Free Markets Solve Everything

Tha Carter

by DougJ| March 25, 20206:48 pm| 119 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything

Ending the lockdowns isn’t going to happen. Next week we will probably have 2 or 3 thousand people die in New York City, which is horrific, and we’ll also probably have a continue decrease or at least stabilization of deaths in Italy, which is great. Obviously, fight like hell to keep the lockdown going, because we are talking about millions of lives here. But I just don’t see how these fuckers are going to end it.

As much as I hate to heh indeed David Frum it’s hard to improve on this commentary on Trump’s higher (but still shitty) approval ratings:

About Trump's poll numbers https://t.co/IWJ5mXADFu

They won't last pic.twitter.com/OmOb26JICE

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 25, 2020

If any of us is still alive in November, we can pick up a lot of seats.

Tha CarterPost + Comments (119)

Kids These Days (Are F**ked)

by Tom Levenson| March 21, 20206:05 pm| 67 Comments

This post is in: Austerity Bombing, Economics, Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality

Coronavirus is changing America hugely in the here and now–just look outside.

It’s also true that it will have a lasting impact on the country (and the world), and while prediction is hard, especially about the future, there is one obvious impact that will harm both millions of individual Americans and the long term economic health of the nation.

That would be what’s waiting for students graduating this June into a job market that for all intents and purposes won’t exist–likely for months/years to come.

TL:DR: it’s bad. Really bad. There are serious losses of income and long term wealth that produce knock-on effects on health and social factors in the lives of those who, by no fault or action of their own, happen to come into adulthood at just the wrong moment.

At this moment, we’re diving into what looks like a deep economic disaster that will wreck the dreams of millions of kids just getting started, and we are doing so because the Republican leadership botched both short and long term plans for a predictable event. This is social misery that is about to happen as a direct result of political choices made by Donald Trump and 40 years of decisions by Republican elected officials. We will need to drive that point home, until being a Republican ranks in popular estimation a couple of rungs below refurbished condom retailer.

To our sorrow, there’s a fair amount of research on the natural experiments we’ve already endured that shwo what starting one’s career in such a moment does to both short term and longer prospects. In 2006, a paper looking at Canadian college graduates between 1982 and 1999 showed that recessions have a significant impact on new graduates:

Our main results suggest that the average worker graduating college in a recession faces earnings losses that are very persistent but not permanent. On average, a two standard deviation increase in the unemployment rate (roughly comparing the difference between those exiting college in a bust versus boom) leads to an initial wage gap of about 10 percent. This gap declines relatively slowly, and fades to zero after about the eighth year. Controlling for unemployment rate conditions after the first year of labor market entry, we also conclude that virtually all of the wage deficit can be attributed to the unemployment rate variation in the very first year after leaving school.

Graduating at the wrong time affects the shape of careers; timing matters, in that the newest graduates suffer more than those with a toe-hold in the job market; finally, that average 10% loss masks the differential effects by income level. As usual, the poor suffer more (from the non-technical summary):

show full post on front page

…initial random shocks affect the entire career. Graduating in a recession leads workers to start at smaller and lower paying firms, and they catch-up by switching jobs more frequently than those who graduate in better times. Third, some workers are more affected by luck than others. In particular, earnings losses from temporarily high unemployment rates are minimal for workers with two or more years of work experience and are greatest for labor market entrants. Among graduates, those with the lowest predicted earnings suffer significantly larger and much more persistent earnings losses than those at the top.

I’ve seen studies on the impact of the 2007-8 events that report similar patterns, but what really caught my eye was this one, published in January, 2020, by Hannes Schwandt of Northewestern and Till M. von Wachter from UCLA. Here’s the abstract, which captures the scope of its miserable findings:

We find that cohorts coming of age during the deep recession of the early 1980s suffer increases in mortality that appear in their late 30s and further strengthen through age 50. We show these mortality impacts are driven by disease-related causes such as heart disease, lung cancer, and liver disease, as well as drug overdoses. At the same time, unlucky middle-aged labor market entrants earn less and work more while receiving less welfare support. They are also less likely to be married, more likely to be divorced, and experience higher rates of childlessness. Our findings demonstrate that tempo-rary disadvantages in the labor market during young adulthood can have substantial impacts on lifetime outcomes, can affect life and death in middle age, and go beyond the transitory initial career effects typically studied.

Schwandt and von Wachter begin with background capturing how the picture of income and career costs have held up, and in some cases worsened since the earlier research I linked above:

Losses in cumulated lifetime income implied by typical estimates per se could lead to lower wealth accumulation, and there is some evidence of reductions in housing wealth among individuals coming of age in the Great Recession (e.g., Dettling and Hsu, 2014). Several studies have documented lasting changes in occupational choice (Oyer, 2006, 2008; Altonji et al., 2016) and employer characteristics (Oreopoulos et al., 2012), and Kahn (2010) finds that 1982 college graduates may begin to lose ground again around 15 years after job entry.

So yeah: graduating in a recession is not what you want. But here’s the killer, literally:

For cohorts coming of age during the early 1980s recession, a temporarily higher state unemployment rate at the age of labor market entry leads to precisely estimated increases in mortality that appear in the late thirties and increase until age 50. These increases in mortality are driven to an important extent by a rise in both disease-related and “external” causes, including lung cancer, liver disease, and drug poisoning.

Aside from early death, effects of entering the job market in crap times make life suck in many ways:

We also find entering the labor market during a recession has a substantial impact on a broad range of measures of socioeconomic status in middle age, including a decline in marriage rates, a rise in divorce rates, and a decline in family size. We also find that after initial recovery in their mid-thirties, adversely affected entry cohorts suffer a reduction in earnings as they reach their mid-forties.

And there are interesting (if that’s the word) distinctions in outcomes by race that may help explain Trump’s appeal to folks whose interests he assaults:

Finally, while the effects on overall mortality are similar by race, increases in deaths of despair appear to be chiefly concentrated among white, nonHispanic men. White men also tend to experience a decline in earnings in midlife and tend to experience larger reductions in family stability than their non-white counterparts. This is despite the fact that non-whites experience larger short-run effects on earnings and other outcomes…

In sum: the Trump recession/depression that is beginning right now will damage the hopes and prospects of a generation for a generation. It will affect us all, including those of us fortunate enough to start our careers in better times, as millions of Americans will have less of chance to lead the fully productive/creative lives they could–and thus our economy and culture as a whole will lose what could have been.

There are some responses that could mitigate the worst effects, it seems to me, and I’m going to be getting in touch with my legislators to push them. First, the most obvious, is to forgive any tuition debt incurred this year. Second, almost equally obvious, would be to forgive it all, certainly for students currently in college, but better, for everyone, as that would be an instant stimulus/support. If students graduating now or over the next few years didn’t have to pay down a debt that the crappy job market will make yet more intractable, they would have more flexibility, more resilience, and hopefully both a better short term and more healthy and emotionally robust time as the years roll by.

And the other urgency, of course, is to not do what Hoover did, and Trump and McConnell and the rest of the junta are doing now: dither over a response that in its first iterations is clearly inadequate to the task. The best thing to do when facing the prospect of double digit job losses is to throw money at anything that (a) keeps folks alive and (b) offers jobs that pay wages.

It’s really not that complicated: don’t burden the most vulnerable with the hardest road to hoe; give them a leg up in hard times. And drop cash from helicopters.

Over to y’all.

Images: Franz von Felbinger, Poor Children, by 1906.

Edvard Munch, Despair, 1894.

Kids These Days (Are F**ked)Post + Comments (67)

The Conservative Paradise Continues to Prosper

by @mistermix.bsky.social| March 16, 20201:45 pm| 224 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything

As Betty mentioned in her post, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have decided to cooperate, and all gyms, casinos and movie theaters will be closed. Restaurants and bars will be takeout only. Good! More to come, I’m sure. So, in our states’ rights utopia, little clusters of states will make their own healthcare policy to address a nationwide threat, while Trump alternates between shaking every hand in sight, and pushing Pence out in front of the public so mother’s husband can be scapegoated later. It’s much better to have our precious rights than our precious lives, so I can only say “keep up the good work” to Team Trump.

We can’t do much about this now, other than perhaps the changes Cheryl suggested today, but I have a couple of thoughts about what we need to do in the mid- and long-term, and what I’m storing away in my anodized titanium grudge carrier for later examination.

First, the bankers never got what they deserved after 2008, and goddamit, the fucking Republicans need to pay for all the cuts and other anti-science bullshit that caused us to be the last place country in virus testing. There should be no “bygones being bygones” on this fuckup. There will be an especially fervent effort by FoxNews to tell us that the response to this pandemic was as good as we could have expected, because it was a natural catastrophe that nobody could have predicted (except for the smart government officials that Trump fired or replaced with stupid toadies). Nope! We need a reckoning.

Second, we need to start advocating for mail-in elections, and that’s going to be a fight. Trump would prefer to have no election, so it’s in his interest to throw as much sand in the gears of changing election procedures as he possibly can. Josh Marshall has a good post on this.

Third, James Fallows makes some good points in this essay about the chaos that Trump caused at the airports, but his point is more generally applicable:

You probably can’t see this from seat 23D on United or Delta, but every commercial-flight airport has its own fire station, within a few seconds’ drive of the runway. A fire crew is standing by, every time you take off or land. That’s based on What if? thinking. What if five minutes from now, a plane comes in hard, and has a post-touchdown fire, which could threaten the passengers trapped inside? What if an airplane’s engine catches fire on the runway, and a hundred passengers have to get off all at once?
[…] I’m sure there are airports where the “equipment” has never been used in a real emergency, or not in many years. But it’s there and ready, every minute, because: What if?

Fallows makes a distinction between grinding efficiency, which keeps airlines profitable at the expense of making the experience sometimes unpleasant, and the What if? culture underlying safety systems in airplanes and airports. Our hospital system has been run on grinding efficiency, to maximize corporate profits and perhaps decrease the cost of patient care, but not so you’d notice, if you’ve received a bill lately. So we have no spare beds, we’re going to run short on protective gowns and masks because they’re sourced from China, we’re short of nurses, and so forth. When this is over, we need to What if? hospitals and the health care system in general. We need some slack in the system, some stockpiled supplies, some extra beds, increased pay for nurses and educational incentives and student loan repayments just like doctors get, and a recognition that we may “waste” some money on preparedness (just like we “waste” $800K on each of the airport fire trucks pictured). Because the What if? just happened, and we’re woefully unprepared.

The Conservative Paradise Continues to ProsperPost + Comments (224)

Not Just America’s Monster; The World’s Monster

by Tom Levenson| March 15, 20201:18 pm| 182 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Free Markets Solve Everything, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality

Dear everyone,

We’re so sorry.

(signed)

Every even vaguely moral American.

The above became necessary after this report:

German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential [coronavirus] vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac.

Earlier, the Welt am Sonntag German newspaper reported that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.

…

Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”

Read that last sentence again:

Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”

Fuck me.

I got nothing.

I suppose I could hope that the anonymous German source is making stuff up, but recent history gives me no confidence that this is the case.

And if it’s not, then this is the pure distillate of modern Republicanism. It takes IGMFY to its logical endpoint. I Got Mine
Go Die (Or Pay Everything You’ve Got). It’s disaster capitalism honed to its sharpest point, to be stuck between the ribs of most of humanity.

I wish–I REALLY would hope–to be surprised.

I’m not at all.

This isn’t just Trump, of course. It’s the Republican Party playbook down to the last jot and tittle. The party, and not just this president, needs to be wrecked, its fields salted, its monuments pulled down until history has no memory that such wretched people ever walked the earth.

Open thread.

Image: The Silent Highwayman, a cartoon in Punch, 10 July 1858. (Description: Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of victims who have not paid to have the river cleaned up, during the Great Stink.)

Not Just America’s Monster; The World’s MonsterPost + Comments (182)

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Chaos Under Heaven

by Anne Laurie| March 12, 20205:47 am| 126 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Free Markets Solve Everything, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
.

And boy, do I hate it! https://t.co/mfZCxOuEit

— Console cowboy in cyber space (@Coolranch4lyfe) March 12, 2020

Mitch McConnell made a deal with the devil for judges and tax cuts. He assured the world that Trump would be fine, that a manifestly incompetent executive was manageable because he would be able to contain Trump’s worst failings. This is as much his legacy as it is Trump’s.

— Adam Jentleson ?? (@AJentleson) March 12, 2020

NEW: Elections officials scramble for options as coronavirus worries mount by @eliseviebeck https://t.co/hTAsOBUEOO

— Matea Gold (@mateagold) March 11, 2020

Every state that hasn't adopted universal voting by mail should do so immediately to ensure the coronavirus doesn't disrupt election operations. This map shows which states use VBM & which ones require an excuse to vote absentee https://t.co/ANgtjjczS8 https://t.co/jHQiXmYXe7 pic.twitter.com/F4FVTsHnZV

— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) March 11, 2020

So happy we aren't about to have any socialism. https://t.co/UAKvvewSCX

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) March 11, 2020

I have no faith in this president, who has endangered so many of us, but boy do I believe in my fellow Americans. We will dig deep and take care of one another. We will answer the call.

— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) March 12, 2020

Foreign Policy editor in Beijing:

an idiot dynast sits on the throne. plague ravages the cities. a once-globalized world falters. the scribbling literati bemoan the status given to merchants

Canadians, judging by late Ming history, now is absolutely the time to send your mounted cavalry over the border

— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 12, 2020

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Chaos Under HeavenPost + Comments (126)

COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread: Universities Face Quarantines

by Anne Laurie| March 10, 202010:27 am| 67 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Education, Free Markets Solve Everything, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)

As the coronavirus continues to spread across the US, schools and universities are starting to end semesters early or conduct classes online instead of in person. https://t.co/eUXAJ5dDBK

— CNN (@CNN) March 10, 2020

Pulled all this out, as being of immediate interest to some portion of the Jackaltariat:

"Morris and others have also emphasized that a transition to online teaching must keep classes accessible for students with disabilities and students who may lack access to the internet or other technology at home." https://t.co/gHLOBf5Dte

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) March 9, 2020

… Several universities have been circulating guidance to faculty about how to teach via online methods during an emergency. Guidance from the University of California, Los Angeles, to faculty noted that the administration has purchased more licenses for Zoom. The university also drew attention to a lockdown browser available for faculty to use during assessments, which provides a full audio and video recording of the test attempt.

Faculty have similarly been circulating their own guidance to peers about how to teach online on the fly, sometimes with step-by-step instructions. Instructional design and technology administrators have emphasized that temporarily moving in-person classes to remote learning is different from designing and developing a course that is completely online.

“Teaching well online requires a much more intentional arc of planning and learning around design and pedagogy,” Penelope Adams Moon, director of online learning strategy at UW’s Bothell campus, posted on Twitter. “We need stop-gap measures, but they aren’t the same as online teaching.”

Sean Michael Morris, director of the Digital Pedagogy Lab at the University of Colorado at Denver, advised instructors to rethink grading around participation and attendance…

All N. American students/alumni/staff/faculty who would like to encourage colleges and universities to take stronger, pro-active action to #flattenthecurve of #covid19, even *before* there are cases in your community, please consider signing this petition. https://t.co/4PpNesHLXG

— Maren L Friesen (@symbiomics) March 8, 2020

1/ The #CoronavirusOutbreak has prompted some colleges to cancel in-person classes. Follow this thread for a list of those institutions.

— The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) March 9, 2020

It would be better to have a weblink that is updated periodically.

— Dr. Raza Khan (@dr_raza_khan) March 9, 2020

https://t.co/BYZG6WL0za

— jenn (@sayitchowda) March 10, 2020

show full post on front page

Amherst campus will remain open. Students who wish to stay can petition to do so. According to the college communications, the concern is students returning to campus after traveling for break. It seems as though students who stay on campus are welcome https://t.co/CKFjXXBd92

— Kathleen O’Connor (@Dr_KOConnor) March 10, 2020

… not every college student has a home they can go to
… not every college student can just buy a plane ticket for NEXT MONDAY
… not every college student has broadband at home
… not every college student can eat without the meal plan/work study
… not every

— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 10, 2020

… not every college student has their own computer
… not every college student owns their textbooks. Some have to go to the library for every reading.
… not every disabled student can get the accommodations they need in an online setting

— Libby Morse (@madlibbs15) March 10, 2020

…not every college student has a laptop
…”they can join remote lectures on their phones” but not every college student has unlimited data

— Dr. Kristjana (@kristjanahronn) March 10, 2020

Then there are the students who have homes they could go to, but that aren’t safe and that they make plans to avoid on scheduled breaks.
That one can’t even be estimated using financial aid stats.

— Sarah ????????????? (@sosomanysarahs) March 10, 2020

Similar situation for me. Rural university in Iowa. I know a great deal about converting classes to online but how many will be able to take them in a pinch? Got an email today to prepare to do this. Not officially announced yet but I think it’s coming.

— ??Nickie the Elder, Last of Her Name (@DocNickie) March 10, 2020

My analysis on the “early adapters”: that’s a lot of endowment money. https://t.co/ctML2o8Lda

— Matt Dowell (@dowellml) March 10, 2020

#twitterstorians Reminder that there is already a guide to teaching the history of plague (cause of the longest history of pandemics) available online: "On Learning How to Teach the Black Death": https://t.co/j4aqjKazkt. (Also in German: https://t.co/YzeqxBVAjY.) pic.twitter.com/8PO4psSuMt

— Monica H Green (@monicaMedHist) March 9, 2020

COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread: Universities Face QuarantinesPost + Comments (67)

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Monday/Tuesday, March 9/10

by Anne Laurie| March 10, 20204:56 am| 35 Comments

This post is in: COVID-19, Free Markets Solve Everything, Healthcare, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)

And here we thought alcohol killed viruses…

Boston cancels St. Patrick's Day parade https://t.co/iUn6xitsqI

— Adam Gaffin (@universalhub) March 9, 2020

(So has Ireland, but TBH Paddy’s Day parades are a recent, mostly tourism-based event in the Auld Sod. They’ve been a massive fixture here in Boston, and later NYC, since the 1700s. They started as a form of political protest — like a precursor of the Black Lives Matter marches.)

Speaking of public clownshows…

Not only does the CDC not update its coronavirus stats on weekends–they only update it once a day at noon on weekdays! https://t.co/Ej2lI90iVl

— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) March 9, 2020

Since I’ve been doing this seven days a week, and update right around close-of-business hours for Asia, arguably Balloon Juice is doing a better coverage job than the Trump admin allows the CDC. Blessed!

The word, Chinese, does not appear on this website. The coronavirus in question is called #COVID19 . https://t.co/tzQVVRSolU

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) March 10, 2020

The fact that the press all called the 1912 flu outbreak "the Spanish flu" actively helped the virus spread

It meant that months after its origin was no longer relevant people kept being hypervigilant about travel and shipping from Spain and misallocating their resources https://t.co/WcMQixqbd2

— Arthur Chu (@arthur_affect) March 9, 2020

Oh boy: The Trump Administration Is Stalling an Intel Report That Warns the U.S. Isn’t Ready for a Global Pandemic https://t.co/TpbynAHR3v

— Laura Walker ??????? ?????????????? (@LauraWalkerKC) March 10, 2020

This right here is exactly why I am concerned about the US failure to roll out widespread #coronavirus testing. If there is a political need to have low #COVID19 case numbers and testing is intentionally limited, the results for public health could be catastrophic. https://t.co/OzJgHZILz8

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) March 9, 2020

NEW: Because we can’t get a straight answer from the Trump Administration, I have checked with lab companies.

The best estimate is it will be 8 weeks before we have all the nationwide testing we need.

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) March 9, 2020

Thinking back on outbreaks I've reported on (H5N1, anthrax, West Nile, SARS, H1N1, Ebola) and how different it felt that public health and the White House were aligned.
Then remembered AIDS and Reagan.
Suddenly realized why @gregggonsalves' voice is SO valuable right now.

— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) March 9, 2020

Trump is total meltdown. He told aides he thinks journalists want to get coronavirus on purpose to spread it to him on Air Force One. My latest:https://t.co/TTpT6sdnHS

— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) March 9, 2020

show full post on front page

… The problem is that the crisis fits into his preexisting and deeply held worldview—that the media is always searching for a story to bring him down. Covid-19 is merely the latest instance, and he’s reacting in familiar ways. “So much FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted this morning. “He wants Justice to open investigations of the media for market manipulation,” a source close to the White House told me. Trump is also frustrated with his West Wing for not getting a handle on the news cycle. “He’s very frustrated he doesn’t have a good team around him,” a former White House official said. On Friday he forced out acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and replaced him with former House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows. Trump thought the virus was “getting beyond Mick,” a person briefed on the internal discussions said. Trump has also complained that economic adviser Larry Kudlow is not doing enough to calm jittery markets. Last week Kudlow refused Trump’s request that Kudlow hold an on-camera press briefing, sources said. “Larry didn’t want to have to take questions about coronavirus,” a person close to Kudlow told me. “Larry’s not a doctor. How can he answer questions about something he doesn’t know?”

Trump found a willing surrogate in Kellyanne Conway, but Conway’s dubious claim on Friday that the virus “is being contained” only made the P.R. situation worse.

Trump’s efforts to take control of the story himself have so far failed. A source said Trump was pleased with ratings for the Fox News town hall last Thursday, but he was furious with how he looked on television. “Trump said afterwards that the lighting was bad,” a source briefed on the conversation said. “He said, ‘We need Bill Shine back in here. Bill would never allow this.’”…

But thus far Trump’s private concerns haven’t affected his public response. Pressure from the public health community is mounting on Trump to cancel his mass rallies, but Trump is pushing back. “He is going to resist until the very last minute,” a former West Wing official said. “He may take suggestions to stop shaking hands, but in terms of shutting stuff down, his position is: ‘No, I’m not going to do it.’”…

"We're working with the industries, and in particular those two industries, we're also talking to the hotel industry and some places actually will do well and some places probably won't do well at all" pic.twitter.com/4M8eAC0ze7

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) March 9, 2020

We're going to have a hotel bailout, aren't we?

I mean, it's not like the President own a hotel chain or anything…

— emericle (@emericle) March 9, 2020

Curious why this hasn’t gotten more attn. Donald Trumps company is not solely but largely in the hospitality business. Hotels, resorts, clubs. This seems significant.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 9, 2020

Keeping people alive for the next few months is a slippery slope; soon they’ll want help staying alive all the time. https://t.co/0scFTqchMj

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 9, 2020

We need a WWII type response. We need alcohol hand rub! We need factories churning out PPE (gowns, gloves, masks), we need near proven therapies (remdesivir) stockpiled and a single IRB protocol distributed to 60 academic centers for trial and treatment. Not Tax Cuts!! #COVID19

— ??? ??????????? ? ? (@eliowa) March 10, 2020

but nope. just, oh well, the president is determined to destroy the economy and kill our constituents, nothing to be done.

— Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) March 9, 2020

The press, especially text-based, must stop “translating” Trump and let more of his unfiltered, unaltered ramblings and incoherency through to the reader. Report on what he said and not what they think he meant. https://t.co/EJHCQgsAKJ

— Matt Armstrong (@mountainrunner) March 10, 2020

A very bad idea. It’s not going to stimulate spending by consumers because people are going to hunker down. What they need is sick leave w/pay and affordable testing and care.

In this case it does nothing but harm Social Security finances. https://t.co/HpqxYnlBBG

— Joan McCarter (@joanmccarter) March 9, 2020

I don’t think any of the Extremely Public SCOTUS Catholics — Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Roberts, Alito & Thomas — actually live in Georgetown, but IIRC they’re weekday attendees as well, so…

BREAKING: A D.C. priest has Coronavirus. He offered communion and shook hands with more than 500 worshippers last week and on February 24th. All worshippers who visited the Christ Church in Georgetown must self-quarantine. Church is cancelled for the first time since the 1800's

— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) March 9, 2020

In fairness, the current decimation among Iran’s leadership is being blamed on the practice of jointly kissing religious shrines, and then each other, as a form of public political dominance. And South Korea’s worst outbreak seems to have taken off due to the members of a ‘secretive religious cult’ that covered up early infections rather than reporting them. So — and I say this as a person of faith — maybe a little less public piety and a little more private observance, just for the duration?

Exhibit A for the belief shared by all Republicans that all nonmilitary government spending is waste or fat that can be cut at zero cost. https://t.co/pg51bH5Iyt

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 9, 2020

I doubt this was a decision so much as a lack of one. Not a matter of the option being presented and rejected as a matter of the option never being considered at all. Which is kind of worse. https://t.co/9DJce6kYtR

— Jeremy COVID-19 IS NOT LIKE FLU Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) March 10, 2020

Hey, Repubs, remember the mysterious ‘carrier’ at CPAC / AIPAC?

Who the hell was this carrier? I’ve covered that conference a bunch of times. Most people do not get near every bigwig who attends. https://t.co/Treg9BQzjE

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 10, 2020

Weird how people on the Trump right are VERY eager to spread the name of the alleged whistleblower and VERY reticent to name the CPAC Patient Zero.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 9, 2020

(Can’t have been Sheldon Adelson, but am I allowed to fantasize it was someone who works for Adelson?)

The GOP is a death cult, but thank Murphy the Trickster God they’re not very good at it…

There's a lot going on here, but my favorite bit this Phoenix, Arizona dentist choosing a still from a Korean movie about dying in defense of Pyongyang https://t.co/CRwd3epacD

— L Ron Hubbard's Space Jazz (@MenshevikM) March 9, 2020

Days after learning he had been exposed to a CPAC attendee with the coronavirus, Louie Gohmert led a group of kids around the Capitol https://t.co/Swbf3zcuZr

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) March 10, 2020

Dr. Drew on the coronavirus: “Businesses are getting destroyed and people’s lives are being upended not by the virus, but by the panic. The panic must stop. And the press, they really somehow need to be held accountable because they are hurting people”pic.twitter.com/as2xu0Am8E

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) March 9, 2020

He really is Baghdad Bob https://t.co/iJ8ZIUhEdl

— AdotSad (@AdotSad) March 9, 2020

Our Glorious Economic System, asking the Important Questions: Do we need to update the HR handbook again?

How can we best protect our employees from exposure in the workplace? https://t.co/wY5sJKEEZk

— Harvard Business Review (@HarvardBiz) March 9, 2020

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Monday/Tuesday, March 9/10Post + Comments (35)

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Let there be snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Tha Carter

Kids These Days (Are F**ked)

The Conservative Paradise Continues to Prosper

Not Just America’s Monster; The World’s Monster

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Chaos Under Heaven

COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread: Universities Face Quarantines

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Monday/Tuesday, March 9/10