This was only a trial run.https://t.co/3jasJgBowF pic.twitter.com/VJtm1jwz5j
— Tom Toles (@TomTolesToons) August 21, 2020
As you watch Trump get furious about random shit that isn't happening that he either heard about on a buffet line or kind of got from TV, please remember: his mind doesn't work and he understands everything that happens as gossip. https://t.co/WxAMmMoIGZ
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) August 22, 2020
Speaking of the upcoming event Betty brilliantly dubbed ‘Fyre Festivus’… David Roth, in The New Republic:
“So, I just heard that,” the President of the United States said at a White House press conference last Thursday. The conference, like the rest of Trump’s regular press briefings, was ostensibly about the federal government’s slow and lazy response to a pandemic that is still spreading uncontrolled throughout the United States. But because that response can no longer really be said to exist as such, and because he’s never much cared, and mostly because there is a presidential election coming up, President Trump was talking about something he found more interesting instead. In this case, it was a toweringly specious column that ran on Newsweek under the headline “Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility.” The story sought to undermine the natural-born citizenship of Joe Biden’s new running mate by Raising Some Questions while carefully stopping short of answering them…
It’s not just that this cycle of offhand umbrage and gilded bluster never goes anywhere; it’s that there’s fundamentally no real place for anything this useless to go. If a question arrives in a way that suggests he should do otherwise, Trump will absolutely give succor to the cultists, who have already committed murders and kidnappings in the name of their janky shared delusion, or humor some cheesy racist canard. It’s all just something interesting he’s passing on–about him, in case you hadn’t heard. He is an expert in it, actually.
It’s not just that the truth doesn’t matter to Trump, although of course it very much does not. All presidents lie, and if few have done it quite as relentlessly or thirstily or with as much unaccountable personal dampness as Trump, he certainly didn’t invent the right to howling, self-serving falsehoods as the ultimate executive privilege. What’s still jarring even this far into his presidency, though, is how unbelievably cheap and checked-out his communication remains. In his role as president of the United States, Trump reliably holds forth with the same po-faced casualness of a lonesome boomer hoisting some confounding eagle-strewn Facebook meme onto his page to an audience of sighing nieces and cringing grandkids. Trump has always been an inveterate gossip and clout-chaser. This is just as true now when he’s president as it was when he was live-tweeting Access Hollywood episodes about Robert Pattinson’s romantic travails; forever and always, Trump just wants to be a part of the conversation…
The collapse of shared reality across the online sector over the last decade unfolds every day in just this kind of fudgy, vagued-out language. It occurs through the steady accretion of the terrible, disturbing, utterly unfalsifiable things that some people claim or that you just heard all those things that may or may not be so but that are Worth Hearing and So Interesting—all of which occlude and then obscure the real and demonstrable violence that power visits on us every day. “I thought her voice was an important voice,” Trump said last month when criticized for boosting the spurious medical claims of an erratic Houston doctor and self-trained demonologist, “but I know nothing about her.” It’s a remarkable thing to say, and yet somehow it isn’t.
Then as now, Trump didn’t know anything about any of it—he never does, he never will, he doesn’t care—but he wanted to make sure that everyone else heard about it all the same. When other lonely, wrongheaded or web-damaged people extend the same dubious service to those in their lives, they sometimes attach perfunctory well wishes. The president doesn’t bother with that. As far as he knows, he’s just doing his job.
Definitely read the whole thing!
zhena gogolia
“All presidents lie”? I wouldn’t say that
ETA: I’d also call it disinformation, not gossip. Gossip is relatively harmless.
NotMax
“I hear TIME wants to name me Man of the Century. Why aren’t you reporting about that?
//
Patricia Kayden
Brachiator
No, this doesn’t work for me. Trump’s incompetence and disregard for facts and expertise is killing people. Roth is babbling like a media elitist who wants to reduce Trump’s depravity to using the wrong fork at a formal dinner.
Ruckus
Trump just
wantsneeds to be the center of conversation…Fixed that for him.
Kropacetic
Remember when the lie of the year was “If you like your insurance you can keep it.”? A sentence that was, at worst, lacking nuance. It certainly wasn’t a lie.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
However, all presidents do not lie nonstop.
Also too, would go with a term coined specifically for the circumstances: idjitprop.
MattF
@Brachiator: Well, he is using the wrong fork, and he is trolling all of us. Yes, it’s very far from the worst things he’s done— but manners and rhetorical patterns matter, and Roth is spelling out Trump’s bad behavior in detail. Worth doing, IMO.
Cermet
Again, like civil war history shows, the media always down plays these ass wipes and their stupidity, lies, and total disregard for the truth. Then and only then can they make it more like “both sides” and please their corperate overlords.
Brachiator
More Trump craziness.
Trump has an idiotic fixation on finding a magical mystery cure that will make the virus go away. And he wants to make sure that everyone knows that the “China virus” is not his fault. No doubt he will pathetically tout this new snake oil remedy during the convention.
The FDA, of course, is wary of this nonsense, but what do they know?
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Agreed. At a light, quick read it’s not horrible. But he’s making a real right turn there, trying to lighten up the mood to he’s not great but it’s no big deal. And it’s a massively big deal. shitforbrains gets to shit on the entire county, government, people, because he’s not getting his knob publicly polished and he’s shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, to see there is gambling going on in this casino.
Kropacetic
I’ve been saying the media’s job is to protect the right from themselves, advance moderate Republicans, hamper moderate Democrats, and shut out the left.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Did anyone else order any Biden-Harris merch? I ordered mine on Aug 12, which I think was the day after the Kamala Harris announcement, and the Biden store tells me it’s “awaiting fulfillment”. I’m guessing they were completely overwhelmed by orders and back-ordered up the wazoo. Nice for them, but dammit I want my souvenir face mask, lawn sign and bumper stickers!
Kropacetic
It’s to the point where I’m not even sure I can trust it if a vaccine is approved. Trump is the epitome of the Republican trend toward simple answers to problems that don’t actually answer the problem but make just enough people feel good.
I keep it in a secret crawlspace under my floorboards. Can’t be seen wearing it around the house.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: When I hear somebody say “everybody lies”, I think to myself “Well, you obviously do!”
Everybody lies. nope
Everybody steals. nope
Everybody cheats. nope
It tells you a lot about the people who say those things.
Brachiator
@MattF:
We’re in the middle of a pandemic and the economy has largely been ground to a halt. About the last fucking thing that anyone cares about is manners.
Kropacetic
But the “manners” thing feeds into the Republican narrative. They feel that the problem with Trump is that he’s brash and swears a lot, then they project those feelings onto the political opposition.
Raven
President Donald Trump’s campaign wants to counter the Republicans who spoke up for Joe Biden during the Democratic National Convention with some across-the-aisle pizzazz this week. State Rep. Vernon Jones, the only state Democratic official in Georgia to endorse Trump, is set to lead the effort.
The DeKalb Democrat plans to speak on Monday at the kickoff of the four-day Republican convention, officials said Sunday. He’s the only Georgian on a list of dozens of names of speakers released by RNC organizers.
PAM Dirac
The orange fart cloud is supposed to announce a “major breakthough” regarding COVID treatment. It is the use of convalescent plasma. FDA will issue a EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) that allows its use use with some restrictions. The FDA documents are already up (here). They certainly expect controversy as it is the only EUA with a Decision Memorandum, which outline in detail how the data fit the language of the law regarding emergency use. The language is “may be effective” and it is hard to argue that convalescent plasma doesn’t meet that standard. My overall impression on first read is that is is not an obviously bad decision. When you have an emergency that is killing hundreds of thousands of people, getting a few per cent fewer deaths is thousands of people, but getting solid evidence for that few per cent improvement is time consuming. Cost/benefit in a pandemic is not the same as cost/benefit in normal times. I think people should get used to these border line decisions. It will be a while before “correct” decisions are clear from the evidence.
As for me, my wife just got home and the wine has been opened, so a more careful reading will have to wait.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: All presidents do some lying because of official secrecy. And this isn’t always ethically justified. But Trump has a depraved indifference to the distinction between lies and truth, which seems like an entirely different order of problem.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Well, magical mystery cure is about as close to any reality as shitforbrains is ever going to get. I can see why he likes magical mystery cures, because everyone tries to explain the why something doesn’t/won’t/can’t work to him and all shitforbrains wants and can deal with is someone to tell him he’s rich now, which of course makes him better than most anyone else. I imagine that he has no real idea of much of anything, he’s been so protected his entire life. Even his many failures he avoids, because he took care of them in a financial way, bankruptcy and I’d bet that he sees those as him protecting himself from people attacking him. He is after all a narcissist so he is incapable of seeing any faults in himself.
SiubhanDuinne
This press conference is more sickening than usual.
“Convalescent plozma.”
PAM Dirac
@Brachiator:
See my other post. The FDA documents are available for all to read. Claiming that this treatment is a cure all, wonder drug is crazy, but it is not at all clear the FDA decision is crazy.
Matt McIrvin
@PAM Dirac: He’s going to tout it to the heavens as the miracle cure that will end the pandemic, which it definitely isn’t, and it’s going to poison all discussion of how effective a treatment it actually might be.
NotMax
@Kropacetic
Does it make a good mix with bleach?
//
PAM Dirac
@Matt McIrvin: That may be, but it doesn’t mean that emergency decisions are wrong.
Kropacetic
Political reasons too. Obama probably lied about not supporting gay marriage in 08. I don’t really see any reason to fault him for this. He still did a lot to help gay people in his first term without doing anything to suggest he deceived voters as to what to expect if he were elected. Then he “came out” post-Biden just in time for 2012.
Kropacetic
@NotMax: Hurry and fixy your linky. That was Brachiator.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator:
“It was that other Soviet shitpile mobster conman in charge of the CDC in 2019!”
Mike in NC
I refuse to watch any of the Trumpian shitshow; low ratings would be the best thing we can give it. A four night infomercial packed with CPAC morons and QAnon lunatics. The My Pillow schmuck will be there to pitch his own miracle snake oil. I’ll follow the appalling goings-on here and in the Washington Post.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
I’m not so sure about that. I think if you talked to a bunch of Republicans and could get them to accept the actual death toll, many of them would try to argue the death toll was OK because it would have been impossible for us to do any better.
In practice, they would go through the whole classic system of successive dodges. First, they’d try to deny it has been as bad as it has been: the death toll has been exaggerated, people are dying with COVID not of COVID, etc. Then they’d argue we couldn’t have done any better than we have. Then they’d try to shift the blame onto state governors, China, people who got sick through irresponsible actions, and anyone else other than Trump. The key is that they’re interpreting the acceptability of the death toll as a judgment on Trump’s job in handling the pandemic, and they’ll try any trick they can come up with to say Trump hasn’t been a miserable failure.
Sloane Ranger
@Patricia Kayden: They believe these deaths are of those people or of the old, whose Medicaid they’re paying for through their taxes, so of course they’re acceptable.
Ask them if the deaths of themselves, their spouse or children are acceptable. Then you’ll get a different answer.
germy
8pm tonight on ABC. Interview with Biden and Harris.
I’m not expecting smart questions but I’m expecting good answers.
Kropacetic
Lemons –> Lemonade
NotMax
IIRC, initial results reported from this program, which began operation on May 2, have been vague and sketchy:
UK approves clinical trial of plasma therapy for Covid-19
Sidebar:
Gay men restricted from donating plasma to U.K. coronavirus trials
“If I could donate plasma and it helped, at least there’s a silver lining to becoming sick,” one gay man who recovered from COVID-19 said.
germy
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Yes. Very cool stuff
Baud
@germy: Thanks. I was going to ask about that.
NotMax
@Kropacetic
No edit function available on my machine. Sorry ’bout that.
However, the two of you do look so much alike….
;)
germy
Just Chuck
@Brachiator:
FTFY.
Just Chuck
I have to wonder if the next GOP candidate won’t just literally fling his poo. And 27% will eat it up.
Ew, phrasing. But still.
Cermet
Well, for the religious fuddy’s, isn’t a plague upon the land a sign that the current leader is in disfavor? Then not one but likely two hurricanes striking red states. I see a pattern here.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW has had auto racing on all afternoon, and as far as I can tell, a different race just started. So I couldn’t watch Trump if I wanted to. Which I don’t. He’s a ridiculous person. Listening to him kills brain cells.
Baud
@germy:
Trust FDA watchdogs.
Just Chuck
@Kropacetic: I’ll trust a vaccine that’s approved in the EU. I don’t trust anything from this failed state.
Patricia Kayden
Kropacetic
@NotMax: Plain black text on a white background?
It’s funny I rarely consider what anyone here might look like. The only exceptions are the people I met at a Boston meet-up and a front pager who, when discussing their home life, never fails to remind me of a family member.
Kropacetic
@Baud: @Just Chuck: Reasonable.
Brooklyn Dodger
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Got this one yesterday. Not official gear, but sweet!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/677914121/kamala-harris-t-shirt-kamala-vp-vice?ref=shop_home_feat_1&pro=1&frs=1
Sloane Ranger
In regards to convalescent plasma, it’s not the game changer Trump is touting it as but, unlike bleach and hydroxichloricine?, it won’t actually harm anyone and it might do some good.
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden: ?Brave Sir Trump trash ran away?
Brachiator
@Brooklyn Dodger:
I’m not usually big on campaign merchandise, but that’s a cool shirt.
PAM Dirac
@germy: Read the FDA documents I linked to and tell me specifically where they ignored the science. The FDA didn’t give final approval for this treatment, they issued a EUA. By law the criterion is “may be effective”.
mrmoshpotato
Yes. They were blasting Thuggish Ruggish Bone during parts of today’s game at Wrigley Field, and we’re all better for it.
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
If it were a recognized treatment, it would already be in use. Anything that Trump recommends which is not signed off on by his scientific advisors is bullshit.
And worse, some idiots will assume that this is a fast and complete cure.
Trump is also going to use this to undermine and possibly fire some of his science staff. He hates being opposed once he gets stuck on an idea.
NotMax
@PAM Dirac
Not an argument against, but if – IF – they’re starting from scratch and not utilizing data from ongoing plasma trials elsewhere then they’re wasting time by reinventing the wheel.
Brooklyn Dodger
@Brachiator: Sort of under the radar, which I like.
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I ordered a sign and stickers the day the VP was announced, but haven’t gotten them yet.
zhena gogolia
Patricia Kayden
Suzanne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I ordered a yard sign last week! Trying to get off on the right foot with my new neighbors.
Mallard Filmore
@Kropacetic:
I will wait for a vaccine that has the EU’s blessing.
Or NZ, or South Korea.
PAM Dirac
@NotMax: Read the documents. It references all the clinical trails that are known and states clearly that ongoing randomized trials should continue and that data is absolutely necessary to know the utility of this treatment.
debbie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Plenty of Biden-Harris yard signs around here. I was surprised that they were available so soon.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
WaPo, who has been tracking the lies, said Trump hit the 20,000-lie mark back in mid-July.
mrmoshpotato
Set your drink down for 5 minutes and watch this.
zhena gogolia
@Brooklyn Dodger:
Love it!
Barbara
@PAM Dirac: It’s in short supply and the evidence is building that it has a narrow window of therapeutic benefit. The only good thing is that unlike Plaquenil, it has to be administered in a medical setting, so hoarding is unlikely. Still, the rush to get it could disrupt existing clinical trials. It is not a miracle.
A Ghost to Most
Stop focusing on the symptom, and start focusing on the disease. t* just jumped into the driver’s seat of an existing crazy train.
What does America do with the 27%ers?
FelonyGovt
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yes, i ordered Biden Harris face masks on the 13th and haven’t received them. I assumed it was post office delays.
PAM Dirac
@Barbara: I agree completely. It is a time scale problem. If you wanted to invest your resources to maximize the chances of people who are diagnosed today, this treatment would probably be high on your list. But while this treatment has a decent chance of benefiting a non-trivial number of people, it isn’t something that will come anywhere close to bring us back to normal. So it makes sense to invest resources in things that will take longer to come on line, but will have greater benefit. Of course the problem is that the data to make those decisions with some amount of confidence are in the future as well.
jc
I’m waiting for Trump to issue a new Executive Order, proclaiming: “Election Over. I WIN!”
Barbara
@PAM Dirac: Doctors have been using it for some time, but it appears that its benefit is limited to a narrow range, and they are trying to understand how to use it so that is actually efficacious. The long lead time for test results is slowing down enrollment of study subjects.
jc
Trump is intent on tossing out wild distractions and crazy conspiracies to bamboozle the country, to waste everyone’s time and to make his critics chase after his nut-ball claims to discredit them. Any thinking person sees that Trump is the one whose credibility is paper thin.
It’s all about the facade to Trump. The Presidency is a TV show. He’s playing the role of The President from Central Casting. If you ‘look the part,’ it doesn’t matter what horrible policies you spout. He runs his “administration” like a cheap puppet-master. His base – audience seem to be enjoying the show … unfortunately the deeper meanings are lost on them.
Sloane Ranger
@Brachiator: See PanDirect? And Barbara. for the nuance of this. The thing is that convalescent plasma is not a new idea and has had some success in the past.
Gravenstone
@mrmoshpotato: That’s one of Schwarber’s walk up songs.
gwangung
@Patricia Kayden: More political correctness.
And following in the footsteps of Communists like Lysenko and Mao.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
It is already in use. The data on how effective it is are… ambivalent. Still definitely in the “might help a bit” category.
Patricia Kayden
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus:
Obviously Trump is not familiar with gambling in casinos, he bankrupted several.
Jay
MisterForkbeard
For anyone who hasn’t gotten Biden/Harris merch yet, I would expect them to be REALLY backed up.
None of that merch was pre-printed or pre-made; it couldn’t be. So they’re making everything on demand. And given that so many people wanted merch that it crashed the website I think they’ve got a lot of orders to get through :/
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Do you have an idea or are you just here to say Balloon Juice is doing it wrong?
lgerard
Oooooh…
The Kim Jung Un is in a coma story is back!
ema
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Dump doesn’t know what he’s doing, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@lgerard: Everything Dump touches dies
TS (the original)
Slightly off topic – Victoria, Australia covid numbers today 116 new cases – 15 deaths. Significant drop, following downward trend since level 4 restrictions imposed (3 weeks ago). This was so good to hear. Lots of moaning about the restrictions but the downward trend shows the benefit. Could partly relate to a very cold weekend, may have been much less testing. No details available yet.
mrmoshpotato
@Gravenstone: Excellent! Good for him, and good for us!
Jay
cain
@Cermet: A divided America is how one makes money.
Joy in FL
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “Did anyone else order any Biden-Harris merch?” I ordered on Aug. 11 and on Aug. 20. Both orders are awaiting fulfillment. I want to wear my BidenHarris shirt. Last week I wore my Kamala Harris, For The People shirt to the grocery store. It was the closest I had to BidenHarris merch.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Ken
If convalescent plasma is helpful, the trick will be guaranteeing an adequate supply. One way is suggested by the vampire movie Daybreakers: capture and imprison those who have recovered from the disease, continually re-expose them to COVID virus so they keep generating antibodies, and drain their precious blood for sale to the highest bidders.
There are probably other, more “humane” techniques that might be used by other countries, but I’m pretty sure the US plan will conform to the above in broad outline. Especially the selling part.
jame
Thanks for the link to the New Republic article; that was a damn fine read!
Ken
That situation reminds me of the old joke about breaking the news gently.
ema
@ema:
1) The entire comment is a quote form the linked article.
2) The 35% mortality reduction appears to be made up. And a treatment, already in use, that might work on a select group of patient with a narrow therapeutic window is not a medical breakthrough.
FelonyGovt
@TS (the original): Excellent news. I’ve been following the outbreak and restrictions in the Melbourne metro area and it’s good to see the numbers trending down.
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
Trump does not do nuance. He was trying to push this treatment as a major cure.
Trump is stupid and impatient. He is trying to sucker people into believing that he has an immediate answer to the pandemic. He is also trying to undermine the FDA and CDC if he needs to put out news of an imminent vaccine sometime before the election.
Trump also hopes that his dumbest supporters suck in the conspiracy theory that the FDA is deliberately sitting on this cure (not merely a treatment) in order to hurt Trump.
The actual efficacy of the treatment is irrelevant to Trump’s use of it for political advantage.
senyordave
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Ordinarily I would say that the daughter has issues, and hopefully the family can deal with these issues and mend. But KAC is a witch. She is evil, and no person should be required to deal with her on a day-to-day basis. I know it won’t happen, but the girl is probably better off with relatives.
Suzanne
@MisterForkbeard: SuzMom is also placing an order. On the convention nights, they didn’t have coroplast Biden/Harris signs. Now they do. YAAAAAY!
i have quite the collection.
dnfree
@WaterGirl: I agree! “Everybody does it” is an excuse.
TS (the original)
@FelonyGovt:
The Premier (Governor equivalent) must be breathing a sigh of relief – people/business not too happy with the shutdown. It had to work. He’s been doing a Gov Cuomo press conference every day for the last many weeks & is looking somewhat exhausted.
Ken
It may be from that one (not reproduced, not reviewed) trial that you included above. That had a death rate of “8.7% in patients treated early and 11.9% in those not treated until later”.
However to get that I have to assume they did the math the wrong way around, since a reduction from 11.9 to 8.7 is 27%. You only get 36% if you’re going from 8.7 to 11.9.
Also, as that article notes there was no control/placebo group here. That is a comparison between two treatments both with convalescent plasma, so shows nothing about whether it helps compared to no treatment at all.
Nicole
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m still “awaiting fulfillment” on my tshirt, and I ordered on the 11th. My husband’s hat is on its way, but he just ordered a “Joe!” one. I think those of us who wanted Harris on our stuff are going to have to wait a bit longer.
(thanks for asking; it was reassuring to know I’m not the only one still waiting)
Jay
James E Powell
@A Ghost to Most:
We’ve learned to our chagrin that it’s ~42%
Another Scott
Reading things like the following (long) T thread, one sees why “defund the police” has a strong resonance…
It’s long but important. Read it if you can.
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
Jay
@Another Scott:
been following it for three days. Cops from three Agencies and a “Magistrate” using loopholes, obscurity and Police Powers to try to illegally arrest and incarcerate a Public Defender.
and almost a hundred Cops involved rather than you know, doing their actual jobs.
MC
@Jay: Good thing I have plenty of room in my brain for stuff like this, along with the five alarm fires and air raid sirens.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
Our next door neighbor has a Biden yard sign which is pretty funny. Their drive up is as long as our road, similarly a dead end at their house. So no one but them and us will ever see it. But still, great. The $$ went to Biden!!!
I’m sure she’ll get another newer one now that Kamala Harris needs to be on the sign!
J R in WV
@lgerard:
Also:
Generalissimo Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, is STILL DEAD~!!
James E Powell
@Another Scott:
@Jay:
I read the twitter thread. Where is that taking place? Was there any resolution?
Jay
@James E Powell:
donno the where, the Public Defender and his Lawyer walked out of the Magistrate’s Office, because the 2012 “warrant” was voided, in 2012.
Basically the Cops and a DA did a file search, found so old voided bullshit, faked up an enforcement of a voided warrant, then sent out almost 100 Cops from three agencies on a manhunt for the Public Defender.
All because the Cops and the DA’s are trying to frame a juvenile for attempted Cop murder, and are corrupt as hell.
No different than the NYPD sending 2 SWAT teams and almost a hundred Cops, to shut down Hells Kitchen for 6 hours to arrest a BLM Protestor, for the crime of,………
using a bull horn with in 25 metres of a Cop, ( felonious assault and battery),……
Dan B
@Another Scott: We are in a cold civil war. Another Trump term and it would be a hot war.
Patricia Kayden
rikyrah
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
the site crashed a couple of times, if I remember correctly.
rikyrah
@Kropacetic:
Not with these folks.
Let all the Red State MAGA Folks take it first.
Then, I’ll see you in 5 months down the road.
Jay
@Dan B:
as Portland shows, and Seattle, Chicago, New York, it might be a hot war before Jan. 20, 2021.
Jay
@rikyrah:
other Countries will have safe vaccines available. You might be able to order them online for delivery in the US. Like insulin.
Jay
Philbert
@Dan B: same old CW, but this time the Confederates have a foreign ally assisting.
Jay
Jay
catclub
@Jay: You have to be able to read and follow instructions to cast a mail in ballot. Sounds simple, but the inspectors are equally simpleminded, so if anything is wrong they can invalidate it. States that already make mail in voting hard are even worse. Not quite requiring a notary, but close.
So your plan should include training people on sample trial ballots.
Since mail in ballots rarely get counted if the vote is less close than the number of mail in ballots, {states that do not have mail in voting as standard] this all needs work. Luckily the three states that surprisingly went for trump last time all have Democratic governors this year.
catclub
@Patricia Kayden: yeah, the GOP convention is the trump family plus helpers.
Kropacetic
Curious how much the man actually got and how much the prosecutor recommended for Lori Laughlin.
Another Scott
@James E Powell: You know as much as I do. The T thread is only a few hours old.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@catclub:
the US uses procedure and policy as a means of disenfranchisement.
meanwhile, I get a voter card every election, can mail in, early vote, or vote in person with ease. Takes less than 15 minutes, a half hour with the commute, and get 2 hours or more off work to vote.
Voting is easy if you make voting easy.
VFX Lurker
Voting is mostly easy here in California. Los Angeles County rolled out a new vote center system that worked fine for the 10 days of early in-person voting that we had before Election Day, March 3rd…then it got overwhelmed, causing some voters to wait three hours in line. ?♀️
The majority of Los Angeles County voters cast vote-by-mail ballots, however. That worked without any problems.