Today is Super Tuesday. Vote! Reports of turnout also welcome.
Earth may have been a ‘water world’ 3bn years ago, scientists find Guardian (The Rev Kev)
Age of Invention: Where Be Dragons? Age of Invention
Walter Bagehot, the Literary Banker National Review
Boris Johnson is all for unconventional families – unless they’re poor, of course Independent (The Rev Kev)
‘It’s a disgrace’: Grenfell disaster inquiry suspended within minutes after outbursts from public RT (The Rev Kev)
Class Warfare
Jack Welch Inflicted Great Damage on Corporate America Bloomberg
Companies are contracting out more jobs—that’s not great for workers Ars Technica
Supreme Court To Consider Whether Financial Fraudsters Should Be Allowed To Just, You Know, Get Away With It Dealbreaker
After Factory Disaster, Bangladesh Made Big Safety Strides. Are the Bad Days Coming Back? NYT
Syraqistan
Quick update on the Turkey vs Syria, Russia and Iran The Saker The Rev Kev
Analysis Elections Results: Israel Said Yes to Netanyahu’s Message: Everything Is Allowed Haaretz
India
While Muslims are being murdered in India, the rest of the world is too slow to condemn Independent. Patrick Cockburn.
47 Dead, Names of 38 People Killed in Delhi Riots Confirmed The Wire
A Battle for India’s Soul Jacobin
The Daily Fix: Is Modi government manipulating the data to show GDP growth above 5%? Scroll
Iran Foreign Minister Calls on India to ‘Not Let Senseless Thuggery Prevail’ The Wire
Big Brother IS Watching You Watch
FCC issues wrist-slap fines to carriers that sold your phone-location data Ars Technica
Julian Assange
Julian Assange’s father: My greatest worry is he will die in jail Al Jazeera
The Armoured Glass Box is an Instrument of Torture Craig Murray
#COVID-19
Coronavirus latest: World is in ‘uncharted territory’ DW
World pharma supplier India restricts export of some ingredients, drugs Reuters
Easily overlooked issues regarding COVID-19 Our Finite World
The neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV2 may be at least partially responsible for the respiratory failure of COVID-19 patients Journal of Medical Virology (AJC) Abstract: The neuroinvasive potential of SARS‐CoV2 may be at least partially responsible for the respiratory failure of COVID‐19 patients
The first economic modelling of coronavirus scenarios is grim for Australia, the world The Conversation (David L)
Coronavirus appears to have spread undetected in the US for six weeks, study Salon (david l)
Coronavirus & Systems Fragility American Conservative (unsupervized)
The Pope ‘undergoes coronavirus test after suffering illness, but tests negative’ Daily Mail
‘Why Are We Being Charged?’ Surprise Bills From Coronavirus Testing Spark Calls for Government to Cover All Costs Common Dreams
BREAKING: I am announcing a new directive requiring NY health insurers to waive cost sharing associated with testing for #coronavirus, including emergency room, urgent care and office visits.
We can’t let cost be a barrier to access to COVID-19 testing for any New Yorker.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) 3 March 2020
NYC ER doctor: I have to ‘plead to test people’ for coronavirus YouTube (The Rev Kev) Moi: Frightening. A shambles. A national disgrace. Watch to the end.
T-rex Costume Funny Prank Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak just doing daily chores YouTube (JN) Moi : Where can I get one?
Canceled Games and Empty Stadiums: Will the Coronavirus Spread to Sports? WSJ
WHO handwashing technique. Notice the attention to between the fingers, back of fingers, and nails:
2020
Some Election-Related Websites Still Run on Vulnerable Software Older Than Many High Schoolers ProPublica
Super Tuesday brings a supersized election security challenge Politico. The concern is real, once you get past the ritualistic invocation of the Russians, the Russians, in the first paragraph. Handmarked, paper ballots, hand counted in public.
“They’re Desperate to Beat Bernie”: Amy Klobuchar Drops Out of 2020 Democratic Primary, to Endorse Biden Common Dreams
So a Candidate Has Dropped Out. What Happens to Their Delegates? Frontloading HQ (UserFriendly)
Dems Converge Around Dementia-Addled Warmonger Ahead Of Super Tuesday Caitlin Johnstone
It Took Joe Biden 32 Years and 3 Presidential Campaigns to Win One Primary TruthOut
San Diego Democrats, Big Real Estate Fight Climate Initiative Capital & Main
California Is the First Big Test of Sanders’s Voter Turnout Machine FiveThirtyEight (UserFriendly)
California’s rules for independent party voters could suppress the Bernie vote Guardian. Greg Palast.
DON’T TELL CABLE PUNDITS THAT BERNIE SANDERS IS LEADING NATIONALLY AMONG BLACK VOTERS Intercept (furzy)
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Announces Retirement on Air, Apologizes for Past Inappropriate Comments The Wrap (Quaterback)
Waste Watch
Canadian grocers have a smart approach to food waste TreeHugger I wonder what readers think of this. I don’t have a smartphone, so I don’t use apps. But I know I’m in the minority on this score. This app isn’t a waste panacea, but it seems to me it reduces food waste.
HOW SOUTH KOREA IS COMPOSTING ITS WAY TO SUSTAINABILITY New Yorker
Antidote du Jour. TH: Anna’s Hummigbird, Ventura, California:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Speaking of Biden, is it me, or is it really off putting that Biden compares Buttigieg to Biden’s deceased son – at a political endorsement event?
I always remember that politicians are humans, and have plenty of flaws as we all do. But it just struck me as unseemly.
Creepy and troubling at the same time. The only upside as it probably made Pete’s skin crawl.
Not the first time Biden compared someone to his son Beau
https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1234663111375745024
I remember thinking I was all smart back in 2016 saying the Democratic party literally couldn’t pick a worse candidate than Hillary Clinton to go against Trump.
Goes to show what you get for underestimating people; they found 2 substantively worse ones. A handsy male version of Hillary in evident cognitive decline; and a richer Trump minus the political sagacity and charisma.
Yep. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31195185/joe-biden-investigation-republican-senate/
As far as centrists go, HRC might have been the best candidate.
– name recognition
– a job associated with fps
-a senator during the shrub years
-emotional attachment
-tokenism
-no developed younger talent
-more money than god
-an assumed coronation
-enough standing to avoid interacting with little people
-having been the target of some crazy gop attacks blunted other criticism
I mean she was the best candidate the “centrists” can offer.
Wait, do you mean he actually remembered both of their names?!?
This link from the Caitlin Johnstone article of Biden completely botching the US Declaration of Independence is pretty damn scary:
https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1234579299652554753?s=20
This is who the elites believe is fit to lead us.
Think of all that Biden adulation, endorsementalia and happy talk as attempts to shift focus anywhere from Bernie. How bad would a candidate have to be, whether demented, offensive, indictable or otherwise just plain old toxic, hypothetically of course, and still get the nod? Can Caligula’s, or Chappaqua’s, pony be far behind?
\Imagine the machinery needed to push such a position, and the arsenal of media, dark money and anything else to throw at the problem.
There is some kind of lesson in that about negative values and forced choices, neither of which speaks well of the current state of play in American politics.
The elites do not necessarily believe he is fit to lead anyone or anything. But he is plenty fit to be a figurehead – and that is all that’s required from presidents these days.
After Bush the Younger, anyone can occupy that office. Anyone.
The elites don’t give a toss about leading you, they care about keeping their rice bowls full.
Doesn’t seem so weird to me. Why does it seem unseemly to you?
Because Beau had ethics and was never a slimy self promoter. Comparing Beau to Buttigieg desecrates Beau’s memory.
I am so sick of Biden blathering on, pandering for sympathy, about his deceased son and previous wife/daughters fatal car accident decades ago.
News flash Biden: losing loved ones doesn’t make you special or deserving of enduring sympathy for votes. His “common man” act belongs on vaudeville, voting record speaks for itself.
T-rex Costume Funny Prank Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak just doing daily chores YouTube (JN) Moi : Where can I get one?
So it wasn’t smoking that killed the dinosaurs – it was their short arms that prevented them from getting enough provisions from the store…
You might like this prank by Hamish & Andy then-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul26r2rbhE4
The Rev Kev
March 3, 2020 at 7:41 am
They CLAIM nobody peed or pooped their pants – but we don’t know how it got edited. I would have pooped my pants and than died of a heart attack…
where do you get something like that?
And you know why dinosaurs can’t clap their hands?
…because they’re dead.
T-rex Costume Funny Prank Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak just doing daily chores YouTube (JN) Moi : Where can I get one?
So it wasn’t smoking that killed the dinosaurs – it was their short arms that prevented them from getting enough provisions from the store…
Sanders is leading among black voters in polls apparently but they don’t vote for him when he needs it. No surprise Biden won SC but it didn’t even come CLOSE and now he has massive momentum for today. Today is really the test to see if the Sanders campaign is real or is it all about it go up in smoke.
FWIW, Bernie has an air of confidence about him in the last few press conferences. I suppose you could say there’s really no other attitude to portray at this point, but seems like he’s feeling good about things.
And how much joe-mentum can there really be from all these establishment endorsements in the 60 hours since he won SC, 24 of which were on a Sunday?
Well, honestly I have been disappointed with the results of the Bernie campaign thus far except Nevada. SC I don’t think there really is an excuse for a candidate who is supposed to be “leading” with African Americans and supposedly building this new coalition to do THAT badly. I don’t see this great campaign and I think SC knocked a lot of wind out of Bernie’s sails. I predict he gets CA, UT, CO, and VT but that’s it and then he winds down his campaign. Huge disappointment I don’t know where the left goes from here because electoral politics doesn’t seem to be the path.
hmm leading the vote and delegate count, big big win in nevada, and you are disappointed in the results? you seem to be downplaying his results, especially the prediction that he only wins 4 of 15 primaries.
A no-name small town mayor squeaked by him in Iowa in terms of delegates and he only narrowly won NH. So he had this no-name mayor able to come very close to upsetting his entire apple cart despite his apparently “super-strong” campaign. He won Nevada handily but that moment is completely gone after showing that he made zero progress in SC vis-a-vis 2016. What is it going to look like for his campaign after only winning CA (and by maybe like 5%), UT, CO, and VT tonight while Biden runs the map from Texas to Virginia?
Campaign was overly dependent on young voters who don’t show up that much.
I wouldn’t even count on Bernie winning Minnesota I think the Klobachar vote transitions to Biden
he won new hampshire convincingly, and the no name mayor was backed by the dnc in a hacked election. he has outperformed expectations, and i expect him to beat biden today overall. i dont know where you get this only winning 4 states stuff, frankly. you also ignore biden’s continued deterioration; he forgot the word “god”?
one other point, young voters are highly motivated to show up because they are facing a very precarious future.
Pretzelattack thanks for your efforts but CBBB is dipping his/her toes in the concern-trolling waters.
I do like the way she/he lumps all black voters together. “Did badly [ed note: not really] in SC, thus black people don’t support him”.
I mean, yeah, they all look the same right? Just one big undifferentiated block, basketball players being slightly taller I guess.
And yes, I’m expecting CBBB to come back with “I’m black” thereby completely missing the point.
Ah, it was an ‘open’ primary as well, meaning Republicans could vote for Dems and did. Looking at Biden v Hillary’s numbers it would appear, Republicans voted for Biden. I wish the DNC would share its data on why they think Biden can beat trump. I don’t see it.
Looking at Biden v Hillary’s numbers it would appear, Republicans voted for Biden.
You are making stuff up now.. There is zero indication that Republican voters came out in force. Bernie walked into an ambush by the Dem establishment in SC and got snookered. I suspect that Bernie will end his campaign by April. NY, PA and NJ are all closed primaries and Biden will kill him in those three states.
Nope. SC is a fricking TRUMP State. Not indicative of ANYTHING. We shall see but IMHO what we are about to see is a complete implosion of the machine DEMS who are now all in for Biden. What a flipping joke. Iraq war mongering salesman for predatory finance and greedy corrupt regime change profiteer via his ne’er do well son.
Ya great choice. He shouldn’t be driving a school bus let alone being President. Bernie or bust – if the corrupt DEms impose another crappy candidate like last time I’m voting green again.
Exactly, Thank you for pointing this out. I listened to a right wing call in show yesterday and cross over voters for Biden was the “best” strategy on the ground for helping Trump. Republicans know that Trump would destroy Biden.
Pretzelattack,
I thought Sanders has clearly outperformed initial expectations.
CBBB,
Suggesting that all black people in all parts of the US think alike is not supportable. Didnt Bernie take second in SC? I also note that the turnout for Biden was from older, and whiter voters or at least so it was reported.
But we shall see. Spinning the results will only take anyone so far. Super Tuesday is sufficiently close that opinions on it are unnecessary and of low value. My wife has already voted.
Lets just wait and see.
yeah we’ll have a clearer idea after today. fingers crossed.
Tonite’s results will be skewed by the early votes for those who have recently departed. In the next few weeks Ohio, Illinois and Florida are going to be huge disappointments for Sanders and it will be essentially a one-on-one contests.
by the laws of math, biden has 7 x however many weeks it is to inform us about corn pop and “uh…you know the thing”. it’s the law of dementia.
Unfortunately I do not believe dementia is a dis-qualifier for many voters.
Anyone who makes “will be” and “are going to be” statements about the future should stick to their creepy, incense-filled tents and theatrical crystal-ball gazing fairground cons.
Buttigieg wasn’t a no name by virtue of being the first gay presidential candidate.
Absolutely correct! He also showed how no experience, educated, military bkg and polite could get one far early on
Afraid nothing will happen today to allay your fears. They’ve coalesced around their candidate, just like we have. Winning was never going to be easy, and if told me 6 months ago that Bernie would be leading going into today and looking great to win CA, I’d have pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Sanders against Biden & Bloomberg from here on out?…give me that every time.
Yup. Biden just had a PR victory. He doesn;t have the ability for a long campaign and he will lose except for DEM cheating. This is the interesting thing to me – how much do they think they can get away with and how successful will they be to cheat Bernie and advance yet another loser against Trump?
According to the exit polls, 25% of the voters were influenced by Clyburn’s endorsement and voted for Biden. Without that endorsement, and the machine behind it, the results would have been a lot closer. This conservative establishment machine is not typical of the other states with large AA populations, so extrapolating Biden’s support in SC to other states would be a mistake.
he won all three primaries so far, never been done before. and improved hugely on his 2016 results with many more candidates on the ticket, including a billionaire who played voters for $
what urblintz said
Back doing your thing. Are you paid by a campaign to do this stuff, or is it pro bono? Cause you did this a few weeks ago, I think around NH. Is it a Bloomberg, paid by the post thing?
You can believe anything you want and vote for whomever you please but the Bernie delusion is especially strong here. I get it that there really are not that many candidates worth voting for but even Bernie is subject to the laws of math.
so your grand insight is he might not win? brillant. i mean there may be true believers who are 100% confident Sanders will win, but look most everybody knows this. that it’s a fight, and against a lot of powers that be, winning is not assured.
Who is arguing that Bernie is a shoe in? The entirety of the Democratic Party, all the other candidates, the Republican Party, the media, the large donors, corporations, think tanks connected to the Democratic Party are all aligned against him. This was never going to be easy. There is literally no other politician in the country that could be up against that and be doing as well as he is. But this poster has come here right around NH, I believe, and did similar things. Bombarded the comments section, doom and gloom about Bernie, and is back. Haven’t seen any posts other than those two days, and I come here daily. Biden may win southern states, that won’t vote for his party or him in the general election, but Bernie is still going to do well in California and possibly Texas, which could more than nullify Biden doing well in places like Alabama. And Bernie is doing well in other states too. To just declare that his candidacy is over is absurd. Nothing is certain at all, he might not get a plurality of delegates, but he has a decent chance to. What happens after is basically chaos.
Ya the anti-Bernie stuff looks like paid oppo to me as well. SO corrupt, like the DEM party.
I dont know that klobuchar or buttigegs voters tirn out for biden. Theyre younger, middle american and compared to biden, uneatablishment.
They vote biden or bloomberg or warren or not at all. Imo
I’m not anti-Bernie I’m just paranoid!
Not anti-Bernie, does that mean you’re pro-Bernie?
If you’re pro-Bernie, why not spread hope that he can win *even if you think its a long shot*, rather than your message of “its all over”?
Does not compute CBBB, coming her and saying what you’re saying.
Yes, CBBB has piped up SOLELY to raise doubts about Sanders. Does not look organic based on having read over a million comments.
Grant, your habit of characterizing anyone who expresses disappointment or criticizes the Sanders campaign to any extent as a troll is not helpful. You did that to me last week. “I’m not sure of his motives,” or some bullocks like that, when I was merely expressing concern at late polls that showed a Biden surge from a 5point lead to a 20point lead.
I am a very faithful Bernie Sanders voter and a volunteer and a donor. We were assured by the campaign and the media (yes, I know not to trust the media) that Sanders was going to be competitive in South Carolina, that he had the momentum, that Chuck Rocha had somehow worked some sort of magic among Hispanic voters in the state and that everyone would be surprised. Well guess what? We were surprised—by a 30point drubbing and a 45point deficit among black voters. (Yes, I am aware that not all black voters are the same.)
It would have been better for the Campaign to have built REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS. They should have known we were going to lose badly. But they heightened expectations only to see them dashed, and now disappointment has set in, plus expectations for Super Tuesday are really down.
I totally agree here. The expectations management of the Sanders campaign and many prominent Sanders supports has been awful. NH was much closer than people were saying it would be and there was a lot of hype about SC of Sanders making big gains and it was a blowout for Biden.
This is very bad, they need to at least do much better expectations management because today is Super Tuesday and if Sanders does only so-so with a narrow win in California – it’s going to be devestating for morale because once again, Super Tuesday has been so hyped by the campaign.
Bill, I was wrong about you and apologized. This poster is different. And I don’t do this regularly. I did it to you and this poster. Those posts are about a small fraction of the things I have said here, so you aren’t being fair to me. My expectations are lessened too, Bernie was set to do well, which is why this all happened. He still will do decently well today, I believe, and I think he will do well in the Midwest and other places. But, Biden (like Clinton last time) will get a number of votes from right wing parts of the country that won’t vote for them in the general election. Just a sad reality, and it looked like Bernie was going to do at least okay there.
Repeat post. It isn’t a habit. I said it to you and apologized when I was wrong. I said it to this poster, and this poster did the same thing around NH, or maybe SC. I haven’t said that to anyone else. This person hasn’t posted otherwise, and how many posts are in this thread? Think they just woke up today, when they don’t post otherwise, and decided to do two dozen posts on Nakecapitalism? That isn’t a habit on my part. It represents a small portion of what I have said on this site. I was wrong about you. I wasn’t about this poster. And I think Bernie’s path forward is less certain, but he still looks good in many states. And him winning Cali is huge. He lost last time, if you remember, so he couldn’t counteract what Clinton did in the South. And last time, Cali (my state) wasn’t on super Tuesday. The only negative is that while we will likely get a winner today, we won’t know the final vote and delegate count for a few days. TX started voting some time ago, and Bernie still looks good there (I think). Good in other states too. So, I am certainly concerned, but I still have some hope. If he has a plurality of votes, IF, then we will see what happens. If they give it to someone else, and they might, at least then the Democrats will suffer a huge price. If they do nominate Biden and they lose, it will likely become a near permanent minority party that will win elections nationally only when the other party so utterly screws up. Given what is coming for us, not good.
Apology accepted. I understand about getting worked up about things and the emotional roller coaster, especially when you’ve grown used to being disappointed. Let’s move past this.
I don’t follow names here enough to know when people post what. I’m just going to give CBBB a pass until I get better indication that he might be a troll.
I spent about forty years in Texas, and I was involved with local and statewide politics and was even a delegate to a state convention. I didn’t think Beto had any real shot against Cruz, but he got closer than I expected him to. I think Beto is an influencer and may sway the election. I also know that Texans are a stubbornly independent lot, and they have knee-jerk reactions to red baiting. Thus, I don’t expect Bernie to win the Lone Star State, but I hope it will be close.
Per above, I concur with Grant on CBBB. I had already flagged him as a probable troll. Lambert, who has moderated even more comments than me, agrees. It’s both the style of writing and the fact that he’s bothered commenting only to rain on the Sanders parade.
I’ll trust your judgment, of course.
How about a reality check here?
Sanders did very well in the three earliest primaries. Sanders was never going to do well in SC which is a very conservative state – it would have been ludicrous for anyone to think he could win there. I’m just surprised he actually got about 20% of the vote which I consider a very good omen.
Today’s primaries will be the tell, but expect Biden to do better than average because he’s now going to get Buttigieg and Klobuchar’s votes also. DON’T expect something miraculous to happen. Sanders doesn’t have to win every primary – he just has to have a good showing to be viable.
Patience! Save the doom and gloom for later.
Thank you for your concern.
your concern is noted…
based on south carolina? younger black voters, even in that toxic right wing state, broke for bernie.
A congressman in the 1800s’ said “South Carolina:too small for a republic,too large for an insane asylum”.
It’s who and how the votes are counted that matters.
I remember in 2016 SC voting machine were criticized.
Just a thought.
Please stop with the conspiracy theories. Calling yourself a socialist might not be the smartest political trick in the book. OK? Next you’ll be telling me that the Russians did it.
there was vote rigging. conspiracies happen in real life.
yea well the problem is if you called yourself a socialist 40 years ago, what are you going to do? You seem to think there is some rhetorical escape from having believed and consistently fought for the poor and the downtrodden and the working class for 40 years. Newsflash: there isn’t. What you are calling for is impossible.
Sanders could say I’m not a socialist and in reality he is running as a social democrat full stop, like Denmark, and to an extent like FDR. It’s not all that radical. It’s a social democratic platform as exists in many countries.
But what you are asking for is like I said impossible, for up to be down, for water to be dry, for the Pope to be Muslim. Sanders can talk all the nuance about his policy in the universe and the propaganda machine will turn it into “Sanders is a socialist” regardless because he has a past and it’s not even a bad one but will be spun that way by the powers that be (Bidens past is cozy with segregationist, he was on that side of history, but that will get a pass!). People will vote for Sanders or not based on his policy and knowing his consistent record.
He won an election as a mayor as a socialist, was elected to Congress as a socialist, then the Senate as a socialist (in a rural state where people are often pretty conservative), then won 22 states in the primary last time as a socialist, has an 18 point lead over Trump with independents according to polls, is the most popular current politician and if I am not mistaken the most respected person among Democrats. What you are talking about is collective stupidity that is the result of decades long propaganda, and at some point in time we have to confront how absurd the propaganda is. If we don’t we will continue to make horrible decisions and things will continue to get progressively worse.
If I remember correctly too, Frank Luntz has been telling Republicans to not identify with the word capitalism, causer you know, it ain’t doing well for most people these days. Beyond that, Americans do like plenty of socialism, do they not? If they really want to ditch socialism, then let them line up to privatize Social Security, the VA, Medicaid, public education, Medicare, their local fire department, among countless other examples I can give. And while you are at it, explain how capitalism can deal with the environmental crisis, which is going to get progressively worse in the decades ahead.
“…a socialist might not be the smartest political trick in the book.”
Well, right now, given that more Democratic primary voters have more positive view of socialism than capitalism in California (57% to 45%) and, yes, Texas (56% to 37%—a larger spread than in California) (and it’s not just Democratic primary voters—Democratic voters, generally, feel that way), it might not be such a bad idea.
Please get out of here with your CT mongering. Electronic voting machines have a long and proven history of being full of bugs, mechanical faults, security holes and lord knows what else. No sane person would 100% trust an election run with them.
According to Progress For All, Tim Canova’s org, SC used ES&S voting machines. Same kind Debbie Wasserman-Schultz likes. It almost doesn’t need to be said these machines are highly insecure and hackable. They also said something like 10% of the new ExpressVote machines failed.
Don’t know the last time pen and paper failed.
There’s a generational split among black voters, with young demo breaking for Sanders I believe.
Yes there is. The problem is that Bernie built his whole campaign on turning them into voters. It worked only once out of four tries.
it worked once out of 2 tries, once in a more representative state, once in a right wing stronghold. if you think nc commenters are influenced by groupthink, you must give at least equal weight to the possibility that south carolina voters are, too.
the socialism bugabear is much scarier in south carolina than california, or even texas (never would have thought it).
Exactly.
The whole idea of the 2020 Bernie campaign was to go after non-voters, particularly younger people.
Unfortunately whenever this gets tried it doesn’t work well because while some young people are politically active, and certainly he has a very dedicated base of young people – many are not very interested and can’t be bothered with voting.
I don’t see the big results of this strategy – the numbers don’t give me confidence that he has a big enough wave to ride.
The old people are coming out to reinforce party discipline now and get the establishment back in control.
In 2016 Sanders had more support from older voters he should have focused more on that but he went too much into a youth-oriented campaign and the youth will let you down every time.
Except when it comes to the ground game and donating time and, more importantly, money.
Maybe it’s also having a platform that actually sounds good to a whole lot of people, and a long history of standing up for his values that is the ‘whole idea’ of Bernie’s campaign. You have been coming with the same half-baked withering proclamations about Sanders for a while now, that sound reasonable on the surface but don’t stand up to scrutiny, and I doubt your sincerity sir. For both you and the other guy up there, I think concern trolling is exactly the right term for what you are doing here. Hey, we all know this is a tough fight, and that there’s absolutely no guarantee of Sanders winning, but that’s enough from you.
This is the bottom line: Joe Biden voted for NAFTA and the Iraq War, and to cut Social Security and Medicare. He’s funded by big money donors. This is the message that’s going to be pounded home from here on out. Add to that Biden’s daily propensity to say something uncouth or outright incomprehensible. How are they going to hide this?
Here is Bernie at the rally in St Paul last night. Bernie starts talking around the 35-second mark. He starts the messaging directed at Biden at around 8:15. This is the message going forward: Joe’s a nice guy who’s absolutely wrong on the major policy positions that of are vital interest to the majority of the people.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/20200303021755-sen-bernie-sanders-speaks-in-st-paul-minnesota/
bernie won’t hammer the cognitive decline issue but he won’t have to; it’s going to concern voters, and even the major news outlets are noting it.
Have you seen who the president is? Joe Biden is senile. It won’t matter until Inaugural Day
trump isn’t senile, he’s just trump. beating trump is highly important, and while trump can be somewhat shielded from popular view (if only he stays off twitter), biden can’t be. so every word salad will be recorded, and the all in effort by the dnc to push him may bite them in the ass.
Yeah people voted for Trump. They’ll vote for Biden. His sundowning is no hindrance unfortunately.
I’m not so sure he beats Trump in the general, but in the primary – Democratic voters always bow their heads when the establishment tells them too. They’ll put up their Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and now Joe Biden when they’re told to. Democrats know that their job is to dutifully lose with a mainstream dullard.
they didn’t put up with hilary when another outsider, obama, beat her.
Yeah true but Obama was always pretty establishment friendly and it was a non-incumbent election. Nothing causes the Democratic voters to tremble in fear and bow their heads more than having a hated Republican President incumbent. This is when the John Kerry type candidate emerges because in the Democrat brain they think everyone else just wants a boring old white guy who doesn’t rock the boat.
And how did that turn out for you?
are you saying we are being fooled by bernie like we were by obama (to some extent, many were uneasy about him before the election)? i don’t think that is plausible, hence i don’t think your response addresses the point. there is a large movement against trump, and those people are not going to vote for a pinata like joe biden to run against trump. whether obama was what he was advertised to be is irrelevant; he was very bright and on top of his game, and voters wanting both change and an end to republican rule in d.c. were quite comfortable voting for him. they didn’t do what elites told them to do.
The Trump-Biden situation as it pertains to the electorate is hardly analogous. Trump, much more often than not, exudes strength. Biden increasingly exudes senility.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Sun-Tzu
The establishment wants you to give up before the battle even begins. This is their best defense, because once the battle begins the hollowness of their vaunted power will quickly become apparent.
Hence rumblings about a brokered convention to deprive Sanders the nomination and then, suddenly, an outpouring of Biden endorsements.
I think we should consider the impact of big money in SC–Steyer bought a lot of minority thought leaders by hiring them for his campaign–Bloomberg’s “contribution” swayed the long time Mayor of Columbia and Cobb-Hunter swears Steyer ( her employer) just penciled out better than everyone else. Even Clyburn endorsing Biden while a Grandson works for the PB team.
Check out MB’s strategic hires for NC–contracts thru Nov
20https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article239849323.html.
read to the end for some surprising staffing.
Black voters aren’t a monolith. Bernie tied Biden with black voters in SC under 45, won with black voters under 30. He got crushed with older black voters, and older voters were a massive share of those that voted in SC. Be accurate with this stuff. Well, you won’t, since you’re here to do narrative control.
Yes, Bernie struggles with older voters. But older voters show up and vote and will today. Bernie has mixed results getting out the youth vote which is the basis of his campaign. Bernie doesn’t have the support among older voters to bring in the big numbers he needs to actually win the nomination. The establishment has consolidated and Biden has the advantage with actual voters.
We will see tonight. It’s going to be a pretty good night for Biden.
He has done well with younger voters in two states, not as much in NH and SC, two states not like the rest of the Democratic voting public. Without the turnout in Iowa and NV, he doesn’t win. But, you said black voters, as if they are a monolith. Work on your propaganda, refine it a bit before you are sent out again. You only post here when there is a primary, you say the same thing, and you don’t come back in between to comment on anything else. Kind of obvious what you are.
Yeah sometimes he does well with youth, sometimes not – that doesn’t sound like the revolution needed in order to push over the establishment let alone win the general. I mean a no-name like Pete Buttigieg gave him a run for his money in IW and NH.
I don’t see the Bernie revolution materializing – he needs a ground swell of support to make it to the White House – not happening so far.
I do comment back – but the comments don’t always get approved in a timely way so it looks like I am not replying.
so he does well with younger voters in states where there are more younger voters. ok.
Well the numbers I saw in SC was black voters under 30 went 38 for Sanders and 36 for Biden. These are NOT the margins Sanders needs to be winning youth votes by.
The big revolution is not happening and that’s a problem.
You’ve got snappy answers for everything. Bloomberg must have loaded up those free ipads with quite the script.
but in right wing south carolina that is a highly significant number; compare to older black voters in the state to see the difference. in other, more representave state where socialism isn’t such an issue, the gap will be much larger.
especially after biden affirms his religious faith “so help me corn cob”
Neat, you can extrapolate nationally based on a single conservative state that the Democrats won’t win in the general election. Can I do the same with Nevada? How about Vermont? California started to vote long ago and will go to Bernie, the debate is how much. Can I extrapolate from that nationally? Biden will probably win Alabama. Does that mean he wins Maine? Do these right wing states mean anything if he goes against Trump?
You said above, “Sanders is leading among black voters in polls apparently but they don’t vote for him when he needs it.”
This treats black voters as a monolith and he does better with younger black voters. He does better in other states, states not as right wing, with younger black voters. Biden would have no chance if it wasn’t for older voters, regardless of race. But, you know this, and propagandists gotta do propaganda, right?
Your underlying assumption is that SC is representative of the country. It is very not. Nevada, on the other hand, is.
bernie was deprived of a much-larger share of the new hampshire vote because of their election laws. don’t forget that new hampshire makes it very difficult for out-of-state college students to vote — and college students make up a disproportionate amount of the state’s population.
A good night for Biden is a good night for Trump…
Yeah… although I think Bernie and Biden have about equal chances in the general. Sanders won’t win Virginia for instance which is pretty crucial. The Dem base there of NatSec and Think Tank workers aren’t going for Sanders. For them Trump, who has now proven himself not so disruptive is preferable. Sander’s big general election Ace-in-the-hole was always to expand the map but I have more doubts about that now.
Biden will struggle with the midwest as Hillary did.
Biden will lose Iowa, Wisconsin and probably Michigan. NAFTA and TPP is a gift to the GOP
Yeah… Biden will need to get Florida and NC I think Trump will be able to hammer him with NAFTA and all the other horrible Biden legacies in the midwest. Biden will have to pull off that Democratic dream of Chuch Schumer “For every blue collar worker we lose in Ohio we pickup 2 moderates in the Philidelphia/Charlotte/Raleigh suburbs”. Hillary was personally very hated so it didn’t work for her, MAYBE for Biden it can work but his campaign will be extremely low-energy and overall Republicans are pretty satisfied with Trump.
So probably the Democratic establishment whipping the primary voters to vote for Biden because he’s “what normal Americans want” as they always do, and then going down for another humiliating defeat in November. Business as usual.
Republicans who dislike Trump (granted a small population as the Republican party has gone full Trump) were never even on the Biden train. They liked Pete and Klobi.
And they can also recognize cognitive decline when they see it, maybe more honest about what they see than the Dem party. Many may have voted Pete or Klobi and will stay home for Biden (they aren’t voting for Sanders either of course – since when is Sanders base Republicans who care mostly about tax cuts and deficits and reining in welfare spending).
The Democrats, if they go the Biden route now really have no where to go electorally. I suppose they completely drop any pretense to being pro-working class and go in the Buttigieg direction. This makes them the socially liberal/economically conservative party that captures about 20% of the electorate and makes them a permanent minority party.
If Biden is the nominee, he’ll be luck to outperform Dukakis.
> The Democrats, if they go the Biden route now really have no where to go electorally. I suppose they completely drop any pretense to being pro-working class
At which point the Republicans will pick up the ball the Democrats fumbled.
Funny how class works…
and here we see yet another example of misdirection. NAFTA and the TPP were both democrat initiatives. Gift to the GOP? Only true when you accept that elite dems are stealth GOP.
“I think Bernie and Biden have about equal chances in general” , really? Have you watched any of Trump’s speeches? No one on the Dem side would stand a chance against him except Bernie, and even then it would be a challenge, but Biden would be destroyed.
You might want to start watching/listening to polling data on “The Rising” that completely contradict your statement.
I totally agree that Trump will beat Biden. I have voted for every Democrat since 1972 except in 2012 and 2016. I will vote for Trump to avoid a Biden presidency.
Ah so that’s your agenda. Now it’s all clear. It never was about Sanders and concern he wouldn’t win. But all about the MAGA.
Bernie’s ace in the hole is our crap health care system. As much as you would like bernie supporters to become agitated and upset, we won’t. There is no point. I for one will be fine with the dems owning the bleak future they created with their bank, pharma, insurance real estate bail out. They don’t have any other game plan, well , they have a private plan, but not a publlic one.Open borders is one of those private plans and I recall you trying to stick open borders on bernie pre iowa. How convenient to label bernie a supporter of open borders, that way after he has been rodent swiven open borders could be a “gift” to the left, you know, to bring them along… Open borders is a hillary/goldman sachs private position.
Can you stop it with the name-calling?
Once again Baby Boomers cost Bernie the election. (Go ahead, call me out for making a factual observation. I guess the progressive ones don’t actually vote?)
I’m really not understanding this “big momentum” thing for Biden. He won SC, not CA..
In 2016, Sanders was up against one candidate. In 2020, he’s been up against a host of others. In most of the results so far (and in the polling, as nearly as I can make out), the aggregate of the “moderate,” “blue dog,” etc etc candidates have taken more of the votes than Bernie. What’s more, they’ve taken more of the votes than the aggregate of Sanders, Warren, Yang, and Gabbard–the outsider/left of center candidates. The Left Wing of the Democratic Party is not as strong as the contributors and commentariat here at NC make it out to be, based on the results. I’m an independent California voter, and I’m voting for Bernie, so I’m not talking him down in hopes of his defeat, and I’m certainly not a shill for the “moderates.”
Sanders’ strong showing in 2016 was, in part, a result of Hillary Rodham Clinton being a singularly inept, unattractive candidate. Also, please note that Warren, Klobuchar, Harris, and Gabbard are all genuine Feminist candidates who achieved their status without marrying a spectacularly successful male politician. And in her defense, although Harris got her first boost as a protege of Willie Brown, everything since has been on her own merits and efforts, whatever one may think of those.
It won’t take too many more primaries to find out if these remarks have any predictive value. The recent resignations of candidates coalesced these observations.
Oh great, another one. Do you think Sanders is doing worse than he did in 2016? I would say given everything that has happened since then and the circumstances of this Democratic primary election, that he is doing significantly better. Once again, we all know that Bernie is fighting an uphill battle on multiple fronts, and that he may lose for any number of different reasons, but really what’s with all the resignation and defeatism? I mean, prepare for the worst but have high hopes, that’s my philosophy.
I love it when an answer begins with an ad hominem dismissal. That being said, after writing the missive, I realized that Bernie was the strongest candidate of a big field. His default strategy was divide and conquer. As the field narrowed, the lately ‘divided’ endorsed Biden. With fewer opponents to divide, Sander’s situation became weaker by default. Biden’s victory in South Carolina, and Sanders’ weak showing accelerated the trend.
I’m not a cheerleader or a persuader. I do hope for the best. Someone here in the comments section quoted Sun Tzu today. The first chapter of The Art of War is entitled “Estimates.” In any campaign, someone needs to make realistic estimates of the situation. I fancy my estimate is somewhat accurate.
SC Carolina is a state that always goes Republican so I fail to see why a big deal that Biden won it? It’s a very conservative state and Joe is a very conservative Democrat.
Working link for “The first economic modelling of coronavirus scenarios is grim for Australia, the world” article at-
https://theconversation.com/the-first-economic-modelling-of-coronavirus-scenarios-is-grim-for-australia-the-world-132759
In short, we’re boned. Scotty from Marketing won’t be able to spin this one away and he is already getting desperate. Today they cut the interest rates but they have about run out of road there. For our present government, it is more about saving the economy than the people.
An aside – I do love the Australian humour of calling the PM “Scotty from Marketing”. Every time I see that, I get a bit of a smile. I wish we had something so pithy for Boris Johnson.
Bojo the Clown…
Scotty from Marketing is like the pointy haired boss in Dilbert-ably backed by his enforcer, Catbert, evil HR director
Fixed it – thanks!
Here in the US, we just got an email from management asking us how going to virtual work from home for everybody would impact our projects.
If the Washington State stuff replicates in other areas of the country once they start testing, then I suspect we could go to that DEFCON 1 scenario within a couple of weeks. My projects are largely virtual teams anyway, so not a big deal but it would likely devastate numerous businesses.
I have four business trips lined up over the next two months that could go away.
Saving the economy is saving the people.
(and I’m not saying to forego medical actions, it’s just that the economy needs liquidity)
Politicians probably realize that they cannot be indifferent to the economy or just help a few special interests now – not if they have a drop of political acumen at all.
And yet we still don’t get mandatory paid sick time. They can’t be indifferent to the economy, yet working people’s lives are worth nothing.
No they have made it clear. They will bail wall street, some might trickle down to main street. But meanwhile we will die.
Oh I realize that the economy needs liquidity as without an economy people would starve. But having said that, I do not favour a system where workers can be freely liquidated whether through Coronavirus or lack of healthcare. And I have extremely deep suspicions of how a man like Scotty from Marketing would react under pressure and where his actual loyalties would lay in a time of crisis. We already had a preview during the recent bushfires.
At a serious level, the t-rex costume looks to provide much better protection than basic masks: the over-pressure prevents particles/droplets from getting in, except through the input filter, which doesn’t need to conform to a human face. Further, it prevents touching the face.
My laugh of the day!
The Furries will survive us all.
Dems Converge Around Dementia-Addled Warmonger Ahead Of Super Tuesday
What a wonderful headline (with the caveat that Joe thinks it’s Super Thursday).
Canada food app: seems like it is a way to put the burden on consumers.
Retail get rid of the stats for thrown-away food because they sell it instead. However, It is far from sure that those that bought the food will actually eat it. It is thrown away at home instead but with the difference that it is not measured.
Sorry for being cynical but neoliberalism has taught me that no problems are solved, only moved away from companies and put on the citizenry.
“neoliberalism has taught me that no problems are solved, only moved away from companies and put on the citizenry.”
Truer words were never said, except possibly with the addition of two more in the proper place:
neoliberalism has taught me that no problems are solved, only moved away from companies or government and put on the citizenry.
USSR then:
We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.
USA now:
We pretend everything works and they pretend to pay attention to us.
This is why I hate plastic bag and straw banning.. it puts all the honus on the citizen, meanwhile everything in the supermarket is surrounded by plastic. We need to start there.
“meanwhile everything in the supermarket is surrounded by plastic”
EVERYTHING!
Such a great point!!
Plastic covered products may trace back to product tampering that began to be a problem in the 70s and 80s. Hard to see what else to do about that.
Some pretty clever packaging of Apple products. Not sure there couldn’t be similar solutions elsewhere. At the end of the day a Tylenol bottle is protected by a paper/foil cap..why that requires a plastic supporting structure I don’t know.
I do sometimes wonder about the cost (CO2 wise) of transporting glass bottles vs the negative effects of plastic. But that doesn’t make me a fan of the status quo.
Yes, all of these questions become extremely difficult to answer when multiplied by 8 billion people.
A conundrum from my personal experience: I heat with wood, burning trees* is about as renewable as it gets, but does it scale to 8 billion? No way…say goodby to all trees on earth.
*The sunsets would be spectacular though
The article appears to be overstating the apps usage. Downloaded it for Android (says d/l a 100k times which is fairly low for 4 years) Showed 2 stores participating in my area, I can think of a dozen or more grocers within a 5km radius. The food available, in both cases, was all dairy, mainly yogurt and milk. They were, for the most part, marked down 50% but if today is typical not sure how much of a dent it’s putting in food waste.
Given the little that was available I’m not sure how many people would bother using it on a regular basis.
Although the World Health Organisation believes the number of cases in China has peaked and should fall
I trust neither the Chinese government nor the WHO. And I don’t know what “should” has to do with it.
The scale of the shutdown in China suggests to me that either this thing is more lethal than they’ve let on or that the Chinese government had a huge fit of funk and overreacted. Now it has so scared the citizens that they are reluctant to return to work. Or maybe the citizenry knows only too well how bad things are. I don’t know how an outsider can tell. I don’t know whether any of the insiders know either. My hopes are that data from South Korea, and maybe Italy, will clarify things. It’s still conceivable that this may turn out to be less bad than I fear.
Just started to watch a YouTube clip from the ADVChina channel called “Lies!!! Wuhan Virus is not defeated!” and it does not sound good. A 55:42 video with some swearing-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFoS-M4uF0
Did you check the source? One of the vloggers now lives in Los Angeles. I’d want to check this out very carefully.
It’s very possible we know nothing, but that is better than knowing less than nothing.
+
Better not to know and know it than to think you know and be wrong.
Still, thirteen years living in China is not to be lightly dismissed. He and his mate even married Chinese girls which would give them another insight to China. I would rather listen to their thoughts than that, say, of Robert Lighthizer.
My theory is it escaped from a lab and they had no choice but to go all in on containment.
That’s not a theory. It’s a claim that has been successfully debunked. Stop it.
With respect, I don’t think any evidence has been provided against it escaping from a lab. I am not saying it was man-made, just that it was very plausibly in the virology labs. The WHO case data shows four of the first five cases were not at the wet market,so it was loose in November.
The Wuhan labs (one 200m from the market…) were publishing their work on SARs and its use of its Spike protein to unlock the ACE2 receptor, and on SARS-like bat coronaviruses which were incompetent to do this. Say they found one that could or a recombination event occurred. They had known biosafety issues (bat bites, bat blood spills). A worker gets infected, containment fails or a lab animal escapes or is sold or taken home as a pet. Suddenly the virus is out!
As we said, stop it. There have been tons of serious papers on this by people who have no reason to lie for China.
This is agnotology which is a violation of our written site Policies, and you are accumulating troll points.
Also: burden of proof and whatnot. A statement not being disproved is not evidence for its veracity.
Do you trust US government numbers regarding coronavirus cases? How about the inflation rate? The unemployment rate? All governments lie most of the time. The US is no exception to that rule.
Super Tuesday report from a DEEP red portion of Chesterfield County, VA – at 0650, I was the 72nd person to have voted. I think that is a pretty good turn out with less than an hour having passed since the polls opened and not being a liberal portion of the Commonwealth. Of course, VA is an open primary and I am hearing that Republicans are being encouraged to turn out and vote for dropped out candidates. Not sure if this is true (seems plausible though), so results may be skewed.
Here in Utah Bernie should win todays primary . I voted a few days ago–hand marked and then scanned.
Mike Bloomberg is altruistic. Who knew?
The ego and the altruism of Mike Bloomberg
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/mike-bloomberg-2020-campaign.htm
nb:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/03/bloomberg-occupy-wall-street/
this just stood out to me:
In 2019, he gave $3.3 billion away, more than Trump’s entire estimated net worth of $3.1 billion — and the largesse has apparently made everyone very happy to see him at almost all times, which may have given Bloomberg the idea that a presidential campaign could feature more of the same.
goes with my prior observation.
NYC ER doctor: I have to ‘plead to test people’ for coronavirus YouTube
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a fashion, we are France in 1940.
A respected army that just couldn’t keep up with the rapid advance of the speed oriented Wehrmacht, and the quicker the Germans went, the more the French got bogged down.
The ‘phony war’ in the USA against Covid-19 is ongoing, we know nothing and want to keep it that way.
It’s being handled like they would on the TV series “Yes Minister”-
Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What’s that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
If many people in the US are refusing to be tested because they will get hit with medical bills that they can’t pay, then the dysfunctional US Health Service will get an epidemic to deal with.
NYC ER doctor: I have to ‘plead to test people’ for coronavirus YouTube
The ER doctor is saying he has to plead with the CDC in order to test people.
This is the Trump/Pence protocol at the time this interview was recorded.
It’s a must-see.
Also, creating the testing kits is lagging way behind demand.
A few items, voted absentee in VA, as did mom and spouse. We marked paper ballots that were then scanned. So not counted by hand in public. But at least a paper trail exists if ballots are secure.
Natural Foods show here in CA has been “postponed” (normally 80,000 to 100,000 attendees)
Why all the effort to develop a new COVID19 test here in usa, when Koreans have one that takes 10 min at roadside test stations??
I have the impression that the Korean “real time” test is not as accurate as conventional “in laboratory” testing.
If it has a significant rate of false positives, it might have the effect of sending large numbers of people infected with something other than nCov2019 into the medical system.
We would be better able to pursue an “all of the above” response strategy if there were more spare capacity in our public health and health care systems. Hard to see how one can get that with a for-profit system, oriented as it is toward right-sizing costly investments to increase RoI.
I hope that the primary voters today are thinking about “which candidates’ ideas are better adapted to the new realities the country is facing”. Those realities had scarcely penetrated public awareness when the primary started. Older people, who seem to favor JB, appear to be especially at risk. Will their own existential peril affect their voting choices?
This is a bit tin-foily, but the thought occurs that DJT’s attempts to reduce public anxiety about the epidemic might in part be aimed at “elevating” the candidates whose ideas are less “out of US mainstream”, since they may be easier to beat in November.
In answer to that: No. Still having to explain to people that it doesn’t matter if Medicare means you can go the doctor/hospital. If anyone who handles your food, your transportation, your boxes, anyone who cleans your home, or who touches the elevator button before you cannot afford to pay for it themselves, they won’t. And if they cannot afford to go to the doctor for a cough, they won’t take off work until they cannot work. We have created a society where it is survival of the fittest and some of the richest, and you don’t qualify in either category.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5y6C-v5-j0
Some seem reluctant to be in a hospital or doctors office at this time, not knowing what they have (doc, what is it?), and what they might catch at the hospital.
One option is to call the doctor, over the phone, or the net.
In Canada, I read, they can call a number staffed by a nurse.
That should be something to consider, if an emergency is declared here.
Now is the time for a great anti-Uber/Lyft twitter campaign: did the person who just got out of your ride sneeze all over the place whilst infected?
In a day of good headlines I liked this one.
77-Year-Old Joe Biden Is Now The Youngest Man In The Democratic Primary
A perfect testing system is
1 Repeatedly (Yes, you were negative yesterday. But who have you been with lately?)
2. Everyone is tested. It takes only one to start a chain.
3. Real time (the bad guy doesn’t rest between sampling and result).
If you’re asymptomatic you don’t have to go to the hospital. You do have to self isolate at home.
A low rate of false positives is better than ignorance.
I predict S Korea will have less actual deaths than usa but usa will report fewer so we here in usa can still claim to have tge best health system in the world
Saw some photos of O’Hare with hardly anybody there @ 7 pm, you could’ve rolled a bowling ball and probably not hit a human.
Not everybody panics in the same way, I get buying Charmin, and if you’re like most households, there’s precious few books or the old reliable standby-the yellow pages, to come through in your time of need, and as for now there isn’t an app you can swipe.
But there is a panic going on-a great fear of increasing your lottery odds by vying for more tickets via contact with a myriad of strangers that apparently feel the same way about you.
And the thing is, we are really early in this saga.
No high five-ing.
The NBA recommends.
Ha ha, NBA players are literally draped over one another well within the suggested meter of infection zone with hands at the ready @ any given time.
The players could definitely use masks, except those who camp away for 3 point shots.
We live in a small town and so far I’m not seeing much reaction to the virus threat here, although I noticed staples were disappearing fast at a local discount grocer. I don’t really understand the toilet paper panic — I would be more worried about food supplies myself, but I’ve heard that more than one Costco had run out of TP.
I was just in Seattle for a gig over the weekend and we did some food shopping there. We visited Chinatown to stock up on Asian ingredients (I like cooking Thai food, stir-fries, etc), then Costco, and hit some up-market grocery stores to get a few organic items. The University Trader Joe’s was packed with people like I’d never seen it, and Whole Foods seemed unusually busy as well for a Monday. In Chinatown it varied — in the Japanese supermarket Uwajimaya, there were more shoppers than usual and they were running very low on rice, but in the Vietnamese supermarket up the street, people seemed pretty calm and they still had plenty of large bags of rice. We loaded up, and were careful to wash our hands thoroughly afterwards. We are pretty well prepped with a lot of staples and a large freezer full of stuff. The real crunch may happen this coming fall after the warm weather has ended.
So crazy Chris slinks off to await being dragged to the town square foe execution by the commies and national socialists. At least we won’t have to argue whether his final word was “secret” or “sacred.”
I hope someone reports what was the “compliment” that he and “other men” thought women should
appreciatelike. I speculate it was something like, “Boy, you got great bazooms, baby. How about letting me have a taste?”On Twitter his most recent victim says “The harassment has been invasive, cruel, and personal.” In addition, she, Laura Bassett, is getting trolled heavily on Twitter. What a world.
Procopius
March 3, 2020 at 9:58 am
https://www.gq.com/story/chris-matthews-experience
I am not going to carry any water for Matthews, but who gets ostracized is not done in any consistent way. Matthews should have been fired long ago for his lack of reality perception, and too much supporting the most ridiculous aspects of the blue team narrative. Of course, that standard would end about 98% of the jobs at MSNBC…
https://www.today.com/popculture/adele-haenel-protests-roman-polanski-win-french-oscars-t174900
This is a man in which there is no doubt of the facts – he used drugs to have sex with a 13 year old, and a good many people in Hollywood, have rationalized his behavior.
It really reminds me of the decades in which priests got away with child molesting.
Finally, it seems of a kind – people who go on about USA!USA!USA! who just cannot see the homeless, rising inequality, the opiod crisis and the deaths of despair that actually reduced lifespan in the US and only happened once previously in a Western country, when the Soviet Union fell apart.
Where do you get the idea that: “…people who go on about USA!USA!USA! who just cannot see the homeless, rising inequality, the opiod crisis and the deaths of despair that actually reduced lifespan in the US…”
You aren’t paying attention if you think only the non-right-leaning world is where these issues are noticed.
https://www.today.com/popculture/adele-haenel-protests-roman-polanski-win-french-oscars-t174900
Let’s suppose Shakespeare, Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Michelangelo, choose your own genius, had a thing for 13-year-girls. Does that taint their work? Should we refuse to read, listen to, look at what they brought into existence and which makes the world a better place?
No we don’t ignore any stains on their characters, excuse foulness they might have committed because in a limited way they transcend us ordinary mortals. Their genius is no protection from law or condemnation, but what that genius created stands apart from its creator and should be acknowledged in its own right.
IMHO anyway.
+1
While you are donating your goodwill to the works of rapists, have you ever considered how many geniuses have been lost to us because of abuse and undermining?
What would Shakespeare have written if he had been raped?
And, as well, while you are carving out such luminous potential exemptions – to put Polanski on the stage on Bach! – can you describe specifically what Polanski gave us that was given by no other director and could be given to us by no other director? There is a certain sort of person who thinks of culture as a monolith upon which humble individual souls pile stones, all building to the same glorious height. But if it’s actually a rubble field, what happens to this superb defense of the singular genius?
The age of consent in England was 12 when Shakespeare was alive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent_reform_in_the_United_Kingdom
That seems to tally with marriage laws from this era and earlier times going back to antiquity. Still, there are a lot of surprises to be found in the following section-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#History_and_social_attitudes
His final words: “Like a dog.”
It’s telling Dems are endorsing Biden. It’s not just that if you watch Biden it’s obvious he’s not 100% there and lost too many brain cells and it all makes him a obvious, horribly bad choice. Or that he’s on the wrong side of the issues or that he is part of The Establishment that lost to Trump 4 years ago.
It’s also because he is a sure loser to Trump in 2020.
I just can’t take anyone who doesn’t see that, and how awful Biden is, seriously.
With you 100%.
100% agree. If you’re for Biden despite his cognitive decline, horrible policy positions and corruption then you are too propagandized. I’m voting for Sanders along with my wife and two sons in ME today. I voted for Stein in 2016 after caucusing for Sanders in the primary, but if the DNC gives us Biden… then burn the family blogging thing down, I’m done.
+1000
I think the plan is to use Biden to weaken Bernie then swap someone else in at the convention
That would be an even bigger train wreck then just giving it to Biden.
Good call, sad but probably true. A neoliberal black feminist perhaps – a certain ex Presidents wife?
Dude, enough of this Michelle Obama nonsense. What, exactly, does she have to gain by the nomination that would force her to leave the comfortable confines of Martha’s Vineyard and the sweet money coming in from spending time on Oprah and making an occasional appearance to gladhand donors to Obama’s Center on the parkland they stole from us Chicagoans? None, running is hard work, and the Obamas rake in the cash doing hardly anything.
One of my Obama-obsessed neighbors (I’m surrounded) suggested to me that Michelle would be the PERFECT candidate. She knows, but keeps forgetting, that I can’t stand anything Obama. Anyway, she managed to put a horrifying thought in my brain, ‘cz if Michelle came out to run, I’m afraid she’d win in a landslide. The rest of your comment has helped to “talk me down.”
Happy to be of service Judy :)
We’ll see if she cancels her speaking engagement in Victoria, BC, March 31, 2020 (not being inclined to cohabit with Covid, or some such) or tries to use it as a launching pad for becoming the neoliberal choice du jour. Some local wags have even suggested she be introduced to her Victorian audience by Meghan Markle. Do we also need Oprah to provide the tears?
Yeah, it’s crazy. One can only conclude they care more about stopping Sanders than about winning. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31195185/joe-biden-investigation-republican-senate/
Yes, totally. Trump is horrible and nasty here, but the thing is, he is not wrong, and they will be saying this and running video clips through November if Biden is nominated:
https://nypost.com/2020/03/02/trump-theyll-put-joe-biden-in-a-home-if-elected-president/
I think the only option Sanders has is to hone the knives on Joe Biden’s voting record. There’s plenty of low hanging fruit with regards to him being basically on the wrong side of everything he claims to represent. Too late for today after the back-stabbing timing of that remora grifter fest yesterday, but starting tomorrow morning, hopefully things are going to get tough for uncle Joe and his ‘return to decency’ campaign platform gibberish.
Totally agree, Biden may have been the walking dead but as long as he was still walking the Bernie campaign should have made sure to finish him off. Now they need to get the political shotgun out and use both barrels.
They need to do the same with the fake Democrat Warren as well, her history of dumping others under the bus so she can utilize victimhood is all out there to see. Call for her to release her Harvard application form with the cross on the minority checkbox, talk to her very supportive school boss she lied about firing her for being pregnant, the professor with childhood polio who supposedly chased her around the office. There are also a lot of progressives who are disgusted with her and could share their insights of her real character.
No more “he/she is my friend” rubbish. They are the enemy.
It doesn’t matter much what he homes in on, if most of the media either ignore what he says, or deliberately misinterprets it to support the commie brand. Alternative media can also be branded commie. So TINA. His only hope as always, has been his ground game with his volunteers. The old-fashioned way.
““They’re Desperate to Beat Bernie”: Amy Klobuchar Drops Out of 2020 Democratic Primary, to Endorse Biden”. Maybe. Maybe they are throwing in the towel and preparing for 2022.
With so many safe seat, the Democrats in office largely survived a 1000 seat culling, the threat is being AOCed and not having control of the organizational apparatus. O’Rourke and Buttigieg are probably done with electoral politics except a vanity run for President that lasts three months, too much bad press with the growing parts of the electorate. Klobuchar isn’t going anywhere and is at risk in a state that sent Wellstone. She ran on being Hillary but knowing where the Midwest is. She didn’t use the time to do something. Realistically, Biden isn’t going to improve Healthcare which means it’s unsustainable. Her position will be further diminished as she is clear on the record.
imagine the skyrocketing insurance premiums as soon as biden locks it up. I honestly don’t know where the dem deciders plan to sail this ship, and I don’t think they know , either. My plan is to go as left as possible down ballot just to be a thorn in their side. I may or may not fill in biden in the top spot, depending on how irritated I am at that moment. I firmly believe it will be a phyrric victory and would go for biden as the fastest route to a “the emperor has no clothes” moment. That scenario is perilous for those of us lower down the income ladder, though, as we as always will take the hit which will be the catalyst for whatever chaos ensues. If ‘m feeling peaceable I’ll leave the top spot blank.
This is my “consolation prize” if Sanders is denied the nomination, whether by fair means or foul. The contradictions will continue to sharpen and the ultimate delegitimation of the establishment Party will be that much more complete. One hopes to live long enough to witness that.
I do think that undervoting the top of the ticket is a good way to message the TPTB. They do not have the loyalty of the people.
end result: 10% of the population votes, everyone else knows it a rigged game (many already subscribe to that) and drown in cynicism, but unless they exercise their power elsewhere than the voting booth have very little power. So one gets to witnesses de-ligitimization and collapse, but other than being another symptom of decay, what’s the good part again? There is no 3rd party waiting in the wings.
In the wings? Maybe — but mostly because both Ds and Rs work hard to keep from having to share the stage with alternative parties.
Waiting? Not just no but “Hell, no.” (And we Michiganders know where Hell is.)
Our Presidential nominating convention is scheduled for July 9-12 at Wayne State University in Detroit. We have already jumped through enough hoops and cleared enough hurdles to guarantee ballot access for the fall in 20+ states adding up to a majority of electoral votes, and are working on getting the rest. If you want to help with that in your own state or a neighbor, come on in.
Michigan Greens will be hearing from eight candidates for that Presidential nomination at a statewide meeting this Saturday in Grand Rapids, and holding our own state-level nominating convention June 20 on the West Campus of Lansing Community College. Want an advance peek at the eight? Well, some news is here.
Bottom line: we’ve been swimming against the current of [family blog] for twenty years and more now, and we’re doing it again this year. If you want to help build something for the future, and are tired of trying to do it in the Democratic wing of the duopoly with the proprietors there constantly telling you There Is No Alternative . . . there IS an alternative.
The ship with Biden as captain has nowhere to go but be run aground. Biden’s candidacy is an admission that the party has absolutely no vision beyond failed, stale, 1990s Clintonism.
I mean with the Biden candidacy they even give up on their pretense of caring about minority representation (I suppose we see who the VP pick is). Biden will be the last Democratic President if he gets elected.
A total admission the party has no purpose other than being a placeholder for an alternative to the Republicans. There is nowhere to go from here for them.
There is no way biden will be elected. No matter how many times the possibility is suggested, it will not happen.
Biden would still have a decent chance of winning the GE. Biden could flip Florida, Penn, and NC. He’s like Hillary Clinton but way less personally despised so I see him squeaking. Of course he’s not THAT popular and Trump could easily win again. He’s not a good bet at all.
Would be a total non-entity as President though and would last one-term before a Republican far worse than Trump wins. Meanwhile the Democratic Party would just fall apart from decay.
If Sander’s supporters feel left out, they will not for Biden. Without that support no Dem can win. That’s the fact, Jack.
Bingo. There’s no way around it.
I’m now confident Biden is getting the nomination. Much less confident that he wins against Trump. But who knows what happens in November.
Those Democrats voting Biden simply because they think he has a good chance of beating Trump are most likely going to be very sorely disappointed as they were in 2016 and deservedly so for being such puppets.
But there are a lot of puppets amongst Democratic voters so expect the Biden primary win.
I don’t know if Biden’s brain will last to the election, stress is not good for dementia. The Pres. debates would be like watching a sick child (Trump) slowly pulling the legs of a spider (Biden).
It did seem to me in the last Democratic debate that they souped up Biden’s meds. He went from looking like he was nearly going to cry in previous debates to the old age version of the angry man. They will do anything to stop Bernie.
10% of the population dead by corona (since no measures get taken to contain it) and the economy in collapse and yea Trump is very far from assured anything. He has a crisis on his hands now, he hasn’t handled well it so far, all he does is literally suppress data about corona. Events. I do not wish for these events no matter how much I want Trump gone. Just I could see it happening.
Even with their votes, team blue cant win. No one is going to organize for biden. Without an enthused core group, young and urban dwellers won’t have up to date registry. Biden would be like an idiot and senile version of Kerry without even token voting in safe states.
The “Democratic Party” is a consultancy organization. Its’ only purpose is to maintain a balance of power in order to compensate itself to the manner in which it has become accustomed.
The DimRat party is there to give the illusion that they’re an alternative. The cabal that controls the party is only interested in collecting money for favors and enriching themselves. They’re in cahoots with the Rippigs.
They’re the Washington Generals to the Republican Globetrotters. And they are about to prove this again.
Same thing. The fear is there is, to use a Buttigieg favorite term, no path forward for status quo power and money hungry corporate hack politicians if Bernie and his supporters make over the Democratic Party. If they could run as Republicans they would be.
Although I do think both of the wonder twins were told they were the choice for the VP position. We know from Hillary there is no honor among hacks.
heh, and biden could plausibly say he forgot he promised the vp slot to both.
or maybe cabinet positions
i think both of them are aiming at president. vp has been more of a springboard for president. in fact i don’t recall a cabinet member who went on to win the office. bush sr was head of the cia for awhile. i guess that’s similar–it wasn’t cabinet level when he held the position fwiw.
Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Obviously she lost the general but being in the cabinet allowed her to keep herself politically relevant after losing the 2008 primary.
I think SoS if you are allowed to maintain a good profile in the administration is just as good as VP. Just depends on how the administration is, Hillary was given a lot of leeway by Obama so that she could maintain visibility. I’m sure Buttigieg would demand a similar high profile in a Biden administration for him to make the deal.
Sec State was a way better platform for selling access through foundation donations. Sec State certainly more powerful than vp.
more powerful, sure the vp can be there just to go to funerals the president doesn’t want to attend. for some reason though, and even granted if clinton had been a competent candidate she would have won, (sending money to wisconsin for example), it hasn’t been a springboard to the presidency. if either klobuchar or buttigieg have a vision or policies they want to implement, they may prefer a cabinet position. to me they are just chameleons, though.
epsteinology, from the 29th. Apologies if already noted:
What did Jeffrey Epstein own? Here’s a list, including ’64 dune buggy, islands, cash
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article240750631.html
“…The 100-page document from Epstein’s estate included a listing of 15 wholly owned limited liability companies, which are designed to disclose little public information and were valued at $201.5 million.
These LLCs include Southern Financial, LLC, valued at just under $180 million […] Epstein’s estate includes 10 corporate entities that were wholly owned by him, valued at $426.2 million. The most valuable of these was Southern Trust Company Inc. at $233.6 million. This was the Virgin Islands entity that received lucrative tax breaks for 10 years in exchange for creating a purported data-mining company….”
Nominee owner for the secret owners. That’s my theory. That’s how organized crime works.
Do you doubt Epstein was part of a large and very powerful crime organization? The “fun” part of his job was pimping young girls to princes and presidents, but a man of his intelligence and ability no doubt had other jobs which we don;t know about, and will never. Honestly, knowing about the details is dangerous.
Re: Super Tuesday,
Well, it looks like Barack Obama flexed, and got the rest of the party to fall in line with Biden. It may work this time, too. It seems that a lot of Democrats and their sympathizers just want Trump gone, so they’ll follow the lead of their elected “leaders” who are telling him that Biden is the way to go on this. So, it looks to me that they’re going to be able to pull it off, either through straight delegate count, or at the convention. Biden is a terrible candidate, and would be a disaster as a President. He could still win, though, as COVID19 and the knock-on economic effects have the potential to swallow up Trump’s presidency. There are just that many people who despise Trump, and will vote against him, regardless of who is on the ballot. If Biden loses, though, the Democrats will blame Sanders and anyone else who dared to support him, just like they did with Clinton. They’ll still get to keep their cushy sinecures as well, and raise money off Trump, so at least they will land on their feet. The rest of us, well, we don’t matter.
Yep, a large chunk of Democrats just want to turn the clock back to 2012 and pretend 2016 never happened. Impossible though, the world is different now and besides the failures of Obama helped create Trump. Biden, if elected, will just be a stop-gap before the next, worse, Trump comes in 2024. The Democratic Party has no message outside of “vote for us because the other guy is so scary” – other than that they stand for nothing. Literally every election is the same story. Biden could just as easily lose the general though, which will be a further blow to the credibility of the party bosses whose credibility so already so broken it will be really interesting to see what happens.
The clock can’t go back to 2012 though, no matter how much rank-and-file Democrats wish it and we will see a lot of history made in the next few years.
But the establishment has succeeded again for now. I expect the Sanders rebellion to be snuffed out over the course of March and the establishment to be firmly back in full control of the party by April. The party members marching in lockstep behind the doomed idea of Bidenism.
the clock may not go back to 2012 (when I had to be cajoled into voting once again for obama against my better judgement because his fealty to the plutonomy was well exposed by then. 2008, on the hand, will definitely happen again, and this time the glorious market is frothier than your dry cappucino and the crash this time will be epic.
How in the world do you figure “the establishment has succeeded again?” biden won ONE primary in which 528,000 votes were cast in a republican state, the only primary he has ever won in three tries at the presidency. biden did not even get 50% of those votes and still trails Bernie in pledged delegates.
There is no way that doddering joe biden will be “snuffing out” anything, let alone a “rebellion” that is so obviously necessary, and more common sense than “revolutionary.” It’s far more likely that trusting the defense of the indefensible to a geriatric mush-mouth like biden will turn out to be the most spectacular mass self-immolation ever witnessed in american politics.
“It’s far more likely that trusting the defense of the indefensible to a geriatric mush-mouth like biden will turn out to be the most spectacular mass self-immolation ever witnessed in american politics.”
Here’s hoping.
But right now Biden has big momentum and a lot of Democratic voters are zombies who just want to go back to 2012 by tonight he’ll have Texas, all the southern states, and probably Minnesota too thanks to Klobachar’s endorsement.
he’s got Klomentum now!
…kiss of death.
the thing is they might have been too late. Much early and mail in voting already done. The Dem blob may be evil, but they aren’t necessarily a competent evil.
I’m afraid much of what you say about Democratic voters is true, but most of Bernie’s supporters are not Democrats, they are Independents, like me. and the Dem voters that have gotten behind him are definitely not zombies. Most eligible voters are neither D or R.
I hope you are right and I am overreacting, I am in despair but yours is a hopeful and reasonable take.
Here is Tucker Carlson’s take on the democrat messiah that is joe biden. Spoiler alert–it is hilarious. Just imagine how this would play as it is relentlessly covered, 24/7, for four months before the election if biden is the nominee.
No amount of “context” can ever paper over the inexorable barrage of confusion and senility that is joe biden. My guess would be that having to watch it over and over during the campaign will prove to be so exquisitely painful that voters will run screaming from the specter of four more years of such addled gibberish masquerading as governance.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-sanders-threat-democratic-establishments-power-biden
Brutal and not wrong.
Quoted for truth. Biden’s path to a clean win is still far more difficult than Bernie’s. And a brokered convention where Bernie is seen as clearly getting jobbed will break the party and lose the election. Although as anyone paying even minimal attention has noticed by now, that would be preferable among the D blob to Sanders winning the general.
Katniss Everdeen- you may have the overall best comments on the internet
COVID-19, repeat of a comment I made in the NDMS post. I don’t normally repeat, but it’s germane.
It’s a very sobering and troubling PBS interview with Amanpour and Dr. Paul Offit (vaccinology expert) in which Amanpour helps Dr. Offit make light of the whole covid-19 threat (Influenza will cause 10x more deaths this year, just like the flu, open the airports, and so on). A breathtakingly insouciant call to go forth and multiply:
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/dr-paul-offit-why-coronavirus-will-be-hard-contain-nqqvbv/
Maybe with opinions like this, Dr. Paul Offit is looking for a job on Trump’s Coronavirus task force.
I read he is thinking new travel restrictions.
Korea has about 5,000 cases as of today, at 50 million poplulation or so. China is around 1 billion people, 20 times. Is not the equivalent 20 x 5,000, or 100,000 cases?
That would be more than China’s total on Feb 1, 2020.
By what magic do you know China’s total on Feb 1?
From Wiki, it was 9,692 soon Jan 30, 11,791 on Jan 31, and 14380 on Feb 1.
I think we announced on the 30th, a Friday, to be effective noon, Sunday, Feb 1.
Some have speculated Chinese numbers to 10 times more, putting the Jan 30 number at 10 x 9,692, or about 97,000.
If the point is to restrict further travels to and from, or via, Korea, it still stands, using either the official numbers, or the speculated ones.
Ah yes, you must mean one of Pence’s prayer meetings. Alleluia, Praise the Lord!
I understand a typical response plan involves phases.
Phase 1 containment
Phase 2 delay
Phase 3 mitigate
Or something like that.
Closing ports can either contain or delay.
This person argues we’re skipping ahead to the mitigate stage. Hard to argue with what he says.
Clearly we’ve given up on containment and moved on the mitigation in the US and other countries. Seen in that light all the decisions and recommendations make sense. Change my mind.
Containment means you know what and where to contain. Lack of testing means they have no idea at this time. If somebody had predicted two weeks ago that King County, WA would be the seething hotbed of COVID-19 with multiple deaths from it, the CDC would have ignored them.
They are now completely in reaction mode. It will probably take two weeks to start to get a picture of the potential hot spots they are currently unaware of.
The flu has a high infection rate and death count because there is little public action to reduce the potential for infection. Even though vaccines are available, less than half the population gets vaccinated. Despite vaccinations and immunity due to past exposures to similar viruses, there are still millions of cases with thousands of deaths due to the flu.
Infection and death counts due to COVID-19 will be low if there is a large-scale cessation of public interaction and quarantining. That is how China was able to get control. That will require shutting down a significant percentage of the US economy. since that doesn’t happen with the flu, it is unlikely to happen quickly with COVID-19 due to government recommendations. Instead, it would happen organically with individuals and companies deciding to do it themselves.
I very much agree that containment is almost impossible even being as harsh and painful as Chinese have been. I dislike very much the praises directed to Chinese government. It’s like saying Go, Jinping, Go! inflict more damage if possible! What I find disingenuous about this interview is the stupid comparison on the number of casualties between a starting epidemic in the US and a well established pandemic. Everybody knows that the mortality of Covid 19 is currently higher than that of flu and there are some complicating issues with Covid-19 epidemics like its very high infectivity and the ability to establish a variety of infection types that make it more dangerous in both the low and high season for respiratory diseases. There is no immune resistance pre-existing and the number of deaths if mitigation measures are not applied would skyrocket well above flu-related deaths. There are still many unknowns on how immune resistance will work, not to mention if working vaccines will be ever developed). In the future, it’s virulence will almost certainly diminish probably below that of flu but for now COVID-19 is a greater menace than flu, even if there are many more flu-related casualties right now. Focus on mitigation!
Great comment, Ignacio; thank you. If the guy had just stopped at the impossibility of containment, I would have said mech, but ok. But he compared mortality rates .1 with 1.5 as if the two were one and the same and even 1.5 is still speculative. It will almost certainly be higher or lower depending on how prepared we are to treat severe cases and it’s beginning to look like the way we will keep mortality rates down is to make sure they are not broadcast on the news (swept under the rug).
And that’s just for starters. The guy trivialized this epidemic and Amanpore couldn’t nod her head vigorously enough. They never talked about precautions, isolation, our need for vastly more testing kits, our need for a centralized enforceable method for making it easy to get tested.
But, roll up your sleeves and do effective instruction of populace and contact tracing.
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-china
where is the infrastructure (not to mention PROFIT) to do that in the US?
Hmmm. Martial law perhaps?
I know. Flu mortality statistics are for 12 months and Covid-19 are for three months. How can they be compared?
“Jack Welch Inflicted Great Damage on Corporate America”
Didn’t one of his proteges go to work for Boeing?
Re: Water world – it appears Genesis got it right:
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters…………..
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
Man love me some KJV.
You do understand that many of the world’s creation myths have a flooded earth at their basis, don’t you, and that the writers of Genesis only borrowed that story from other creation myths?
Mankind, having a common origin, would have a common history too. So what?
Since many of the world’s creation myths have a flooded earth at their basis, then the implication of that is that sometime in the past there was a massive scale flooding event that impacted a lot of people in a lot of lands. Maybe a tsunami caused by underwater land slippage or something. But the trauma of that was so intense, that several groupings of survivors passed down the story to their children with some religious twist to try to make sense of what happened so as never to be forgotten. And it hasn’t.
The earliest civilizations started by rivers – and rivers flooded for reasons those civilizations didn’t quite understand – hence, gods. The floods caused devastation but they also provided life-giving nutrients to the lands around them. There is no mystery why floods play an important part in many creation myths.
then the implication of that is that sometime in the past there was a massive scale flooding event that impacted a lot of people in a lot of lands.
It doesn’t imply a single big event, does it?
Every flooding story could be inspired by a different flooding event. Each at a different time and affecting a different group of people.
The end of the last ice age, 13000 years ago, caused the oceans to rise 120 meters. Thats a pretty thorough erasure of any costal settlements worldwide.
That process wasn’t linear. There were periodic ice dams holding back massive glacial meltwater lakes that would release massive amounts of water in just a few months, enough to cause the oceans to quickly rise several feet. Here is one major example (there were others): https://www.livescience.com/873-bursting-ice-dam-flooded-ancient-ocean.html
So if you lived in a coastal plain by the shore, all of a sudden you would need to move because the water would rise. This happened along pretty much every coastline in the world.
I have read that the Chinese do not have a universal flood myth, although I have a vague memory that one of the mythical emperors tamed frequent severe floods. I do not think the Maya had a flood myth. Anybody know about the Inca or Aztec? From the novels of Tony Hillerman set in Navajo culture I believe they do not either. When I was young I read Fitzgerald’s The Golden Bough, and I don’t recall the Greeks having a flood myth, but I was drinking a lot at the time and really don’t remember a whole lot. The claim that there was a flood myth in every culture seems to come from Velikovsky. I’ve always been skeptical of his claims.
The Greeks did have one – Deucalion and Pyrrha
The inundation of the Black Sea basin when rising sea-levels – as the last Ice Age ended – broke through the Bosphorus around 5,500 BCE:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/blacksea.htm
Recent submarine investigations have found evidence of human settlement around what would have been the margins of a fresh water lake in the basin, settlements that would have been displaced as the water pushed them out of the world they knew at the rate of a mile a day – pushing them south into Mesopotamia from whence come the Sumarian flood epics incorporated into the OT.
that’s because archaeological records confirm there was a global flood some 10000+ years ago.
most likely cause was a volcanic eruption or meteor strike which suddenly put an end to the last ice age, creating bodies of water like the caspian and aral seas when sea levels rose overnight.
Younger Dryas Impact Event is the most likely explanation. The Cosmic Tusk website (https://cosmictusk.com/younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis-bibliography-and-paper-archive/) is a good place to start. Just a reminder, New York was under a mile of ice just 12,000+ yrs ago. All that ice melting caused a lot of flooding like nothing we have ever seen.
An update on the LMIAL house (sorry, was too exhausted last night to comment on WC): they have removed all Amy for America signs, and replaced them with one single, small Warren sign. Even their “Joe, Bernie and billionaires get out of the way” sign is gone. I had jokingly figured the house would be shrouded in black cloth. Cheers.
Having loved a candidate or two in my life I should feel for them, but I am just glad the rest of us have dodged that bullet. And have a sincere hope that they recognize their folly and realize they had a crush on one of the worst possible ‘relationship choices’ ever* and move on quickly.
* My theory is that 99% of the population have to fall for one or two people who are terrible for them to figure out what they really want and need in a partner.
“joe, bernie and billionaires get out of the way”. i am glad, and sad, that i did not know of this sign.
I imagine God will only damn those who should have known better. Those who were influenced by liars should be in the clear. Its the liars I worry about.
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1234681622256963584
Watch the video at the link.
Wow. Tucker Carlson really nailed it. Impressive.
Carlson will be the new face of Faux News when they decide too many of their present audience are about to die.
Yes he too is doing the bidding of his masters. And those masters, they aren’t us.
RE:The neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV2 may be at least partially responsible for the respiratory failure of COVID-19 patients Journal of Medical Virology (AJC)
It is an opinion article based on previous research with other coronavirus that have been shown to be neuroinvasive. No proof for this except some patients showing symptoms (headache, nausea) compatible with neurodisease. It could also explain positives after supposed virus clearance. Now, let’s go to this point made in the article that might be important:
If the neuroinvasion of SARS-CoV-2 does take a part in the development of respiratory failure in COVID-19 patients, the precaution with masks will absolutely be the most effective measure to protect against the possible entry of the virus into the CNS. Emphasis mine.
Thank you, Ignacio. Could you break this down a little for us in terms of what we’ve been reading/told about the masks giving a false sense of security and being potential breeding grounds for the virus?
The Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese seem to think face masks help. What do we know that they don’t know or vice versa?
East Asians, especially Japanese, were already big into masks.
This one is likely debatable, or to change ( from Guardians Live coverage, at 12:21 today):
.
I think I have read it is around 2.5%, mentioned here, if I recall correctly. My apologies if it is incorrect.
I’m hoping for some clarity, but it looks like there’s a lot of confusion. And I note your concern below about follow-on infections, which I share.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has several publications on respirators and medical masks. I read through portions of “Reusability of Facemasks During an Influenza Pandemic: Facing the Flu” and did not get a warm feeling either way about face masks. There was an interesting tidbit on p. 31 that “Some N95 filtering facepiece respirators have exhalation valves placed near the mouth of the wearer… . A disadvantage of this configuration is that if a nonsymptomatic, but infectious wearer is exhaling a virus or other pathogen, the virus or pathogen may bypass the filter, … be emitted to the outside environment …”
Nature Briefs [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w]
“2 March 20:30 gmt — Transmission details emerge from WHO China analysis”
“The report’s analysis of data from China finds that 104 strains of the coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2, collected from people between December 2019 and mid-February 2020 are 99.9% similar, meaning that the virus is not significantly mutating. The median age of people infected is 51 years old. And most cases that have spread from person to person are within hospitals, jails or households, which implies close contact is often required for the virus to spread between people. Airborne spread is not believed to be a major driver of transmission, the report says. In one preliminary study from the province of Guangdong, people who shared the same household as someone with COVID-19 had 3–10% chance of being infected.”
I think the watchword in this is the phrase “is often”.
Thanks for this, Jeremy. I’m already practicing social distancing, along with lots of hand washing, etc. Keeping those hands off my face is problematic, though; I’m trying to be mindful.
I just saw news that we now have 9 deaths in WA State, all on the west side, most occurring in that nursing facility. I’m on the east side with Fairchild Air force Base right up the road. I would be very surprised if the virus hasn’t been circulating here like it has in the Seattle area.
I’m only mildly paranoid, though. I’m far more worried about this election.
Apparently Tucker Carlson had a doctor on that was saying masks do not work. But it was noted in a photo that this doctor had his mask on upside down and back to front. EErrrr.
In protecting the CNS, I doubt that very much. The question is how’s it getting into the CNS in the first place? It doesn’t for everyone or everyone that’s died of, based on fluid draws post-mortem. But for some yes, infection shuts down the ability to breathe.
If a virus has neuroinvasive potential, or the ability to invade some other tissues where it can remain dormant, I worry about what sort of follow-on infections might wait dormant — eg. shingles.
Watching the rallies last night…
Did it occur to anyone else that maybe large crowds aren’t the best place to be right now?
Diary entry from I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 by Victor Klemperer, a little over 3 years into the 3rd Reich:
March 23, 1936
“He flies from place to place and gives triumphal speeches. The whole thing is called an “election campaign”.”
Was the coronavirus a thing back in 1936?
No, the people were infected with propaganda, which turned out to be fatal for the fatherland.
Yup. I am worried about Bernie. Though I would have a hard time choosing between seeing Bernie in person and my own safety, I know I can probably watch a video of the rally (not the optimal choice but a prudent one). Bernie could probably do a video-conference-type rally, but I doubt he will.
Partying like it’s 1914:
U.S. willing to give Turkey ammunition for Syria’s Idlib [Reuters]
This will surely end well.
According to MoA,
“There is another large supply operation from Russia underway. During the last three days two Russian landing ships, which usually carry heavy weapons like tanks, passed through the Bosporus on their way to Syria. Eight Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifters landed at Hmeymim, Latakia during the past three days. These likely carry additional air defense systems or additional fighter planes.”
Listen to Major Tulsi Gabbard call BS on IDLIB
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1234461956251226112
she is just fresh air—and not dropped out of the Presidential race!!
“We’ll give you aid for refugees, and also more weapons to create more refugees.”
Brilliant.
The Russian have put Russian Military Police in the recaptured town of Saraqib. The message is clear. Any attack on them will bring down the full wrath of Allah as well as the Russian Aerospace Forces on them, whether they be militants or Turkish military.
Minnesota polls at 7 AM opening: active but not crowded. There should have been lines.
Still marking paper ballots and inserting them into a scanner, which preserves the handmarked ballots for recounts and audits. But the printed voter rolls have now turned into horrible tablets, which flash your Date of Birth in giant letters to everyone nearby – that was never part of the rolls, that I can remember.
Recall that Minnesota always had open primaries. You got to pick which section of the ballot to vote on. Now you have to declare party and sign a loyalty oath on a credit-card-style receipt slip, which I was fortunately able to do without reading the horrid thing.
There was a single “ballot marking device” off to the side, not in use at the time, which is presumably intended for disabled access. I went over and tried to determine the company that built it, but was unable to find that information anywhere on the exterior of the device.
“Minnesota polls at 7 AM opening: active but not crowded. There should have been lines.”
Yeah, the big Bernie turnout is not happening. The old, comfortable middle-class electorate is going to vote. The party establishment is firmly back in the driver’s seat now.
How the hell would you know? See you the leading into March 10th, where you will do post after post saying the same thing and will not come back in between to say anything.
LOL!
Early voting was open for three weeks in MN. You won’t know if Bernie’s people showed up or not until after they count the votes. I understand your concern and probably agree with most of what you say but seriously, wait another 12 hours before you bury Bernie.
You’ve been wringing your hands all day. Wet your hands, add soap and keep wringing. Use WHO technique. At least your hands will be less infected.
I’ve been reading Naked Cap for…4 years (?) and I have never seen an article so defaced by trolling as this one, with your comments.
He or She is doing everything a person would do to get out the vote for Trump, including planting little chaos bombs here and there about how “horrible” Trump is.
1) Try to convince us that the only guy that can beat Trump is “over”, that would be Bernie
2) Try to convince us that Biden actually has a chance to beat Trump (which he doesn’t) so vote for Biden (or Trump!)
3) Try to make us believe that he should be hanging around here because he “isn’t ant-Bernie”.
We see what you’re doing;)
Re Fed cutting interest rates by .50%
We only seem to have financial bazookas left in our tool box.
Cut rates, Reduce payroll taxes, more QE.
Where is the Virus related big program to save us? crickets
If shooting oneself in the foot doesn’t work, aim higher!
WS is down 500 points right now. Apparently that rate cut wasn’t enough – WS wants MORE!
Funny how yesterday was a record day for the DJIA, then today there is a rate cut, and now the market is down. I don’t want to appear foily, but…
Gotta juice the bonds now that equities have hit black ice and are skidding off the road. The magicians of Wall St. have to rotate the smoke between their mirrors while biting off the heads of the rubes.
It works well when you aim higher and between the two feet /s
sorry Michael.
Nuts to that!
.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/485072-was-president-trump-spied-on-as-part-of-carter-page-wiretapping
But under a little-known policy, the government allows itself to extend the collection of personal material far beyond the wiretapped target … to people “two hops” away from that person.
What does this mean?
It means the government not only listened in on Carter Page, but also authorized itself to access highly personal communications of everyone who contacted Page (that’s “one hop”) and, believe it or not, everybody who contacted those people (“two hops”), even if those folks never actually made direct contact with Carter Page himself.
============================================
Of course, my rabbit ears are finely attuned to such news….
Here comes FBI Special agent Peter Cottontail,
Hoppin’ down the bunny subpoena trail….
Super Tuesday report from North Texas:
I am working today at a school that is serving as a polling site in a middle and working class suburb of Dallas.
Happy to report there is a steady stream of voters here. No lines yet.
Awhile ago some of us speculated that Warren was jockeying to be Biden’s VP. In response, many others assured us, reasonably, that there was no way Warren would be willing to do that–given her interest in bankruptcy reform etc etc etc.
But now it seems more likely than ever before that this is exactly the plan of the DNC. At a brokered convention, bring together the “centrist” “statesman” Biden and the “progressive” Warren to form a unity ticket against Trump.
The argument will be that Biden and Warren together accumulated enough delegates (expect some superdelegates to go for Warren to strengthen the appearance of her overall numbers) to warrant their forming a joint ticket.
Sanders will be excluded from consideration as VP on the basis that he is too old/male to serve effectively, and we will all be told that, anyway, Warren is basically just like Sanders and so if we do not all support this ticket we must be misogynists or Russian agents.
The writing is on the wall.
And when Biden/Warren lose they will blame it on the Bernie supporters.
And they will be right. And they will have lost more than an election.
I want the blame.
Me too. In the event that we fail to take over the Democrat party, I will be perfectly content with forcing the establishment to burn it down in the process of defending it. It will clear the way forward.
Much more likely he goes Klobuchar, not Warren. Would love to see Buttigieg’s face when he finds out.
I tend to agree with you. Warren will pull in the woman vote, who will see Warren as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in 2024. Biden would not be able to complete two terms. The Party is in a bit of a rough place, though. If Warren loses in Massachusetts today, she not only couldn’t win her home state, but has lost in every state through the primary nomination process.
The Sanders voters who see what is happening now (such as myself) will never vote for Biden/Warren. So, the Party is gambling big time. I suspect they will lose.
She wants to still be there with Biden and Trump at the end.
To be part of the grope.
As an interested outsider, I find it sad that so many NC commenters are getting discouraged at what the outcome of the election will be. I, too, am in mourning for the death of a great democracy (a democracy of which I am not a member).
Democracy here died long ago, its passing (if it ever even lived) is only being revealed now.
To the rest of the commentariat, don’t get funereal, get even. Fight even harder. Talk to your friends and family, show them the dementia, the lying, the cheating. Convinve them that the establishment would rather lose with Biden than win with Sanders because the only interests that matter to it are their own and those of their donors. Make noise, make the establishment even more scared. Anything but submit before this thing has even really started.
Veteran to Veteran to Veteran this:
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1234461956251226112
Got a spare room? It’s going to get ugly here after November either way
I’m still holding out hope until the end of the night. But I’m not 30 yet, and if tonight doesn’t go well, I think I honestly will have lost whatever faith I had left for real change in this country.
If its Biden V. Trump I’m going to vote Green for the third presidential election in a row…
What we saw in the last few days is the “raw power of organized money.” — David Sirota
The Consent-Manufacturing-Machine is working overtime, churning out the message that Biden is the Chosen One; Sanders does not have a chance. So …. rape … of the working class, the poor, the uninsured, women, people of color, surviving koala bears, countries unfortunate enough to sit over reserves of fossil fuel …. is inevitable. Relax and enjoy it. Because you have no choice. And, Uncle Joe will be gentle and polite and …. moderate.
Well, despair has long been considered a serious sin by theologians. So, let’s not succumb to a state of hopelessness. Rather, remain optimistic. Right up to November 3rd. Beaver away. Taste victory. If not the ultimate Victory, at least a way stage. Use the next few months to find your ‘affinity groups.’ Get acquainted with your neighbors, repair those fractured bonds with your immediate family members. Start a garden. Join a radical book group. Learn to crochet or raise chickens or nurture a sour dough starter. Organize.
If the nation ends up with Biden or Trump, we take a day off to mourn (and maybe get knee-walking drunk.) Then, on to Plan B.
Bloomberg admits to stop Sanders plan along with brokered convention on Eve of Utah primary.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/3/3/21163004/super-tuesday-mike-bloomberg-brokered-convention-democratic-party
Thanks! Not wildly surprising, but better to know.
Also found at the Deseret News — this handy schedule of today’s primary closings.
(Remember, that’s Mountain Standard Time. . . .)
I refer to it as Mountin’ Time.
538 says that Biden is surging. Why will people vote for a senile Biden?
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-final-forecast-for-super-tuesday-shows-bidens-surge-and-lots-of-uncertainty/
Because he went with Beto to What a Burger.
It’s important to adjust the polls in advance of adjusting the vote counts so that adjusted results seem plausible.
I don’t care if this sounds conspiratorial. The past record of the DNC /State party apparatus is a record of lying and cheating and so I expect this to happen in the present as well.
OK, I’m not alone. Good to know. :-)
>It’s important to adjust the polls in advance of adjusting the vote counts so that adjusted results seem plausible.
As with the SC Primary, IMO.
Kevin Gosztola calsl BS: https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1234654163461603330
I fear that to an extent that doesn’t give comfort, the mass of people (that means voters) have powerful herding instincts. At this time the designated herd leaders have indicated Biden. Many voters are responding predictably.
In the past, several times at least, me: “I voted for so-and-so [someone who was a certain loser in such-and-such election].”
My interlocutor: “Why did you waste your vote like that?”
Donna Brazile rips RNC Chairwoman McDaniel on Fox News: ‘Ronna, go to hell!’
Donna Brazile rips RNC Chairwoman McDaniel on Fox News: ‘Ronna, go to hell!’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donna-brazile-rips-rnc-chairwoman-mcdaniel-on-fox-news-ronna-go-to-hell/ar-BB10HcN4
Brazile: “They don’t have the kind of democracy we see on the Democratic side.”
Oh, Donna, yes the superdelegates are your kind of democracy.
Seems to me the RNC Chairwoman actually got it right.
From the woman who leaked debate questions to Hillary and wrote a book detailing how the DNC rigged the election. They were funneling money directly to HRC’s campaign which also got to approve everything they put out.
You’d have to be an idiot to participate in a rigged process twice. Yet I still think it’s good in a country as far right as the US to have a social democrat candidate like Sanders.
It may be that the democratic PARTY elders are in fact the more CONSERVATIVE party, and I use the word to mean resistant to change – OR maybe even more corrupt than the republicans. The media propaganda is that the democrats are liberal or even radical, which tells you something either about their ability to discern reality OR their willingness to tell the truth. Everything now said about Bernie was said about Trump – and republican primary voters paid no attention to it. I hope the democratic electorate decides its time for a change…
For the first time in its history, US life expectancy fell, and not just for one year. Other than this happening when the Soviet Union disintegrated, this is unprecedented in a Western country. If its not outright ignored, it certainly isn’t emphasized. Well, its nothing to be proud of….But its ignored because it would mean money has to be spent ON THE LESS WELL TO DO. Verboten in modern America.
Obama was a change election but we didn’t get change.
Trump was a change election but we didn’t get change. (remember that Obama got re-elected)
I think people still want REAL change, and maybe Trump won’t be given another chance.
The fact that modern media refuses to report the myriad, serpantine, and novel ways the 1% are impoverishing everybody else doesn’t mean the vast majority of people don’t know that they are getting screwed.
Talking points for Bernie Sanders:
27.5 Million Americans cannot afford health insurance, for what it’s worth, and certainly can’t pay cash for medical care.
Our present for profiting off sickness system:
-$2,000+ Covid test kits. If you can get them and they work.
-Gofundme is always an option for the medically bankrupt, or your credit cards, until your are cut off.
Sanders Medicare For All plan will save hundreds of Billion$ and tens of thousands of lives.
“The options laid out by Sen. Sanders last night will more than cover” the cost of Medicare for All, said Yale University’s Alison Galvani, one of the nation’s leading experts on health care financing, and the co-author of a comprehensive report published in The Lancet analyzing the prospect of single-payer health care in the United States.
https://bernie.substack.com/p/breaking-lancet-study-author-says
I think the assumption that the democrat party establishment will crown Biden with the nomination is premature. It is very obvious to everyone that his dementia is getting worse and with months yet to go he will likely have a terrible break down. The media and pundits will be unable to cover it up. When this happens, who would the party give it to, besides Bernie that is?
I wonder how they have gamed out this scenario.
I believe their first and best option is to manufacture enough delegates for Biden so as to enable him “plausibly” to head a unity pairing with Warren or somebody else as VP. Because I don’t think the DNC particulary desires or expects to win with this pairing, it doesn’t matter much for them if Biden falls apart so long as this happens *after* the convention.
But what if Biden’s decline sets in more rapidly and precipitously than expected, so that he becomes *clearly* unable to even go through the motions of campaigning before the convention. In this case I suspect somebody from outside the process will be brought in and Biden will be made to endorse her/him and his/her VP as the “unity” ticket. But I cannot see this scenario going very smoothly…
.WJ
If that is their M.O.
Or are they just initials?
HRC would REALLY hate that.
Biden is surging. Berniecrats are getting discouraged. Maybe that’s the game plan of the DNC: discourage non-voters to do what they always do – not vote.
Berniecrats discouraged? Not this one. Just sent another contribution to Bernie, and one to AOC.
the way it looks to me is that the DNC’s game plan is to encourage everyone to vote third party or not at all…
Wonder how many votes Biden will lose to Bloomberg?
Exact number Bernie loses to Warren?
Waxing senility Old White Guy Joe Biden and Burisma are a daunting Autumn spectre…
RE: NYC ER doctor video interview.
Aiyee! That drove me crazy the way the interviewer news guy leads off with the discovery of penicillin and what great strides in disease control we have made in just 100 years! And links this with the disease caused by a Corona virus. Thereby cementing in certain viewers’ minds the curative powers of antibiotics for flu and the common cold.
If he had started off with Edward Jenner’s discovery, in 1796, of the powers of vaccination in protecting humans against the dreaded smallpox virus, that would have been more appropriate. Or maybe the goal is to sow more confusion in the minds of the public.
The polio and smallpox vaccines were provided free to the entire public. Today they’re talking about maybe making the coronavirus vaccine somewhat affordable.