[johnu]

 Winstonm, on 2020-May-10, 10:10, said:

It appears to me that Attorney General Barr the Manchurian President's government paid personal shyster...

Fixed your post

[johnu]

 Winstonm, on 2020-May-10, 12:46, said:

A little help, here.

I've been reading one quote attributed to Dr. Birx, which makes it sound as if she is taking exception to the CDC as a source of information. I have not been a strong defender of Dr. Birx as she seems more and more tied to the administration than to public health. Here is the part of the WaPo article that describes the quote:


To my understanding of this quote, she is taking the administration's position that overcounting is more of a problem although without adequate testing there is no real way of knowing how many covid-19 deaths have occurred.

Am I reading this correctly?

I lost almost all my respect for Dr Birx when she gave a briefing where she sucked up to the Grifter in Chief like she was in one of those Cabinet meetings which consist of the Secretaries and VP trying to outdo each other in extolling the greatness and magnificence of their supreme dear leader. In her defense, she may be suffering from Stockholm syndrome after watching her while the Grifter in Chief was promoting bleach and UV light to cure people.

[y66]

Rachel Esplin Odell and Stephen Wertheim at NYT:

Quote

Before the pandemic, before the Great Recession, before proliferating hurricanes and fires, the United States began a global war on terrorism. Its leaders fixated on a shadowy enemy abroad as life at home crumbled for millions of Americans. The war on terrorism did not end terrorism; the war itself became endless. What it did shatter was the myth that a triumphant United States could bend the world to its will.

But the myth may be roaring back, albeit in a less righteous, more vicious guise. Though the new enemy is a virus, even less susceptible to verbal and physical firepower than terrorists, the Trump administration appears to be setting its target on a foreign power: China, where the outbreak appears to have started but which is hardly responsible for the United States being the most infected country in the world.

As the pandemic spread in the United States in March, President Trump began to castigate Beijing for failing to contain and report on “the Chinese virus.” Now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is declaring that there is “a significant amount of evidence” that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory, though he has provided no proof. The accusation, although doubted by scientists and intelligence agencies, may lead the public to blame China for the pandemic, much as the George W. Bush administration, through suggestion more than outright lies, convinced seven in 10 Americans in 2003 that Saddam Hussein of Iraq was likely involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Going abroad in search of monsters to destroy won't save Americans from pandemics, but it does risk entangling the United States in a cold war with the world’s No. 2 power. We stand on the brink of an even more destructive and less justifiable mistake than the post-Sept. 11 crusade.

On one level, the administration’s gambit looks like classically Trumpian bluster. Seizing on a grain of truth — China, at a minimum, covered up evidence of the outbreak and was too slow in sharing complete information with international health authorities — Mr. Trump seeks to avoid responsibility for a pandemic that the White House was slower still to take seriously. Even if it walks back its most extravagant claims, the administration could acquire a cudgel for the November election. The largest pro-Trump PAC is already calling Joe Biden “Beijing Biden,” laying a trap for him to either defend China or bash it harder than Mr. Trump. Either way suits the president.

Blaming China also emanates from Mr. Trump’s punitive vision of world affairs. Having vowed to turn the tables on an array of foreigners supposedly exploiting the United States, the Trump administration is now considering demanding reparations from China and suspending its sovereign immunity to allow it to be sued for virus-related deaths. Such measures would invite swift retaliation and untold lawsuits against the United States. They would also undermine the cooperation needed to develop and manufacture coronavirus treatments, to say nothing of worsening the economy.

The larger danger, however, goes beyond President Trump and predates the pandemic.

In recent years, China hawks have cited a cocktail of geopolitical fears, economic grievances and human rights violations as causes for alarm, leading some Obama administration veterans to arrive at the expansive conclusion that engagement with Beijing had failed. While balking at Mr. Trump’s trade war, much of the bipartisan establishment embraced his administration’s notion, laid out in the 2017 National Security Strategy, that China is a threat requiring a strategy of full-spectrum competition.

Last summer, several scholars warned that a “new cold war” between the superpowers could plunge the world into an intense military rivalry and thwart necessary cooperation against planetary threats like global warming, disease and deprivation.

Then, in the autumn, the powers stepped back from the brink. Mr. Trump himself seemed more interested in making a trade deal than pursuing a geopolitical struggle. The American public had bigger worries than the China peril. In the presidential primaries, Democratic candidates talked more about ending interminable conflicts and tackling climate change than confronting China. But now the pandemic may be resurrecting the Cold War.

Democrats, and Republicans who truly put American security first, face a choice. Joe Biden in particular will decide whether to lead his party into Mr. Trump’s trap or play a different game. Attempting to out-hawk far-right hawks failed Democrats in the war on terrorism, leaving Mr. Biden with the stain of having supported the Iraq war. More important, a bipartisan addiction to military action and fearmongering failed the country.

Mr. Biden now has the opportunity to show he learned from past mistakes by speaking out against an unnecessary cold war with a power strong enough to endanger Americans’ security and well-being. Decades from today, the pandemic should be remembered as the crucible of effective international cooperation against 21st-century threats. So far, it looks more like we are choosing to make the threats worse and create new perils.

[Winstonm]

Although I think this is positive for the upcoming election, I still cannot fathom why 5 out of 10 still will vote for Trump.

Quote

Even while sitting in his basement unheard, Biden is winning the midwest for all Trump’s blather. The genius may think we are suckers, but in Iowa we don’t ruin good corn liquor with Clorox. The gig is up.

[kenberg]

 Winstonm, on 2020-May-11, 08:11, said:

Although I think this is positive for the upcoming election, I still cannot fathom why 5 out of 10 still will vote for Trump.

Winston, you sort of made my day:

Quote

The genius may think we are suckers, but in Iowa we don’t ruin good corn liquor with Clorox

Ths is what I have been looking/hoping for. And

Quote

“A lot of voters wanted to believe Trump – that out there in Washington it’s all BS, and that a savvy businessman could straighten it out,” Custer said.

It’s hard for many to admit that it didn’t work out. A tragic comedy of lawlessness mixed with buffoonery nears its epilogue.


About 10 of those 30 branded Keokuk men voted for Donald Trump. This year, Custer figures maybe five of them will.

“The vibe is: a lot of people figured out that the boss isn’t worried about them. My veteran friends, they don’t like what’s going on. They’re looking for leadership in government and the workplace. Really, everybody is.”

This is the sort of thinking everyone can understand. Our fate lies in their hands.

We don't need everyone to change their mind, that won't happen. But we do need a good sized number. Trump needs to be beaten by a large enough margin so that the inevitable claims of fraud and fake news can be seen for what they are.

My mathematician friends are not the key to winning. These guys remind me of the neighborhood I grew up in. There are many many of them. If they come around, Trump is done.

[y66]

At 10 AM EDT Tuesday May 12, the Supreme Court will hear highly anticipated arguments over whether the president’s accountants and bankers must disclose information about his financial affairs.

Story: https://www.nytimes....896ed87b2d9c72a

The NYT will provide an audio link at nytimes.com

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-11, 11:57, said:

Winston, you sort of made my day:


Ths is what I have been looking/hoping for. And

[/color]



This is the sort of thinking everyone can understand. Our fate lies in their hands.

We don't need everyone to change their mind, that won't happen. But we do need a good sized number. Trump needs to be beaten by a large enough margin so that the inevitable claims of fraud and fake news can be seen for what they are.

My mathematician friends are not the key to winning. These guys remind me of the neighborhood I grew up in. There are many many of them. If they come around, Trump is done.

Quote

“A lot of voters wanted to believe Trump – that out there in Washington it’s all BS, and that a savvy businessman could straighten it out,” Custer said.

I understand this to a degree. Lots of people do not follow news and politics as closely as they should to be an integral part of self-governing, but that is where we are as a nation. So I do not fault those who were genuinely fooled and wishing for something that worked better.

Quote

About 10 of those 30 branded Keokuk men voted for Donald Trump. This year, Custer figures maybe five of them will.

This part, I cannot understand.

Quote

“The vibe is: a lot of people figured out that the boss isn’t worried about them. My veteran friends, they don’t like what’s going on. They’re looking for leadership in government and the workplace. Really, everybody is.”

And this part, I think, is near universal except for the hardliners of both parties.

[johnu]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-11, 11:57, said:

We don't need everyone to change their mind, that won't happen. But we do need a good sized number. Trump needs to be beaten by a large enough margin so that the inevitable claims of fraud and fake news can be seen for what they are.

While that might be an admirable goal, the fact of the matter is that beating the Manchurian President by a large popular vote margin is 100% totally irrelevant. In 2016, the Grifter in Chief lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. He claimed he would have actually won the popular vote if it wasn't for illegal voting. You would have to be unbelievably naive to believe if he lost by say 10 million votes that he wouldn't make up some equally ridiculous excuse, or reuse his old excuses.

The only goal in the 2020 presidential election is to win by 1 electoral vote and I personally don't care if the Manchurian President wins the popular vote by 50 million votes (as long the Democrats also win the Senate).

[Winstonm]

I think there are more encouraging signs that Donald Trump is losing his hold:

Quote

At this point, a number of states have begun lifting stay-at-home orders and allowing nonessential businesses to reopen, with the hope that they can start unthawing their economies even if the coronavirus hasn’t been fully contained.

But the defrosting process seems to be going slowly—at least if you judge by the number of people brave enough to eat out. At restaurants that use OpenTable’s booking software, the number of diners in every state where the company tracks data was still down by 82 percent or more through Sunday, compared with a year before. That includes early reopeners like Georgia (down 92 percent), Utah (down 91 percent), Nebraska (down 90 percent), South Carolina (down 89 percent), Tennessee (down 87 percent), Texas (down 83 percent), and Oklahoma (down 82 percent).

I wonder if the OpenTable bookings diners numbers might not be a reasonable proxy for unwavering Trump support. I've guessed around 25% but it is possible that the virus has dropped that to 18-20%, I suppose.

[kenberg]

 johnu, on 2020-May-11, 22:29, said:

While that might be an admirable goal, the fact of the matter is that beating the Manchurian President by a large popular vote margin is 100% totally irrelevant. In 2016, the Grifter in Chief lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. He claimed he would have actually won the popular vote if it wasn't for illegal voting. You would have to be unbelievably naive to believe if he lost by say 10 million votes that he wouldn't make up some equally ridiculous excuse, or reuse his old excuses.

The only goal in the 2020 presidential election is to win by 1 electoral vote and I personally don't care if the Manchurian President wins the popular vote by 50 million votes (as long the Democrats also win the Senate).

I said nothing about popular vote, I said beaten as in, well, as in beaten. in 2016 he was not beaten. He did not get the majority of the vote, but he was not beaten. So I want beaten.

My point was that beaten is not enough. We need thoroughly beaten. Of course trump lies, lies about everything. But the encouraging part of the article Winston posted was that, at least hopefully, a significant portion of his supporters are coming to think of him as full of BS. That's very important. When he spouts his bull, we need people out there, plenty of them, from all walks of life, saying that they recognize crap when they hear it. A person can get away with a lot, sometimes beyond imagining how, but it can come to an end.

In short, being thoroughly beaten is very relevant. It will be the start of recovery. There is a lot to recover from.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-12, 09:57, said:

I said nothing about popular vote, I said beaten as in, well, as in beaten. in 2016 he was not beaten. He did not get the majority of the vote, but he was not beaten. So I want beaten.

My point was that beaten is not enough. We need thoroughly beaten. Of course trump lies, lies about everything. But the encouraging part of the article Winston posted was that, at least hopefully, a significant portion of his supporters are coming to think of him as full of BS. That's very important. When he spouts his bull, we need people out there, plenty of them, from all walks of life, saying that they recognize crap when they hear it. A person can get away with a lot, sometimes beyond imagining how, but it can come to an end.

In short, being thoroughly beaten is very relevant. It will be the start of recovery. There is a lot to recover from.

Ken, here is another article that I hope helps make your day:

Quote

President Donald Trump is losing a critical constituency: voters who see two choices on the ballot — and hate them both.

Unlike in 2016, when a large group of voters who disliked both Trump and Hillary Clinton broke sharply for Trump, the opposite is happening now, according to public polling and private surveys conducted by Republicans and Democrats alike.

It's a significant and often underappreciated group of voters. Of the nearly 20 percent of voters who disliked both Clinton and Trump in 2016, Trump outperformed Clinton by about 17 percentage points, according to exit polls.


Four years later, that same group — including a mix of Bernie Sanders supporters, other Democrats, disaffected Republicans and independents — strongly prefers Biden, the polling shows. The former vice president leads Trump by more than 40 percentage points among that group, which accounts for nearly a quarter of registered voters, according to a Monmouth University poll last week.

[johnu]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-12, 09:57, said:

I said nothing about popular vote, I said beaten as in, well, as in beaten. in 2016 he was not beaten. He did not get the majority of the vote, but he was not beaten. So I want beaten.

My point was that beaten is not enough. We need thoroughly beaten. Of course trump lies, lies about everything. But the encouraging part of the article Winston posted was that, at least hopefully, a significant portion of his supporters are coming to think of him as full of BS. That's very important. When he spouts his bull, we need people out there, plenty of them, from all walks of life, saying that they recognize crap when they hear it. A person can get away with a lot, sometimes beyond imagining how, but it can come to an end.

In short, being thoroughly beaten is very relevant. It will be the start of recovery. There is a lot to recover from.

The Manchurian President's people aren't going to abandon him. They are going to wear their MAGA hats, their KKK hoods, their neo-nazi paraphernalia, wave their anti-immigrant signs... Another group of his supporters are among those who can be fooled all of the time. Then there is the group that will vote for him because it is part of their "religion". You don't have to look any further than the US House and Senate where no Republicans in the House voted to impeach, and the Senate where only 1 Republican voted to convict.

Hopefully enough of the most marginal supporters and those who flipped a coin and went with the hope of an unknown will vote the other way but it is most like that this will be another very close election. I hate to say it but a thorough beating is a pipe dream.

[cherdano]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-12, 09:57, said:

In short, being thoroughly beaten is very relevant. It will be the start of recovery. There is a lot to recover from.

I've got bad news for you. He won't be thoroughly beaten.

[johnu]

Mission Accomplished!

Accidental poisonings from bleach and disinfectants more than doubled in April — the same month Trump suggested they could be injected

An interesting poll would be how many of those who were poisoned by bleach and disinfectants are still planning to vote for the Grifter in Chief.

[y66]

Michael Clemens, Economist at the Center for Global Development said:

The US Administration is reportedly preparing to bar foreign graduates of US universities from staying here to work.

Each percentage point fall in those graduates as a share of population is estimated to reduce innovation (patents per capita) by 9–18%.

https://www.aeaweb.o...1257/mac.2.2.31

Some policies are no-brainers.

[y66]

Ezra Klein at Vox: No plan? No goal? No framework? No President?

Quote

Americans have made tremendous sacrifices to buy their government time, and that time has been wasted. That is why we are left with an increasingly polarized, and polarizing, debate between endless lockdowns and reckless reopening: The government has failed to do what functional governments in other countries have done and create a better option.

“It’s like the Lewis Carroll line, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
Well, I don’t know where we’re going.” -- Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

[johnu]

Don't worry, be happy. Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds.

John Cornyn Encourages People To Sign Up For Obamacare After Fighting To Repeal It

Let's jumpstart that economy, even though your job disappeared along with your health care coverage.

Quote

After voting more than a dozen times to repeal the Affordable Care Act and leading Senate Republican efforts to dismantle it, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Monday that the “good news” is that people can sign up for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law if they’ve lost their jobs and need health insurance amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The good news is that if you lose your employer-provided coverage, which covers about a 180 million Americans, that is a significant life event, which makes you then eligible to sign up for the Affordable Care Act,” Cornyn said in a PBS Austin interview. “As you know, it has a sliding scale of subsidies up to 400% of poverty. So that’s an option for people.”

Quote

t’s quite a change of tune for Cornyn, who voted to repeal or defund the ACA (or to move forward with bills to do so) here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

Cornyn’s job was to secure the votes to repeal the ACA in 2017 when he was the Senate GOP Whip, the third-highest-ranking Republican. He spoke confidently for months about having the votes to do it. But the bill ultimately failed at the hands of Senate Democrats and three Republicans.

Cornyn, house Republicans, and Senate Republicans lined up behind the Manchurian President to file suit that the ACA unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court rules against the ACA in the pending case, forget that ACA lifeline of medical insurance coverage.

[y66]

Adam Goldman and Katie Benner at NYT:

https://www.nytimes....hael-flynn.html

Quote

WASHINGTON — A key former F.B.I. official cast doubt on the Justice Department’s case for dropping a criminal charge against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during an interview with investigators last week, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Department officials reviewing the Flynn case interviewed Bill Priestap, the former head of F.B.I. counterintelligence, two days before making their extraordinary request to drop the case to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. They did not tell Judge Sullivan about Mr. Priestap’s interview. A Justice Department official said that they were in the process of writing up a report on the interview and that it would soon be filed with the court.

The department’s motion referred to notes that Mr. Priestap wrote around the bureau’s 2017 questioning of Mr. Flynn, who later pleaded guilty to lying to investigators during that interview. His lawyers said Mr. Priestap’s notes — recently uncovered during a review of the case — suggested that the F.B.I. was trying to entrap Mr. Flynn, and Attorney General William P. Barr said investigators were trying to “lay a perjury trap.”

That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

The department’s decision to exclude mention of Mr. Priestap’s interview in the motion could trouble Judge Sullivan, who signaled late on Tuesday that he was skeptical of the department’s arguments.

Mr. Priestap and the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Priestap told investigators that he did not remember the circumstances surrounding the notes that he took, and that he was giving them his interpretation of the notes as he read them now, according to a person familiar with his interview.

Former prosecutors and defense lawyers called the department’s position hypocritical and troubling.

“If it is accurate that the F.B.I. official provided context around those notes, which is materially different from what they suggest, this could be a game changer in terms of how the court views the motivations behind the request to dismiss the case,” said Edward Y. Kim, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

[Chas_P]

 kenberg, on 2020-May-12, 09:57, said:

I said nothing about popular vote, I said beaten as in, well, as in beaten. in 2016 he was not beaten. He did not get the majority of the vote, but he was not beaten. So I want beaten.

My point was that beaten is not enough. We need thoroughly beaten. Of course trump lies, lies about everything. But the encouraging part of the article Winston posted was that, at least hopefully, a significant portion of his supporters are coming to think of him as full of BS. That's very important. When he spouts his bull, we need people out there, plenty of them, from all walks of life, saying that they recognize crap when they hear it. A person can get away with a lot, sometimes beyond imagining how, but it can come to an end.

In short, being thoroughly beaten is very relevant. It will be the start of recovery. There is a lot to recover from.

If the choice were Trump vs JFK I would vote for JFK in a heartbeat. If the choice were Trump vs WJC I would probably vote for Clinton (WJC, not HRC). But if the choice is Trump vs ANY of today's Democrats, I'm voting for Trump. As for
"recognizing crap", I'm not sure Biden knows where he ***** last.

[Winstonm]

For those who are not closely following the Michael Flynn/Bill Barr attempted justice coup, the latest is that Judge Sullivan has placed a former judge in the position to argue the positions abandonded by the DOJ. In other words, now that Barr and the DOJ are acting like Flynn\s defense counsel after he has twice pled guilty and committed potential perjury by backtracking on that plea, Judge Sullivan has decided that the government needs someone on its side to argue in favor of letting the conviction stand.

Curiously, the retired judge chosen is John Gleeson, who happened to be the prosecutor of John Gotti. Go to this site for excellent coverage of all aspects of the Flynn/Barr attempt to misuse justice.