TrickstaPriest

This is why I give him no slack.  This, and actually reading his twitter.
 
So, so, so, SO many people are excusing him of doing things that are literally tearing apart the foundation of how the federal government works, especially equitably.  This is establishing precedent that will ruin government function in this country for decades to come if it is followed.  No matter who inherits it.

It's like we're intentionally trying to fail to contain this thing.
 
https://nypost.com/2020/06/23/oregon-county-issues-face-mask-order-exempting-non-white-people/

On the plus side theater ticket sales are up and work hours have doubled. 😶
 
New Cases are soaring - just like you said:

 
Still under 4 deaths per 100,000 where I'm at.  The fatality rate continues to drop which tells me the expanded testing is catching more and more people who are not critically ill.  So far it's 1/2 of what it used to be (about 1.5% now compared to 3+ percent previously).  The local CVS has a testing line that is so long that my wife won't go inside the store anymore.
 
Mask discipline from what I see when I'm out and about is incredibly bad.  People leaving their nose out or wearing them on their chin after dealing with the slow suffocation for a few hours.
It's not looking great.
 
Our Rt is now clocking in at: 1.18.  Which is bad, though not as bad as Hawaii which is now up to 1.57 (yikes!).

This is why I give him no slack.  This, and actually reading his twitter.
 
So, so, so, SO many people are excusing him of doing things that are literally tearing apart the foundation of how the federal government works, especially equitably.  This is establishing precedent that will ruin government function in this country for decades to come if it is followed.  No matter who inherits it.

This is why I give him no slack.  This, and actually reading his twitter.
 
So, so, so, SO many people are excusing him of doing things that are literally tearing apart the foundation of how the federal government works, especially equitably.  This is establishing precedent that will ruin government function in this country for decades to come if it is followed.  No matter who inherits it.

She's a hero, but she didn't actually prevent anyone from showing up.  There was no point at which tickets would have run out.  Everyone who really wanted to go to that rally did so.  What the trolls did accomplish was preventing the rally from being cancelled beforehand due to low projected attendance.

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally
 
If you read the article, you will discover that it really comes down to a 51 year old black woman living in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  Through her suggestion to the internet, she probably prevented numerous Covid-19 deaths.  Way to go Mary Jo, you are my new hero.

Trump says he ordered testing to be slowed down because then you get more cases

They're making it clear they find it fun to be called or make people outraged about them being fascists too.  It's an entertaining game to the people they encourage and direct, 'getting back at those obnoxious libs' so to speak.
 
Except it's not a game, and what they are doing is towing a very dangerous line.  Any such organization seems effective... at first.  But it rots like hell, because it's always rife with infighting. 
 
I remember someone referring to Donald Trump being the only 'authority' in the WH, with no chain of command... and that's the exact situation that makes third world countries such a mess to begin with.  It's why our military has a hell of a time training armies in the Middle East, and why even the autobahn was a mess (with striking workers thrown in certain well known camps). 
 
We don't need a direct comparison with past countries, it's just that this way of doing things doesn't work.  It looks attractive, but only because of desperately wild marketing.  When it has to do anything (like, prepare for coronavirus during the entire month of February), it falls apart bad.   It seems like there's still more effort in damage control right now at the Federal level than any kind of direction?
 
But maybe that's just my opinion, and not well established facts to others.

The wife got tested June 12th, late in the afternoon and got her results online first thing next morning.  She was negative btw.

They're making it clear they find it fun to be called or make people outraged about them being fascists too.  It's an entertaining game to the people they encourage and direct, 'getting back at those obnoxious libs' so to speak.
 
Except it's not a game, and what they are doing is towing a very dangerous line.  Any such organization seems effective... at first.  But it rots like hell, because it's always rife with infighting. 
 
I remember someone referring to Donald Trump being the only 'authority' in the WH, with no chain of command... and that's the exact situation that makes third world countries such a mess to begin with.  It's why our military has a hell of a time training armies in the Middle East, and why even the autobahn was a mess (with striking workers thrown in certain well known camps). 
 
We don't need a direct comparison with past countries, it's just that this way of doing things doesn't work.  It looks attractive, but only because of desperately wild marketing.  When it has to do anything (like, prepare for coronavirus during the entire month of February), it falls apart bad.   It seems like there's still more effort in damage control right now at the Federal level than any kind of direction?
 
But maybe that's just my opinion, and not well established facts to others.

They're making it clear they find it fun to be called or make people outraged about them being fascists too.  It's an entertaining game to the people they encourage and direct, 'getting back at those obnoxious libs' so to speak.
 
Except it's not a game, and what they are doing is towing a very dangerous line.  Any such organization seems effective... at first.  But it rots like hell, because it's always rife with infighting. 
 
I remember someone referring to Donald Trump being the only 'authority' in the WH, with no chain of command... and that's the exact situation that makes third world countries such a mess to begin with.  It's why our military has a hell of a time training armies in the Middle East, and why even the autobahn was a mess (with striking workers thrown in certain well known camps). 
 
We don't need a direct comparison with past countries, it's just that this way of doing things doesn't work.  It looks attractive, but only because of desperately wild marketing.  When it has to do anything (like, prepare for coronavirus during the entire month of February), it falls apart bad.   It seems like there's still more effort in damage control right now at the Federal level than any kind of direction?
 
But maybe that's just my opinion, and not well established facts to others.

The onus is on the powerful to listen to the powerless, not the other way around. At least, that should be the case. I have to push back against false equivalencies.

Yeah, they're being pretty cute about it, but they're making it obvious they're fascists. They're "populists" in the same way the Nazi party was "socialist." Meaning, not at all.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll

I'm not convinced Trump himself suggested or even understood the symbolism. That would imply knowledge and awareness, neither of which is a strong suit of this President. But someone in the White House with authority to post those ads does, and that's bad enough.

First , thanks for the entire post. It was pretty insightful  over all, but this part is the ONE area I was like "I did not know ANY of this part" . Given how some folks get ..kind of aggressive when on steroids (at least types) I can see why this complicates things.
 
So you may think no one is reading your wall of text, but, well, I learned something today.

Well, most people thought the #metoo movement would fade away, but it doesn't show any signs of that, and we have seen a fundamental shift in how sexual harassment of women is being treated in North American society. So it's not impossible that systemic change of some sort could come from this too. Everything wrong in a society won't resolve at once, short of a violent revolution (which rarely changes things for the better). Yet over my own lifetime I've seen profound evolution in society; but most of those steps were incremental. Wars are won one battle at a time.
 
However, I believe the police culture in North America today, and the reaction to it by the public, is being fueled by fear. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate." If we can address that culture of fear, many better things should follow naturally.

2 million was a "do nothing and let the virus take its course" prediction for the entirety of the pandemic, not just the first wave.  And the 200k projection I've seen is for the first wave alone, with some imperfect precautions factored in.  For those who downplay those numbers as "could be worse", I wonder what the "failure threshold" is.  Half a million?  A million?  No event in American history has killed more than 750,000 people.  120,000 is already more than World War 1 or the 1957-1958 Asian Flu pandemic.  Only 3 events are ahead of that number: WW2(400k from all causes), The Spanish Flu(about 675k), and the Civil War(high side estimate is 750k, more commonly 620k).  
Given the tangible early failures to test and contain, the death numbers are already shameful and tragic and emblematic of catastrophic failure.  There are specific people and agencies that specific fingers should be pointed at. 

I think you are underestimating just how bad the optics are on a statement like this; for a police officer in an administrative role or a politician, publicly announcing this (even with all the other concessions you made later on) is almost assuredly career suicide. Furthermore, even if the chances of being wrongfully killed are statistically small, you're going to see the most disproportionately affected populations keep their guard up and advocate avoidance (yes, even to the potential detriment of their safety). That is the nature of the beast you must - no, we must - grapple with.
 
Just look at COVID-19. While it is now becoming clear that its broader effects are worse than previously anticipated, there was a time when a select percentage of our nation's populace basically claimed that (heavy paraphrasing incoming!) "Other causes of death are more likely; why don't you care as much about heart disease or automobile accidents?". While this is true in the aggregate, I can't imagine a society that reacts to a pandemic with "Listen, your chances of dying from this new virus are statistically insignificant. We're not going to close down the country for this any more than we would close it down for cancer or diabetes." as one that values the importance of community or, well, life in general.
 
We accept a degree of "inefficiency" (i.e., addressing the fears of the people) because we recognize that humans aren't robots.

Yep.  I don't think Badger was doing this intentionally, as he's not alone here, but...calling it a "prediction" isn't simply inaccurate, it strikes me as (potentially intentional) misinformation, to create disbelief and denial in the readers' minds.  

A similar word choice elsewhere...someone titled a thread "PC Has Gone Too Far."  The OP's entire post was "Elmer Fudd is banned from having a gun."  There was no BAN.  Warner chose to remove the gun...their own action.  Not as a result of outside pressure.  Which changes the entire tone of the discussion.  "Ban" is intended to raise hackles, and it's totally wrong.

Except it was never a "prediction" really, more like "had nothing been done to contain the spread, the estimate is..."  which is entirely different.  Expert opinion on that, hasn't changed much.  The measures that have been taken have saved an unknown but huge number of lives.
 
And we're seeing the evidence, in those places where reopening is going too quickly and with too few mitigation efforts in place.  No, NOT all of them...but tooooo many to ignore.  The pattern:  execute reopen and mitigation well, case load increase is manageable;  do it badly, case load risks getting out of control.  This is no longer arguable on the facts, IMO...doesn't mean some factions and/or individuals don't deny it...just that their position is not rooted in reality.

Only when they reopen prematurely.  IL has actually done a pretty good job of managing the safeguards and phased re-opening....and has been trending downwards even after going to Phase 3 of the reopening plan.  If all continues as it has, we're looking to move to Phase 4 in about 3 weeks.  Should things start to take a turn for the worse, the plan has always been to move back to previous phases based on the numbers that are coming in.