The News Thread

Not that odd when you consider she's widely demonized on all non-FOX cable media as a Russian plant or as gunning for a FOX contributor job. He and others had multiple chances to defend her in the early debates, and everyone basically ignored her (except when the HRC accusation came up and Mayor Butt gave a generic "I'm a fellow soldier and I'm proud to serve Murrica and I'm proud of Tulsi's service to the country" defense).

This also: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/21/politics/bernie-sanders-tulsi-gabbard-tweet/index.html
 
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Fauci-eb51.gif


Gold.
 
Albert Uderzon co-creator and artist of Asterix died aged 92
I loved those books as a kid, can still put my hands on maybe a dozen of them in the bookshelf.
 
The GOP is a fucking death squad right now.

The government needs to step in and regulate the production of goods. They need to tell companies what to manufacture and how much and coordinate distribution--because right now hospitals don't have the supplies they need.

But the GOP cries about it being "socialism." Fuck those assholes.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...J8Z34-3Lfh5FSTLuRwkh7ZnRSkR1ZKGrptL0PfoZUSW_Y

Republicans’ uniquely virulent strain of conservatism is undermining not only their response to COVID-19’s economic consequences but also to the public-health crisis itself. Even as U.S. hospitals and health-care workers are suffering from a shortage of masks and ventilators, President Trump has refused to invoke his authority under the Defense Production Act to force the mass production of those critical materials. Instead of conscripting domestic manufacturers into the figurative war on the coronavirus, the White House has attempted to arrange a voluntary consortium of firms interested in aiding with mask and ventilator production. According to the New York Times, this decision came at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Trump defended his approach Sunday on the grounds that “we’re a country not based on nationalizing our business.” Of course, invoking the DPA to temporarily commandeer a firm’s productive capacity is not tantamount to the nationalization of industry. Meanwhile, the voluntarist approach mandated by the GOP’s devotion to corporate prerogatives is not delivering the goods
 
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>>GOP is a deathsquad
>>>>Why won't they take over the means of production

reminds me of:

>>The government is controlled by the corporations
>>>>>We need more government control

The DPA might be a solution here but it might also simply be another hamfistedly held hammer looking for nails. The CDC hasn't even remotely been focused on "disease control" in a meaningful sense most of our lives, so why expect competency now? The rot is systemic and deep and I have more confidence in helicopter money to people so they can buy more weed being the best route forward than selfstyled technocrats doing anything beneficial.

Of course, maybe if we hadn't been getting told by Vox and Co for like 2 months that it was "just the flu" and "masks don't work", that Trump's Chinese travel ban was "racisss", and IMPEACHMENTIMPEACHMENTIMPEACHMENT, things might look at least a tiny bit different now.
 
tbh I think temporary nationalization of businesses asking for bailouts for the direct and immediate purpose of producing necessary medical supplies is totally justified, and the government already has the power to do it. It's not a legal expansion of government power, and Trump taking the high ground will in no way prevent future Bolshevik Dems from taking the power themselves. Trump threatening to do so and then backing off under pressure from Lindsey Graham or whatever makes him look even weaker. Right now he's basically gambling that the Shanghai shivers ain't no thang and that it will blow over by Easter, which is an incredibly risky and imo stupid move politically. Invoking the DPA is a chance to attack the technocrats if anything.

But I agree that our government agencies/disaster response/mitigation is basically useless as well. If only we had no government we could just let the disease kill the infirm and let the toilet paper magnates inherit the earth.
 
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>>>>>> the Shanghai shivers

But I agree that our government agencies/disaster response/mitigation is basically useless as well. If only we had no government we could just let the disease kill the infirm and let the toilet paper magnates inherit the earth.

OK JACK BACK IN MY DAY We COULD TAKE THIS OUTSIDE WITH CORNPOP

All of our "elites" are incompetent midwits and if they aren't, they are sociopaths. Any exceptions to this are inconsequential due to dilution and the media staffed by a cabal of the former. The only thing saving the country from a military coup is the indoc process of universities on the officer corps that that would always be a bad thing, which, due to that same indoc process, it most definitely would be. Between the female response to those Spanish military duders on social media, the general public approval of the military, and a few old fogies ignorantly insisting on actually displaying some leadership, no matter how watered down by bureaucracy and redtape, the US has never been closer to a proto-Chilean situation. If Congress keeps fuckin around, the odds only increase. This won't be a good thing, but if it saves us from even one Lindsey Graham/AOC hellbaby, it might bE a tHiRd wAy cOmPrOmIsE.
 
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Between the sanctuary cities controversy, increasing pro-federalism rulings like the one today saying that states are immune from federal copyright law, the gradual polarization of red and blue states, etcetc, I'm still holding out hope for a disintegration of the federal government and a sort of Holy Roman Empire-esque Peace of Westphalia bordergore solution. San Franciscans murdering Trump supporters, Alabamans murdering abortion supporters and homosexuals, Mexican Reconquistadors murdering whitey, mass violence and migration, and then eventually, a mutual ceasefire and recognition of regional sovereignty. I'm not sure that an overt military coup would be any better than the quasi-military state that FDR gave us. In fact, it'd probably be far worse since right now an uninformed person can pretend that they don't live under one.
 
>>GOP is a deathsquad
>>>>Why won't they take over the means of production

reminds me of:

>>The government is controlled by the corporations
>>>>>We need more government control

Which explains why they won't do anything! :rofl:

We've arrived at the crux of the conflict of interest. Trump knows the CEOs in the top 1% tremble in their Gucci loafers when they hear whispers of the DPA.

The DPA might be a solution here but it might also simply be another hamfistedly held hammer looking for nails. The CDC hasn't even remotely been focused on "disease control" in a meaningful sense most of our lives, so why expect competency now? The rot is systemic and deep and I have more confidence in helicopter money to people so they can buy more weed being the best route forward than selfstyled technocrats doing anything beneficial.

In this case, I'm not convinced that reducing a rickety institution is better than leaving it to operate rickety-ish-ly during a crisis.

I'd also rather he give money and supplies to hospitals rather than his golf buddies.

Vox and Co

You mean Fox and Friends? ;)
 
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lol the "1%" overwhelmingly despise Trump, with even the Kochs breaking with the Republicans over Trump's ascension. Reminder that the $1200 Trumpbux stimulus is $1200 more than what (now-Martha's Vineyard-residing) Obama gave workers.
 
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Which explains why they won't do anything! :rofl:

We've arrived at the crux of the conflict of interest. Trump knows the CEOs in the top 1% tremble in their Gucci loafers when they hear whispers of the DPA.

In this case, I'm not convinced that reducing a rickety institution is better than leaving it to operate rickety-ish-ly during a crisis.

I'd also rather he give money and supplies to hospitals rather than his golf buddies.

Hospitals are megacorps, but on the other hand, are bound for good or ill to Medicaid/Medicare. As someone I read said, we have the downsides of both private and public healthcare with little of the upsides, unless you are at the cusp of death and/or need expensive elective surgery.

CEOs as a group may or may not tremble in response to the DPA, but some companies would stand to benefit depending on parameters.

The conflict of interest is that Republicans want to help out CEOs of X companies, and Democrats want to help out CEOs of Y companies + the coalition-of-the-fringes ensemble they depend on, and both are working against the majority of America. So we have Democrats complaining that illegals might not get monies and oh btw lets do something about guns, and Lindsey Graham complaining nurses might quit working, as reasons not to give a measely 1K to the rest of America. Meanwhile, megacorps will get $$$$ and NONE OF IT DOES SHIT ABOUT ANTIVIRAL MEASURES.

You mean Fox and Friends? ;)

Well they were complicit too for the same reasons, but they don't speak for/to the "elite" or the "educated", at least as per your, their/their opinion. Also, the only reason for the switch in message is there was a concerted (not simply Cathedralesque) switch to try to pivot from failed impeachment to trying to blame Trump for the virus to hurt re-election, when previously blasting him from taking even tentative measure against it. It's sociopathic at the leadership level.
 
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Biden is still drooling on himself somewhere, maybe in a cryo chamber awaiting that mail-in General election. I wonder if @Einherjar86 wants to acknowledge yet that Biden is demented, in the literal sense of the definition. Even Sky News: Aussie edition had a segment on it.