US Politics, April 2020 -- Where's the Vax Returns?

Former vice president Joe Biden spoke with President Trump on Monday afternoon about the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a senior administration official and another person with knowledge of the conversation.

The conversation was “very cordial,” the administration official said. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the exchange.

Biden’s campaign said last week it was working on setting up a call with the president after Trump told reporters that he would “absolutely” be willing to speak with Biden on the matter.

News of Monday’s conversation was first reported by NBC News.

I hope they discussed our nation's critical shortage of hen fap

And also whether there are too many kids on their respective lawns

Loefflet’s Senate seat is in play:

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) holds a significant lead over Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) in the race for her Senate seat, a new poll found.

A Battleground Connect survey of likely voters in the upcoming special election first reported by Politico revealed that 36 percent support Collins, who has represented the 9th district in Georgia since 2013, for the Senate seat currently held by Loeffler.

Loeffler currently trails both Collins and a Democratic opponent, pastor Raphael Warnock of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and sits at 13 percent in the poll. Warnock registered support from 16 percent of voters, indicating that Collins has a clear advantage in the race.

In the sense that she’ll lose, seems unlikely any of the Dem candidates will grab it. But who knows...

I think this'll be big, I don't know: Birx, with Trump standing right beside her in-shot, just said "You can see what happens when you come at this a little too late." I doubt she meant to put it that way, although Trump had just, in his special way, been rather callous about Birx's granddaughter, who'd been running a temperature of 105.

Xo Doug Collins is even worse

the main question with the Loeffler race is which two candidates will make it to the runoff on January 5

By the way, Trump made reference today to "an election the Democrats shouldn't be allowed to win." I'm sure he doesn't mean it.

Modly's a real piece of shit, huh
angry enlisted man yelling "WHAT THE FUCK"

Kelly Loeffler is awful, and after losing my retirement savings I can’t even stomach reading about her insider trading, but Doug Collins is a fascist and it does seem like he’s going to win

hours after ‘standing by every word’ he said, modly has issued an apology

Standing by his words from 6 ft away

hope he is standing at the bottom of the ocean soon

dunno if this is being discussed in the primary thread but what just happened in Wisconsin (the conservative majority state supreme court overturned the governor's order to postpone the election) is a fucking travesty and is going to get people killed

in the Nino thread

If there's one thing both parties can agree on it's that our votes and our lives aren't really that important.

I'm never gonna get to release my double rap album

Treating the events as breaking news updates, the briefings, where Trump lies and chats casually about a national health crisis, represent a Beltway news culture gripped by paralysis, unable to make the correct decision to unplug the misinformation happenings.

These are same TV networks that made a very different decision in 2014 when President Barack Obama wanted to address to nation for 10-15 minutes about immigration reform, and ABC, CBS, and NBC all told him they would not air his Oval Office speech because it wasn't worth covering. That followed up the networks' decision a year earlier to deny the Obama request to carry a primetime address regarding the seven million people who had signed up for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act.

The endless Trump coverage today, often featuring two-hour briefings each day, is all being done voluntarily. TV networks in the United States are under no obligation to carry the president live when he makes appearances or addresses the press.

There was never any reason given for why, after 20 years of not airing daily press briefings, the cable news channels all decided simultaneously to essentially air every Trump White House briefing live, and usually in its entirety. Early on, the cable news channels aired 93 percent of the Trump White House press briefings live, after having aired just three percent of Obama press briefings live, according to Media Matters.

https://pressrun.media/p/networks-will-air-trump-10-hours

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTkxNjYwMjA0NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjgwODI0NDE@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg

Ah, the days of grunge typography

what a shame we don't have a transcript of the Biden-Trump phone call, eh

it was "cordial" ie Beckettian facepalms galore

the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations) tennis . . . the stones . . . so calm . . . Cunard . . . unfinished. . . .

Stephanie Grisham out as PressSec, going back to being Melania's chief of staff. Never had a press briefing.

the perfect tenure

Makes sense. In these difficult times, we need our nation's best minds to be focused on the operations of Melania's staff.

Stephanie Grisham out as PressSec, going back to being Melania's chief of staff. Never had a press briefing.

Clearing a path for Chanel Rion from OAN.

Good morning!

stephanie grisham, what a joke. imagine that feeling of imposter syndrome, like you totally don't know what you're doing and think everyone expects you to know how to do it. but then it's real, and you just decide to never do it. and your boss likes it

on her way back to melania's chambers they'll probably drop by the Imbosster's Club, where Stephanie's fob has now been modified to let her gain entry. there's a strong whiff of cigar smoke escaping from the keyhole, before she even enters

ah, hello there Stephanie! you've done a fine job! aaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha

dunno if this is being discussed in the primary thread but what just happened in Wisconsin (the conservative majority state supreme court overturned the governor's order to postpone the election) is a fucking travesty and is going to get people killed

― frogbs, Monday, April 6, 2020 9:34 PM (yesterday)

U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

some discussion ^here^. are you going to try to vote? what a bunch of bullshit.

what a shame we don't have a transcript of the Biden-Trump phone call, eh

I was hoping Karl Malone would script this for us.

Look folks
People are saying
tremendous
gonna beat you like a drum

here's the deal
I make the best deals
here's what you do, number one, that's number one
number one is the best number

dr casino does one of the best trumps, i think. i'm not sure who our best biden is, but it's not me! when i do my impersonation, he says "LOOKIT" a lot, and he also says "that's number. Number two is.."

xp shakey nailed it! haha

some discussion ^here^. are you going to try to vote? what a bunch of bullshit.

I voted absentee already

I know you're not supposed to talk about it publicly, but I voted for Bernie Sanders

"In late January, President Trump's economic adviser Peter Navarro warned his White House colleagues the novel coronavirus could take more than half a million American lives and cost close to $6 trillion, according to memos obtained by Axios." https://t.co/0Q0W88iZBV

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) April 7, 2020

well i mean, he IS a social scientist

heh, this detail is not surprising:

One senior administration official who received Navarro's memos said at the time they were skeptical of his motives and thus his warnings: “The January travel memo struck me as an alarmist attempt to bring attention to Peter’s anti-China agenda while presenting an artificially limited range of policy options."

"The supplemental memo lacked any basis for its projections, which led some staff to worry that it could needlessly rattle markets and may not direct funding where it was truly needed."

one consequence of installing buffoons in every possible position is that it's tough for the buffoons to take each other seriously

"I see the red and the green/I see the yellow and the blue/I see one look like me/I see one look like you. Buffoon, buffoon, buffoon, buffoon, buffoon (buffoon)."

I read that memo as saying one to two million souls, not half a million as professional reader and writer of words Jonathan Swan says.

two memos

one in late january saying half a million, another in late february saying 1-2 million

ah, ok

there is just no way the Trumps are not invested in this drug

― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Monday, April 6, 2020 5:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

As of last year, Mr. Trump reported that his three family trusts each had investments in a Dodge & Cox mutual fund, whose largest holding was in Sanofi.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-malaria-drug.html

why would he need more money

money is a disease

his mind is diseased

because he's a winner and you're a loser

when I was in Delhi once a cabbie told me that we were on "sideview mirror road," at one end of which there were kids stealing sideview mirrors, and on the other a little sideview-mirror shop