All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[WestPhillyPunisher]

If these people, Trump and the Quick-Draw Governors, were running the country during the revolutionary war

The headlines would read: George Washington wins first major U.S. victory at Trenton

Followed by 'Trump fires Washington', 'Brian Kemp orders troops back home to open stores', 'Trump negotiates building hotel in London in exchange for ending war'.

Yep, pretty much!

Oh dear, that is such a shame. What a shame indeed. I am certainly not smiling and laughing about this. No way! Truly a shame.

Oh NOOOOOOOO! Cut Glass and Burlap were sent packing from Faux News? How terrible! I'm so sad!

====================

Trump Says He Takes No Responsibility For People Ingesting Disinfectant

The president said he “can’t imagine” people are ingesting disinfectant to treat COVID-19 because of his comments last week. Well, of course Drano Don washed his hands of this mess, that's what he does.

**********

Trump Says Virus Testing ‘Not A Problem,’ But Doubts Persist

The administration unveiled a “blueprint” for states to scale up their testing in the coming week. If Trump said the sun would come out today, I'd take my umbrella because chances are he'd be lying, like he was here.

**********

Senators Demand Answers About Jared Kushner’s Role In Distributing Medical Supplies

Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal are pressing the country’s largest medical suppliers to shed light on an “opaque” program.

**********

Trump Gets A Fact-Check After Blaming Coronavirus On ‘Somebody A Long Time Ago’

The president’s critics say he could’ve been referring to himself. I'm surprised Trump didn't come right out and blamed Obama for the pandemic.

**********

William Barr Says Feds Are ‘On The Lookout’ For ‘Overbearing’ Coronavirus Restrictions

Trump’s attorney general said the Justice Department could challenge COVID-19-related infringements on constitutional rights and civil liberties. Who the **** is Droopy Dogg and his brownshirts to determine what is overbearing or not?

**********

Next Wave Of States Prepare To Reopen Despite Insufficient Coronavirus Testing

Public health authorities say increasing human interactions and economic activity now - without the means to do so safely - will only backfire.

[Ragged Maw]

I’m skeptical. Despite nearly dying after having been shot during the Congressional baseball shooting three years ago, Steve Scalise remained a hardcore second amendment/anti-gun control fanatic. I suspect this woman won’t let coronavirus stop her from being an idiot.

Well, with the former, the logic of "If me or my friends had been armed at the time......" might've been running through his mind. That obviously wont work with a microscopic organism.

[kidfresh512]

I’m the Judge Who Won in Wisconsin. This Principle Is More Important Than Winning.

It’s important to note three significant facts. First, both court decisions — from the U.S. and Wisconsin Supreme Courts — are seen as being along partisan lines, with allies of Republicans refusing to delay the election. Second, because of the pandemic, the justices of neither of those courts actually met in person when discussing and voting these cases — but they forced many people who wanted to vote, to vote in person. And third, every member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court had already voted early. They weren’t putting themselves at risk.

It’s my view that these decisions were wrong on the law, and they were wrong on process. We shouldn’t legislate from the bench. There was no time for full briefs or oral arguments and no time to fully examine the issues. The U.S. Supreme Court especially erred by writing into law a postmark requirement that they didn’t have the time to think through and that caused tremendous confusion in my state.

I find it unconscionable that Wisconsin voters were forced to choose between their safety and having their voices heard in our democracy. The right to vote is fundamental to the American creed. Courts making partisan decisions, sending people out to vote in the middle of a global pandemic, is exactly what’s wrong with a judiciary that has become too political, and I think a deliberate attempt to suppress the vote in Wisconsin.

We all knew it was risky for those people to vote anyway despite the obvious attempts by the GOP to suppress the vote by doing it this way. So it is sad to read her correlating the uptick in cases after the election now. The sentiment about moving away from partisan moves like that and judges with a bias is ideal.

But, the GOP at large on a massive scale have proven by this and the actions of Trump and Mitch McConnell that they will do anything to not adhere to that sentiment. That they would rather blanket the courts with partisanship. That no trick or scheme is too dirty. People's health in a pandemic? Do not care.

[jetengine]

So my government is pretty awful.

Last night, BBC's Panorama exposed the truth behind the government's claims that it had provided sufficient PPE. If you have not watched this programme, please do. A full transcript is not yet available, but will be posted here when it is.

Stockpiles that should have existed, didn't. The government knew they were needed, but didn't spend the money. Some items weren't bought at all - swabs for testing, visors, gowns, body bags.

Equipment that did exist was not kept up to date - one NHS worker was shown in the film peeling off a date expiry sticker that read November 2019 (therefore out of date anyway) to reveal underneath one that said November 2016.

When we were told that "a billion items of PPE have been supplied to the NHS," that may have been the actual number. What it doesn't represent is how many of those items were functional PPE of the type required.

Here's the BBC, reporting on its own programme:

"One billion items of PPE have been delivered across the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has said.

However, according to the BBC's Panorama programme, more than half of all the PPE items are surgical gloves - and in most cases, each individual glove is counted rather than pairs.

According to the DHSC, the protective gear sent out in England by 26 April, included:

143 million masks
163 million aprons
1.8 million gowns
547 million gloves

The figure also includes (now) body bags, swabs, clinical waste containers, cleaning equipment and detergent."

That's right, over half of those billion articles were gloves. Not PAIRS of gloves. Single gloves. Also, anyone who has ever worn blue nitrile gloves of the type surgeons use knows two things about them. Firstly, that they come in sizes, and if you haven't got the right size, they're unwearable. Secondly that they are extremely easy to tear if they're old. The material degrades and brittles over time. Then they're useless.

The second biggest item is plastic aprons - the type dinner ladies wear. They are useless against droplet contamination, because they don't cover everything.

And the rest? The list mentions "clinical waste containers, cleaning equipment, (paper towels are on Panorama's list but not mentioned in the BBC's article) and detergent." By no stretch of the imagination whatsoever can those be called "PPE". They are adjuncts to PPE, but in themselves they do not provide direct barrier protection to staff in danger of infection from fluid spray or virus-laden air.

But did the government know what was needed?

Just last year, says the Panorama programme,, the minutes of a NERVTAG meeting in June 2019 warned that gowns were needed. Who or what is "NERVTAG"? The Government's own website provides the answer:

"NERVTAG (the New And Emerging Respiratory Virus Advisory Group) is an expert committee of the Department of Health (DH), and advises the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and, through the CMO, to ministers, DH and other Government departments.

It provides scientific risk assessment and mitigation advice on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory virus threats and on options for their management."

Setting aside the fact that the name of the group (like SAGE) appears to have been dreamed up by someone nostalgic for James Bond films (remember SMERSH?) and with a loose connection to the gravity of the situation the group was supposed to be preparing for, if the government didn't even take its own advice in its frantic drive to dethrone May and push for a no-deal Brexit, how can it possibly be deemed worthy of trust?

Masks? Apparently, 33 million of them were on "the original shopping list". Panorama claims that only 12 million of them have been handed out, and the government refuses to explain what has become of the rest.

But even if we didn't have enough PPE already stockpiled, could we have done something about it?

Panorama claims that we could. At the beginning of February, the European Centre for Disease Control issued a warning that respirator masks, visits, gowns and gloves would be needed. For the most serious cases it recommended that between 15 and 24 FULL SETS of PPE per patient per day would be needed based on the experiences and information coming from the beginnings of the big outbreaks in Europe.

So the information was there, but the government chose not to act on it, instead dithering with concepts of "herd immunity", not taking the pandemic seriously, and allowing its scientific committee - SAGE - to be infiltrated by behavioural scientists, data geeks such as Ben Warner, and politically motivated SPADs such as Cummings. (And then of course one has to remember the "missed email" that supposedly led to the the government not being involved in the drive, coordinated by the ECDC and under the auspices of the EU, to source ventilators and other protective equipment - a lack of involvement which is surprising, given that British civil servants attended meetings about that drive in January, February and early March.)

Where there's a will, there's a way, it is often said. Clearly, there was no governmental will to redress the deficiencies in stockpiling. Political ideology drove every decision that was made, and the welfare of this country's citizens does not appear to have been even a minor consideration in the decision making processes.

The Panorama programme details the type of opportunity that the government missed in its drive to help its own people and its politically important friends to profit from our deaths. It outsourced the contract for ventilators to Tory party donor and Brexiteer, James Dyson. PPE was sourced from Turkey, a country run by the illiberal, retrogressive, but ideologically similar Erdogan - and remember that despite being paid for up front, it has not all arrived.

Meanwhile, Panorama interviewed the manager of a small factory in Bolton that makes fabric for hazmat suits, gowns and masks of the type worn by medics seen in videos of Covid19 sufferers being cared for in China - the type of protective gear recommended by the WHO. The government did not approach the factory in February, during the preparation opportunity, themselves and finally in March the factory owner contacted the government. The owner claimed to have written to "the government, to MPs and to Public Health England." He goes on to say "at this stage we haven't had a response." That was in March.

Panorama filmed "ten days after the company had contacted the government." The company still hadn't had a response - and the fabric order being processed on its machines was for the USA. The machines were running "five to six days a week at 80 to 90% capacity, and as the managing director pointed out "Trump is buying this UK capacity."

Apparently, the company is now providing material for the NHS "through a private supplier" (whatever that means) but, Panorama claims, could have provided the material for 300,000 gowns in the missing weeks of February and March when the government did nothing. The government, according to its own information has provided just over 1.3 million gowns during the entire crisis. If this factory alone had been working for our NHS rather than for Johnson's crony, Trump, then that figure could have been increased by nearly 25%.

There is more, and it is shameful. NHS trust managers, none of whom were prepared to be identified, said "the supply chain isn't right even now." These are voices heard in the programme:

"The supply chain is erratic, unpredictable and incompetent. We might ask for 10,000 gowns and instead be sent 5,000 aprons."

"We have been told not to talk about the shortages outside of meetings and calls. They don't want people to know how bad it is."

"There is a complete lack of transparency from the government. They are creating panic, because we don't know if they can supply us, so we're scrambling to get it elsewhere."

The programme goes on to discuss both the lack of PPE, and the government's spin and lies about it. It mentions the lack of PPE for GPs and social care workers. It gives details too on the health of the social care and medical workers, and on their morale. It discusses the "clap for the NHS" movement, and how health workers fear that it simply plays into the government's narrative.

[Tendrin]

Did this get posted earlier?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavir...183731319.html

Last week, after images of health care workers in hospital gear facing down demonstrators protesting stay-at-home orders went viral, Dr. Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, urged demonstrators calling for businesses to reopen to dress in scrubs and masks to confuse reporters.
“Planning protest to #ReOpenAmerica?” Ward tweeted on Friday. “EVERYONE wear scrubs and masks — the media doesn’t care if you are really in healthcare or not — it’s the ‘message’ that matters!”
Ward added the hashtags #ProblemSolved, #WeAreAllHeroic, #1A, and #JustWearScrubs.

[jetengine]

Did this get posted earlier?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavir...183731319.html

Nothing like gaslighting to make you really angry

[Mister Mets]

I think that this is accurate. Biden is going to need to address these accusations one way or another. I think the best thing to do is to get him out in an interview where the interviewer can ask him about those allegations and Biden can answer in a muted and somber way that he did not ever assault anyone and that he welcomes a thorough investigation in which he and his team will be completely compliant. That would create not only contrast between the way Kavanaugh and Trump handled their allegations, but it will also demonstrate that Biden, unlike most abusers, is ready and willing for folks to dig around in his past and see if anything is there. This is what needs to happen.

It's hard to have a fair contrast between others and Biden when the media has treated Biden much more favorably.

I still find it odd that....

A. She's still voting Biden
B. She only remembers the exact details that Reade is telling now. Nothing MORE just the exact details she's telling now.

It does make it more likely but also makes it so fucking weird. Then again as I said before shes weaponising her assault which is fucking awful unto itself.

The link also includes a second person, a former staffer for a California state senator, who says that Reade complained about sexual harassment.

As for remembering the details Reade is telling now, these would be fairly memorable details.

It remains unusual that Biden would do something nasty to one woman, but not others. Roy Moore and Al Franken both had multiple accusers after the first allegations came out.

3 weeks ago Twitter was outraged because Biden encouraged people to go vote in the primaries even if it might be dangerous. Now Twitter is outraged by basically the exact opposite.
I dunno, Twitter is a wretched hive sometimes.

There is a middle ground between having people go to the polls, and canceling an election.

Vote by mail remains an option.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump says China could have stopped Covid-19 and suggests US will seek damages

Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on China, saying his administration was conducting “serious investigations” into Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and suggesting he would seek damages for the US.

The US president had stopped giving press briefings after his advisers reportedly warned him that his marathon news conferences, including his widely-ridiculed comments about disinfectant as a possible treatment for Covid-19 – were hurting his re-election campaign.

The pause only lasted the weekend however. On Monday morning the White House announced that the day’s briefing was cancelled, only to reverse the decision hours later.

At the briefing Trump launched another forthright attack on China, saying there were “a lot of ways you can hold them accountable” for the pandemic.

I wonder if it's wise for Drano Don to poke the bear, especially since he's said to owe millions to Chinese banks. That would be pushing his luck, but then, Trump isn't known for his smarts.

[Mister Mets]

The recent change has also been white people waking up to the reality of racism in America via social media and and (more recently) an openly racist president -- it's hard to see why this would be viewed as problematic, regardless.

It makes sense that some "liberal whites" might have a better understanding of the extent of racism in this country than many black people because many whites have family members, bosses, and co-workers who openly espouse racist rhetoric -- something that is becoming less and less acceptable to "liberals" as time passes, especially in the post-Obama era.

And also I see no mention of the recent "radicalization" of right-wing white supremacists who are now openly shooting blacks, Jews, Latinos and Muslims in public -- a "change" that has been so exceptionally bad that the FBI determined them to be the most dangerous terrorist threat in America.

It's not "radical" to want to see fairness and equality in America -- even if some choose to look the other way when their party opposes it.

You speak of "exaggerations" while ignoring and dismissing direct evidence that your party engages in racist voter suppression against minority voters -- maybe the opposite is at play in that you prefer to downplay an obvious problem within their ranks.

Which is more problematic: whites becoming more "liberal" or white supremacists suppressing votes and harassing and shooting people of color?

Terrorism is bad.

The government should prosecute and arrest terrorists. Is it failing to do so?

[worstblogever]

I'm a bit confused by this one.

Do you think standard Republican orthodoxy is so far beyond the pale on this message board that if someone were to express it, they would be banned?

"Grandma and grandpa should be willing to die to save the economy."
"Children from other countries should be locked in cages."
"The president wasn't wrong for suggesting people should inject themselves with disinfectants to combat COVID-19." |

Just for a few examples of horrible opinions that are becoming GOP dogma of late.

[worstblogever]

Oooooooooooooo WBE! I got someone for you! Meet Kelli Ward! She ran for McCain's Senate seat in 2016 and Flake's seat in 2018. She never got the Republican nomination, but she still counts and is currently the Chair of the Arizona Republican Party! Get a load of this s**t she just posted.

Kelli Ward is old hat(e) for me at this point.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...rd-2018-Update

[Tendrin]

Kelli Ward is old hat(e) for me at this point.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...rd-2018-Update

(hat)e. I like that.

[aja_christopher]

Terrorism is bad.

The government should prosecute and arrest terrorists. Is it failing to do so?

Socrates asked questions to get to the truth while you seem to ask them to avoid giving truthful answers to questions asked.

Again, which is more problematic: whites becoming more "liberal" or "conservatives" suppressing votes and harassing and shooting people of color?

Since you focus solely on one and never address the other with similar concern, your real answer is already out there.

[Ragged Maw]

Terrorism is bad.

The government should prosecute and arrest terrorists. Is it failing to do so?

As long as they make it thorough by putting as much effort in curbing domestic terrorism as the foreign variety, then there shouldn’t be an issue. ARE they being thorough? Cause lately I’ve been hearing that they’re falling short of that.

[worstblogever]

(hat)e. I like that.

She's spreading too many conspiracy theories and palling around with too many militia kooks for me to take her seriously as a politician. She's a joke.

And somehow, that makes her a fitting head of the Arizona GOP.