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

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

Not to the scoop-hungry media, it isn't! Disproportionate attention must and shall be paid to the chud with 12 twitter followers.

This is INSANE. US med workers have no PPE and are wearing one mask for multiple shifts.

Meanwhile, DC officials have debated for WEEKS whether to accept a donation of masks from the Chinese Foreign Ministry bc THEY DONT WANT TO LOSE THE PR WAR AND HAVE TO THANK CHINA PUBLICLY pic.twitter.com/gcfhKj9rcX

— Amanda 余美娜 (@catcontentonly) April 22, 2020

I feel like there have to be lots of MAGA idiots who work in healthcare, incl nurses and doctors. anyone got a read on what this subset of people are thinking right now? is it all China’s and the Democrats’ fault? or is it possible some are realizing that owning the libs and being racist online might not be worth all the death and suffering.

lol

https://i.imgur.com/zH4wLVw.jpg

what's that like

well i never

icymi

The New York Times reports:

President Trump’s signature hotel in the nation’s capital wants a break on its rent. The landlord determining the fate of the request is Mr. Trump’s own administration. Trump International Hotel, just a few blocks from the White House, had been a favored gathering place for lobbyists, foreign dignitaries and others hoping to score points with the president. But like most hotels, it is now nearly empty and looking to cut costs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In recent weeks, the president’s family business has inquired about changing its lease payments, the company confirmed on Tuesday, which the federal government has reported amount to nearly $268,000 per month. The Trump Organization owns and operates the luxury hotel, but it is in a federally owned building. As part of its deal to open the 263-room hotel, the company signed a 60-year lease in 2013 that requires the monthly payments to the General Services Administration.

House Oversight objects

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/04/22/deny-trump-hotels-rent-relief-request-house-oversight-says-to-gsa/

He should have laid off the avocado toasts and have six months of emergency savings.

Democrats admitted defeat on their demands for $150 billion for states and local governments after McConnell and Mnuchin took a hard line against including that money. Schumer said he was "sorely disappointed" new food aid and more money requested by governors was not included in the package.

-Politico

Very clearly and unambiguously--no political juggling act--Fauci just advised the Georgia governor not to go forward with reopening anything.

uh oh, he's going to get sent to the same no-tv zone for radicals as the surgeon general

If the Georgia governor were inclined to take advice from experts, based on the best available science and a sound regard for public health, he never would have proposed what he did. Because the experts are unanimous and the science is pretty unambiguous and it's all out there for anyone who's interested to read or hear.

so ... Trump just turned on Kemp:

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/too-soon-trump-urges-kemp-reverse-coronavirus-rollback/bUQsnksgvm8vmrTQonrNtK/

hahaha the best part about Trump how he throws all these stupid fucks under the bus

They all want to suck up to him so badly

it's hard to suck a moving sow

Yeah, after I posted about Fauci above, Trump stepped to the microphone and--after itemizing how close he was to Kemp, how he got him reelected, blah-blah--said he was against reopening Georgia. I've been out walking the past 45 minutes--guessing he's since sent out tweets against his stand that he's against reopening.

Trump: "I know a lot of people who play baseball who can't hit .150." Trump knows the Orioles' Chris Davis? https://t.co/0xQg2Xx7yN

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) April 23, 2020

tbf chris davis was killing it this spring

he was talking about the reassigned Dr Bright

Kemp getting rolled by Trump would be the highlight of my day except Trump.

this fucker is gonna keep talking until we're all dead

so through tomorrow at least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9U_C_q6WcU

howbout that Vegas mayor eh

https://digg.com/2020/las-vegas-mayor-anderson-cooper-interview-cnn

well at least we know what Joey Tribbiani's agent is up to now

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_QyVcap4Z4/

My oldest brother, Don Reed, died from coronavirus on Tuesday evening. He joined the Air Force at 19 and spent his career in the military, including five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam. He was charming and funny, a natural leader. https://t.co/b8m0xKzAmM

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 23, 2020

Oklahoma is also an "opening soon" state

josh marshall (in a short blog thing about Kemp's plan to "re-open" Georgia):

PM Reader TB flagged another key point for me. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has now become that comic figure, the dutiful party lickspittle who in his eagerness to ingratiate gets just slightly out ahead of a mercurial paramount leader and then gets cut off at the knees for having zigged when he was supposed to zag. Rep. Doug Collins (R), Trump’s biggest impeachment cheerleader who lost out when Kemp effectively sold an open Senate seat to Kelly Loeffler is now getting revenge by savaging Kemp as disloyalty to Trump. But TB notes that when you actually look at the ‘open up’ plan that got Kemp in all the trouble it’s still pretty severe.

PB: "It is the measures that businesses have to take when they re-open. There are many things you can say about them, but they don’t look anything like a return to “normal”. And this from a governor who even Lindsey Graham and now Trump are saying is going too far. It also contains one key provision that I predicted – number 8 – “implementing teleworking for all possible workers”. It makes me think that workers like me, who, to be totally honest, have virtually no need at all to go into the office in order to get their work done, will be working from home for a very, very long time."

I’ve looked at some other reopen plans and a related element is big headlines about reopening followed by strictures that make the headline seem wholly unrealistic or impractical. So, yes, you can reopen your hair salon but staff and customers must remain at least six feet apart at all times. Pushed down to the details many of these reopening plans are not so much reopening plans as wishing away the contradictions. Yes, reopen! But with fine print that makes it completely impractical.

Strangling economic life isn’t just or so much to flatten the curve. It is to buy time to devise and implement a workable new normal. But that’s hard. A food fight is Donald Trump’s comfort zone: get the good people lined up against the bad people and start yelling. Innovating, testing, experimenting, working through problem is emphatically not his comfort zone. And thus here we are.

sorry, the second paragraph there is a quote from reader "TB", not "PB"

Yes, reopen! But with fine print that makes it completely impractical.

but this isn't moronic per se it's a calculated strategy to absolve states of any financial responsibility to the working class and small business owners. 'we said you could open for business - so it's on you'

Cuomo went in on McConnell today over his "states should just file for bankruptcy" bullshit, pointing out how much money NY gives to the federal treasury each year vs. how much money KY takes from it (KY takes out more than NY puts in).

Was McConnell a big proponent of "fuck it, just declare bankruptcy" economics before he spent three years gargling Trump's balls, or is this a POV he came to recently?

how much money NY gives to the federal treasury each year vs. how much money KY takes from it (KY takes out more than NY puts in).

Yeah, high tax blue states have been subsidizing low tax red states for years. Dems should point this our at every opportunity, but they're apparently cool with it.

can't point it out, it would risk offending those crucial red state swing voters!

I literally never hear anyone point that out, except in Facebook comments. Good for Cuomo.

Of course the immediate rejoinder when I do see it is something yadda yadda about the military, and then something pretty racist.