First, the NYPD is keeping their reputation of doing anything but protecting and serving intact:
The speculation is that they added service members to the count to make the percentage higher, but there’s no proof of that. One caveat: this only counts vaccinations administered by the department.
The second piece of New York news is about Mario’s kid, Andrew. Yep, he’s still governor. He’s assiduously acting like nothing’s wrong even though he’s under investigation for harassing staffers. He was apparently interviewed Saturday by investigators from the NY Attorney General’s office.
In the comments yesterday, loyal commenter Germy asked if I knew anything about Cuomo and the Cannabis Board. Not really, but I did some research:
New York legalized recreational marijuana use four months ago, but a story Germy referenced said that the Office of Cannabis Management, the regulatory entity established by the legislation, doesn’t have a working email address. That’s probably because Cuomo and some legislators are deadlocked over who’s going to run the office. The cannabis legalization act had some pretty stringent social justice provisions. Cuomo’s favored nominee Norman Birenbaum, who came from administering Rhode Island’s program, isn’t preferred by the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Liz Krueger of Manhattan, who’s looking for someone with the “right sensibility”. So, there’s some kind of behind-the-scenes fight going on, and it will take a hell of a lot longer than a slow read of Sense and Sensibility before it’s finished.
In the meantime, State Sen. Jeremy Cooney has introduced a bill to establish licensing for marijuana growers, so we can actually get some state-grown pot in the fields to while Cuomo dithers.
The long and short of it is that the NYPD still sucks, Cuomo still sucks, and we probably won’t be seeing local dispensaries until next year at the earliest. The good news is that you can still smoke pot here if you’re stressed out cops or the state government.
Joe Falco
40% is still slightly better than Georgia’s vaccination rate of 37% (according to USA Facts).
Sigh…
Butch
Well, here in the Upper Peninsula many of the small communities banned dispensaries, apparently thinking it’s better to have weed untaxed, unregulated, and still sold on the black market. So the Tribes, which aren’t subject to these bans, stepped in and now have a chain of extremely profitable dispensaries that employ quite a few people. (I should mention that recreational weed is legal in Michigan.)
Anonymous At Work
To those wondering whether full and final FDA approval of a COVID vaccine won’t mean much: Full formal approval will enable governors, Cabinet secretaries, and Presidents/Commanders in Chief to start mandating vaccinations. And I suspect we’ll see some massive leverage from Biden administration on that front. Department of Education has a lot of it for states, both for teachers and for students. DoD? There’s a process, I suspect, but if the fact-finding and forms aren’t pre-filled out as much as possible, I’ll be shocked.
NYPD? Do they have to have Polio, Measles, or similar vaccinations? Unless the union contract specifically names them, there ya go. Or they can listen to Trump, Carlson, et alia, and quit. Win-win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Butch:
Legal casinos and legal weed. Perfect. Let them get some money back from the white people.
Shantanu Saha
As a NYC teacher, I can tell you the NYCDOE’s vaccination rate was even lower, considering what a shitshow the official vaccination drive was. But I believe that most teachers are actually vaccinated, mostly by personal effort. I myself got vaccinated in New Jersey, where I live, at a state run mega site. So I would probably raise that vaccination level by at least another 20% because of the slow rollout of the vaccines in the early months. A lot of motivated people avoided the official programs and got it however they could.
Don K
When Michigan voters legalized medical MJ in 2008, the completely odious Mike Cox *spit* was AG (followed by Bill Schuette *double spit* in 2010), and they dragged their heels for a several years on licensing the shops. Michael Bouchard, Oakland County Sheriff, put up as many roadblocks as he could to delay opening shops here. By contrast, after the legalization of recreational use in 2018, the Governor and AG were both friendly (thanks Gretchen and Dana!), and the existing medical shops have been able to get recreational licenses without problems.
So yeah, folks, personnel do matter for these things.
raven
@Anonymous At Work: The military too.
germy
Or a slower read of Sense and Sensimilla.
Andrew Giuliani wants to be the next Governor Andrew of NYS. When he was asked about legalization, he replied “That answer has been decided by the courts in New York.”
Surely we can do better?
Cmorenc
@Don K:
This is why Virginia needs to get off their butts and stop squabbling about distribution licenses, in case the next election cycle puts people in strategic offices determined to similarly throw sand in the gears
This is an instance where perfect is the enemy of the good
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I mentioned last week that my wife was scheduled for a biopsy. We just got the results.
It’s the big C.
Very early, but.
Not what you want to hear.
MJS
@Anonymous At Work: I think this is probably oversimplifying the issue. Vaccination requirements are probably attached to applicants or candidates, who are not yet union members. Requiring vaccination of current union members is probably something that would have to be bargained with the union in some fashion, e.g., you have X amount of time to get vaccinated, unless you have a medical condition that doesn’t allow you to be, which has to be verified, etc., etc.
MJS
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m very sorry to hear that. Glad it was caught early, and best wishes to you and your wife.
Jinchi
That’s a pretty big caveat.
It’s really not something that should be buried deep in a report, and shouldn’t be compared against the average rate of vaccination in the general population since the true number is almost certainly higher.
Amir Khalid
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
All the best to you and your wife. Wishing you both strength and peace.
Anonymous At Work
@MJS: Oversimplified is a given but how much? It’ll depend entirely on the contract. There hasn’t been a mandatory vaccination situation like this in a very long time. I can very much see the contract being vague on this point or referring to a third-party standard. “Public health emergency” is a standard exception for a lot of privacy and medical laws, so I can see a governor or mayor being able to make a determination and set a brisk timetable, if they want
PS: Anyone know specifics?
Butch
@Omnes Omnibus:Not a coincidence that many of them are co-located.
Chief Oshkosh
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I am sorry to hear that. I am glad it was caught early. We’ve been through it four times over the decades. For many cancer treatments, things are so much better now. Good luck and try to be hopeful.
Kent
Kind of a side note. But I was just in NYC last week playing tourist for a few days with my daughter in route to a family vacation in central PA. We got a nice hotel in the upper west side and spend 4 days exploring the city by foot and subway.
What struck me the most was how damn clean the city is compared to both Portland and Seattle where I spend most of my time. We live in the Portland metro and have much family in Seattle. I noted far fewer homeless on the streets of Manhattan than one sees in Portland. And those few that I did come across on the sidewalks were MUCH cleaner and tidier. Seriously. When you come across a homeless person on a Manhattan sidewalk they are usually set up pretty neatly on a couple sheets of cardboard with their possessions neatly arranged. In Portland what you often see looks like a dumpster explosion.
I don’t know what explains that dramatic difference. But it is indeed dramatic if you are paying attention. I frankly found the streets of Manhattan to be far cleaner and more pleasant for walking than the comparable streets in Portland
I also saw very few NYPD except for a few patrol cars doing things like crowd control in Times Square. And mask use was maybe at 95% on the subway which I found pleasantly surprising. Despite not once seeing any transit cops to enforce it.
Old School
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not want you want to hear, but thankful it’s early. Hopefully the doctors are successful in getting rid of all of it for her.
Van Buren
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Hang in there.
PST
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Also very sorry to hear this. My wife went through the whole diagnostic process recently, but with a favorable biopsy result in the end. One of the biggest lessons we learned while we were waiting, anxiously reading and consulting with doctor friends, was how very good the prognosis is these days for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which is the most common early diagnosis, and how much better treatment options are than they used to be. Best wishes to you and your wife for an easy and full recovery.
VeniceRiley
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m so sorry and also glad it was caught early!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Thank you all for the kind words.
Captain C
@Butch:
And for any revenue, legal (including taxes) or black market to go to other communities.
Also, I gotta say that NYC streets are starting to smell like the pre-Giuliani late-’80s.
Princess Leia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Sending light and peace to you as you deal with it all – I am so sorry- how scary.
Betty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Best wishes to your wife and you. I know how traumatic this whole experience is, but treatments have improved dramatically. Here’s hoping for a good outcome.
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Oh, I am so sorry. I hope she has some good treatment options.
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
You missed the 70s in NYC!
But yeah, it’s pretty clean most places now.
Frankensteinbeck
Echoing @Jinchi: here. That’s one honking big caveat. It is entirely reasonable to think that almost the entire rest of the force is also vaccinated, they just did it on their own time. What is the truth? We have no idea.
JPL
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m so sorry.
skerry
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: So sorry to hear about your wife. Glad it was caught early.
trollhattan
Also, keep an eye on those sheriffs.
No followup re. whether the cyclist has been cited yet for scratching a patrol vehicle.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Sorry to hear that. I hope treatment is successful and not too onerous.
trollhattan
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Sorry to hear this. Best wishes for an excellent outcome.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
On the “only counts vaccinations given by the department” caveat, I agree that it’s a possible issue. But, why is the department putting out a press release and telling media that they’re trying to increase the percentage vaccinated if it weren’t an issue? If it was 95% overall, they’d be mum.
Kent
No, I didn’t miss them. Well, OK, I missed the 70s in NYC but not the late 80s and early 90s when I lived and worked in DC and spent many weekends taking the train to NYC.
I know NYC still has plenty of issues. But honestly last summer I did a border to border road trip up and down the west cost with my daughter to visit colleges in WA, OR, and CA. And compared to pretty much any city on the west coast, NYC looks like it really has its act together. It truly feels like a pleasant and safe place to spend time and live. One can’t always say the same thing about most big cities on the west coast anymore.
Were I at a completely different place in my life, I would happily live in NYC. I think it is a fabulous place.
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I join the others in wishing for an easy treatment and a good outcome. You don’t say what kind (and I’m not asking) but I’ll note that my mother lived for nearly 40 years after her cancer diagnosis, and eventually died from something unrelated.
WereBear
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: What a blow. I’m so sorry.
CaseyL
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m sorry to hear that, but glad it was caught early. Best wishes for a successful treatment and full excision!
Adam L Silverman
43% of COVID shots in arms is still higher than their percentage of shots actually hitting their targets when they fire their service weapons.
Take the small victories where you can…
stinger
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It’s still such a scary word, even though treatments/outcomes are lightyears ahead of when I was young. The “very early” part is excellent. Please keep us posted.
JoyceH
It’s not a vaccine ‘mandate’, and yet…
”
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Thursday that the NFL sent a memo to its clubs stating that if a game cannot be rescheduled during the 18-week schedule due to a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players, the team with the outbreak will forfeit and be credited with a loss, per sources informed of the situation.
In addition, players on both teams will not be paid for the lost contest, and the team responsible for the cancelled game due to unvaccinated players will cover financial losses and be subject to potential discipline from the Commissioner’s office.”
https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-covid-19-outbreaks-unvaccinated-players-forfeit-cancelled-game
JustRuss
NYP: Infect and Surge.
Gin & Tonic
Open thread? Here, this is reassuring.
Captain C
@JoyceH:
If that’s the case, then league officials should be docked a percentage of their pay for each game so cancelled, and any revenue that remains from said game should go to the players’ pension fund (or one for the cheerleaders and vendors).
Captain C
@Gin & Tonic: Were they able to keep a straight face when they suggested that?
ssdd
Some good news out of Missouri:
germy
germy
Thread:
FelonyGovt
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m so sorry, it’s devastating to hear that. I’m a 17 year cancer survivor, and I know there are others here. Wishing you and your wife the very best.
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m glad they found it early. Hoping for a full recovery.
misterpuff
Those tips either went to directly to the Burn File or were archived in the Ark of the Covenant warehouse. :(
I just hope those tips were anonymous and the tipsters were protected because the TFG’s would never try to dox one of their enemies.
Anonymous At Work
@Captain C: Why mess with perfection? This is an absolute slap across the face to every prima donna in the NFL that wants others to take the hit. And this adds urgency to the matter because side effects at the start of training camp are much much better than side effects during pre-season. Finally, you don’t get vaxxed and your COVID costs the team a playoff bonus? Next game, first play will be 187-Kill.
jeffreyw
@germy:
The fate of that list is known, it went into the enemies file.
germy
satby
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Early is the silver lining in the shit cloud that is cancer. Friends who has their breast cancers caught early are still here 10 and 20 years later. All the best to her, and you.
Yutsano
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Oh. All my love to you two and your daughters right now. But early is good. Planning is next.
Captain C
@Anonymous At Work: In general, I agree, but I don’t think the non-positive testing team should have to pay for the other team’s idiocy. This all assumes vaccinations, of course.
J R in WV
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Sorry to hear that, and glad you caught it early. And progress in the field is so remarkable.
Best wishes for you both!
JPL
@germy: Reading the letters and the NYTimes article sickened me, because nothing will be done. The FBI was only doing a back ground check, not a criminal investigation. wtf.. Wray needs to testify before the House and Senate committee, then either resign or be fired.
If I were Biden, I’d appoint Comey, just to irritate trump. Fortunately, I’m not Biden, because he’ll appoint someone who’s qualified.
satby
I’m definitely getting this:
Kent
@JPL: Comey is one of the biggest reasons we have Trump in the first place. Fuck him. I’m sure there are plenty of other good investigators who aren’t unctuous oily prima donnas like Comey.
JPL
@Kent: I definitely agree, but I’m spiteful.
Sure Lurkalot
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Best is they caught it early. I’m going on 34 years as a cancer survivor. Treatments are a world of difference now. Hold each other tight.
Zelma
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Early is good. As a double survivor, I am most appreciative of what modern medicine can do. Wishing her the best.
Mary G
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m sorry. Fuck cancer. And LBJ. But cancer more.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: What is amazing here isn’t that Senator Whitehouse is upset, he is and should be. What is amazing here is that he seems to not understand the process, which, as a senator, he should know.
As I explained at the time on the front page, background investigations conducted by the FBI for judicial and political appointments are NOT criminal investigations. They are done by special agents and investigators and analysts detailed for that duty and the client is not the DOJ, nor is it the Senate committee of jurisdiction. The client for these background investigations is the White House Counsel’s Office and the White House Counsel is in ultimate charge and provides the ultimate direction of the inquiry. Only information that the White House Counsel wants released is released to the Senate committee of jurisdiction for their review. This whole secondary/reopened investigation, just like a game of chance in a casino, was rigged for the (White) House by the White House through the White House Counsel and his office. The FBI was only ever going to respond to Don McGahn’s instructions and work within the parameters he gave them.
It is important to remember that the only reason Don McGahn was first the Trump 2016 campaign counsel and then the White House Counsel is because his real boss is Mitch McConnell. Whenever McConnell needs a trusted agent – to make a Federal agency dysfunctional or to babysit a temperamental candidate/president – McConnell places McGahn into that position. McGahn controlled this secondary, supplementary investigation into Kavanaugh not anyone at the FBI or the DOJ. And McGahn controlled it for McConnell. My guess is McConnell was thrilled when Flake came to him with this compromise proposal because it allowed McConnell to play Flake for the chump he is while getting what he wanted – Kavanaugh confirmed and the ability to leverage the contentious confirmation process for political gain – all while allowing it to seem that a rigged game was really an honest process.
No one who was paying attention should be surprised at all at what happened then or at what is being reported now. Not least a Democratic senator.
Kathleen
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m so sorry.
Just Chuck
The FBI investigation could reveal Kavanaugh chopped up babies for fun and I can bank on the fact that they still won’t do a god damned thing about it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Oh ffs, it is performative surprise.
Anonymous At Work
@Captain C: I’m not that bothered. Vax Deniers in the NFL now risk 2 teams are pissed at you, including your own. NFL players are professionals (mostly) and understand that business decisions may move them to another team quickly and without warning. So, these are people who can give it their all on the field and be friends off-field (again, mostly).
The New Orleans Saints’ Bounty Hunting scandal showed what happens when a team decides to get dirty. NFL players know what happens when your opponents decide to get dirty and decide to get even, and what happens when your own team doesn’t completely have your back.
This is high-level shame at work, backed with the implicit threat of lasting physical violence. The only better motivator is explicit physical violence.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: Why not bring Wray up before the committee and at least shame him?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m so sorry. Keep us updated on how things go.
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Is it possible he understands the process, but resents that it was rigged?
I don’t know enough about Whitehouse to understand his motivations. I only read the NYT article today.
I don’t think it’ll lead to Kavanaugh’s removal, but it’ll certainly make him hot under the collar.
hueyplong
@Omnes Omnibus: My initial reaction too, though not so strongly that I’d throw a “ffs” S’s way.
ellenr
@Butch: Which chain is run by the tribes?
Major Major Major Major
We were never going to see commercial dispensaries before 2023 IMO. It took California 14 months to get that spun up, and they’re somehow way more competently run.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: most of NYC’s homeless are sheltered. This is not the case on the west coast.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: A little performative surprise at the time would have been better. Any at all. Maybe Coons commanding the floor of the Senate for days lamenting how Flake had been played and embarrassed and betrayed and, as a result, betrayed Coons.
Yet none of that happened. Because these guys are chumps. They’re bad at their jobs. Which is why they lose every single time
dnfree
Who else remembers hitchbot, the cute, helpless little robot who hitchhiked across Canada and other countries on the kindness of strangers? Then it came to the United States. The inventors never made a second attempt here, as far as I know. It was destroyed in Philadelphia.
——————–
From wikipedia:
hitchBOT was a Canadian hitchhiking robot created by professors David Harris Smith of McMaster University and Frauke Zeller of Ryerson University in 2013. It gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, but in 2015 its attempt to hitchhike across the United States ended when it was stripped and decapitated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Smith, who had hitchhiked across Canada 3 times, and Zeller had “designed the robot to learn about how people interact with technology and ask the question, ‘Can robots trust human beings?'” The robot was not able to walk – it completed its “hitchhiking” journeys by “asking” to be carried by those who picked it up. The robot was able to carry on basic conversation and talk about facts, and was designed to be a robotic traveling companion while in the vehicle of the driver who picked it up. As a social experiment, it was also given social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The robot had a cylindrical body composed mainly of a plastic bucket, with two flexible “arms” and two flexible “legs” attached to the torso. The top section of the body was transparent, containing a screen which displayed eyes and a mouth, making the robot approximately humanoid in external appearance. It was small and had a look the team described as “yard-sale chic”, to evoke trust and empathy, and had a child’s car seat base to be easily and safely transportable. It was powered either by solar power or by cigarette lighter sockets in cars. It had a GPS device and a 3G connection, which allowed researchers to track its location. It was equipped with a camera, which took photographs periodically to document its journeys.
The robot’s “hitchhiking” was reported by the press in many countries. From July 27, 2014 to August 21, 2014, it hitchhiked across Canada from the Institute for Applied Creativity at NSCAD University Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Victoria, British Columbia. At a First Nations powwow, it was given a name translating as “Iron Woman”. The robot was so popular that its GPS had to be disabled sometimes to prevent crowds bothering those who took it into their homes.
A second hitchBOT machine was made, and in February 2015 it hitchhiked around Germany for 10 days. For 3 weeks in June 2015, it hitched around the Netherlands. HitchBOT then attempted to cross the United States from Boston to San Francisco starting on July 17, 2015. After 2 weeks, on August 1, 2015 however, a photo was tweeted, showing that the robot had been stripped and decapitated in Philadelphia. The head was never found. On August 3, 2015 Adam Gabbatt reported on the Guardian website about hitchBOT’s destruction. Frauke Zeller, co-creator of hitchBOT, was quoted saying: “We can see on all our data that the tablet and battery and everything shut off at the same time so it must have been when they vandalised the bot.” The article also states:
She said Hitchbot’s body had been found by some good samaritans who had located the roving robot through a regularly updated map on its website. “They sent us images and it’s really beyond repair. There’s not a single wire inside and all the things are broken.”
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Considering he neither said nor did anything at the time to indicate he had any clue, I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt. It took six months to a year for him to seem to figure out that he and his colleagues had been played.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Disagree.
Adam L Silverman
@dnfree: There are certain constants in the universe:
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Did they do anything at the time to indicate they knew that this was how the process worked? To inform the American people that the fix was in? To then leverage the outrage that would have followed to further slow things down or force more leaks that were substantive instead of about process? No, they didn’t do any of that. Coons was on every network news show but Fox’s blathering on and on about how great it was that he could work with Flake in the spirit of bipartisanship to get a real FBI investigation done that was going to look into all of this.
Nicole
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I am so, so sorry about this news. Thinking of you and her and sending all good thoughts that early will mean extremely treatable.
You didn’t say what kind of cancer, but many of us, myself included, have been there (breast cancer with a local recurrence a couple years later, in my case). I’m sure your wife has an excellent support system, but please know we’re here if she has questions or needs anything. Among us jackals, we’ve probably got all the major cancers covered, and a lot of the minor ones, too.
dnfree
@Adam L Silverman: It was so cute and helpless-looking, and I was excited to start following its journey across the US, having the kind of fun people showed it elsewhere. No…not here. Couldn’t even get off the east coast (or what I in the Midwest think of as the east coast).
Kayla Rudbek
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: very sorry to hear this. From my recent experience, Reed’s ginger chews are great for nausea, as is Honsei instant honey ginger tea. Anything else, WaterGirl has my email or you can ask here.
Captain C
@Anonymous At Work: I would hate to be a player who refused to get vaccinated and cost my divisional opponents a game check in the first head-to-head game of the season due to my positive COVID test. For that matter, I might be wary of my own vaccinated teammates in this scenario, too.
susanna
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m also pulling for you and your wife. And guessing the early diagnosis will keep everything to a minimum. Meanwhile, get informed and begin a plan. Best of fortune to you both