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

[worstblogever]

I read that on the 15th, a Music Festival went off without a hitch in Taiwan, because it's been 200 days since they had a community-transmitted case of Covid-19.

The United States, meanwhile, has over a thousand people dying a day right now, and about 245K dead.

That's how badly the Trump administration f***ed this up.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

But yeah, let's yammer about Democrats cheating....

Ga. secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude ballots

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who he said questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state.

In a wide-ranging interview about the election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation over a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes to be left out of the count.

The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read: “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”

[Gray Lensman]

I read that on the 15th, a Music Festival went off without a hitch in Taiwan, because it's been 200 days since they had a community-transmitted case of Covid-19.

The United States, meanwhile, has over a thousand people dying a day right now, and about 245K dead.

That's how badly the Trump administration f***ed this up.

That is a pretty unfair comparison (even though Trump has massively screwed up the response) as islands can isolate themselves much better than nations with extensive land borders. Due to the DMZ, South Korea is effectively an island as well, even though it isn't a geographic one.

Still, Trump has messed up worse than any other even partly developed country, even India, which has a massive population, and many parts so dirty they look to an outsider like a macro Petri dish.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Victoria Jackson, who since her days as a performer on Saturday Night Live has gone madder than a hatter wearing a top hat full of s***house rats. She ran for office in Tennessee to be a county commissioner, for whatever reason, but since 2008 Jackson has, without comedic intent, used her celebrity (or former celebrity) to tell people about how Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ, a communist who enslaved African-Americans again, just like Hitler, and had allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate our government. Obviously, she took the news that he won a second term poorly, and said that “America died”. She also railed against an episode of Glee for featuring two gay characters kissing, defended Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remarks, compared the Sandy Hook Massacre to abortion, and complains about the lack of a White History Month. She has not been on the ballot for several years now, and people still honestly aren’t sure if her uber-conservative persona is a parody of actual conservatives, or she’s serious and really that insane.


In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted profiles of Jake Anderegg, a Utah State Senator who sponsored HB 391, the Utah GOP’s effort to prohibit the Medicaid Expansion in their state, and keep much needed federal dollars out of the hands of their citizens back in March of 2013. Early into Anderegg’s first term, he was the subject of controversy when he and the President of the Utah State Senate Wayne Niederhouser started joking around on Twitter about how the men’s room at the capitol was always occupied, and Anderegg joked that he was strongly considering a gender identity change so that he could use the women’s restroom, instead. He still won re-election easily, not being challenged in the GOP Primary in 2014, and in his second term, it looked like at first, Anderegg’s big controversy would make a spectacle of himself by arguing his own traffic tickets after he got busted doing 71 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, and tried claiming the officer both exaggerated about what the speed limit was where he was driving, and that he wasn’t going as fast as he was accused of. Under oath, he finally admitted to going 60 to 65 MPH, but not after fighting, kicking, and screaming about “entrapment” and “revenue generation” by the local police, which really doesn't amount to much when you're flaunting traffic laws by double the posted speed limit. But in late June 2015, when he drafted a bill that would will “end government agencies’ involvement in issuing marriage licenses.” In other words, if gays could get married, then NO ONE could. The historic implications of this are the real kicker, as many critics noted it was similar to the disgusting reaction many Southern politicians who were in favor of segregation had after finding out they would need to integrate schools, and instead decided to close them so neither white, nor black children could attend. And when you place yourself in the company of bigots of that caliber, well, congratulations, you win a CSGOPOTD profile. We have little to update on Anderegg, save for the fact that he was throwing cold water on Mormons who were suggesting a protest vote, and rallying around Evan McMullin in the 2016 elections, and telling them to stand with Donald Trump. Anderegg, who so staunchly wants to defend the sanctity of marriage from gay people, rallied them around an admitted serial sexual predator who has committed adultery multiple times on his three wives, and boasted about it. And, we're filled with sadness and loathing to point out that Anderegg managed to casually run for re-election in the Utah State Senate in 2016, and was handed victory because no one bothered to run against him, whatsoever, in the primary of the general election.

Now, Utah voters in 2018 got the chance to vote themselves on the expansion of Medicaid, as a ballot initiative leaves it up to the good people of Utah to vote on. And, it passed. Jake Anderegg immediately threatened to simply repeal the law in the state legislature if it passes or not, when the new session starts. Make no mistake, Anderegg is obsessed with conservative dogma, and will defy the will of the people if he’s empowered to do so (in other words, he’s a real s***ty politician). Anderegg throws a tantrum whenever anything is done by the government to help people, including the fit he threw after Utah voters voted to expand Medicaid statewide, but he argued that voters in HIS district didn’t, so why bother?

Jake Anderegg was allowed to run for re-election unopposed in 2020. He currently is, like a f***ing moron looking to get people killed, advocating to undo measures taken by Utah Gov. to stop the spread of Covid-19. Y’know, when the rate of infection and daily deaths are at their highest peak since the crisis started.

Four more years of this malicious ideologue. Just… goddamn it.
 

[Mister Mets]

Because I go by all the votes cast, which is what the FL Supreme Court ruled. You can play your game all you want, but Gore got more votes in Florida and the Supreme out should have let the total recount go forward. And again, he got more votes in Florida. Period, full stop.

The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called "undervotes," about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didn’t detect any vote for a presidential candidate. That would not have been enough to make a difference.

https://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/th...count-of-2000/

A review of the undervotes by the news outlets shows that it could have actually increased Bush's lead in the state.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/polit...sults-studies/

The results: The study shows that Bush likely would have won the statewide recount of undervotes even if the U.S. Supreme Court had not intervened to stop the counting. It also reveals that, ironically, the most lenient standard of vote counting —advocated by Gore — gives Bush his biggest lead. However, USA Today cautioned that, "The study has limitations. There is variability in what different observers see on ballots. Election officials, who sorted the undervotes for examination and then handled them for the accountants' inspection, often did not provide exactly the same number of undervotes recorded on election night."
The details, with USA Today's original explanations of the different standards in parentheses:
Lenient Standard: Bush +1,665 ("This standard, which was advocated by Gore, would count any alteration in a chad -- the small perforated box that is punched to cast a vote -- as evidence of a voter's intent. The alteration can range from a mere dimple, or indentation, in a chad to its removal. Contrary to Gore's hopes, the USA TODAY study reveals that this standard favors Bush and gives the Republican his biggest margin: 1,665 votes.")

Palm Beach Standard: Bush +884 ("Palm Beach County election officials considered dimples as votes only if dimples were found in other races on the same ballot. They reasoned that a voter would demonstrate similar voting patterns on the ballot. This standard -- attacked by Republicans as arbitrary -- also gives Bush a win, by 884 votes, according to the USA TODAY review.")

Two corner standard: Bush +363 ("Most states with well-defined rules say that a chad with two or more corners removed is a legal vote. Under this standard, Bush wins by 363.")

Strict standard: Gore +3 ("This "clean punch" standard would only count fully removed chads as legal votes. The USA TODAY study shows that Gore would have won Florida by 3 votes if this standard were applied to undervotes.")

Gore could have won only with an approach his legal team didn't advocate for, that was stricter than the rules in most states.

[Mister Mets]

That is a pretty unfair comparison (even though Trump has massively screwed up the response) as islands can isolate themselves much better than nations with extensive land borders. Due to the DMZ, South Korea is effectively an island as well, even though it isn't a geographic one.

Still, Trump has messed up worse than any other even partly developed country, even India, which has a massive population, and many parts so dirty they look to an outsider like a macro Petri dish.

The numbers suck in a lot of places.

The United States and the European Union have faced similar figures for the last month.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

There is much Trump could have done better, but the United States was not going to get the low numbers seen in Pacific Island nations.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I read that on the 15th, a Music Festival went off without a hitch in Taiwan, because it's been 200 days since they had a community-transmitted case of Covid-19.

The United States, meanwhile, has over a thousand people dying a day right now, and about 245K dead.

That's how badly the Trump administration f***ed this up.

It's not that the Trump administration simply f--ked this up, they basically collaborated with the conquering army.

They tried to engineer covid so that it would be a blue state problem, kill off blue voters, make governors there unpopular all so as to swing the election his way. That failed since the blue states were impenetrable in 2020, voting against him in bigger margins than he won.

The Trump administration weren't simply incompetents, hacks, or morons...they were all of that, but more than that they were evil.

[KOSLOX]

The governor also seemed to accept the reality that Biden won the election, which might have been what really made Trump turn on him.

COVID Kim here is Iowa finally issued a mask mandate as well. The trump train has derailed.

[KOSLOX]

I think Trump would make a perfect Ferengi.


It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to maintain friendships with my conservative friends. Sometimes it's like we inhabit different realities.

I’ve kept a few I’ve known my entire life, but I’ve cut loose the ones I didn’t mind losing as friends. I bailed from Facebook altogether in early March after a realized how crazy people were acting about taking COVID-19 seriously.

[JCAll]

It's not that the Trump administration simply f--ked this up, they basically collaborated with the conquering army.

They tried to engineer covid so that it would be a blue state problem, kill off blue voters, make governors there unpopular all so as to swing the election his way. That failed since the blue states were impenetrable in 2020, voting against him in bigger margins than he won.

The Trump administration weren't simply incompetents, hacks, or morons...they were all of that, but more than that they were evil.

That's one reason I don't think COVID hurt Trump in the election, he so successfully politicized the virus from the beginning that he was practically on the virus's side.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That's one reason I don't think COVID hurt Trump in the election, he so successfully politicized the virus from the beginning that he was practically on the virus's side.

In the sense of sparing him a big red state backlash yes. The GOP’s lockstep embrace of his COVID irresponsibility and mendacity helped him carry the red states.

[babyblob]

I never thought it would happen but my aunt is starting to come around. Well not all the way. but this morning her and I were talking and she admitted that she is starting to question the voter fraud. She said she believed it at first. but no one has offered any evidence and she is getting sick of hearing the claims without proof.

[PwrdOn]

That is a pretty unfair comparison (even though Trump has massively screwed up the response) as islands can isolate themselves much better than nations with extensive land borders. Due to the DMZ, South Korea is effectively an island as well, even though it isn't a geographic one.

Still, Trump has messed up worse than any other even partly developed country, even India, which has a massive population, and many parts so dirty they look to an outsider like a macro Petri dish.

Well if you look at the severity of the covid outbreak in Western countries against the relatively tame numbers in most of Africa and Asia, then you'd see that the pandemic has little to do with our notions of underdeveloped countries being dirty and disease ridden, and a lot more to do with people traveling around and spreading the virus unknowingly, which people in many poorer countries don't have the means to do. Interesting how you aren't hearing that many stories about bat soup or wet markets anymore now that the virus has been pretty much eradicated in China while it continues to spread unabated here. We really need to rid ourselves of this silly conceit that disease is somehow a product of a society being uncivilized or backwards, when the evidence shows that this is simply not the case and really has never been, hell even the Black Death spread mostly through dense urban centers and had less impact on underdeveloped areas.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well if you look at the severity of the covid outbreak in Western countries against the relatively tame numbers in most of Africa and Asia, then you'd see that the pandemic has little to do with our notions of underdeveloped countries being dirty and disease ridden, and a lot more to do with people traveling around and spreading the virus unknowingly, which people in many poorer countries don't have the means to do.

America is kind of the exception because if you look at most COVID deaths after USA it's Brazil, then India, then Mexico...so underdeveloped countries do have higher mortality rates. India's COVID cases are pretty high and expected to get higher. So I wouldn't say the "severity of the covid outbreak" is exactly contracted in "Western countries" as a whole (Unless you think USA alone is all Western countries). Some of the best responses to the virus are Germany and New Zealand. And of course it can't be forgotten that Taiwan and South Korea while not western are developed economies with high GDP...so developed economies do have a solid record of weathering this crisis.

However, it's generally true that leadership and political response counts for a great deal. Poor leadership in USA and UK (to a slightly lesser extent) made things worse. This also applies in Sweden which has higher deaths compared to other Scandinavian countries all thanks to the freakshow nutjob they have for health expert -- Anders Tegnell. So good leadership and civic societies in nations counts for more than GDP and so on.

Interesting how you aren't hearing that many stories about bat soup or wet markets anymore now that the virus has been pretty much eradicated in China

Let's not get hasty because we don't know the full story of COVID in China. The numbers of deaths there, and cases of reinfection and other stuff and so on.

We really need to rid ourselves of this silly conceit that disease is somehow a product of a society being uncivilized or backwards, when the evidence shows that this is simply not the case and really has never been, hell even the Black Death spread mostly through dense urban centers and had less impact on underdeveloped areas.

Pandemics only have the impact they do because of global trade networks. The Black Death happened during the time when trade routes between East and West, from China through the Black Sea through Renaissance Italy and Western Europe were established in the aftermath of the Mongol Conquests. So the more integrated global trade is the more likely the spread and devastation of the pandemic can be.

[PaulBullion]

A couple of Facebook "alternatives" seem to have gotten some play by conservatives in the past few weeks. Abandoning FB because its a "liberal cesspool" that restricts speech, or some such, and heading to Parler or ... another one whose name escapes me. There are places like that where Trump could end up. Personally I think he's burned enough bridges on both sides of the aisle at this point that he's going to essentially be ostracized by everything relevant to the news cycle.

Parlor is a Nazi twitter copy much more than an Nazi facebook copy, though.