The controversial speech of Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., on the floor of the House of Representatives shows how members can fuel rather than fight hysteria and panic. The incredible scene was played out as the very task force members who she referenced are trying to rebut some alarmist predictions and estimates. Much of the nation is sheltering in place. We get it. However, Rep. Stevens seems intent on elevating not the discussion but the volume of the national discourse.
What was most notable is that Stevens was not saying anything particularly new . . . just saying it louder. Indeed, the Democratic Majority Whip was trying to give her the added 30 seconds that she had asked, but she was yelling over his voice.
Everyone is supporting our health care workers and “taking the disease seriously.” As for “you will see darkness, we could all use a bit more light from our elected officials. Once the yelling ended, Grandpa Abe Simpson seemed to have more a hold of himself in his prophesy scene.
The chair spoke for the entire nation in saying “The gentle lady from Michigan is out of order.”
A prepper is somebody who can’t spell
Survivalist.
— David B Benson
Conservatives Play Down Pandemic For Ideological Reasons
I suspect that the disastrous response to Covid-19 has been shaped less by direct self-interest than by two indirect ways in which pandemic policy gets linked to the general prevalence of zombie ideas in right-wing thought.
First, when you have a political movement almost entirely built around assertions than any expert can tell you are false, you have to cultivate an attitude of disdain toward expertise, one that spills over into everything. Once you dismiss people who look at evidence on the effects of tax cuts and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, you’re already primed to dismiss people who look at evidence on disease transmission.
This also helps explain the centrality of science-hating religious conservatives to modern conservatism, which has played an important role in Trump’s failure to respond.
Second, conservatives do hold one true belief: namely, that there is a kind of halo effect around successful government policies. If public intervention can be effective in one area, they fear — probably rightly — that voters might look more favorably on government intervention in other areas. In principle, public health measures to limit the spread of coronavirus needn’t have much implication for the future of social programs like Medicaid. In practice, the first tends to increase support for the second.
As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with redistributing income, simply because they don’t want voters to see government doing anything well.
Edited From: “Covid 19 Brings Out All The Usual Zombies” by Paul Krugman
Today’s New York Times
“How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19”
“America squandered its best chance of containing the virus because of faulty test kits, red tape and lapses in leadership, interviews show.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html
One of the better comments:
“jackal
Los Angeles7h ago
Times Pick
A central issue here is the arrogance involved in ignoring what public health authorities in countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have done, as well as what China did.
There’s another important intervention – strongly urged by the public health officials and scientists in the Asian countries that have controlled their epidemics – that we in the West continue to ignore and scoff at: wearing masks. Yes, there aren’t enough surgical-style masks to go around. But other countries swear by them, and Taiwan’s government is pumping out 10M masks/ day for the general public. Masks clearly work. We should make it a priority to produce them, teach effective wearing to the public, and make it a cultural norm. It will be an essential part of how we manage this virus in the years to come. Our reticence now is foolish, and will be viewed as such very soon. Again, read the studies and ask why scientists, doctors and authorities in the Asian countries that are handling this crisis well, swear by mask public wearing as a key part of their mitigation strategy. Don’t make the testing mistake again.”
Masks.
“Don’t make the testing mistake again.” -jackal
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/would-everyone-wearing-face-masks-help-us-slow-pandemic
“The president’s re-election campaign is threatening legal action against television stations in key battleground states if they continue to air a Priorities USA ad alleging Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. Guy Cecil of Priorities USA discusses.”
She has a future in cable news.
Or in rugby.
Sorry, but at this point, it is impossible to support the dems. They are crazy in the special kind of way that allows no backtracking. Never voting dem again.
Instead of wasting time here, do something rigorous. For example, learn enough Russian to read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”.
Harder is understanding “The Logic of Chance” by Eugene Koonin. Be sure to read right through including the appendix.
— David B Benson
I’m currently reading an old book, called “Propaganda,” by Edward Bernays.
I’ll check your option out next, since we all have plenty of time now.
“Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.”
— Edward Bernays
That is a great book! IIRC, it was a fave of Joseph Goebbels, who utilized a lot of its techniques.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Dear leader seems to have picked this up a lot. Must be his German roots.
Thanks, Squeeky. I’ll check that one out next. This pandemic has brought some positives too, glass half full thinking. Getting around to some things I have put off forever. Also, a plus.
Re-reading Richard Rhodes’ Dark Sun, as close one can get to an thorough history of thermonuclear weapons and US policy for using them as will fit between one pair of book covers.
Richard Rhodes has to be related to Cecil Rhodes. If not, I’m taking a sword from Cecil’s Knights of the Round Table Affair and thrusting it into the stone. Good luck, cheers
Good luck and health to you, too. I don’t think Mr. Rhodes has recent ancestors outside the US.
The phonetics of Cyrillic aren’t very hard to learn. Once you’ve done that, the number of loanwords in Russian helps the determined student of Russian. I taught myself a fair bit of it in high school.
Watched her again.
The odd thing is that for all her passion she did not say anything.
More heat than light.
She could have worn sandwich boards. “I am scared’ on one side and “Vote for me” on the other.
The Dems seem to be recruiting candidates from homeless shelters.
“You Will See Darkness”
Huh??? Are they cutting off Food Stamps and housing vouchers???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Must be hell for your ilk right now who live in a “shelter in place” state. It’s hard to obtain new white sheets and pillowcases to cut eyeholes in when the stores are all closed.
To the sqeekkk
Squeeks is a prepper with at least a three-month supply.
Yeah, I’m the kinda person who, when my father called, he asked if I had enough bullets. Which I do. If the natives get restless down here, I can defend myself.
In the meantime, plenty of food, and water, plenty of cat food, plenty of basic medical supplies, except masks. I need to stock up on them, but I have been living hermit-like for several years, so I do not come into contact with many people. Mostly Penelope Dreadful and the other office people. But I mostly work from home. A few clients of the firm. An occasional night out with other friends. But that is all slowed down too.
But I was pretty prepared for this.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Oh for crying out loud – Trump pours nonsense and lies several times every single day and all Turley could find was some democratic congresswoman overreacting. But you know, it’s both-side-ism after all. Wonder how many he has written on Trump and his antics lately.
Hutton, you should know that Turley used to write columns noting Trump errors and flights of fancy. But I think a turning point came when William Barr released his dismissal of The Mueller Report. It was about that time that Turley’s notes on Trump errors began to melt away. Though before he reached that point Turley had hailed William Barr as a pillar of integrity.
“Though before he reached that point Turley had hailed William Barr as a pillar of integrity.”
Just has he sang Michael Avenatti’s praises before the truth came to light.
Jonathan doesn’t see some of these folks as they really are. He sees them as he’d like them to be, IMO.
You can’t expect everyone to know everything. It’s called bias…in evidence. He admitted Avenatti was his research assistant and they had a close student-teacher relationship.
Sometimes you think you know someone, and you really don’t, or you do know someone, but over time, they change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But one thing is for sure, people can change, and people do evolve. It is also true that sometimes people never change, and they live and die, with consistency.
I agree with you.
The truth about human nature is that anyone can get pushed to a breaking point, piece by piece.
Like dripping water, or the slow movement of a chip,:: pause: chip,:: pause:: chip.
Death by a 1000 cuts, is the saying…
Sometimes, ppl recover, sometimes, people never do.
But it is true, it doesn’t matter what side of the aisle, you’re one, ppl have good days and bad days, if you’re lucky and blessed, you have more good days than bad days.
But then of course if you yo-yo up and down too much, they call that bipolar, in psychology.
But some level of ups and downs should just be brushed off as human nature, and nothing to be concerned about.
The faces of personality disorders. So true, I watch for these faces to avoid toxicity.
Media lies more than even Trump
Meltdown by JT? What does Fauci have to do with this?
https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1243986390267899905
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
“The problem is that Fauci cannot field worth a damn.” …and the tweet continues:
The tweet — thankfully — has been deleted and will perhaps be rewritten.
Can anyone comprehend the debacle if Nancy had not taken last week off? If the rescue bill had started in the House? Mitch took Nancy to the wood shed with a 96-0 vote. The House has gone from the common people to the illiterate ideologues.
It might be a good time to start thinking about starting from scratch.
Must be a Fox viewer.
The bill did start in the House as almost all revenue bills, taxes (by the constitution) and spending (by tradition) do. That was 15 days ago. The Senate did not take it up until the following week as McConnel had sent everyone home for a long weekend.
“House passes coronavirus economic relief package with Trump’s support
The bipartisan vote sends the legislation to the Senate. It includes paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, free testing, money for food stamps, and more…..”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/13/paid-leave-democrats-trump-deal-coronavirus/
PS The democrats to McConnell to the woodshed. After 3 days of non-stop grousing by Republicans about how they were delaying, the bill was changed to put controls on the $500 billion dollar slush fund to be spent by Mnuchin and Trump with those recieving funds not even having to be named for 6 months. There was also more for workers, states, and medical providers added. That’s how they got from 48-46 (60 needed) to 96-0.
PS The bill passed the House 15 days ago.
Well, that’s your opinion. Here in the real world, we who use logic, reason, objective study, facts, truth and morality, understand that the House of Representatives is composed of a majority which recognizes the peril our beloved country is in with the criminogenic charlatan in chief and his incompetent, sycophantic toadies currently in control of the Executive Branch. However, you, and the other gullible rubes, dupes, klan wannabees, pocket-traitors and grifters on the make who lurk here and cheer on the day glo bozo will enjoy the “free rider syndrome” as we true patriots save our beloved country in November.
this is to “ya, he’s an ignorant, cretinous hustler, but he talks mean to the darkies” craig
As ever, Correct-the-Record is not sending us their best.
DSS – I am going out on a limb here, however Correct-the-Record has sent its best. They just have a low hiring bar. 😉