COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[The Free North]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

[Omega21]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

[The Free North]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

I'm all for making the money printer go brr, thx.

[T'Chenka]

Does anybody know if Penn Quaker is alive and well? Just realized I haven't seen her post in some time and she was getting over Covid-19. I'm probably being paranoid and she's just busy with real life. She was always posting in this thread specifically.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Does anybody know if Penn Quaker is alive and well? Just realized I haven't seen her post in some time and she was getting over Covid-19. I'm probably being paranoid and she's just busy with real life. She was always posting in this thread specifically.

Still alive and well, yes!

Just been busy wrapping up some end-of-the-school-year stuff!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Does anybody know if Penn Quaker is alive and well? Just realized I haven't seen her post in some time and she was getting over Covid-19. I'm probably being paranoid and she's just busy with real life. She was always posting in this thread specifically.

Still alive and well, yes!

Just been busy wrapping up some end-of-the-school-year stuff!

Nice to hear.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

This.

I live in a state that is heavily dependent on the hospitality industry.  When you get away from the corporate investors in Disney, Hotels, Resorts, etc, you get to the incomes of the smaller hotels, motels, and independent restaurants, and the workers in all of these places, including servers, drivers, entertainers, etc.  And by "entertainers", I'm talking about a wide number of folks who are NOT famous and NOT celebrities.  Think of how many "entertainers" work at Walt Disney World.  (Employees at Disney are "cast members".  Those who work with the public are "onstage", while those who are support staff are "backstage".)  These are NOT the 1%.  These are working people who need this to live. 

I've been deep in thought on a lot of things this week.  One conclusion I've come to is that the Nanny State that many Democrats advocate is going to be anything but "liberal".  I think it's fair to say that we're seeing that right now.  There's no regard for the individual Constitutional liberties and rights of others on the part of these Governors who seem to enjoy issuing restrictive lockdown orders, even if the science doesn't clearly justify it.  (And science is showing that the fastest number of new deaths from COVID-19 in NY are from folks staying at home.)

I'm thinking about a lot of things.  One thing I'm thinking about is the that today's Democratic Governors are something other than liberal.

[Koharu]

Does anybody know if Penn Quaker is alive and well? Just realized I haven't seen her post in some time and she was getting over Covid-19. I'm probably being paranoid and she's just busy with real life. She was always posting in this thread specifically.

Still alive and well, yes!

Just been busy wrapping up some end-of-the-school-year stuff!

If you hadn't responded, I was going to say "it's finals time," which, even with education being what it is right now, is a busy and stresseful time!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

A private report by a group called MACE based on cell phone location data says that there was no activity in a high security section of the Wuhan Institute of Virology between Oct. 7 and 24 of last year. Further it appears there is additional evidence that there may have been an accident at the lab between Oct. 6 and 11, rather specific dates. If this is true then there has been a half-year long coverup of how this thing started. Just breaking on NBC now.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716

These people's heads should be on f**king spikes.

Whose heads should be on spikes? The ones who reported that there might have been a shutdown at the Wuhan lab due to lack of cellphone activity? While these reports might turn out to be incorrect in the end (as the NBC News article you were replying to does in fact indicate, beginning with its headline), I happen to think that it would be premature to already resort to such harsh measures.

Obviously Grassr00ts means the foreigners, who speak a funny language and look different, and who are alleged by a near conspiracy-theory to have possibly screwed-up big time and then covered it up. Absolutely not the rich right-wing white guys who have very publicly and obviously lied and lied and lied while also showcasing their continuing utter failure, corruption and incompetence. 

[It’s so Joever]

The people who should “have their heads on spikes” are the Hubei officials who covered up the initial outbreak up, and nearly all of the Trump administration.

[Koharu]

It's a pandemic. We don't need any more deaths because of poor choices, whether that be via the virus itself or via impaling.

[It’s so Joever]

Virus-truthers and economic concern trolls will go down in history for destroying the American Empire.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-donald-trump-has-destroyed-the-country-he-promised-to-make-great-again-1.4235928%3fmode=amp

[Frodo]

Virus-truthers and economic concern trolls will go down in history for destroying the American Empire.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-donald-trump-has-destroyed-the-country-he-promised-to-make-great-again-1.4235928%3fmode=amp

Where is the non-paywall version? 

[Joe Republic]

I've been deep in thought on a lot of things this week.

I'm thinking about a lot of things.

Yes, I suppose a week is enough time to digest whatever nonsense Breitbart and other far-right cesspits have been feeding you.  Your steady progress down that rabbit hole is clear to see.

[It’s so Joever]

Virus-truthers and economic concern trolls will go down in history for destroying the American Empire.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-donald-trump-has-destroyed-the-country-he-promised-to-make-great-again-1.4235928%3fmode=amp

Where is the non-paywall version?  

Sorry my bad.

O’Toole

THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT

Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.

However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.

Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.

As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.”

(...)

You still can't quote more than a portion of the text - K.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

This.

I live in a state that is heavily dependent on the hospitality industry.  When you get away from the corporate investors in Disney, Hotels, Resorts, etc, you get to the incomes of the smaller hotels, motels, and independent restaurants, and the workers in all of these places, including servers, drivers, entertainers, etc.  And by "entertainers", I'm talking about a wide number of folks who are NOT famous and NOT celebrities.  Think of how many "entertainers" work at Walt Disney World.  (Employees at Disney are "cast members".  Those who work with the public are "onstage", while those who are support staff are "backstage".)  These are NOT the 1%.  These are working people who need this to live.  

I've been deep in thought on a lot of things this week.  One conclusion I've come to is that the Nanny State that many Democrats advocate is going to be anything but "liberal".  I think it's fair to say that we're seeing that right now.  There's no regard for the individual Constitutional liberties and rights of others on the part of these Governors who seem to enjoy issuing restrictive lockdown orders, even if the science doesn't clearly justify it.  (And science is showing that the fastest number of new deaths from COVID-19 in NY are from folks staying at home.)

I'm thinking about a lot of things.  One thing I'm thinking about is the that today's Democratic Governors are something other than liberal.

You’re not wrong that the people most affected by these lockdowns are the working poor. That should have been obvious to anyone paying attention since April. But that’s not a reason to reopen. Rather, it’s a reason to expand social programs so that we don’t have to kill the working class in order to prevent the pandemic.
It’s also a reason for us to have a strictly enforced lockdown for a shorter period of time, as opposed to a mild-lockdown which requires months to have an impact and ironically exposes more people to the virus.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1258782599918637057

What an egregious take.

Re-opening is primarily to benefit the 1%?? Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again. The 1% are doing just fine and most have plenty of savings to get them through this. The people who need to go back to work are the ones living paycheck to paycheck. People working jobs in the service industry or hospitality industry who have been furloughed, especially since we have no UBI bill passed.

My God....

This.

I live in a state that is heavily dependent on the hospitality industry.  When you get away from the corporate investors in Disney, Hotels, Resorts, etc, you get to the incomes of the smaller hotels, motels, and independent restaurants, and the workers in all of these places, including servers, drivers, entertainers, etc.  And by "entertainers", I'm talking about a wide number of folks who are NOT famous and NOT celebrities.  Think of how many "entertainers" work at Walt Disney World.  (Employees at Disney are "cast members".  Those who work with the public are "onstage", while those who are support staff are "backstage".)  These are NOT the 1%.  These are working people who need this to live. 

I've been deep in thought on a lot of things this week.  One conclusion I've come to is that the Nanny State that many Democrats advocate is going to be anything but "liberal".  I think it's fair to say that we're seeing that right now.  There's no regard for the individual Constitutional liberties and rights of others on the part of these Governors who seem to enjoy issuing restrictive lockdown orders, even if the science doesn't clearly justify it.  (And science is showing that the fastest number of new deaths from COVID-19 in NY are from folks staying at home.)

I'm thinking about a lot of things.  One thing I'm thinking about is the that today's Democratic Governors are something other than liberal.

Are you opposed to either of these plans?

Hawley's worker rehire plan

Jayapal's paycheck guarantee plan

Choosing between in-person work and a lockdown where people are unemployed is absolutely a false choice. Both parties have people suggesting plans to keep people on payrolls and cover other costs (e.g., paying rent/property maintenance costs, keeping employee health care) while not requiring them to go back to work. Do either of these plans sound appealing to you?

[PSOL]

US blocks vote on UN's bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO

The US has blocked a vote on a UN security council resolution calling for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic, because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization.

The security council has been wrangling for more than six weeks over the resolution, which was intended to demonstrate global support for the call for a ceasefire by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. The main source for the delay was the US refusal to endorse a resolution that urged support for the WHO’s operations during the coronavirus pandemic.

Unbelievable, the world is being mostly dictated by a madman ruining us all.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1259184336995258372

[Crumpets]

US blocks vote on UN's bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO

The US has blocked a vote on a UN security council resolution calling for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic, because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization.

The security council has been wrangling for more than six weeks over the resolution, which was intended to demonstrate global support for the call for a ceasefire by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. The main source for the delay was the US refusal to endorse a resolution that urged support for the WHO’s operations during the coronavirus pandemic.

Unbelievable, the world is being mostly dictated by a madman ruining us all.

Not saying this was definitely the right call, but the proposed ceasefire had a lot of problematic loopholes (i.e. doesn't apply to undefined "counter-terrorism" operations) that made it kind of toothless and mostly symbolic.

[It’s so Joever]

US blocks vote on UN's bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO

The US has blocked a vote on a UN security council resolution calling for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic, because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization.

The security council has been wrangling for more than six weeks over the resolution, which was intended to demonstrate global support for the call for a ceasefire by the UN secretary general, António Guterres. The main source for the delay was the US refusal to endorse a resolution that urged support for the WHO’s operations during the coronavirus pandemic.

Unbelievable, the world is being mostly dictated by a madman ruining us all.

That’s why we have to vote this p****y grabber out!

[PSOL]

Still, it would have been something, something that this Administration blocked.

Anyway, onto other news
Union opposes reopening U.S. meat plants as more workers die

The largest union representing U.S. meatpacking workers said on Friday it opposed the reopening of plants as the Trump administration had failed to guarantee workers’ safety.

At least 30 meatpacking workers have died of the novel coronavirus and more than 10,000 have contracted it, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents more than 250,000 meatpacking and food processing workers, said in a statement.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1259184336995258372

Interesting that the OAN anchor has a Russian accent. Do we know if OAN has any Russian ties? I wonder if OAN is another attempt at spreading Russian propaganda, after RT was pretty much a failure.

[PSOL]

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1259184336995258372

Interesting that the OAN anchor has a Russian accent. Do we know if OAN has any Russian ties? Is OAN  another attempt at spreading Russian propaganda, after RT was pretty much a failure?

I wouldn’t doubt it if it has financial ties to the Kremlin.

[emailking]

Have you seen the stock market lately? its up on the year. Its pushing new highs again.

The Dow started the year around 28,500. The high was around 29,500. Right now it's 24,300. So it needs to gain 4,000 points before it will be up on the year, and 5,000 points before it will be pushing new highs.