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

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.

Biden was on Desus and Mero the other day (an insane sentence!), and they asked him "What do you say to the voter who says they would never vote for you?" I wanted so bad for him to just say "Who cares? You just said they said they would never vote for me!" He instead mumbled some bipartisan bladiblah.

high tax blue states have been subsidizing low tax red states for years

Just as high tax-revenue-producing urban/suburban areas subsidize low tax-revenue-producing rural areas in all the states that have at least one big city.

Rural Oregonians are constantly encouraged by their political leaders to see the higher density Portland area and Willamette Valley as clueless outsiders who ignorantly impose their harsh, restrictive agendas on the fine upstanding ruralites who are the Real Americans (tm). But none of the rural counties collects enough taxes to pay for their schools and roads without hefty subsidies from the state coffers - which are filled by those ignorant city folks. It's a stupid, self-flattering narrative that they all believe is god's own truth.

but it’s not up for debate: literally every “red” state in the Union gets back more from the federal govt than their citizens pay in, EXCEPT Texas. Which must only be bc of oil.

(Reliably red, that is. I’m not sure about FL and a couple of the midwestern states that went trump in 2016)

The clip that's likely to make the news was Cuomo reacting to McConnell talking about "blue state bailouts" - Cuomo said (paraphrasing) "So the 15,000 people that died in New York, that's okay because they were probably mostly Democrats?"

I mean, sure, that's probably exactly what McConnell (and his knuckle-walking base) believes, but as LBJ once said under other circumstances, "Let's make the son of a bitch deny it."

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.

― Fetch the Bolt Thrower (PBKR), Thursday, April 23, 2020 12:48 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

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

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will)

otm

but also, another thing that a lot of people point out, but not often enough: delete your facebook account! you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy! create a separate account for your band/organization to promote your events and find out about other events! then resolve to only look at it when absolutely necessary, and always with a trusted friend at your side holding a rope wrapped tightly around your ankle, so that if you spend too long on posting and looking for events they can forcibly pull you away from the device

Yeah it’s horrible but I do really like a lot of stupid little private fb groups. More than I ever liked Twitter tbh.

interesting set of endorsements Warren's got there

would a be shame if something happened to them...

but also, another thing that a lot of people point out, but not often enough: delete your facebook account! you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!

uh have you seen twitter?

Need a FB account to post to the ILXors are Now Playing group

But no, FB is definitely worse than Twitter

Just the fact that Trump makes policy through his dumb-ass tweets makes Twitter worse.

Someone finally went and wrote the paper


https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/how-coronavirus-could-upend-2020-battlegrounds-204708

So the GOP et al are really going to lean into this “we can’t bail out the blue states” huh

both facebook and twitter are fucking evil

been saying for weeks that DeSantis' strategy of killing his dumbfuck seniors in The Villages will cost his master in the White House.

Trump: "And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. And is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? It would be interesting to check that. That you're gonna have to use medical doctors with."

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) April 23, 2020

it just... might... work... on him

Someone finally went and wrote the paper

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/how-coronavirus-could-upend-2020-battlegrounds-204708

quick skim and honestly the paper itself seems like total bullshit. i might have missed something but it doesn't even mention that, alongside seniors, it's also killing minorities at a disproportionate rate, which seems relevant to the question.