Joe Walsh

Schools: Students must abide by our dress code.
 
Also schools: It would be wrong for us to tell kids they have to wear masks.
 
 

Schools: Students must abide by our dress code.
 
Also schools: It would be wrong for us to tell kids they have to wear masks.
 
 

Schools: Students must abide by our dress code.
 
Also schools: It would be wrong for us to tell kids they have to wear masks.
 
 

Schools: Students must abide by our dress code.
 
Also schools: It would be wrong for us to tell kids they have to wear masks.
 
 

Our cure is going to be worse, because it's the worst of all worlds.  Inadequate precautions, mixed messages, refusing to abide by (and enforce) fundamental practices.  It's going to stretch out our economic issues FAR longer than other countries.  Europe is trying to reopen sensibly...whether they can or not, we'll have to see.  
 
Sweden found out, too.  They did nothing for a long time.  Their economy STILL got blasted.  This is not either-or...it's not "we stay open and thrive, or we shut down and wither."  If we stay open, we still do not thrive.  That's the cornerstone takeaway.
 
There is no good outcome here.  There is probably no mediocre outcome.  Those are simply not on the table.  MANY, MANY people will get crushed by this.  Overall there is nothing that can be done to stop it completely.  It CAN be slowed.  Germany shows that.  South Korea shows that.  But there will be massive harm, directly and indirectly.  There are, however, TERRIBLE approaches.  Sweden.  Brazil.  The US.  Major business downturn AND failure to contain.  

Washington Post: USPS workers sound alarm about new policies that may affect 2020 mail-in voting
 

Police are responding to protests against police brutality with... more police brutality.  I think that pretty much sums it up.
 
The total resistance to any actual dialogue about changing police procedures, or ending coverups for police misconduct, has been really eye opening.

Legitimate addressing of the issues (instead of token gestures) would end all this, but...as usual...America refuses to admit there is any problem.

It'll be taken seriously when people with millions die.  Many people with many millions.

It would be nice if someone was tracking the chronic illnesses developed by "recovered" cases.

So,  I've been thinking about what I would  have done in that couple's shoes. I've landed on: I'd pull out a couple of folding tables, set them up near the sidewalk, and lay out some refreshments for the protestors. Really, screw that mayor.
 
On the flip side, if I experienced any spillover onto my property (which means near my family), I would act to squelch it.
 
And the couple in the pics needs to have their guns removed until they prove they can handle them safely. They also need brandishing charges.

CDC Says US has ‘way too much virus’ to control pandemic as cases surge across country:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/cdc-says-us-has-way-too-much-virus-to-control-pandemic-as-cases-surge-across-country.html
 

Literally that attitude is "if you want the services 90% of your city's budget goes to then you have to put up with us planting evidence or beating people we don't like and us putting toy guns on kids we accidentally shoot so we don't have to see a courtroom."

If you buy some pipe-cleaners you can glue them across the top of a mask and mould it closer to your face, minimising fogging.

Which reminds me I need more masks, hopefully more comfortable ones that won't fog up my glasses so badly.

Tricksta, I'll once again refer to Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson. They argue that political and economic systems based on extraction -- harvesting and concentrating wealth and power, instead of spreading out to to make more -- are innately chaotic and self-destructive in just the way you describe. Because the few with wealth and power always break into factions that try to screw each other and get more. The rewards are simply too great for whoever wins the game of thrones. It's why most people, through most of history, have suffered in poverty.
 
Incidentally, Acemoglu and Robinson bluntly call out Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel as nonsense, for asking the wrong question to begin with. The question is not, "Why did a few societies advance their technology and become much wealthier than others?" It's "Why, despite abundant natural resources and millennia of hard work and human ingenuity, do societies stay poor and miserable?" They document the answer through history and around the world, from Neolithic villages to North Korea and Zimbabwe: Because most of the population is systematically robbed.
 
A few societies have broken the vicious circle of exploitation, infighting over the spoils and decay and at least made an attempt at a broader districution of power and greater opportunities for more people to create wealth and keep it. The result is rapid increase in the society's total wealthy, and greater liberty. But the "virtuous cycle" can be broken and turned back into the tiresome old system of oligarchy and exploitation. It's how (to use one of their historical examples) Venice went from Queen of the Seas to a theme park for tourists.
 
The early US managed to begin the contrary cycle... though not for everyone... and the more that wealth and political power have been distributed instead of concentrated, the richer and more powerful the country has become. But there is no guarantee this will continue, and powerful forces are working to return us to the good old days of peasants slaving for their lord and master. (Though I will grant the possibility that some of the people pushing for oligarchy don't consciously realize this is their goal.)
 
Acemoglu and Robinson also discuss the importance of crisis point in shaping the direction societies go, but that's a faily big subject in itself. Suffice to say, we are living through at least three such crisis points at once.
 
TL;DR: Some economists with serious academic cred agree with TrickstaPriest and have the research to back it up.
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 
 

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.

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.

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.

Roberts made it clear in his decision that the administration was well within its rights to rescind DACA, but merely failed to provide the required justification for doing so. The repeal was so sloppy it almost looks like Sessions was trying to eff it up on purpose.