All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[WestPhillyPunisher]

New press secretary claims media is to blame for negative 'disinfectant' headlines. trump says he was being sarcastic. Know how incompetent he is, you'd think his administration would hire someone that knows how to do spin control.

Trump was NOT being sarcastic, and everyone knows it. He saw, read and heard the monumental backlash from his disinfectant suggestion and knew he had to walk it back to save face. However, his ego wouldn't allow him to say he was wrong, so, he came up with that bullshit excuse no one outside of his base, the GOP and the sycophants on Faux News would believe.

[Tami]

Screenshot_2020-04-24 Laurence Tribe on Twitter -- MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE called Maryland's emerge.jpg

Twitter Link

[aja_christopher]

"Voter Fraud Is Part of the G.O.P. Playbook"

"By now most of us have seen the photos from the Wisconsin primary, where voters had to stand for hours in lines that wrapped around city blocks in cold, pouring rain. To exercise what was supposed to be their most sacred democratic right, people had to risk catching the deadly coronavirus — and several did.

To avoid a repeat of the situation and hold a fair election in November, when America may still be in the middle of a pandemic, elections experts and public health officials say we must ramp up voting by mail. Voters on both sides of the aisle agree, as do Democratic and some Republican lawmakers. But mail-in voting has a loud opponent: President Trump. He’s calling for Republicans to fight it, saying it’s a recipe for fraud.

The thing is, fraud isn’t Mr. Trump’s true concern, or the Republican Party’s. I should know. Ballot fraud is extremely rare. But when a case was uncovered in my congressional race in 2018 — orchestrated by my Republican opponent’s campaign — the president and party officials looked the other way. Mr. Trump’s concern is more sinister: Alleging fraud is a cover to rig elections by suppressing Democratic votes.

The election fraud committed in my race was the largest case in modern American history. My opponent hired a felon, Leslie McCrae Dowless, who promised to deliver unbelievable absentee ballot margins, as he had done in past elections. Mr. Dowless hired workers who went to voters’ doorsteps in poor, rural Bladen County, N.C., and “helped” them request, fill out and turn in their ballots. That help included forging signatures and filling in vote choices, and possibly even discarding ballots. The operation targeted African-Americans who typically voted for Democrats. It also appeared the county elections board may have also leaked early vote totals to Republicans.

Altogether, it was an egregious attack on our democracy, in an election where the margin was only 905 votes. Voters on both sides of the aisle were horrified.

At the federal level, Republican politicians were mum. When Mr. Trump was asked about the fraud, he deflected, turning to a baseless conspiracy theory about a million fraudulent Democratic votes in California. When a reporter asked the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, about it, he shifted the blame to Democrats.

It turned out that even the local U.S. attorney, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, had failed to act on warnings by the state elections board that Mr. Dowless had stolen votes in a different race two years before. Instead, the attorney’s office went on a fishing expedition for fraud committed by immigrants, under the guidance of Jeff Sessions, the attorney general at the time.

As I learned, the Republicans take a conveniently uneven approach to fraud. They claim that voters commit fraud, even though it almost never happens, but when one of their own was caught committing fraud against the voters, they weren’t concerned. In fact, it’s important to see their talk of “voter fraud” for what it is: one more page from the Republican Party’s elections playbook, not all that different from its efforts to selectively restrict voting.

Right now, at the state level, administration-loyal Republicans are pushing technical changes to election laws that seem small but are big enough to tilt close elections in their favor: for example, purging infrequent voters (who tend to lean Democratic) from the rolls and making it easier to reject absentee ballots (which burdens young people and minorities in the Democratic base). In Wisconsin, it was Republicans who fought against postponing the primary election and extending mail-in voting. And look what happened: In Milwaukee, a coronavirus hot spot, only five of 180 polling sites were open; black and Hispanic voters suffered overwhelmingly.

Republicans’ voter suppression should come as no surprise. It’s long been part of the party’s playbook in places like North Carolina, where the Republican-controlled legislature cut back early in-person voting, imposed vicious racial and partisan gerrymandering in districts like mine, and passed a voter ID law that a court found would “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

In my election, had a few brave volunteers and I not fought like hell for justice, the Republican Party would have gotten away with stealing a federal election. And they could steal November’s election, too — when it won’t just be a potentially close presidential race at stake, but also control of the U.S. Senate and state legislatures, which will oversee the next round of redistricting..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/o...publicans.html

[Tami]

Giant asteroid flying by Earth next week looks like it's wearing a face mask

CNN)An asteroid estimated to be 1.2 miles wide will fly by Earth next week, but it's not expected to collide with our planet.

And if an asteroid could be aware of such things, it appears to be wearing a face mask in deference to the pandemic, according to new images from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The asteroid is called 52768 (1998 OR2), and it was first spotted in 1998.

On April 29, it will pass within 3,908,791 miles of Earth, moving at 19,461 miles per hour. That's still 16 times farther than the distance between Earth and the moon.

If it did impact Earth, the asteroid is "large enough to cause global effects," according to NASA, back when the asteroid was first discovered.

Even asteroids know how to do Social Distancing.

[shooshoomanjoe]

Giant asteroid flying by Earth next week looks like it's wearing a face mask



Even asteroids know how to do Social Distancing.

Looks more like a breast to me.

[Mister Mets]

Screenshot_2020-04-24 Laurence Tribe on Twitter -- MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE called Maryland's emerge.jpg

Twitter Link

Much of that seems to be liberals making fun of Trump.

The guy on Twitter does not seem to be a Trump fan from his other posts.

Since
@realDonaldTrump
is well known to double down on his stupidity instead of taking a step back, I bet tomorrow he announces a task force to investigate whether injecting bleach or isopropyl alcohol can be done, or how we can irradiate someones lungs with UV radiation.

[Tami]

Much of that seems to be liberals making fun of Trump.

The guy on Twitter does not seem to be a Trump fan from his other posts.

Coronavirus live updates: Maryland agency receives more than 100 disinfectant use calls

Some Maryland residents, however, still dialed the Maryland Emergency Management Agency to ask about disinfectant use.

"This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route," the agency tweeted.

Doctors also say that no one should consume disinfectant.

Mike Ricci, the communications director for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, said the state "decided to take the step of posting this alert after receiving more than 100 calls to our hotline."

[BeastieRunner]

President DSM-5 301.81 won't ever say he's sorry.

Why waste your time debating that?

[Mister Mets]

There was no ad hominem.

You mentioned that people sometimes do distasteful things in politics and I pointed out that Repbulicans routinely attempt to suppress African American votes to win elections -- something that most would find "distasteful" if not downright dishonest and overtly racist -- and that you still support them despite knowing this truth.

Maybe you view this as an attack but in reality it's just the facts laid bare -- if you are going to argue ethics then your foundation is fair game.

Now you're trying to attack the messenger intstead of addressing the message because you know you have no real defense for Republican behavior.

Especially with regards to people of color and LGBT American citizens.

All you do instead is attack Democrats and when someone tells you they aren't a Democrat you still try to find a way to make it about them instead of addressing the faults within your party -- that's just how it usually plays out, up to and including this very exchange.

This wouldn't even be an issue to me if you wouldn't keep posting statistics about African-Americans without putting in context the fact that your chosen party routinely attempts to block any redress said voters might have at the ballot box -- you can easily just address said "distasteful behavior" instead of writing entire paragraphs about "ad hominems" and trying to engage in the usual semantics.

An ad hominem is a discussion of the individual making a statement rather than the actual, so your statement does seem to be an ad hominem.

I have no idea what your stance is on the idea that people sometimes need to consider options that are distasteful and painful. Is your position that this is untrue, that there will never be situations in which all the choices are bad? Is your position that this is so blindingly obvious that it doesn't merit discussion? Are you unsure and prodding me for more details regarding an understanding of the world?

If you're upset about statistics I have posted, by all means point out any errors.

[Kirby101]

Much of that seems to be liberals making fun of Trump.

The guy on Twitter does not seem to be a Trump fan from his other posts.

So he didn't say something completely dumbass stupid and indefensible? Because Lawrence Tribe?

[BeastieRunner]

It's been a few weeks since I posted one. The transition to tele and remote work has been interesting. = )

Beastie's Cartoons of the Week

[Mister Mets]

Decent public and private is fine. You just need to not actively attack the public because you have shares in the private or an ideological hatred of people "Getting what they dont deserve" which frankly seems to be a weirdly big thing in the USA

The big question is what defines decent public health insurance.

In order to keep costs down, there would need to be some kind of limits (IE- if a generic medication is available, a brand-name variation won't be covered), and the political will to go against the massive interest group of people who want as much covered as possible.

Coronavirus live updates: Maryland agency receives more than 100 disinfectant use calls

Do we know that this isn't the equivalent of the guy in your post on Twitter who was taken seriously when he was mocking Trump?

Did 100 people in one state where Trump had under 34 percent of the vote hear him say some word salad about asking doctors about ultraviolet or disinfectant, and think that this was a serious suggestion they should ask a particular state agency about? Or does it seem more likely that calls are coming from some people having fun on reddit or wherever?

[worstblogever]

Much of that seems to be liberals making fun of Trump.

The guy on Twitter does not seem to be a Trump fan from his other posts.

Do we know that this isn't the equivalent of the guy in your post on Twitter who was taken seriously when he was mocking Trump?

Did 100 people in one state where Trump had under 34 percent of the vote hear him say some word salad about asking doctors about ultraviolet or disinfectant, and think that this was a serious suggestion they should ask a particular state agency about? Or does it seem more likely that calls are coming from some people having fun on reddit or wherever?

Again, for a Republican who doesn't particularly like Trump, you sure do seem to be near throwing your back out carrying water for the guy.

Did you really need to defend him from any culpability telling people to inject themselves with bleach, though? Because there's a level of stupid where you should just throw your hands up. It probably should fall well short of that. You're going full on truther on this.

[Mister Mets]

So he didn't say something completely dumbass stupid and indefensible? Because Lawrence Tribe?

I quoted the guy talking about Trump doubling down his stupidity.

Here's his account.

https://twitter.com/JakeTweetMaker

He retweeted a video of Dr Birx's face when Trump said something stupid, and made various comments about Trump's statement was stupid.

The woman Tami quoted from Twitter posted a comment about how she's sorry she got it wrong, but it didn't read like a joke to her.

https://twitter.com/SusanPedler/stat...81200063410176

There's no question about whether this guy meant for his comment to be taken seriously. He didn't. He was mocking Trump, and someone couldn't tell the difference between mockery and endorsement.

Again, for a Republican who doesn't particularly like Trump, you sure do seem to be near throwing your back out carrying water for the guy.

Did you really need to defend him from any culpability telling people to inject themselves with bleach, though? Because there's a level of stupid where you should just throw your hands up. It probably should fall well short of that.

How am I defending Trump here?

And how does it help the Anti-Trump cause if anyone's going with an objectively wrong criticism of Trump supporters? That should be nipped in the bud as quickly as possible, lest something go viral that discredits Trump's critics.

[worstblogever]

Someone died taking fish tank cleaner because it had a hydrochloroquine ingredient in it after Trump called it a miracle cure.

- "Not his fault."

People asked, "How long before he starts telling people to ingest bleach?"

A month later, he does.

"But he didn't mean it."

People have died from his misinformation. People can still die from his misinformation.

STOP. DEFENDING. IT. Because every time you make excuses for that dumbass, you're empowering him to potentially get more people killed.

Unless you like people dying.

Hell, if a poster on this forum started trying to tell people to drink bleach, they'd probably get banned for it.