zonemaster
zonemaster's JournalHow's the Milli-Mega MAGAt March Goin'?
Has it grown past the deci-milli-mega stage yet? Read that King MAGAt did a drive-by on the way to cheating himself at golf, and the roadside cultists swooned.
These people always talk like their adherents are so fired-up and numbers so colossal, that their various assemblies will be able to be seen from outer space. Never seems to happen, though, once most of them figure out they'd actually have get off their asses and travel somewhere that keeps themselves away from Fox News and their keyboards for more than an hour.
New high crimes & misdemeanors -- New impeachment -- No SCOTUS nominee hearings
...just sayin... Two-fer. Doubt you are going to lose a lot of independents and undecided voters. Time for some broadside salvos and anchor-tossing.
Attn: Biden campaign - ad idea re: excuses for Trump not reading Russian bounty briefing
In that dark, menacing voice...
"Putin fanboy Donald Trump and his various enablers [splash photos of Fox hosts, WH spokespeople and congressional Republicans] offer excuse after excuse for why Trump took no action after US intelligence services informed the President [splash photo of a PDB] that Russia was offering Taliban militants bounties for successful kills of American soldiers in Afghanistan, an act of war against our nation by Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. Not only did Trump take no action, he pushed to have his chum Putin rewarded with admission to the G7, [video of Trump and Putin shaking hands, Putin smiling] against the wishes of the other members, some of whom had the same intelligence about Russia's unspeakable and hostile conduct. Now, Ainsley Earhardt, talking head for Trump-mouthpiece Fox News, claims "All Presidents don't read all of their briefings." Let's check that claim with real, competent Presidential material. Did you, Mr. President, read all of your briefings? [cue George W. Bush looking into the camera and solemnly speaking] "Yes... I did." [cue Barak Obama] "Yes... I did." [cue Joe Biden] "Yes... I will. If you think it's time to punish Russia for sponsoring assassinations of US servicemen and women, then vote for me, a strong, proven leader who will put a stop to it." "
...or something to that effect.
It's 1968 again!
Looking at the parallels of unrest in the US in the late 60s vs. today...
With the Viet Nam War, there you had a bunch of rich, paranoid (communism, in this case, vs. brown people), white 'patriotic' politicians and citizens wanting other people's kids (predominantly poor and disproportionately black) to readily sign up to die to keep the America that they knew 'great' by defeating the communist menace on the other side of the globe. Not much value placed on the fodder they wanted to send to Viet Nam to help beat back the 'hordes' that scared them.
Now we have the wealthy 1-percenters, GOP grifters, business magnates and low-information Fox News propaganda consumers telling other people that they need to support 'Merika and get back to work in the salons, the meat-packing plants, the grocery stores and the gyms, where the lowly 'drones' should risk their lives to ensure that the privileged, patriotic real Americans mightn't be inconvenienced. And the extra COVID load that'll ultimately put on the health-care workers? That's their problem - they chose that profession. Here, too, little value is placed on other people's lives and livelihoods. The patriots want what they want, and if someone else needs to die for them to get it, well - that's the cost of 'freedom'.
(One notable difference between 50 years ago and today is that, the GOP has really subsumed and crystallized people of that mindset almost exclusively into their party.)
With abject disrespect for others as a foundation, combined with strong, socially-unsettling forces and events - like the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, the draft for Viet Nam service in the 60s, or today with mass unemployment, the specter of COVID-19, the GOP's increasingly-overt fascism & racism, live police snuff films, and emergence of all manner of 'Karen and Biff' assholery - these are the matches to the fuse of the younger people rising up and resisting, saying, "We're not interested in buying, with our futures and our lives, the shitty social status quo you're trying to preserve."
That's why these protests are, I think, more than only a reaction to George Floyd's murder, and could really result in positive change to to number of issues that have been getting progressively worse over the decades. I feel we're reaching a threshold - a critical mass - for effecting long-needed changes, and I think that the GOP's politicians, adherents and policies are going to be the ones to endure a greater degree of 'adjustment'.
Oh, yeah - please read this post, which is relevant and spurred me to finally write this observation:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213562371
New rule: politicians going back to work
All politicians advocating the relaxation of stay-at-home orders and the re-opening businesses must also go back to work on-site, and may not wear PPE or exercise a level of social distancing to a greater degree than the minimum level enforced in their respective states. If it's good enough for the citizens and laborers, it's good enough for the 'leadership'.
Why I think that petulant child states re-opening won't be successful
Note: not every item will apply to every business. Some may be a big deal, others not at all. Just some morning thoughts.
1) What percent of the population is raring to go back and sit in a crowded restaurant or bar? Enough to sustainably keep it in business from here on out? Is 50% of an eatery's former throughput enough to keep it afloat? People are getting used to cooking and eating at home more - how many of them are just craving a Bloomin' Onion so much that they'll risk COVID to get it? How many past workers are going to show up for a call back, making sub-minimum wage, a fraction of their former tips, no benefits and dealing with a bunch of non-mask wearing, loud, nobody-tells-me-what-to-do, spittle-spewing COVID-carrying clientele? Some will - they won't have a choice - but others, and a lot of the former customers - will view it like playing Russian Roulette.
2) Will the business insurance industry balk at continuing coverage for businesses that are knowingly putting their workers and patrons at heightened risk? We've seen churches get their policies yanked for defying stay-at-home orders. Will it be different for businesses now that there won't be an official stay-at-home order, or will the insurance companies rely on their own definition of risk? That is one industry that's probably not doing too bad right now, so why ruin a good thing by getting saddled with about a billion new claims and litigation possibilities?
3) Are airlines going to magically go back to a full roster of flights that are going to be full? Who's going to want to jet off to (or out from) one of these states if they don't feel safe from getting sick by sitting in an airplane for N hours? The majority of workers at Atlanta-Hartsfield won't be going back to work any time soon.
4) Gyms - see restaurants. "Hey, hon. Look how ripped I am. Make sure the mortician takes my shirt off when he gets my casket shots so everyone can see my lily-white six-pack." If your business involves packing a bunch of people in an enclosed space, you better think twice about how awesome re-opening is going to be. Will it make economic sense to pay all of those fixed costs that being open requires, for 5 or 6 numb-nuts a week to wander through your place, cough on you, and walk out?
Anyway - just a few examples. Plus, the amount of time for these snap re-openings and meager operating levels to really do anything meaningful for the economies of the participating states will be WAYYYY longer than the amount of time it'll take for COVID-19 to come back to life, worse than before, because there are so many more people running around that carry it. The number of asymptomatic carriers, at least at this point, has never been higher. So, some states let the genie out of the bottle, put themselves on a path to almost certainly overwhelm their hospitals, at which point mortality goes way up from the comparatively low level it is now. Then they hem and haw for a while, trying to not look like the idiots they are, and ultimately have to shut the whole thing down again, with what gain? They probably just hastened the death of a lot more businesses that had to add to their woes the cost of a re-opening and re-closing, with a populace that's sicker than ever before and a medical system at or beyond its breaking point. I'm failing to see the obvious gain in all of this.
What the ignorant, impatient and immature don't get is that, when you make a decision to radically amp up your exposure to other people, it's not just yourself that could suffer the consequences. It's your spouse, your aged parent, your kids, the kid at the tire shop, the Hooters waitress, etc, etc. Silent carriers are much worse than those with symptoms because they're impossible to identify and they behave like they're healthy, and interact how healthy people would, but they're really like lawn-sprinklers of contagion. Dumb, selfish people don't get this and never will, unfortunately.
Off to work.
Here is a great timeline of the warnings and related actions by Trump, et al. re: pandemic prep
https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/timeline-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-u-s-response/Starts out with this entry:
"Jan. 13, 2017: The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness. Attendees include: Steven Mnuchin, Rep. Mike Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos, Dr. Ben Carson, Elaine Chao, Stephen Miller, Marc Short, Reince Priebus (resigned), Rex Tillerson (fired), Gen. James Mattis (fired), Rep. Ryan Zinke (resigned), Sen. Jeff Sessions (resigned), Sen. Dan Coats (fired), Andrew Puzder (not confirmed), Dr. Tom Price (resigned), Gov. Rick Perry (resigned), Dr. David Shulkin (fired), Gen. John Kelly (resigned), Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Linda McMahon (resigned), Sean Spicer (fired), Joe Hagin (resigned), Joshua Pitcock (resigned), Tom Bossert (fired), KT McFarland (resigned), Gen. Michael Flynn (awaiting criminal sentencing), Gary Cohn (resigned), Katie Walsh (resigned), and Rick Dearborn (resigned). "
It gets much more damning after that. This is what happens when "All government is bad / Do the opposite of Obama / Fuck everybody but me" myopic ideologues get their hands on the reins of the federal government.
Finally grokked Bob Dylan
Took several decades. Kept going back, every few years, or even a decade or more. Listening to a song or two - trying to identify what people thought was such a big f-ing deal. Was never really impressed - just wasn't doing it for me. (Similar to my reaction to the material of Miles Davis music from the 60s.)
Up until last week, that is. I listened to his JFK piece - Murder Most Foul. Something clicked - I finally got it. I had always been listening with the bias of expecting some sort of superstar musician. Wrong. The dude's a poet, who happens to set his work to musical notes. Went back to some of his early tunes, forgot about the music and concentrated on the lyrics.
Yeah... Dylan.
Just got a call from the office of the 99.9999999% inaccessible CO Senator Cory Gardner...
Now, I didn't just pick up, because, honestly - who does that any more with calls from numbers you don't recognize? In addition, I was getting the red screen overlay with the big stop-sign on my Android phone identifying the call as a likely SCAM. Prescience? Surprisingly, though, I soon heard the little 'ping' from my phone announcing that someone actually had left a message.
Craving any social interaction, I breathlessly and immediately called voicemail to get the message, and whose mellifluous warble should I hear but that of my long-lost senator, Cory Gardner. I did a quick scan around the bunker to see if I could spot a cast-off milk carton somewhere that had Cory's face on it and a phone number I could call to report any sort of contact. No luck. Well, in his happiest, we're-not-all-gonna-die tone, UniCorey was telling me in his pre-recorded message that, had I picked up the original call, I'd have been part of his super-special COVID virtual town hall! But since I didn't pick up, woe to me, I missed my chance, but could always go listen to a recording of it later, after it's all over. Somewhere. Bummer!
Now, Cory - he's pretty elusive unless you're a lobbyist, RWNJ, or high-rolling campaign contributor. He holds assloads of private events (sometimes many tens per month) with moneyed "influencers" of all stripes, provided they give him zero friction. The last time he held an in-person semi-general-public town hall was ???? Not sure - even 'The Google' was having a hard time locating one. Looks like more than 2 and a half years ago.
Being the cynic that I am, I wonder if, maybe, just maybe, Cory wanted his call to the general public to get flagged as a scam, while another, 'select' set of citizens got the same call, but from a non-flagged number, and they were the ones who ultimately got the chance to join his scam reach-around (er, I mean reach-out) COVID town hall.
Fuck you, Cory, generally. And fuck you specifically for the boundless pox heaped upon our nation by you, your party, Dumb-Fux News, and the psychotic, infantile, idiotic, genocidal asshole in the White House. Assuming we have free and fair elections this fall, for the sake of our country, you and your fact-free, know-nothing, gaslighting propagandists and apologists need to be soundly, humiliatingly defeated.
Do your part to shut down anti-American mask / sanitizer / toilet-paper scalpers on Craigslist
Looks like Amazon and eBay are onto these people. Here's a possibility for the rest of us.
A few times a day, look at all of the craigslist (CL) for-sale categories at once searching the 'sss' category, then take the link below, substitute a few different local CL jurisdictions at the beginning of the URL (where it says '<your_city>'), find the scalpers' ads and flag them. To do that, you need to click into the ad, then click the 'flag' icon.
Substitute 'https' for 'XXXXX' in the link below - had to do that to avoid it being interpreted as a ready-to-go link.
XXXXX://<your_city>.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=%28sanitizer%29+%7C+%28purel%29+%7C+%28alcohol%29+%7C+%28toilet+paper%29+%7C+%28mask%29+%7C+%28corona%29+%7C+%28covid%29&hasPic=1
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Member since: Mon Sep 28, 2015, 01:41 PMNumber of posts: 232
