Cont: The all-new "US Politics and coronavirus" thread pt. 2

[acbytesla]

Trump has never been a leader in his life. He's only ever been a boss, and a mediocre one at that.
There was a comic posted in one of the other threads.

Panel 1: Leader
A group of people pulling a cart. The leader is in the front, directing them as he helps them pull.

Panel 2: Boss
A group of people pulling a cart. The boss is sitting on the cart, giving orders.

Panel 3: Trump
A group of people pulling a cart. Trump is behind the cart, pulling in the opposite direction.

True. But in this case, it would have meant listening to experts and imploring the people to work together. Showing compassion even if he had none. Trump didn't just mangle this from a governing perspective, he botched it from a political perspective.

What it took was letting the scientists take the lead. Instead as always Trump thinks he is smarter than the real experts. The problem for Trump now is he can't change this narrative. People are dying and he's directly responsible.

 

[Resume]

Unless you can establish the proportion of patients who develop there troubles you cannot say that the more liberal numbers are wrong, though.

I can most certainly say the the phony pulled-from-his-ass 99 percent is complete ******** as we are only just discovering disturbing new health problems resulting from only mild cases of this virus.

Well he's an idiot. What do you expect?

Even idiots can be leaders; Trump is so much worse than an idiot.

 

[carlitos]

Michael Cohen ordered back to jail after photographed eating at restaurant. He had successfully argued for his sentence to be changed to home detention to avoid Covid in jail, but got it yanked for violating the conditions. Womp womp.

https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-back-in-custody-after-early-prison-release-2020-7

 

[Resume]

Michael Cohen ordered back to jail after photographed eating at restaurant. He had successfully argued for his sentence to be changed to home detention to avoid Covid in jail, but got it yanked for violating the conditions. Womp womp.

https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-back-in-custody-after-early-prison-release-2020-7

What a dope.

 

[Bob001]

Michael Cohen ordered back to jail after photographed eating at restaurant. He had successfully argued for his sentence to be changed to home detention to avoid Covid in jail, but got it yanked for violating the conditions. Womp womp.

https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohen-back-in-custody-after-early-prison-release-2020-7

He's been a dumb thug all his life. Why would anybody think he's changed?

 

[The Atheist]

Is it just me who thought this?

That the Coronavirus for even a moderately competent administration and President would have easily locked up reelection in a landslide?

Crises provide opportunities to unite a country and at least appear as a leader.

But this is where Trump is deficient. He only knows how to be divisive.

You mean how deeply unpopular leaders like Scott Morrison (Australia) and Justin Trudeau have gone from well negative to overwhelmingly positive public perception?
______________________________

Meanwhile, after having enabled the president and denied the crisis, disgusting ***** like McConnell are going to avoid the RNC in fear of infection.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitc...tion-trump-florida_n_5f075f7ec5b67a80bc04aedd

They should be forced to attend and greet every attendee at the door.

 

[acbytesla]

You mean how deeply unpopular leaders like Scott Morrison (Australia) and Justin Trudeau have gone from well negative to overwhelmingly positive public perception?
______________________________

Meanwhile, after having enabled the president and denied the crisis, disgusting ***** like McConnell are going to avoid the RNC in fear of infection.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitc...tion-trump-florida_n_5f075f7ec5b67a80bc04aedd

They should be forced to attend and greet every attendee at the door.

They are in survival mode. While they won't come out and attack him, they don't want to be associated with him either.

 

[Meadmaker]

They are in survival mode. While they won't come out and attack him, they don't want to be associated with him either.

Rats leaving a sinking ship? Let's hope.

I thought that in October of 2016, though. Eleven incumbent Republican senators, I can't remember which ones, withdrew their support from him publicly. I thought he could not possibly win with so many in his own party willing to denounce him like that.

So, I lost a lot of confidence about my prognostication abilities. Take nothing for granted, Joe. Especially Wisconsin.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You know he's not doing that kind of arithmetic. He's claiming any outcome short of death is "totally harmless." Hospitalization, ventilators, long-term heart, lung and brain damage don't matter in his world.

And even "mild" cases are proving to have long-term consequences.
https://journaltimes.com/lifestyles...cle_88c322ef-28f2-51f2-aab2-074cdf75cb3c.html

It's not a matter of any kind of arithmetic.

His pathologic personality disorder leaves him in a fantasy world until the bubble bursts then he moves on to the next fantasy. Bankruptcy becomes a great business deal. No US banks willing to loan the Trumps any more money becomes a great and profitable relationship with the Russian oligarchs who want to invest in Trump golf resorts. The fact there's a little money laundering on the side is just the art of the deal.

You can trace that path throughout Trump's entire life.

The piper is coming for his due. Are we passing peak Trump? Don't know but Trump is passing peak Trump. He's in the public eye and I'm not talking about People Magazine or whoever "Baron", Trump's faux publicist was calling with Trump's sexual conquests.

Trump's base or not, there are GOP supporters who for the first time are not going to vote for Trump. There are a few states where Trump might pull off some EC points. Maybe there are some diehard Republicans willing to rig the election by suppressing votes.

Maybe there are a few blacks who will stay home again, disillusioned with the whole political system.

But I'm not buying in to all the naysayers who think we're going to see a repeat of 2016. We are 4 months from the election. Vaccine or no vaccine, it will not come soon enough. All of Trump's fair weather friends are not going to ride along on the fantasy unicorn when they see the hospitals spilling over their capacity.

Trump promised them 99% of people would be fine. He imagined in his fantasy the economy simply going back to business as usual. It was a ******* fantasy. That just can't be sustained.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

But this is where Trump is deficient. He only knows how to be divisive.

He's a one trick pony so to speak. He's trying his one trick and it won't work here.

I'm glad he hasn't failed by using a nuke because he has no concept of diplomacy.

But I'm terribly sad over the thousands of deaths and especially the needless healthcare worker deaths because we have an incompetent POTUS during a national crisis.
Trump's new marketing strategy is that he's a wartime POTUS and this is a China virus.

 

[The Atheist]

I'm glad he hasn't failed by using a nuke...

...yet.

 

[Minoosh]

Saw a great mask yesterday. It said VOTE! on a rainbow background.

I'll ask the lady if it's commercially available. She said her sister sent it.

 

[Meadmaker]

Saw a great mask yesterday. It said VOTE! on a rainbow background.

I'll ask the lady if it's commercially available. She said her sister sent it.

I would be tempted to get a Vote mask, but I would go with a red/white/blue flag or patriotic theme, myself.

It makes a wonderful statement. It's a case where, normally, some sort of "vote" button is just a statement of patriotism, saying that voting is a good, all-American thing to do. In this case, though, putting it on a mask would be a political statement all by itself, yet those who disagree with you might feel frustrated that they couldn't exactly call you on it.

 

[Armitage72]

How do you spell "Schadenfreude"? M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I.

More than two dozen Mississippi lawmakers have tested positive for coronavirus after refusing to wear masks.

If you've been in contact with your state lawmaker in Mississippi, you may want to get a coronavirus test.
About one in six state lawmakers have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Dr. Thomas Dobbs of the Mississippi Health Department.
For weeks, politicians flouted mask recommendations inside the state Capitol. Twenty-six state legislators have now tested positive for Covid-19, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and State House Speaker Philip Gunn. Neither man wore a mask at a bill signing at the governor's mansion last week.

 

[newyorkguy]

It's unbelievable that these Mississippi lawmakers not only couldn't effectively combat the spread of Covid-19 in their state, they couldn't even protect themselves.

"We could have done more to prevent this," State Rep. Robert Johnson III, the Democratic leader of the state's House of Representatives, said in a statement to CNN. "It seems it was all about some erroneous, dangerously promoted political stance. It's disgusting. Our governor refuses to order statewide mask requirements and our leadership decided not to require it at the Capitol."

Without masks, it may not come as a shock that the virus spread so efficiently within the legislature. On the floor, desks are packed tightly together, and members gather closely to communicate with their colleagues. CNN Report

Coronavirus began increasing dramatically in Mississippi about three weeks ago.

 

[Minoosh]

I would be tempted to get a Vote mask, but I would go with a red/white/blue flag or patriotic theme, myself.

The flag motif paled for me somewhat through overuse, though I wanted to find a patch to embroider on my jeans after 9/11.

Every once in a while I pretend I am just coming back to Earth after having been away for several years, and I ask myself, what would surprise me? Early 2000s it was like - what, are we in a war? So many flags! (Often made in China).

Anyway I'd like a "vote" mask no matter the color scheme. That's patriotic enough for me.

 

[Meadmaker]

The flag motif paled for me somewhat through overuse, though I wanted to find a patch to embroider on my jeans after 9/11.

Every once in a while I pretend I am just coming back to Earth after having been away for several years, and I ask myself, what would surprise me? Early 2000s it was like - what, are we in a war? So many flags! (Often made in China).

Anyway I'd like a "vote" mask no matter the color scheme. That's patriotic enough for me.

I checked on Amazon. There were several vote masks. I didn't see rainbows and vote together. I did see stars and stripes themes with vote.

 

[Aridas]

To do a bit of a cross-over from the science COVID-thread...

And are we sure about this "kids aren't spreading it, open the schools" assertion?

I think that we can safely be pretty sure about why assertions like that are being pushed as hard as they are and by who. Employer/Employee power dynamics - which matter quite a lot to, for example, the GOP's main donors, who tend to be a lot of fairly rich and powerful people.

To borrow from a couple opinion pieces...

Take this insane GOP push to “fully reopen” schools, for example. Neither Trump nor his Republican enablers much care about the lives of American schoolchildren. American schoolchildren aren’t making them any money. What they care about is getting American parents back into the workplace, and schools that can’t open are an obstacle to that goal, Bouie explains.

And so schools have to open because parents have to work, and parents have to work because the president opposes any additional aid to American families, who might stay home and avoid the virus if they had the choice. This would raise the unemployment rate — possibly jeopardizing Mr. Trump’s chances for re-election — and redistribute power from employers to workers, while also strengthening the case for a robust and generous social safety net.

The very, very wealthy who pull the strings controlling the motions of nearly every Republican in elected office today are seeing the potential of staggering, permanent capital losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The only way they stem those losses is by getting Americans back to work for their businesses. They don’t want to talk about a Universal Living Wage; they don’t want to talk about publicly subsidized health care or child care; they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that most of the jobs permanently lost to this pandemic will be performed by robots or otherwise automated within 10 years. They just want people back to work. Now.

 

[Armitage72]

Every once in a while I pretend I am just coming back to Earth after having been away for several years, and I ask myself, what would surprise me? Early 2000s it was like - what, are we in a war? So many flags! (Often made in China).

The Colorado Sun runs a comic called "What'd I Miss?", about a woman who wakes up from a 30 year coma and learns about her new world with the help of her African-American neighbor.

 

[newyorkguy]

On Friday Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned Texans that if people continue to ignore his statewide mandate that makes wearing a face mask mandatory, the next step could be locking the state down again. NBC News reported, "His plea to Texans comes as nearly 80 Texas counties have opted out of the order , while others are refusing to enforce it." New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are at all-time highs in the Lone Star State.

“Things will get worse, and let me explain why,” Abbott told KLBK TV in Lubbock. “The deaths that we’re seeing announced today and yesterday — which are now over 100 — those are people who likely contracted COVID-19 in late May. The worst is yet to come as we work our way through that massive increase in people testing positive.” Texans will also likely see an increase in cases next week, Abbott said, and people abiding by his face mask requirement might be the only thing standing between businesses remaining open and another shutdown. NBC News link

New cases dipped slightly on Friday -- the day Gov. Abbott spoke on three different Texas TV stations -- but rose Saturday to a new one day high of 10,351 cases.