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

[Tami]

Larry Brilliant on How Well We Are Fighting Covid-19

It seems like a century ago that I first interviewed Larry Brilliant about the novel coronavirus. But it’s been just a little over three months since I spoke to then-75-year-old Brilliant, an epidemiologist who aided in the eradication of smallpox, and who for years has been warning the world of a pandemic that looks very much like the one we have now. (One of the tools in sounding the alarm was the movie Contagion, for which Brilliant was an adviser.) In that interview, he was able to provide clarity, gravity, and even a measure of hope to our unique and terrifying circumstances. The response was tremendous; it was the second-most-read story in the history of WIRED.

Brilliant’s vita includes roles with the World Health Organization, Google, and the Grateful Dead, but his life’s work has been anticipating and dealing with pandemics. (He is currently CEO of Pandefense Advisory, a team of experts assisting in responses to the coronavirus.) So it was vital that I return for a second conversation, to update what is both the biggest story of our time and the most baffling.

Brilliant reminded me that since our first conversation, he turned 76, an age, he notes, that provides unattractive odds should SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, invade his cells. He wears masks, of course, and seldom ventures outside his Marin County, California, home. It was there that I reached him by phone to speak about the tragic course of the pandemic, what we’ve learned and haven’t learned, and how we still might be able to one day—eventually—recapture normality. I also learned about a possible curse of those who provided the science for Contagion. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

[Kuro no Shinigami]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...-romney-calls/

Mitt Romney calls Trump's Roger Stone commutation 'unprecedented, historic corruption'

Unprecedented? Perhaps the senator hasn't heard of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence?

[JackDaw]

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...-romney-calls/

Mitt Romney calls Trump's Roger Stone commutation 'unprecedented, historic corruption'

Unprecedented? Perhaps the senator hasn't heard of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence?

Isn’t the practice itself completely corrupt whenever it is done??

It places one person’s whim above all other law.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Veterans are on Trump's ass like white on rice:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1282413613660209152

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As U.S. Grapples With Virus, Florida Hits Record Case Increase

Deaths from the virus have also been rising in the U.S., especially in the South and West, though still well below the heights hit in April. People worrying about a second surge of the virus keep forgetting we're not through the FIRST surge!

**********

Surgeon General Jerome Adams Tries To Walk Back Past Bad Mask Advice

Adams compared his claims about the ineffectiveness of wearing masks to treating asthma with cigarettes. And that was his defense. And it was a STUPID defense!

**********

Arizona, Texas Officials Order Morgue Trucks In Latest Sign Of Rising COVID-19 Rates

White House officials told Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego that everything is under control and that she’s being too demanding, she said.

**********

America Isn’t Prepared To Bring Back Sports

Major League Baseball and other pro leagues are eager to start playing again, but the worsening pandemic makes it clear that’s a bad idea.

**********

In non-coronavirus news:

Protesters Demand Allentown Officer’s Suspension Over Video Showing Him With Knee On Man’s Neck

Allentown Police released a statement saying the interaction was being investigated. Jesus! Despite what happened to George Floyd, this repugnant **** keeps on happening!

**********

NRA Touts The AR-15 As An ‘Everyday Gun’ For ‘Everyday Citizens.’ Critics Go Ballistic.

“Modern-day musket my ass,” tweeted David Hogg. Forgot the NRA was still around. Most disappointing.

[worstblogever]

The NRA helped Trump launder money from the Russians for his 2016 campaign.
Their opinions seem to result in tens of thousands of Americans dead more in a year than need to be.

Odd that everything they stand for now is dead Americans and Russians having their puppet in place.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published a profile on Ron Paul, whose love for being the Libertarian wing of the GOP had him suggesting we defund almost every federal agency, cripple our economy by returning its standard to the Gold Standard, and who also ran a regular newsletter that had an odd frequency for printing unpleasant musings about Jews, gays, and African Americans, and would posit conspiracy theories about things like how the Israeli Mossad were really behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Ron Paul also had an amazing tendency to speak ill of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., for whatever reason and was one of the last people to vote against a holiday to honor him. Among the elder Paul’s more inflammatory quotes included discussions of the L.A. Riots only ending because black people had to stop to go pick up their welfare checks, his belief in 9/11 Trutherism, how Social Security would one day be overturned because so was slavery, and that FEMA camps are being set up to lock away American citizens in concentration camps.

In both 2015, and in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Steve Brunk, in spite of the fact that he also simultaneously worked for the conservative corporate interest group ALEC, who defended Gov. Sam Brownback's decision to write an executive order to allow businesses to fire LGBTQ employees based on their sexuality. During debate over an anti-abortion bill in 2010, and whether or not it would have exceptions for rape and incest, Brunk argued that a rape victim needing to show her police report that she reported her assault as a crime would be justified because, “You’d have to have a report that someone stole your car. This is kind of the same thing.” Then he was confused why women were upset that their bodies were being compared to automobiles, because of course he was. Brunk's anti-abortion extremism has led him to submit legislation to ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected (6 weeks), and to ban all D&E abortions (which was overturned by the courts). In 2013, Brunk started taking ideas from the John Birch Society's playbook, and falsely claimed that fluoridated water lowered the average IQ of children who drink it. He has submitted nullification legislation on more than one occasion, blocked the expansion of Medicaid in his state, and even tried passing a law to outlaw all strip joints in Kansas. In 2016, Brunk was forced to resign after he had the gall to actally join a lobbying firm, and then argue that it wasn’t a conflict of interest.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled, Lori Saine, who has served as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives since first winning office in the 2012 elections. Now, the reason that we first became aware of Lori Saine, if you recall, was that her named popped up during our profile of Vicki Marble, one of her fellow members of the Colorado state legislature. Marble was the latest in a series of Republican legislators who read a parody web site, got outraged about an article on it (specifically a fake story about people on food stamps using their EBT cards at pot dispensaries), and then tried to legislate based off of their own hysteria. Now, as most were outraged over Marble blaming health problems African Americans face because of their genetics on her opinion that they “eat to much chicken” (which is super-racist), Lori Saine proved she isn’t worthy of the meaning of her surname, when she decided to give a show of solidarity to Marble by showing up at the next committee hearing with a box of Popeye’s chicken. She didn’t apologize, and claimed it was just a coincidence.

Saine is against just about any kind of regulation you can think of, like after a methane explosion on a property that was once an oil and gas well was allowed to have a home built over it destroyed that house, and killed two people, there were calls to place some sort of regulation on the oil and gas industry to, y’know, keep the public informed where they might be leaving explosive oil and gas reserves behind. But again, Saine’s main interest is in allowing a big business lobby to operate unchecked, and shrug about it whenever bodies turn up as a result.

And those interests are downright fanatical at times, as you can see exhibited in this video, where in the middle of the legislature, Saine starts chanting “JESUS!” again and again after talking about a “spiritual battlefield” over her proposed abolition of abortion.

If she really wanted to prevent abortions, you’d think she would have been all for supporting the rest of the Colorado legislature’s attempts to start a program to fund birth control or IUDs for those who can’t afford them… but no. She’s a fanatic. She actually argued against it by saying, “When subsidizing a commodity, you also reward the behavior surrounding the commodity. So in this scenario, the government is subsidizing sex.”

And… that’s not how that works.

If you’re not getting the idea that she’s one of those die-hard Evangelical extremists just yet, we’ll point out that her record on LGBT rights including voting against a proposed ban on gay conversion therapy on minors, again, not just once, but twice. Because she apparently feels Christians should be allowed to do whatever it takes to turn their kids straight.

Big surprise, she endorsed Ted Cruz for president. But you may have heard about the infighting at that convention between Cruz-aligned “Never Trumpers” and those who sold out their principles to Trump… well Lori Saine was in the middle of that, being caught on video feuding with fellow CSGOPOTD Jason Rapert of Arkansas. We don’t think that’s the worst crazy thing, we’re just entertained whenever two nutballs we’ve profiled go after each other, kind of like Ken Wantanabe advised in that last Godzilla flick.

We’ll also note that gun control is a hot button issue in Colorado over the past few years, who in the wake of the mass shooting in Aurora at a movie theatre showing The Dark Knight Rises, passed a ban on large-canister magazines like the ones James Holmes used to try to rack up a huge body count. Well, not once, but twice, Lori Saine has sponsored an attempt to repeal that ban, because she’ a 2nd Amendment fanatic and would rather help the gun lobby get rich rather than try to prevent whatever psychopath goes on a rampage from racking up more kills. Maybe that’s part of the reason that in December of 2017, Lori Saine managed to exercise her 2nd Amendment rights to the fullest she thinks they should apply, and got herself arrested for trying to carry a semi-automatic pistol on her person through TSA checkpoints at the Denver International Airport. Charges weren’t filed in the incident, and Saine insisted she wasn’t trying to “test” security. Which means she either forgot she was packing heat, or she knew and wanted to sneak it through for some other purpose. Where was she headed, though? To an annual conference by the conservative group ALEC, who was so put off by her arrest for violating a completely reasonable firearms law that they chose to give her an award for being a hyperpartisan twit.

Shortly after her fourth term in office began (she faces term limits in 2020 unless she can win statewide office), Saine celebrated MLK day in 2019 by complaining on the floor the Colorado House of Representatives that she was supposedly “barred” from introducing a resolution to honor the holiday, and then proceeded to rewrite history to claim that whites and blacks were “lynched in nearly equal numbers” after Reconstruction, and that most of the victims were killed for being Republican. Yes, there’s video, and she’s insane enough to have shared it on her Facebook page as if it was a good thing.

And, at this time, we’re thrilled to share the great news that Lori Saine faced down term limits in 2020 and didn’t even try to run for higher office. We would now like to wish her the finest “GOOD RIDDANCE” greetings at this time.

[InformationGeek]

I don't think Trump understands that a lot of people would prefer boring right about now.

Is this what you want for your President??? With no ratings, media will go down along with our great USA!

[Tami]

[Tami]

I don't think Trump understands that a lot of people would prefer boring right about now.

My response to this

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I don't think Trump understands that a lot of people would prefer boring right about now.

My response is a good deal less subtle

[Tami]

My response is a good deal less subtle

To the point!

[skyvolt2000]

Veterans are on Trump's ass like white on rice:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1282413613660209152

Funny I donated to a veterans program and when they sent me a letter for my records.

They included a flyer saying don't vote for Biden because he'll support Socialist Obama's hatred towards veterans.

So pretty much they were endorsing Trump.

Gee what a difference a month makes.

And I can't wait till they call for donations next year. I'll bring this up and then offer the same nice TIRADE I give everyone who calls.

[Tami]

Inside the White House, a Gun Industry Lobbyist Delivers for His Former Patrons

The Trump administration lifted a ban on sales of silencers to private overseas buyers that was intended to protect U.S. troops from ambushes. The change was championed by a lawyer for the president who had worked for a firearms trade group.

Michael B. Williams spent nearly two years helping to run a trade group focused on expanding sales of firearm silencers by American manufacturers.

But try as he might, he could not achieve one of the industry’s main goals: overturning a ban on sales to private foreign buyers enacted by the State Department to protect American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Then Mr. Williams joined the Trump administration.

As a White House lawyer, he pushed to overturn the prohibition, raising the issue with influential administration officials and creating pressure within the State Department, according to current and former government officials.

On Friday, the State Department lifted the ban, and a longtime industry goal was realized. The change paved the way for as much as $250 million a year in possible new overseas sales for companies that Mr. Williams had championed as general counsel of the American Suppressor Association.

There's actually an American Suppressor Association??? That's like if there was an American Assassins Association or an American Chemical Weapons Association or an American Torture Association.