Thursday, April 02, 2020
Killing Our Citizens To Own The LIbs
I get the earlier stage of denial, some, but what the fuck.
Hours after Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order Wednesday, he quietly signed a second order to override restrictions put in place by local governments to halt the spread of coronavirus.
The second order states that new state guidelines that take effect Friday morning “shall supersede any conflicting official action or order issued by local officials in response to COVID-19.” In other words, local governments cannot place any limitations that would be more strict than the statewide guidelines.
The Scale Of The Problem
It's big, folks, and occupying time arguing about where the income phaseout for a $1200 check should be and then buggering off for a month... I have to say it, my friends, and I do not say this lightly: that's some malarkey!
Oh, Elon
Elon got a lot of press for promising to build ventilators, then he got a lot of press for promising to provide them (but not necessarily build them), then he got a lot of press for delivering some "ventilators" which are... not. They're BIPAP machines generally for home use to treat sleep apnea and while they can be used to aid people with respiratory distress generally, they are not the type of ventilators hospitals have a shortage of (you could have one delivered tomorrow to your home for a grand or less), and certainly no *substitute* for those ventilators which there is a desperate shortage of, and even in normal times cost a hell of a lot more than a grand.
Keep trying to tell people he's a con man...
Keep trying to tell people he's a con man...
What If We Try Turning It Off And Then On Again
Ultimately what we have to do, but turning it on again is not going to be easy...
But Thinking Makes It So
I'm not sure it's easy to think about an initial claims number as either good or bad, because we can't yet see whether this is an unusually deep downturn or an unusually rapid one. https://t.co/GjRU8exmqD
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) April 2, 2020
Wolfers is a "team D" economist. Sure we just had the entire job loss of the Great Recession in 2 weeks, but maybe it'll just reverse itself quickly!
Economists not yet clear on the consequences of shutting down the entire fucking country.
We are so doomed.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
6.6 million new lucky duckies.
Sounds like a big number? Not much of an economist anymore, but "big" seems right.
Sounds like a big number? Not much of an economist anymore, but "big" seems right.
Wow Who Knew
Evil AND stupid. It is almost always both.
A stunning admission of deadly ignorance from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who says he only just learned that asymptomatic people can transmit #Covid19. “[I]ndividuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt bad, but we didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.” pic.twitter.com/T7NZWk2GDR
— Andisheh Nouraee (@andishehnouraee) April 2, 2020
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Con Man Knows His Marks
"That Atrios is right, these are the dumbest fuckers on the planet" - Trump, maybe https://t.co/XaXfvY96H4
— Crewman Number Guy (@Atrios) April 1, 2020
Doesn't even need to be a good con man because they are the easiest marks.
Stonks
I sorta root for stonks to crater (temporarily) because it's the thing that makes The Powers That Be realize they need to Do Something. Something isn't always good, of course, but we're gonna be amazed at how quickly they decide 25% unemployment is the new normal as long as the rich guys are happy.
Actually, it wasn't the virus that caused The Second Great Depression, it was the release of Animal Crossing. People just loved that game so much they didn't want to go to work anymore! Just lazy.
Actually, it wasn't the virus that caused The Second Great Depression, it was the release of Animal Crossing. People just loved that game so much they didn't want to go to work anymore! Just lazy.
Redeeming Time When Men Think Least I Will.
3 years of Today Is The Day Trump Became President and at a moment when he is *currently* obviously sending medical supplies to favored states, and our great journalists are still anticipating his reformation. Froomkin (read the whole thing):
Elite political reporters keep trying to write about how Trump is changing. But he never will.
Florida Man
A bit too late.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Governor Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday afternoon that the state of Florida is being shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Time Is A Flat Circle
As a working from home person my life is probably less altered than most, but I really do have to check what day it is and while I normally have a very good internal clock and can guess the actual time pretty closely I have no idea anymore.
It's A Stupid Job
There are a lot of not mutually exclusive explanations for the bizarre culture of elite political reporters in this country. I thought Pareene's addition to the list was good, especially in the context of Donald Trump becoming president anew every damn day.
Even if the men are great, it isn't clear what purpose it serves to hear what they say and then dutifully write it down. We can all see Trump's tweets. You don't actually need to repeat them. It's like the joke in Galaxy Quest, where the job of Sigourney Weaver is to simply repeat what the computer says. It's a stupid job, but she's going to do it.
And when the men are not great, when the man is Trump, fitting the racism and stupidity and gibberish into a narrative about Great Men is actively dishonest. It's writing fairy stories.
We're going to find out how much they love the non flag-draped coffins filled, in part, with people they know.
[M]ostly these guys want to be witnesses to Great Men Making History. They want to Respect The Office Of The Presidency.I can imagine that being that close to the rooms where it happens is intoxicating, and the reporters feel like they are a part of history. Even people watching events on teevee somehow feel as if they were participants in them. We all experienced 9/11, somehow, and a bizarre number of people born around 1955 seem to think they marched for civil rights in the 1960s. You. Were. There.
Even if the men are great, it isn't clear what purpose it serves to hear what they say and then dutifully write it down. We can all see Trump's tweets. You don't actually need to repeat them. It's like the joke in Galaxy Quest, where the job of Sigourney Weaver is to simply repeat what the computer says. It's a stupid job, but she's going to do it.
And when the men are not great, when the man is Trump, fitting the racism and stupidity and gibberish into a narrative about Great Men is actively dishonest. It's writing fairy stories.
Here’s another thing you should understand about these guys: The only thing the elite Washington press corps likes more than a bipartisan commission on debt reduction is a stack of flag-draped coffins.
We're going to find out how much they love the non flag-draped coffins filled, in part, with people they know.
Yesterday Was The Day Trump Became President
Even leaving aside the obvious fact that every time Trump doesn't take a dump on stage for 5 minutes they say this about him, who gives a shit about his "tone." His actions are killing people!
How do people give this newspaper money.
Trump sounding different today. Scale of death appears to have changed his tone, at least.
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) March 31, 2020
How do people give this newspaper money.
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