It’s a WWWendy day, and I’m in a big rush. This is my only article today. JD, would you cover Bill Maher, please? Have a great day!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:52 (average 5:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Trump* Virus Update:
US Cases: 4,709,713
US Deaths: 156,826
World Cases: 17,824,476
World Deaths: 684,197
Trump’s* Share of World Deaths: 22.9%
US Share of World Population: 4.3%
Short Takes:
From NY Times: Welcome to the next election battleground: the post office.
President Trump’s yearslong [sic] assault on the Postal Service and his increasingly dire warnings about the dangers of voting by mail are colliding as the presidential campaign enters its final months. The result has been to generate new concerns about how he could influence an election conducted during a pandemic in which greater-than-ever numbers of voters will submit their ballots by mail…
…But they are warning that a huge wave of ballots could overwhelm mail carriers unless the Postal Service, in financial difficulty for years, receives emergency funding that Republicans are blocking during negotiations over another pandemic relief bill.
At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump. Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.
For decades Republican SOP has been to intentionally cause crises and to blame Democrats for their effects. RESIST!!
From Vanity Fair: …Kushner’s team hammered out a detailed plan, which Vanity Fair obtained. It stated, “Current challenges that need to be resolved include uneven testing capacity and supplies throughout the US, both between and within regions, significant delays in reporting results (4-11 days), and national supply chain constraints, such as PPE, swabs, and certain testing reagents.”
The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.
And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”
By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.
But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert….
Click through to read the entire article. What do we call this? Is it murder, sedition or both? RESIST!!
From YouTube (a blast of protest): Pink – Dear MR President OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO
This song was written for Crawford Caligula, Republican Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich. How much more does it apply to the Nazi Republican Fuhrer of the Fifth Reich? Support left-wing protestors! RESIST!!
Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!
11 Responses to “Open Thread – 8/1/2020”
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Cartoon: Ugh!
TVU: Confirmed: 1289. Active: 484. Recovered: 775. Deaths: 17. We’ve jumped. And…NOT in a good way, either.
NYT: I’ve always supported the PO for years, and will continue to do so, and have voted by mail, even while overseas in the military. The ‘stuff’ dt does is deflect, with lies, deceit and hate. Get him outta there!
VF: Holy Moly! I’m still reading, but Kushner and dt have no business being up there, and making decisions regarding the health and safety of the population. I can see why it’s viewed as murder and sedition. Sickening.
PS: (protest song), Excellent.
Hi, WWWendy! Hope all is good with you & your family! Hope that you get your rest and relaxation in this afternoon, and evening. Take good care, and Thanks, Tom.
*This just in: “Per the Washington Post and Brazilian papers, Trump attempted another Quid Pro Quo. This time via US Ambassador to Brazil, who asked Brazil government to lower ethanol tarriffs to help Trump. ~ Ku U. ~
2. Re: dt banning TikToK: The very popular kids (staff) are much more tec savvy and technologically smart. They are ready to shift platforms in a nano second, and were already creating accounts on several others. They are going to hit him on social media and in person as in large groups. The best quote that had a ton of likes and re-tweets: “Old orange grandpa says ‘what???’ BwwHaHaHa ! ” ~ anon ~
3. re: Mr. Lewis’ funeral – “It was a eulogy everybody needed to hear.” ~ Barack Obama ~
TJI #2 – Bwa-ha-ha-ha indeed! Love it!
Have a good day. I’ll have Bill up today eventually, probably after the opera
The Lincoln Project ad I was expecting
And one with a much lighter tone …
Meidas touch
Cartoon – It’s always vioation time for Republicans. If they don’t have anything to violate, they’ll make up something.
Map – I know my Governor is trying. And at least the local NEA is getting heeded to some degree.
NYT – The NYT never lets me in, but there’s not much here, if anything, I wasn’t aware of. It’s always personal with Trump*. It’s very unfortunate that he decided to feud with Bezos, and particularly now – and also that it plays into Republican wet dreams (would that the ghost of Ben Franklin would smite him!)
vf – The surprise here is that the team did ay good work. It’s no surprise that it was alll thrown out.
PAST – An excellent reminder that Republicans are Republicans, even without Trump. The only thing GWB had over Trump* is that no one ever doubted that he would leave when the Constitutio directed him to.
A group in Brazil has filed a complaint with the ICC that their leader’s mishandling of the virus amounts to genocide essentially–sounds like there is a similar case that could be brought on behalf of the US, too.
Thanks TC.
The problem with the ICC is that Senate Republicans refused to ratify the treaty, and the ICC only has jurisdiction over citizens if nations that did.
Hi Wendy!
‘Toon: The GOP is made up of violators, but one can not quite call them Violators Anonymous, as we all know who the heck they are!
TVU: Ain’t looking good!
NYT: One can not expect Trump, or the GOPIGS to refuse to stoop lower, and lower.
Vanity Fair: BOTH! It is surprising that Kushner, and team, could have come up with something akin to a decent plan, but then, there is always the national ulcer that is POTUS, and his venal vibes.
Pink: I’ve never before listened to them, but this is so touching. Of course, she may prefer not to take a walk with this POTUS, as she might not come back unmolested.
What total shit the GOP has sent our way!
Just saying “HI, TC!”
Backatcha!
Cartoon: Shameful…Stinking violators. They’re not good for anything else.
TVU: We’re going to be over 30,000 cases in another day. Scary.
NYT: I’m still signing all of the petitions to keep the P.O. going. Sick of tRump and his foolish games. He shall not win and I mean that in more ways than one, especially in November.
VF: Why is Jared being allowed to full around with serious issues like this?? tRump certainly doesn’t has any intent of taking steps to take care of ending the virus. He just using all of his evil maneuvers to hide the information from us. Plus keeping the professionals from having what they need to take care of testing and treating the virus. Shameful.
BFTP: Great song.
Tell Wendy “hello”. Hope you both have a nice day there and gets your tasks taken care of.
Hope you’re doing well.
Take care. Thanks TomCat
I hope you had a great day with WWWendy yourself, TomCat.
4:04 Took me a while to find out if that was the left or the right lantern.
Cartoon: Have they ever done anything else?
Update: Still holding a steady rate of one death every 60 seconds, I see.
NYT: Coming from a country which has privatized postal services, I can tell you: “Don’t!“. After making services almost impossible by budget cuts, privatization made it even worse after posties on permanent contracts were cut back in hours and many replaced by zero-hour contractors for peak-hours. Now it is too expensive and too inefficient to contemplate sending anything by mail. And that is exactly what Trump and Bezos have in mind.
But first of all, they want to prevent postal voting
VF: The original plan appears to have been bi-partisan and good enough to have saved thousands of lives. But the White House turned it into a political game again and in the end into something of political genocide. Save money by not doing anything and kill off your lefty voters at the same time; a stroke of reprehensible genius we call murder.
BFP: Excellent song, still valid for the 45th.
Thanks and Hugs to all!
WWWendy returns all your greetings!