

  37. 37.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Gross – we’re having to deice out of ORD.

    It was 70 in Paris.

  38. 38.

    lollipopguild

    The fact that this judge does not like paper money(with us since the civil war) means that she does not like anything since the 1860’s.

  40. 40.

    dmsilev

    @Roger Moore:

    LASD have far surpassed LAPD as the worst big law enforcement agency around here, which is saying something.

    Given the shenanigans of the Sheriff, shouldn’t be too surprising that his underlings are following suit.

  41. 41.

    RSA

    @RaflW:

    Every major US airline has already dropped masks.

    Wow, I didn’t realize.  I’m scheduled on Southwest, which has their policy online for customer-facing jobs–masked up.  I have a little bit of time to see if there’s a change for passengers.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society?”

    Sometimes blacklists are justifiable.

  43. 43.

    CarolPW

    Going down this November from Washington State to Los Angeles and back mostly on the Coast Starlight. I haven’t seen my sister since Thanksgiving 2019 (we are both in our 70’s). She will board the train in Sacramento. Paid a fuck-ton to get a sleeper for us so the behavior of the other passengers will not impact us much whatever is happening. Too bad airplanes don’t have sleeper cars.

  44. 44.

    FlyingToaster

    This sucks since WarriorTeen’s 8th grade class has a DC trip in May.  For which I suspect they’ll all keep their masks on, as my kid notes, “too many people around here are careless assholes.”

    Worse, WarriorTeen normally takes the bus to/from school several days a week.  Bleah…

  46. 46.

    Scout211

    @RSA:

    From 2 hours ago, Southwest Airlines news release

    On Monday, a federal judge issued a decision stating the federal mask mandate for public transportation, including on airlines and at airports, is no longer in effect. Thereafter, the White House announced the masking order is not in effect, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will not enforce the federal mask mandate at this time.

    As a result of this development, effectively immediately, Southwest Employees and Customers will be able to choose whether they would like to wear a mask, and we encourage individuals to make the best decision to support their personal wellbeing.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @debbie: ​
     And moving to annihilate the Federalist Society, which hates The Enlightenment and all its fruits, to include the Constitution of the United States. These people want to restore feudalism.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t know how widely accepted this is, but…. FWIW

    One Way Masking Works

    If you are vaccinated, boosted, and wearing a well-fitted N95 or similar indoors, “your risk is extremely low,” says Joseph Allen, a COVID and ventilation expert at Harvard. “I mean, there’s not much else in life that would have as low a risk as that. I would qualify your risk as de minimis.” An N95 mask filters about 95 percent of airborne particles. But two surgical masks—one on me, one on you—filter only about 91 percent, Allen wrote recently for The Washington Post. Because most people’s masks aren’t perfectly sealed onto their faces, studies show that N95s reduce the wearer’s uptake of coronavirus particles by 57 to 86 percent. And that’s on top of the protection that vaccines and boosters already offer.

  52. 52.

    eversor

    Long COVID is not a joke.   I’m ex military, relatively young (turned 42 recently) and in amazing shape.  I do the USMC Marathon here in DC, swim at FT Meyer Henderson Hall weekly, I lift weights, and I box, bike, do MMA.  My fiance is a bit older than me but she’s in pretty good shape as well.

    Given my background (military, then USAID/State Department contractor) I went into the office when this all hit to do the IT work.  She got sick (ignoring the saftey issues because Church and wanted to travel) and then I got sick.   My BP is now 180/120 it’s catastrophically bad.  I’ve had a few quasi heart attacks, seizures, and more since then.  It created so much missed work due to medical complications I was let go from a very nice job, don’t worry I’ve got a few more in the pipeline cleared IT people do well in DC so it’s not the end of the world.

    So I’m sitting here burning through my savings because the DC unemployment site doesn’t actually work (errors out each time at the end LOL! and they know it and said it’s a known issue but I can’t come in because in quarantine!  Also they don’t have open slots!) on three different blood pressure drugs and benzos from this.  I’m also on an asthma inhaler now for god knows what.

    The fiancee damn near took herself out through her “I want a vacation with my sisters stunt” and her medical issues are vastly worse.  She’s 47 and it crushed her.   She didn’t learn her damn lesson and still goes out all the time and I’ve sort of given up trying to control that or stop it.   She did get vaccinated like me but once that was done she was just done with precautions and wanted to vaction, travel, see family and they all got fucking infected like idiots, then I got it a second time!

    Long COVID is not a joke.   I’ve blown through tens of thousands during all this, my heart is wrecked, my lungs are wrecked, who knows when or if I fully recover!  I used to run up the esclators at the METRO now I take the damn elevator.  I feel weak, I can’t swallow properly and now choke on food constantly.  I’m probably disabled but you can’t put that on a job application so oh well!  You can but you won’t get the job.  I used to cook a lot but I can’t taste things fully anymore, so I sort of fake it through meals.

    The only good thing about all of this is I adopted a feral few week old kitten who’s now mostly grown up and while she’s a vicious little shit, she’s smarter than any cat I’ve ever had or seen so she’s great.   She’s also fully attached to me and bonded.  So there is that.

    TLDR long covid sucks and has career ending and life threatening issues with it.

  53. 53.

    sdhays

    I hope the Biden Administration fights this regardless of the fucking politics. I fucking hate our pundits for whom not masking is the most important thing evar!

    This nonsense ruling cannot be allowed to stand. Force the GQP Court to ratify it or knock it down!

  54. 54.

    prostratedragon

    @CarolPW:  Yup. Doing the same on the Lake Cities in several weeks. Got the sleeper originally so I could get my feet up comfortably and plug in my cpap, but am increasingly glad of the isolation from other passengers if I wish. I think you can also get room service meals.  My word, is it expensive though.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    Two weeks ago I was in Mexico City. Indoor masking there is universally required, and as far as I could see, 100% observed. In fact, probably over 50 % of the population was wearing masks outdoors.

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @eversor: ​
     Dang. No kidding it sucks. Of course, our moronic media can’t grok any of this, because they can’t see a week into the future.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: I was on Amtrak about three weeks ago. I have a picture of the conductor wearing his mask under his chin while standing directly below the MASKS REQUIRED sign.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    I also have multiple photos of nurses, in multiple hospitals, removing their masks behind a glass barrier that doesn’t go to the ceiling or the adjacent wall.

  63. 63.

    Redshift

    @debbie:

    We really need to start respecting the ABA again. 

    Good luck with that, there’s no “we” involved here. Republicans declared that the ABA had a liberal bias and they weren’t going to listen to them any more. It’s the same as everything else, “bias” means “anyone who disagrees with us.” But the fact is that Democrats do l respect the ABA, it’s the GOP who are the problem, not us in general.

  65. 65.

    Suzanne

    @zhena gogolia: There is zero evidence that any of those stupid barriers work, BTW. When we design spaces that are truly designed to have separate air flows, obviously the barrier is continuous and there is separate air supply on each side. Companies were too cheap to do this, but they wanted to look like they were Doing Something! so those fucking ludicrous barriers went up everywhere. I’m sure they were somewhat effective at catching particles, like from a sneeze…. but absolutely none of the actual airborne respiratory droplets, because the damn air is designed to flow.

  67. 67.

    Ohio Mom

    @eversor: How terrible! I am so sorry.

    Medical science is just beginning to research long Covid, maybe knowing that can be a source of hope for you.

    I did one quick google on your behalf and found this long Covid clinic at GW: https://gwdocs.com/specialties/primary-care/covid-19-recovery-clinic

    It is a multi-disciplinary approach, with a variety of specialists including cardiology and pulmonary. That means you will have several doctors working as a team.

    If nothing else, maybe by being their patient, you will help them learn what they need to know to help others.

    Keep us posted!

  68. 68.

    eversor

    @Villago Delenda Est:

     

    Thanks to everyone else as well for the kind thoughts but I’m choosing this comment to respond to because I can load it up a bit more!  Living in DC I know a lot of our media assholes given my family social status.

    The media does not give a fuck, nor does the upper middle class.  They are all beyond furious that prices have gone up and their nanny and maids ask for more money now.   They want the help back in place, they want wages down now, they want inflation down now, and they do not give a fuck.   And I live in blue ass Northern Virginia now.   Socially liberal, but economically they are all more sociopathic than the Koch brothers and they are open about it.  But since they are pro choice and pro gay marriage, they are “good”.

  69. 69.

    patrick II

    @Scout211: 

    and we encourage individuals to make the best decision to support their personal wellbeing.

    (perceived) personal wellbeing without regard to others is the common thread. They probably cover their mouths when they cough to prevent spreading a cold to others because that is what they have been taught, but can’t make the connection to not spreading coronavirus because they have been taught that would be an intrusion on their personal sovereignty.

  71. 71.

    Starfish

    @JML: How do the rules apply on international trips? Do the rules of the country you are entering agony just before landing?

  72. 72.

    Ruckus ??

    @lollipopguild:

    @schrodingers_cat:

    They make asinine arguments about everything like it’s 1776 and the world has stopped turning. Their entire concept of life and government is bullshit because they don’t think anything has taken place in the last 246 yrs so there should be no changes from whatever they think it was like then. White people were in charge, god was white with a flat top haircut, and women could be sold for half the price of men. The fact that she believes that nothing should/could/has changed should be obviously wrong because if they were right she couldn’t be a lawyer or judge. It’s all bullshit bigotry from top to bottom.

  74. 74.

    Betsy

    Republican fuckwits!   My favorite person in the world, who has late-stage cancer and is almost 80, just got Covid with her whole family.  In a smart blue city in a smart blue state.  She’s really suffering.

    Masks back on.  Should never have come off. Fuckwits!!

  75. 75.

    CROAKER

    I know it’s great to state “ I was never going to get on a plane anyway” but there is a shit tone of transit that happens daily.  It’s a big deal.

    I guess that doesn’t matter to you personally.

  76. 76.

    Eljai

    I am visiting my mom this weekend. She’s vaxxed & boosted but she’s elderly with health issues so I take precautions and test myself. I’m glad the mask mandate wasn’t lifted before I arrived. I’m not as concerned with my return trip, but I will be double masked. I’m just beyond livid at the whole “fuck the immunocrompromised and those trying to protect them” attitude.

  77. 77.

    smintheus

    United: We could mandate masks on flights but we won’t: you’re on your own, not our problem any more once you deplane!

    Oh, and our vaunted cabin air filtration system actually sucks so badly that you still won’t be allowed to smoke on flights because who wants cabin air filled with THAT?! But it works on deadly aerosols, trust us.

  78. 78.

    Citizen Alan

    @Denali: Next time the bastards hold the Presidency and both houses of Congress, I fully expect them to ban masks and vaccines entirely.

  80. 80.

    Ohio Mom

    @eversor: I know, or should say, knew, your neighborhood. When I met Ohio Dad in the early 1990’s, he lived in a condo in Arlington (the Astoria) overlooking the highway. Just a short walk from tne Courthouse. He also was a computer engineer with a clearance.

    Glad to hear you are being seen at a long Covid clinic. That’s really all you can do until medical science gets up to speed.

  81. 81.

    eversor

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I wasn’t in for the full 20.  I did my time, private security contractor, then State/USAID NGO work, then big four consulting, then big law.  So I don’t qualify.

    But like I said before, I’ll be fine.   I can set money on fire that’s not the issue.   The issue is having gone through all this I can only imagine what someone who does not have the resources I have is going through.

    I can say personally this was life wrecking.   I’ll never fully medically or financially recover thought I was good enough in both before that I’ll come out of all this intact.   But a lot of people are going to get wrecked, permanently.  And instead of addressing this we have all the people on TV ranting about inflation and people asking for more money to do “the help” jobs.

    Here in the DC area most people are all up in arms about the tent camps sprouting up, yet nobody is bothering to ask why they are here (the rent is to fucking high! we pay 2200 a month for our one bedroom and that’s cheap for where we are, go figure).

    I’m just beyond pissed and frustrated at everything now so I come off as more angry than I normally am!   It’s all so damn stupid, none of this had to happen.  COVID didn’t really do all this, we fucking did it to ourselves!

  83. 83.

    VOR

    @Suzanne: Those barriers were designed to catch droplets, but COVID is airborne, not just droplets. A lot of the early COVID precautions turned out to be security theater, like all the cleaning and the plexiglass barriers. Ventilation is hard work, requires design and costs money. People want quick fixes so we get nearly worthless measures, which were still too hard for the whiny MAGAts.

  86. 86.

    eversor

    @Ohio Mom:

    Ahh you know my hood!  I grew up in Fairfax, Potomac, and Georgetown so I’m a native and both my parents were/are TS/SCI cleared so I guess it’s the family business.  Not an engineer though I’m systems administration linux/Unix/Windows.

    I used to bike into DC or Pentagon for work but I can’t do that anymore I gas out and gasp for breath and have migraines.  I can’t lift anymore, I sure as hell can’t box,  I had to get hauled out of the pool at the military base because I couldn’t get myself out.   We all had a good laugh about that one but it sucks!

    I’ve got a few hot leads on jobs with some law firms and some non profits though so I’ll be fine.  But… this sucks, and it sucks more that so many people don’t take it seriously while I’m royally fucked!

  88. 88.

    CaseyL

    @eversor: My god, that’s awful.  I’m glad that you’re in a good enough financial situation to weather the storm, but having your health snatched away by inconsiderate assholes would put me into an incandescent rage.  (Intrusive personal question: Are you still with your fiancee?)

    Long Covid is the thing that still scares me.  I got my second booster a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not very worried about Covid itself – but I’m an Old, in fair but not great shape, and getting Long Covid would really, really suck.

    And I’m going to Hawaii next month.  I’ll be masked, and may simply not eat or drink during the flight.  Hawaii took precautions very seriously during the “main” pandemic, so hopefully things won’t be so bad once we’re actually there.

  89. 89.

    Ohio Mom

    @eversor: Bouncing around Twitter a while ago, I found a doctor who said, An infection is biology, a pandemic is sociology.

    And sociologically speaking, Americans can be idiots.

  90. 90.

    jl

    @VOR: Only barriers I’ve seen that make any sense are those between, for example, cashier at counter and customer, basically a spit screen.

    Ashish Jha, new WH covid policy coordinator started a national covid ventilation program, but not sure it will amount to anything unless covid prevention gets funded. Returns to ventilation program would be huge, most places in US aren’t to any professional standard, and would do a lot for colds and flu too. Edit: and allergies and asthma.

    Jah also wants a national test to treat program, so its free or nearly so for everyone to do a quick test and then get pills within a day.

    Plus national wastewater and population surveillance program.

    That is the kind of thing we need to safely get rid of the masks and keep prevalence low enough to keep risk low. But need $

    Edit: and much higher vaccination + booster rate.

    Final edit: Japan and Taiwan have hepa filters and CO2 monitors in most every public indoor space, including buses and trains.

  91. 91.

    Betsy

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Except that karma doesn’t work that way, earthly justice doesn’t work that way, and spouting platitudes about how bad things happen to bad people through cosmic forces just acts to make us feel briefly better while inhibiting our will to take action for real change.

    Also, that “Karma!!” baloney goes hand-in-hand with victim-blaming, a Puritanical American hobby – “if Santa didn’t bring you any toys, you must have been a bad boy.”

    All that shit needs to die.

  92. 92.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    I hate the republicans and everything they stand for.

     

    I am also pissed at the lefties who said Hillary is worse than Dump and don’t worry about the courts because they’re irrelevant.

    !

  93. 93.

    eversor

    @Citizen Alan:

    She should not have run.  The writing was on the wall that people were done with The Clintons and it would not work.  A Clinton was the only person who could have lost to a Trump and that was doubly obvious after he crushed a Bush.   The raw amount of hubris it took to run a Clinton is jaw dropping and only topped by the staggering amount of stupidity and narcissism involved.

    I voted for her, but I knew it was a doomed project.  Like it or not all the old guard has to go, and go now.  Also the hubris of another Clinton infected RBG and that legacy will go down as the end of Roe v Wade.   That’s their legacy now, and that is what will be written in the books.  It might not be fair, but that’s what’s going to happen, it’s correct, and that’s what future generations will learn.   The Clinton second presidency will go down as one of the most jaw droppingly idiotic moves in history and might have doomed the nation.

  95. 95.

    eversor

    @CaseyL:

    We are still together and she’s a great person.   I also get why she was just “over it I want to live my life”.  Thing is my parents and older sibilings all had cancer when I was young and I was also deathly ill as well, then was my younger sister.   So I take these things seriously.  I’ve also lost a lot of friends due to exposure to service related issues.

    Both our families are not from here so I think that affected our responses.  She’s also VERY VERY VERY Catholic, and I’m an athiest.  If you’re wondering how that works, we both love to cook and are flaming liberals.

  96. 96.

    Skepticat

    Casco Bay Lines ferry service (Maine) still requires masks, though they’ve stopped the frequent automated announcement about the feds requiring them. No matter, as I’d be wearing mine even if they didn’t. I notice the grocery stores are about two-thirds unmasked, one-third masked, though most of the staff still wear them. I just bought a new supply of N95s, so I’m covered literally and figuratively for the foreseeable future. I’m beginning to forget what it was like to go without one.

  97. 97.

    eversor

    @Citizen Alan:

    I voted for her, and nothing I said was wrong in how it actually worked out.   You need to get over that so we can win again later.  Because running the same thing but version 2.0.1 aint going to work and will give us another Trump.

  98. 98.

    sab

    @dmsilev: Amy Klobuchar’s husband is a member of the Federalist Society so that he can keep an eye on what the other side is up to, because he is active in fighting capital punishment.

  99. 99.

    eversor

    @Skepticat:

    A funny thing I noticed at the start of COVID before the mandatory masking was that Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and the “white” gorcery stores went full on Mad Max with spilled shit everywhere and empty isles no masks.   But when we went out to Falls Church which has Hmart (Korean), Great Wall (Chinese), Good Fortune (Vietnamese, Thai) and the Latino Store everything was in stock.   And they were handing out masks and gloves before you entered and limiting people in the store.

    Kinda funny and we shop there anyways so it was nice.

  100. 100.

    hueyplong

    @eversor: You’re ignoring the fact that they’ll demonize whoever runs. They turned Hunter fucking Biden into The World’s Greatest Threat and they’re still working that one.

  102. 102.

    eversor

    @hueyplong:

    While true, that doesn’t make the Clinton Restoration any less of a stupid idea.  And that’s the issue.  Yes they can and will demonize anybody, but some options are genuinely shitty outside of that.  And Clinton 2.0 was so fucking shitty and stupid that only a massochist who wanted to lose, lose badly, destroy a party, would have tried it.  And yet we did!   Trump didn’t win, we deliberately threw the game and then got angry about it.

    Sorry but it was dumb.  Schumer and Fienstine need to get EOL’d as well asap.   If we don’t do that, we deserve what’s coming.

  103. 103.

    eversor

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Wasn’t my pick either I voted for Warren in the primaries but Biden does not carry the toxins of a Clinton or a Bush!  I don’t think he should run in 2024 he’s too damn old.   But Trump is a direct result of both parties pushing another Bush and Clinton, and it’s on that why we had to deal with it.   Both of those political families need to get Old Yeller’d pronto if we don’t want another Trump who’s smarter about it.

  104. 104.

    hueyplong

    You act like she got blown out. And you act like it will never be ok to go outside the pool of old white guys.

    Thanks for being sorry, though.

  105. 105.

    eversor

    @hueyplong:

    I voted for an old white woman last time around in Warren and Hillary in 2016 general.  I was Obama in 2008.  Way to jump to conclusions!  Sorry Clinton sucked and was dumb, anybody who pushed it was dumb, anbody still excusing it and saying it was smart is laying the ground from Trump 2.0.   That’s the way it is!

    I said Biden shouldn’t run again, thus banishing the old white guy.

    Sorry but not everybody who realizes that Clinton was suicide is just pro old white guy, they are just sane.

  107. 107.

    frosty

    @eversor: I worked for Arlington Public Works in the 80s and 90s. That rap was great! A huge part of the buildings etc was just starting to get built when I was there. I can’t believe there’s nightlife in Rosalyn now.

  108. 108.

    frosty

    @eversor: Absolutely not a joke and long COVID scares the shit out of me. I have a friend who’s been dealing with it since early January. I send her anything from AL’s posts that might be helpful. There’s not much.

  111. 111.

    RaflW

    I don’t know, Tom Nichols, is this about a mandate that was perhaps going to expire in two weeks? Or about the CDC’s future ability make rules to, what’s the phrase? Oh yeah: Control Diseases.

  112. 112.

    Bill Arnold

    @eversor:
    The Comey letter and to a lesser extent but in combination, the late-cycle Podesta emails drops, (a Russia-affiliated op,, perhaps with Trump-campaign involvement, then gleefully timed and amplified by the American right, e.g. R. Stone.) threw the election to Trump. This was clear in the polls (sadly in post-election analyses); it was not a normal late-race tightening.
    That, and the republican dominance of the news cycles pre-election, which was the fault of the Democrats. (The Republican advantage in influence ops/working the media has waned in the last 6 years.)
    With these advantages, Trump squeaked out a 80K vote margin in battleground states for an electoral vote win, though a big popular vote loss.

  113. 113.

    kindness

    Shakespeare’s Henry VI has that infamous quote of ‘First thing is kill all the lawyers’.  He didn’t know about Trump’s judges or they would certainly have been invited to the party

    @eversor: I can’t figure if you are just stupid or just a troll.  My bet is on both.

  114. 114.

    Rudi666

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:

    A further search into her background smells worse than a decaying animal. Her husband(married 2016) served as a lawyer for the tRump administration(nepotism.) Her nomination came after tRump lost the election. The same Senators who had a hissy fit over JB SCOTUS pick voted for someone who only tried in front of a Court a couple of times.  But Clarence Thomas likes her…

    “She’s a devout believer in scripture and in God and that just shows in her desire for things to be done right and for justice to always be done for people,” Kimball said in a telephone interview. “She enjoys life and she’s always willing to try new things.”

  115. 115.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I’m flying on Friday. British Airways (not my ideal choice, but I’m not flying any American airline that celebrates this crap). My choices are to fly, or not to see the best person in my life, who I haven’t seen since New Year’s. Driving is simply not an option (I’d like to see you drive from Athens, Greece to Baltimore, Maryland).

    I hope that judge burns in hell. I hope everybody who enabled her to take a lifetime seat on the Federal bench burns in hell. She embodies the fact that Trumpism and the attendant rot in the revenant GOP will still be poisoning the United States of America long after I’m dead.

    I don’t want to defeat the 21st-century GOP any more.

    I want to destroy it.

    Before it destroys America.

    It’s going to be one or the other, soon enough.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus ??

    @kindness:

    just stupid or just a troll

    Neither. eversor voted for Hillary. Didn’t think she was a good candidate and while I disagree, everyone is entitled to their opinion. And I voted for her as well. I think she was a good candidate but I would have liked a different one because she had too much unearned baggage. That didn’t make her a bad person for the job but it did make her less of a candidate for it. And it should be obvious by now that many people do not vote on quality of any kind, for the obvious merit of that sentence, look at our last president. This is a young country as those things go, with a power history and a world war won.  But our history has many things that are still with us today that may be better but are not yet good enough. I did not expect SFB to win but then I thought/think that Hillary would have been a good president and too many people in this country didn’t agree with you or me on that. I’m not sure why but I’d bet that her husband being who he is and how the right treated him didn’t do her any favors. But the biggest issue in my mind was her gender. A lot of people of either gender just can not join the last century let alone this one on a number of equality issues. So Hillary may have made a great president, far more than just adequate, especially given her opponent, but she may not have been the best candidate, for all the wrong reasons. Just one man’s opinion. Worth every penny you paid for it.

  117. 117.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Ruckus ??: Unfortunately, the skill set required for getting elected President of the United States in the 21st century is very different from the skill set required for actually performing the duties of President of the United States in the 21st century.

    If we’re lucky, we get a person who has a lot of skills to draw on in both areas (see Obama, Biden). But we’re just as likely to get someone who’s entirely deficient in the second area (see TFG).

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