I have to admit, living in Massachusetts, where coronavirus is definitely a thing, that I only wear a mask indoors. I didn't wear one at the beach, nor do I normally wear one walking around outdoors (maybe if it's really crowded).

If I did accept a mask from some wierd dudes on the beach, I would have to disinfect if first.

Still think he's handling the coronavirus well ? Yeah swine flu was just like this right ? Bird flu? Yeah i guess obama fucked up the usa response just like this right?

Enjoy the leadership ! Look! I get it. If you don't fall in line then the kgb will probably throw you out a window or something. Find a way to reach out to someone. You don't have to be a Russian troll! We can rescue you !

Those would be the arguments that are different but not credible.

You know, arguments like Coronavirus is less dangerous than the flu, won't kill Americans, goes away by April on its own, like anti police assault protesters are terrorists, wearing a mask is like being suffocated by police, handing trillions to businesses and Trump friends will stop a depression, and let's not forget it's all Obama's fault....

Since most liberal positions are based on fact, and the opposing positions based on "Trump said so", it would be perfectly reasonable to mock them.

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Your video, Trump Pretends Coronavirus Doesn’t Exist: A Closer Look, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Congratulations! Your video, Coronavirus: 3 Hidden Killers. w Stephen Fry, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 454 Badge!

Your video, Coronavirus: 3 Hidden Killers. w Stephen Fry, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 454 Badge!

Your video, Trump’s Coronavirus Cover-Up; Bolton’s Tell-All Book, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

FBI report found that antifa has very little to do with the protests, but that doesn't stop Republicans and trump lying about it; that's what Rs do... lie, lie, lie to divert attention away from let's say how poorly trump has done with coronavirus... in deaths per million, we are 182nd worst out of 195 countries

Your video, How coronavirus spreads outdoors vs. indoors, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Obama Speaks Out About Trump’s Coronavirus Failures, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 50 Badge!

good one, bob. always good for dark humor.

i won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said. (borrowed that from bill buckley)

tho' bk, will match your morbid bit with this...

https://www.foxnews.com/media/eric-trump-says-democrats-trying-to-milk-coronavirus-shutdown-media-stoking-fear

...the candles, dad's hat, dim lighting? gives off a memorial vibe. like the big screen will be used to show the father's life in pictures. he's talking from a funeral home, then saying the other party is politicizing the 90K deaths?

shameless.

Your video, Coronavirus VII: Sports: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Trump, Fox Try to Distract from Coronavirus with "Obamagate", has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

"Scientists" who falsify data or skew experiments to get their preconceived results should be ignored and silenced....those who steal from the company they were just fired from deserve jail.

Just read her wiki page...only bat shit crazy conspiracy nuts believe the government and scientific community as a whole conspired to ruin her because she told the truth....She's disgraced because she made repeatedly proven false anti vaccine claims they want ignored, but antivax conspiracy nuts love her. Reality is she's an anti vaxer whose experiments proved to be faked and whose theories are just insane.

Judy Anne Mikovits (c. 1958) is an American anti-vaccination activist, conspiracy theorist and discredited ex-medical researcher. She has made discredited claims about vaccines, coronavirus, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). As research director of CFS research organization Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) from 2006 to 2011, Mikovits led a research effort that reported in 2009 that a retrovirus known as xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was associated with CFS and may have had a causal role. However, the research came under fire, leading to an eventual retraction on December 22, 2011, by the journal Science.

In 2020, Mikovits drew attention online for promoting conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, via the conspiracist YouTube video Plandemic[6] that were fact-checked and found to be either false or not based on scientific evidence.

Mikovits began to look for XMRV in her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome samples. In late 2008, a graduate student, who subsequently was hired as her technician, obtained two positive results from a group of twenty samples. He and Mikovits successively altered the experimental conditions until all samples gave a positive signal.

In 2009, Mikovits and co-workers reported in the journal Science that they had detected XMRV DNA in CFS patients and control subjects. Negative results were published soon after, disputing Mikovits's findings.

She's a fraud. Why else would Bobby love her so much?