Get the fuck out of here.
Friday Evening Open Thread: The Beltway Pundits Are *Desperate* to Kneecap Biden
Joe Biden's version of the Access Hollywood tape. How will he ever recover https://t.co/hlfryAMRGx
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) September 18, 2020
Call it ‘wired for Republicans’, call it ‘jonesing for those horse-race clicks’, pretend it’s ‘scrupulous bipartisanship’… our Failed Media Betters are frantically covering themselves with something other than glory.
Obviously, there are plenty of good reporters doing their jobs, some of them quoted in this very thread! But…
Oohhhh not Chris Wallace and Jake Tapper. How’s he gonna handle the guy who got his job through his dad and the guy who broke into the industry because he had coffee with Monica Lewinsky once. https://t.co/IgGJHNiJg1
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) September 18, 2020
Friday Evening Open Thread: The Beltway Pundits Are *Desperate* to Kneecap BidenPost + Comments (88)
My Birthday Present to Me
A cheap bust of Trump to put in the front yard for the neighbor’s dogs (and the neighbors, should they so desire) to piss on:
Man, fuck that guy.
Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death!
We’re really the dumbest fucking country:
During the early days of the pandemic, the public’s attention was fixed on various models, each showing a steep upswing, with cases steadily increasing each day, followed by the tail-end of the curve as cases fade away.
Americans saw, with increasing dread, the predicted upswing in the national numbers. Then, over the last couple of weeks, it stopped.
And yet, forecasters are projecting even more deaths on the horizon. A leaked document obtained by The New York Times projected more than 3,000 people could die each day by the end of May. Another historically conservative model, favored by the Trump administration, just doubled its projected death toll, too.
The tail-end of the national epidemic is not materializing.
“If you just look at the total number of cases, you’re going to miss what’s underneath it,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s not a leveling-off. It’s a painful handoff.”
America’s current “plateau” isn’t good news, he said. Infections from the earliest-hit metropolitan areas are now spawning outbreaks of their own across the country.
If you take NY out of the equation, which is lowering the national numbers, the entire nation is on a steady incline. Yet we have this:
Republican elected officials are rushing to express support for a Texas salon owner sentenced to a week in jail and a fine for reopening her business in violation of a stay-at-home order issued by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Members of the self-described party of “law and order” attacked a judge who enforced the order.
Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moyé sentenced salon owner Shelley Luther to seven days in jail and a fine of $7,000 for violating the stay-at-home order as well as Moyé’s temporary restraining order and a cease-and-desist order from Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
On a personal note, I had to go to the store today for produce and allergy meds, and did my usual overalls with full length sleeves, masks, gloves, and carrying lysol wipes, because I am not a fucking sociopath, and noticed that there has been a MARKED increase in the number of people out and about and a MARKED decrease in the number of people wearing masks. Apparently moving from the Governor’s “Stay at home” order to the current “safer at home” order has been interpreted by many as “fuck it, YOLO.”
Personally, I am expecting the entire nation to get hammered in about three weeks to a month, and last week I had a stern talk with my parents that NOTHING has changed, in fact things are getting worse, and they are still grounded for at least another couple months. They were fine with it, because they don’t want to die, either. I’m keeping my shit locked down and don’t intend to change anything. I am expecting at least a half million deaths.
I Am Over These Fucking People
Joining Betty in afternoon rage..
I posted this information on Facebook:
A team of experts advised Gov. https://t.co/ybXJPtgKZL
— WHO-HD Ch. 13 News (@WHOhd) April 29, 2020
Iowa tells workers to return to their jobs or lose unemployment benefits, despite warnings that reopening could lead to a second wave of infections https://t.co/ZOcnXq6CKt via @businessinsider
— Carlton Livingston (@100lbAColliweed) April 29, 2020
I have friends and family in Iowa. No provisions for someone who might be vulnerable, no provisions for someone who might live with someone who is vulnerable. Just get your lazy ass back to work.
First, someone that I do business with (as a customer no less) decided to spew Republican talking points at me about it and that people will take advantage. I was waiting for her to come at me with “strong bucks and t-bone steaks.” I let her know I wasn’t buying it about these hypothetical deadbeats and wanted to know when we were going to talk about the businesses taking advantage of workers by putting profit over their safety. Her reply was, “Oh, wow” like I’d said something drastic like “So pro-life only means in the womb, right?” She then deleted all her comments.
Then, my cousin, who is a retired minister came at me with the same BS. My response: “Who would Jesus kill for profit, amirite?”
I think I’m banned from future family reunions (not really, my godmother is a retired minister who is totally liberal…or as she likes to call it, “a follower of the teachings of Christ”). ETA: He just came back at me with “we can agree to disagree and still be family, right” I’ll think about it.
Anyway, I’ve had it with these fuckers and they all need to be called on the carpet and then crushed under my heel. You want to preach the economy over lives, then the next woman who says, “this unexpected pregnancy is going to wreak havoc on my personal economy,” better be first in line for an abortion without any protest from these frauds. Because as we know, profits are all that matter.
If we and our Democratic leaders do not make them own each and every one of these comments from now until no one remembers what a Republican was, except to compare them to Nazis, we are fools. And worse, dishonoring all those who died because of this outrage.
And yes, having had this stupid virus, I am taking all of this personally. And I’m worried beyond words for those around me who may succumb to it.
BTW, I’m fine, thanks for asking 😊 ’cause I know you’re gonna. I’m on day 3 of feeling pretty darn good. But I will tell you the fatigue is impressive. And there were a few days/nights that were very hairy, but those passed and the rest was pretty mild.
Okay, back to my rant. I am mad as hell and really am not going to take it anymore. Come at me with bullshit and I’m going to fight back – friends, family, business, I. Do. Not. Care.
I feel better now.
/rant
I will try and have something respite-like later. No promises though, I may need a nap after this.
I’m At My Wit’s End
I am still a relatively young man, but in my time I have witnessed a large amount of stupidity (much of it my own). But I am really at the end of being able to tolerate it. This virus has been the last straw for me, and I culling a lot of people I have known forever from my life. I just can’t take any more of it.
The proximate cause of my losing it has been the “Yeah but Sweden” shit coming from my barely literate friends on facebook who have spent their entire lives setting out to prove that half an education is more dangerous than no education. “Sweden did nothing and look they are approaching her immunity.”
First off, the United States isn’t fucking Sweden. Sweden’s population density is on par with West Virginia’s, not NYC or Atlanta or virtual most of the urban and suburban areas of the United States. Second, there are far fewer at risk people in Sweden because THEY HAVE ACTUAL HEALTH CARE and are in general healthier. Third, in Sweden, if you get sick, you can stay home and not give it to everyone at fucking Ikea or whatever their equivalent of McDonalds is because they won’t get fired for staying home when sick because they are not imbeciles. Sweden also is a mature socially conscious country, and if asked or advised to maintain distancing, they don’t need fucking red x’s on the ground, and they’ll wear masks and wash their hands, and so forth.
So the United States isn’t Sweden. But even if we were, Sweden’s mortality rate has been fucking awful. WORSE THAN OURS. And there is no real reliable information about herd immunity in Sweden, and they’re not close to it, anyway. So please just fuck off with the “but Sweden” crap.
At any rate, I was at my boiling point, so called up a guildmate to chat, and we both agreed that it is the aggressive, in your face stupidity that is so maddening. Just the refusal to do little things, like wear masks, or stay home when sick, or throw marches to demand the country re-open, or mock others for doing what they think they should. It’s the deliberate, in-your-face assholishness that just drive me insane.
So we talked awhile, and I was tired of driving around checking things out, and I got home, came upstairs, loaded up the old web browser, and what do I find? As if on fucking cue, Vice President Jeebus Humper pulls this fucking stunt:
Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday refused to wear a mask during his visit to Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, which requires all staff, patients, and visitors to wear a face covering while at the medical center. In a since-deleted tweet, the Mayo Clinic called out the veep, saying it “had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.” But that apparently didn’t stop Pence from visiting with staff and even a patient in a crowded hospital room without wearing a mask. “Part of our protocol for ensuring your safety is to require all patients, visitors and staff to wear a face covering or mask while at Mayo Clinic to guard against transmission of COVID-19,” the hospital’s website reads.
I fucking hate these people and anyone who gets in the way of replacing them in November can fuck right the fuck off.
The Death of Shame
Some things just leave me speechless:
A year ago, Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher was wearing drab prison scrubs at a brig near San Diego, facing murder charges that could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life. Now he is modeling his own lifestyle clothing brand, endorsing nutrition supplements and positioning himself as a conservative influencer with close ties to the man who helped clear him — President Trump.
It wasn’t always this way, was it? People used to have some shame, right? Like, William Calley didn’t launch a cologne brand or something and I just missed it, right?
We live in the worst timeline.