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

Good evening!

I'm in Georgia too

I haven't yet seen a list of the restrictions businesses are supposed to comply with in order to re-open ... since there's no obvious means of statewide enforcement, I'm afraid owners will have cover to basically do whatever they want, subject to local ordinances

several qualifying businesses in Athens have already announced they will not re-open

this is a typical "two Georgias" situation in which leadership in cities and leadership in rural communities will make very different decisions, with the rural communities running greater risks, seeing more infections, and then in many cases transporting their critically ill to city hospitals (since Georgia doesn't really have rural hospitals any more)

This Politico article from April 12 does a good job describing some of the context: How Southern Politics are Failing One Town’s Coronavirus Response

Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala is creating a blind trust and selling most of her individual stock holdings as she prepares to oversee the Trump administration’s handling of $2 trillion in taxpayer funds to fight the effects of the coronavirus.

This is your daily reminder that a blind trust is totally meaningless.

That sounds right, and like a bet gop state governments may be making en large: dem states will just handle the hospital overflows since they’re kind hearted, and the rich gopers will make bank off their citizens’ labor while offloading most of the risk.

Xp

I haven't yet seen a list of the restrictions businesses are supposed to comply with in order to re-open ... since there's no obvious means of statewide enforcement, I'm afraid owners will have cover to basically do whatever they want, subject to local ordinances

Handout from @GovKemp lists precautions businesses that do reopen must observe. #11Alive pic.twitter.com/ClqgIQSZMh

— Jon Shirek (@JonShirek) April 20, 2020

it’s cruel but fuck em: if this was going to affect tea party part deux cohort to the degree that they’ve earned—and only them—it would be one thing. but that’s not the case.

As appropriates and where possibles doing a lot of lifting there xp

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2020

His internal polling list be looking real bad

*must be looking

I love this performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAXZO4SILjY

Alison Moyet 2020

Handout from @GovKemp lists precautions businesses that do reopen must observe. #11Alive

I can't believe he wants to turn the page

Open for business! And.... no immigration!

The liberal candidate in Wisconsin’s hard-fought State Supreme Court race this month prevailed in voting by mail by a significant margin, upending years of study showing little advantage to either party when a state transitions from in-person to mail voting.

The gap suggests that Democrats were more organized and proactive in their vote-by-mail efforts in an election conducted under extraordinary circumstances, with voters forced to weigh the health risks of voting in person against the sometimes unreliable option of requesting and mailing in their ballots. Still, it is likely to add to the skepticism President Trump and Republicans have expressed about mail voting, which they worry would increase Democratic turnout at Republicans’ expense.

The liberal jurist, Jill Karofsky, performed 10 percentage points better than her conservative opponent in votes cast by mail than she did in votes cast at Election Day polling places, a gap that powered a surprising 11-point victory over all in a state both parties view as crucial to winning November’s presidential election.

The voting data, collected by The New York Times from 27 Wisconsin municipalities that segregate ballots cast on Election Day from those sent by mail, shows that Judge Karofsky’s advantage in mail ballots over the conservative incumbent, Justice Daniel Kelly, was consistent across communities of varying size, geography and partisan lean. In a state with little history of voting by mail, more than 1.1 million of 1.55 million votes cast came by mail.

Sanders really did hire the very best people.

oh just a former senior advisor to Sanders amplifying and complimenting the chair of the Trump campaign. pic.twitter.com/XjtIRtK0ZL

— Matt Gabriele (@prof_gabriele) April 21, 2020

that’s actually a really effective ad and Democrats would do well to take note.

also, wtf is wrong with her?

Just to clarify, the past six weeks have seen the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the past 100 years, right? https://t.co/PKxBL7qzdq

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) April 20, 2020

that’s actually a really effective ad and Democrats would do well to take note.

I believe that you believe that.

isn't crut still in GA?

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Monday, April 20, 2020 4:17 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

born & raised in GA but I moved up to TN a couple years ago to be with my then-gf. then we broke up and now i’m stuck here living alone

Looks like we switched places for the similar reasons.

Never thought I’d see GA outdo TN in the chud olympics but here we are.

I believe that you believe that.

crüt where in TN? i grew up in Knoxville

That Pelosi ad is good. Wonder what the Democrats have up their sleeve

i've only seen a handful of trump web ads, and all of them make it look like the apocalypse is happening and democrats are already in prison because of it

Biden's ad on Trump and China is pretty damning on Trump but people are pissed about it because it still comes across as xenophobic. So they're capable of playing dirty, but that shit tends to also piss people off.

if we made an ad mentioning donnie's gold-ass shitter bernie saddos of which i am one would rip it as missing the point is my guess but go ahead do parscale.

and yes i know the point is actually nancy's vote

I just think - there are a dozen effective ways to attack Trump’s pathetic, corrupt response and the horrific consequences and they went with “not tough enough on China! Let in too many of those dirty Chinese when he said he wouldn’t!”

first those Ukrainian militias and now this

hate 2 been seen as coming across as xenophobic. whoopsie! this “communicating my beliefs and position” thing is hard!

If there are a dozen effective ways to attack Trump on his coronavirus decision-making, maybe they won't confine themselves to just that one.

I think the Biden camp is making a mistake if they think they're fighting for the same subset of voters as Trump. #BeijingBiden is probably an effective strategy for attracting the morons Trump is trying to turn out, but I don't think "Trump rolled over on China" is a particularly effective strategy for attracting many of the folks Biden hopes to turn out, whether it's progressives, swing voters, independents, or people who are unplugged from politics in general. "Trump's pandemic response has killed people and will continue to kill people in this country" seems a lot more effective, and as Aimless suggests, hopefully Biden's team will pivot harder in that direction.

I had been getting increasingly pessimistic about 2020 over the three years since the last election, but am now feeling the opposite. I think the coronavirus disaster and the collapse of the economy together are going to do Trump in

My best guess is that his bag of blame-shifting tricks will satisfy all his ardent followers that it's those dastardly state governors or The Chinese or immigrants who screwed the pooch, not him. But his pathetic self-excusing and obvious lack of leadership on full display day after day, will sink him with anyone still capable of noticing how awful he is. That should be enough to finally drive a stake through his heart. With a bit of luck, it will be a landslide loss, but it's way too early to engage in that kind of hope.

Democrats cave: Nothing for states or cities, nothing for election protection or the post office, no oversight, no limits on fossil fuel bailouts, no food stamps. They got some testing - somehow that’s a GOP concession! - but no contact tracing. https://t.co/PWjOoaWozN

— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) April 21, 2020

as a state employee married to another state employee this is just peachy news. just glad I hadn't posted to the "are you optimistic?" thread yet

.@Yamiche: "I interviewed someone who said his family got sick ... because they were listening to you. Are you concerned that downplaying the virus maybe got people sick?"

Trump: "A lot of people love Trump, right? A lot of people love me... To the best of my knowledge, I won." pic.twitter.com/0GBhThBXaC

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 20, 2020

"To the best of my knowledge, I won" for May Thread Title.

I shouldn't be amazed by that exchange, yet here I am.

Simple, really. The question was "Are you concerned..?" And the answer is, because Trump is only concerned about whether people love him and because he won they do love him, he is not concerned.

nothing for... the post office, no oversight, no limits on fossil fuel bailouts

their goals are not yours, Democratic Party voter.

He's for real beyond parody. God I fucking hate him

Impressively pathetic day for the Democrats. I'm sure they'll get 'em next time though.

cracking post here about the GA reopening. it's not about the economy. it's about making sure Georgians can't file for unemployment.

https://decaturish.com/2020/04/dear-decaturish-governors-decision-to-reopen-businesses-is-political-murder/

heather cox richardson puts it like this:

The state’s unemployment fund has about $2.6 billion. The shutdown has made claims skyrocket—Chidi says the fund will empty in about 28 weeks. There is no easy way to replenish the account because Georgia has recently set a limit on income taxes that cannot be overridden without a constitutional amendment. It cannot borrow enough to cover the fund either, because by law Georgia can’t borrow more than 5% of its previous year’s revenue in any year, and any borrowing must be repaid in full before the state can borrow any more.

By ending the business closures, Kemp guarantees that workers can no longer claim they are involuntarily unemployed, and so cannot claim unemployment benefits. Chidi notes that the order did not include banks, software firms, factories, or schools. It covered businesses usually staffed by poorer people that Kemp wants to keep off the unemployment rolls.

And even if Kemp didn’t relish genocide (narrator: ...), he can’t print money, so the us federal government’s disinterest in helping states with unemployment means states are backed into such decisions regardless.

Heck of a way to run a country.

So about those spontaneous protests by white people in blue states:

The protests are reminiscent in some ways of the tea party movement and the demonstrations against the Affordable Care Act that erupted in 2010, which also involved a mix of homegrown activism and shrewd behind-the-scenes funding.

For the Convention of States, public health is an unusual focus. It was founded to push for a convention that would add a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. That same anti-government impulse is now animating the group’s campaign against coronavirus precautions.

“Heavy-handed government orders that interfere with our most basic liberties will do more harm than good,” read its Facebook ads, which had been viewed as many as 36,000 times as of Tuesday evening.

Asking for a $5 donation “to support our fight,” the paid posts are part of an online blitz called “Open the States,” which also includes newly created websites, a data-collecting petition and an ominous video about the economic effects of the lockdown.

The group’s president, Mark Meckler, said his aim was to act as a “clearinghouse where these guys can all find each other” — a role he learned as co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. FreedomWorks, a libertarian advocacy group also active in the tea party movement, is seeking to play a similar function, creating an online calendar of protests.

“The major need back in 2009 was no different than it is today — some easy centralizing point to list events, to allow people to communicate with each other,” he said.

36K views is pitiful