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

[worstblogever]

Last I heard, there are fewer and fewer Republican Senators willing to vote against Trump, for one reason or another.

The main reason being the Republican Party is filled with craven, spineless cowards who fear Trump and his ilk more than they love the country.

[Joker]

Do any of them actually love America? It doesn't seem like it.

I try to figure this one out, and I cannot find one single aspect of modern day america that they actually like, let alone love.

[Tendrin]

He's in the queue, although both those stories are getting added to the pile of reasons why he's worth sandbagging.

Like, I've been putting him off for way too long, but even in 2017, the Miami New Times thought he had already submitted ten insane bills in his first two months in office.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/o...e-laws-9182125

I think I remember that now from the thread!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I wonder how many feel Trump really didn't do anything wrong and how many are more afraid of a potential backlash from the rabid Trump-supporters in their states?

More the latter than the former. They saw at went down on 1/6 and decided they don’t want to be in the crosshairs of that batshit crazy.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Do any of them actually love America? It doesn't seem like it.

I try to figure this one out, and I cannot find one single aspect of modern day america that they actually like, let alone love.

I can give you TWO aspects: Money. Power.

[Joker]

I can give you TWO aspects: Money. Power.

Those aren't uniquely American. Money and Power exist everywhere.

I realize, of course, that asking what the party who's sole interest seems to be turning back the clock (Conservative etc) loves about Modern Day America is answering it's own question, but...

[Malvolio]

I have been a harsher critic of Bernie's die-hard supporters than of Bernie himself. But I have had criticism for Senator Sanders.

And this meme? It's a nice fun thing that exists without commentary, and seems to just be celebrating that he's kind of curmudgeonly. Like Larry David really is the perfect guy to be doing an impression of him. So it's just a nice thing.

Let's just enjoy a nice thing while it lasts and not read too much into it.

Also, let's enjoy it if now that he's the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, that he shuts down Republicans who want to suddenly whine about the annual budget deficit that they multiplied by 8 under Trump.

Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. That has to be the most important thing about Bernie Sanders right now. That means that when a bill becomes law, Sanders has more say than anyone in the US how much money is allocated toward enforcing that law. To put that in the words of our new President, "That is a big fucking deal!"

[DrNewGod]

CBR's algorithm apparently doesn't like the term b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s-i-n-s-i-d-e-r, preventing me from posting a link, but that site [that must not be named] has an article on how the surviving Koch brother is behind a lawsuit aimed at making political donations even darker money than they already are.

[Joker]

Biden admin has said they'll be doing Covid updates 3 times a week starting Wednesday.

Be interesting to have that back on the front page. Not that it wasn't, but the Federal Government really did bury those numbers and just ignore it on a national level.

And things are absolutely abysmal out there. The UK Variant is popping up all over the place, threatening to make things so much worse, which is astonishing, given how bad things actually are.

[Tami]

Biden admin has said they'll be doing Covid updates 3 times a week starting Wednesday.

Be interesting to have that back on the front page. Not that it wasn't, but the Federal Government really did bury those numbers and just ignore it on a national level.

And things are absolutely abysmal out there. The UK Variant is popping up all over the place, threatening to make things so much worse, which is astonishing, given how bad things actually are.

Moderna says its vaccine provokes a weaker response against the South African variant.

Moderna’s vaccine is effective against new variants of the coronavirus that have emerged in Britain and South Africa, the company announced on Monday. But it appears to be less protective against the variant discovered in South Africa, and so the company is developing a new form of the vaccine that could be used as a booster shot.

“We’re doing it today to be ahead of the curve should we need to,” Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said in an interview. “I think of it as an insurance policy.”

He added, “I don’t know if we need it, and I hope we don’t.”

Moderna reported findings from a study that used blood samples from eight people who had received two doses of the vaccine, and two monkeys that had also been immunized.

The variant found in Britain had no effect on the levels of neutralizing antibodies — the type that can disable the virus — produced after vaccination. But with the form from South Africa, there was a sixfold reduction in those levels.

Even so, the company said, those antibodies “remain above levels that are expected to be protective.”

[Joker]

It sounds really xenophobic, but it is ridiculous to me that so much of the world just left borders open. Just. Stop. Traveling.

[The Cool Thatguy]

It sounds really xenophobic, but it is ridiculous to me that so much of the world just left borders open. Just. Stop. Traveling.

Yeah, same. But I don't think anyone is willing to take the short term pains of losing what little tourist dollars for the sake of public health, when no one else is doing the same.

That's the biggest problem. The US lock down was so damn hap hazard, it was ineffective. So instead arresting the problem, it just dragged it out.

[BeastieRunner]

With the xeno boner the GOP has, I'm surprised they never pushed harder for a total shutdown.

[DrNewGod]

With the xeno boner the GOP has, I'm surprised they never pushed harder for a total shutdown.

The GOP knows there were a few large, powerful companies in FL (and elsewhere) that would have gone absolutely batshit over that, and declared jihad on any politician's reelection campaign.

[worstblogever]

Do any of them actually love America? It doesn't seem like it.

I try to figure this one out, and I cannot find one single aspect of modern day america that they actually like, let alone love.

They like the guns part.

But they obviously don't love it if the majority of them voted to reject our democracy and have been carrying water for the loons who tried to stage a coup.