All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Mister Mets]

Yeah, McCain got to have it both ways, didn't he? I think he may have been the only person who could be interviewed by Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly and have both serve him softballs for the whole interview.

McCain was popular with the mainstream media when he was criticizing Republicans from the center-right. They didn't like him when he was standing in the way of Democrats, either by having the temerity to run for President, or by being a prominent Republican member of the Senate. For the conservative media, it was the other way around.

[SquirrelMan]

McCain was popular with the mainstream media when he was criticizing Republicans from the center-right. They didn't like him when he was standing in the way of Democrats, either by having the temerity to run for President, or by being a prominent Republican member of the Senate. For the conservative media, it was the other way around.

The mainstream media was quite positive about his run until he picked Sarah Palin.

[Gray Lensman]

The mainstream media was quite positive about his run until he picked Sarah Palin.

The media was his base.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The mainstream media was quite positive about his run until he picked Sarah Palin.

At the time back then, I thought McCain would choose former Pennsylvania governor and ex-head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to be his VP. Hitching his wagon to that loon Palin was a dreadful mistake.

[Tami]

Hi, Tami!
I'm not from the UK, but I can link this to you https://www.dw.com/en/northern-irela...nce/a-57127900

Thank you, that article was very good at explaining the situation.

[Tami]

St. Vincent to evacuate thousands under volcano threat

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Empty cruise ships were scheduled to arrive Friday at the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent to help transport thousands of people who evacuated their homes under the fiery glow of La Soufrière volcano which officials said could erupt at any moment.

Shelters filled up overnight as people living in the northern part of the island sought safer ground under government orders, with a string of car lights twinkling through the darkened mountains.

“They are settling in quite nicely,” Doris McIntosh, deputy manager of one shelter, said in a phone interview. She noted, though, that meals were not being served yet. “Because of rushed evacuations, some things are not in place.”

Roughly 16,000 people live in the red zone and required evacuation, Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press.

[mogwen]

Thank you, that article was very good at explaining the situation.

From what I gleaned from the different reddit thread is that it's both Unionists that don't want the the border sea they first pushed for and drug lords that don't want the border checks for their trade that are pushing for these insurrections. Remember that the DUP (unionist party) was against the GFA.

[PwrdOn]

Can I at least have my crazy hemisphere of origin criticized by some one who isn't posting THIS ****!?:

I wonder if I can compare this wording to a statement the Armenian government made about the "totally-not-genocide" on their turf. Maybe we can bet on which comes off as slimier.

I mean the fact that you think that the Armenian government would be the ones trying to deny the Armenian genocide is probably a pretty strong indication that you might not necessarily be all that knowledgeable about these things.

[GOLGO 13]

At the time back then, I thought McCain would choose former Pennsylvania governor and ex-head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to be his VP. Hitching his wagon to that loon Palin was a dreadful mistake.

Mistake?
"The Big O & Prez Biden enter the chat..."

[Ragged Maw]

I mean the fact that you think that the Armenian government would be the ones trying to deny the Armenian genocide is probably a pretty strong indication that you might not necessarily be all that knowledgeable about these things.

Oh. My foible, then. Corrected.

[Tami]

At the time back then, I thought McCain would choose former Pennsylvania governor and ex-head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to be his VP. Hitching his wagon to that loon Palin was a dreadful mistake.

It was a dumb move from an otherwise smart politician who should have known better. Even if McCain wanted to choose a female VP, he had better choices at the time. He could have asked Christine Todd Whitman for example, or even someone like Elizabeth Dole. I'm not an expert but there had to have been far more competent, intelligent, and experienced candidates than Palin.

Here is a Wikipedia article on McCain's alternate possible choices

[Tami]

Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show

Trump appointees in the Health and Human Services department last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with then-President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators.

The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year’s explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat the virus, a cadre of Trump appointees were attempting to blunt the scientists’ messages, edit their findings and equip the president with an alternate set of talking points.

Then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to then-HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, 2020, touting two examples of where he said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had bowed to his pressure and changed language in their reports, according to an email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak.

Pointing to one change — where CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence of a report about spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them — Alexander wrote to Caputo, calling it a “small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!”

yippee???? what are they, 5-year-olds?

Alexander and other officials also strategized on how to help Trump argue to reopen the economy in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, despite scientists’ warnings about the potential risks.

“I know the President wants us to enumerate the economic cost of not reopening. We need solid estimates to be able to say something like: 50,000 more cancer deaths! 40,000 more heart attacks! 25,000 more suicides!” Caputo wrote to Alexander on May 16, 2020, in an email obtained by the subcommittee.

“You need to take ownership of these numbers. This is singularly important to what you and I want to achieve,” Caputo added in a follow-up email, urging Alexander to compile additional data on the consequences of virus-related shutdowns.

Alexander, Atlas and others also repeatedly drafted op-eds intended to provide an alternative message to government scientists’ warnings, including five possible op-eds detailed in emails obtained by the subcommittee.

One email from Alexander to Atlas on Sept. 3 proposed an “op-ed on possible damage to children immune systems with lock downs and masks,” arguing to Atlas that “I do think locking down our kids (and healthy adults) and masking them can dampen their functional immune systems.”

Scientists have said there is no evidence that wearing masks harms the development of children’s’ immune systems.

[shooshoomanjoe]

The mainstream media was quite positive about his run until he picked Sarah Palin.

IMO, McCain would have won had he chosen a better VP.

[MajorHoy]

It was a dumb move from an otherwise smart politician who should have known better. Even if McCain wanted to choose a female VP, he had better choices at the time. He could have asked Christine Todd Whitman for example, . . .

But she was tainted by the 9/11 air quality mess when she was the head of the EPA under W. and was saying it was okay to breathe the air around the area where the twin towers collapsed before it was actually safe to do so.

[Adam Allen]

IMO, McCain would have won had he chosen a better VP.

He had a real shot, from his perceived spot in the centrist/moderate place. I think he went with Palin for one because she's a woman, so they were hoping to counter or co-op the momentum for Hillary as (almost) the Democratic nominee, but then also for her being seen as further to the right, and less moderate than McCain, himself -- for all those right-wing voters who might not have been very enthusiastic for him, his VP choice was meant to show them that he was on their side, after all. In theory, this wasn't such a bad strategy, really. Unfortunately for him, Palin would end up seeming so far out there that the perception of her as loony would overshadow the perception of him as a sensible moderate.