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Politics: Biden, Brexit and Beyond
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The silly thing about that is that even when resisting stronger controls and allowing the pandemic to spread they didn’t manage to stop the economy from being fucked, so part of me thinks they might as well have just gone for it whole hog, rather than ending up with the worst of both worlds.
Depends on whose perspective of which economy, though.
Billionaires are profiting from a pandemic | COMMENTARY – Baltimore Sun
Since the start of the pandemic, American billionaires have been cleaning up. As more than 50 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, billionaires became $637 billion richer. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth has ballooned by 59%. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ wealth has increased by 39%. Walmart’s Walton family has added $25 billion.
Big drug company CEOs and their major investors are doing nicely, too. Since the start of the pandemic, Big Pharma has raised prices on 245 prescription drugs, 61 of which are being used to treat COVID-19.
Apologists say this is the “free market” responding to supply and demand — the barons of Big Tech, online retail and Big Pharma merely providing what consumers desperately need during the pandemic.
But the market also operates under laws that ban profiteering, price gouging and monopolizing, and that tax excess profits in wartime. Where did these laws go? The Trump administration hasn’t enforced them.
Donald Trump is also ignoring laws that ban trades on insider information. The White House is distributing billions in subsidies and loans to select corporations — enabling CEOs and boards to load up on stocks and stock options just before deals are announced, then rake in fat profits after stock prices surge.
Insiders from at least 11 companies have sold shares worth more than $1 billion after such announcements, according to an analysis by the New York Times…
Crises have proven to be opportunities for a certain minority in certain financially favorable positions AND many of our elected representatives are also in that minority with regulators appointed that are part of or want to join that club.
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The silly thing about that is that even when resisting stronger controls and allowing the pandemic to spread they didn’t manage to stop the economy from being fucked, so part of me thinks they might as well have just gone for it whole hog, rather than ending up with the worst of both worlds.
It’s true that I think there’s always been a fallacy in tying the idea of the tightness of controls to the economy in very simplistic terms. It seems to work on the assumption that there’s a workable option where you can just ignore the pandemic is happening, which doesn’t exist.
People will make their own risk assessments so even when cinemas were open in July and August when the Covid rates had fallen the numbers attending were hugely down, not because people were being told they couldn’t go but they were choosing not to. It’s easy to forget now but all the initial sporting event cancellations in the UK were voluntary. Premier League and 6 Nations games that generate enormous money were closed down by their governing bodies, not the government.
Then you get the east Asian response where they shut down very strictly to begin but that means most businesses are open now when they aren’t in countries that initially took a softer approach. So in that case it’s how the pain is spread out more than preventing any.
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Or the government deciding to leave it up to individual decisions.
Recent news seem to suggest that the Swedish strategy of leaving it up to people with as little mandatory measures as possible has not worked out so well. What’s your impression of people’s mood in general? Are they still in favour of the strategy?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32750-1/fulltext
In the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swedish national response continues to be an outlier with cases and deaths increasing more rapidly than in its Nordic neighbours.1, 2 On Dec 20, 2020, COVID-19 deaths in Sweden had reached more than 80003 or 787 deaths per 1 million population, which is 4·5 to ten times higher than its neighbours.1, 2, 3 This difference between Nordic countries cannot be explained merely by variations in national cultures, histories, population sizes and densities, immigration patterns, the routes by which the virus was first introduced, or how cases and deaths are reported. Instead, the answers to this enigma are to be found in the Swedish national COVID-19 strategy, the assumptions on which it is based, and in the governance of the health system that has enabled the strategy to continue without major course corrections.
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Recent news seem to suggest that the Swedish strategy of leaving it up to people with as little mandatory measures as possible has not worked out so well. What’s your impression of people’s mood in general? Are they still in favour of the strategy?
Then your media outlet is bullshit because that’s never what happened. The strategy wasn’t “herd immunity”. That is a media fabrication. The entire concept of a strategy is more or less wishful thinking, seeing as “the strategy” was calming people down by politely asking them to stay 1,5m apart, not go out, et cetera. Politely asking.
(Granted, there have been extensive easing on the demands set upon people who are unemployed to get their benefits and the likes, and a lot of government agencys have gone into work-from-home-mode in as much is possible.)
Anything other than politely asking is impossible because the freedom of movement is a constitutional right here. There is some leg room in which the government can order businesses like restaurants and the like to close down. For that to work, it needs to be signed into law and there needs to be a clearly defined time-limit (if I understand it correctly). We even had one of those but scope of it, the time, ran out on that in… hmmm… June? Or some shit, I don’t know.
Early January they’re set to discuss a new “Pandemic law” that might sort this out but that’s frankly too little too late.
To answer your questions; I have no idea what peoples moods or opinions on the not-a-strategy are. I literally hang out with like six people and only read local news sporadically. But I THINK that trust in the Löfven-government is kinda low while at the same time maybe not. This is a health crisis, and the Social Democrats dominate health issues.
My mood is: Too little too late. I believe they should’ve done more. Assumed more responsibility and chucked the polite part of asking people to stay the fuck at home thing right out the window. Contrary to popular belief Swedish people like do to what their told (or so I’m told (SEE!)). From my point of view the government downplayed the threat at first, and the media helped them, making up shit like “Swedish strategy” and “Herd Immunity” and shit. None of that should’ve happened. We could’ve done with some fearful austerity and martial law.
TLDR: Fuck all of them! Send guillotines.
Maybe ask Tobias?
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That isn’t what’s generally being reported, sorry if I gave that impression – I was thinking exactly along the lines of politely asking instead of using mandatory measures.
Ah, right. Sorry if you got the impression i was mad at ya.
I read so much misrepresentation about what the Swedish approach is and or was and why it is and or was whatever it is and or was (not to mention what and or why it isn’t and or wasn’t) I get kind of worked up about it.
(Holy shit, I think that’s one of the best sentences I’ve written all year.)
Yeah, that’s what I thought. I mean, it’d be nice if explaining things to people and then giving them the choice worked, but it also makes it harder all over.
It’s a global crisis. We don’t always need to understand, only comply.
Right, ed?
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The silly thing about that is that even when resisting stronger controls and allowing the pandemic to spread they didn’t manage to stop the economy from being fucked, so part of me thinks they might as well have just gone for it whole hog, rather than ending up with the worst of both worlds.
I think it’s interesting to note that the people who think the virus danger is hugely exaggerated and the people who think the virus is an existential threat to human civilization think the UK government did the worst possible thing(s).
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Britons! For you to have your Brexit you must sacrifice….
The Calais Booze Cruise!
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So, it turns out that Germany bought way, way too few doses of the Biontec vaccine in spite of having been offered enough to vaccinate everybody. And now we only have doses to vaccinate like 15 million people until mid-year. And this with Biontec being a German firm. It’s mindboggling.
This is apparently wrapped up in what doses were bought EU-wide, and there’s been allegations that we only bought so few Biontec doses because the same number of doses had to be bought from a French firm because they didn’t want all that money to only go to a German firm. Which if true should lead to some heads rolling…
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So, it turns out that Germany bought way, way too few doses of the Biontec vaccine
That is stupefying, just like the US passing on an opportunity to double their initial order of vaccine from Pfizer/Biontech:
Trump passes on ordering additional Pfizer vaccinesBut at least in Trump’s case, he had a very good reason for making that decision: Trump has ties to drugmaker Regeneron
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This is apparently wrapped up in what doses were bought EU-wide, and there’s been allegations that we only bought so few Biontec doses because the same number of doses had to be bought from a French firm because they didn’t want all that money to only go to a German firm.
Bloody EU. Have you thought about Taking Back Control ™ ?
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For a change the Germans seem to be ballsing this aspect up more than the UK. I was also reading about wrong doses given and some getting too warm and being destroyed.
How many of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine did Germany reserve? Looks like that is going to be approved in the next day or two by the UK and is much easier and cheaper to produce.
Malaysia seem to have ordered fairly even distributions of Pfizer/Biontech, Astra-Zeneca and China’s Sinovac but not much is going to get done until the second quarter of 2021 it seems because we’re down the pecking order of world powers (but a lot higher than many countries who are solely relying on Covax and could be waiting another year).
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It uses a more traditional ‘low dosage’ method than the Biontech and Moderna ones which use some new fangled DNA system. So I read each dose is $3 rather than $20+ and it can be stored at normal fridge temperatures rather than deep freezing so much easier to distribute.
A quick Google says it seems to be pretty vital:
Whether EU countries will meet their immunisation targets in the summer hinges on the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical sold an order of up to 400 million doses to the EC in August .
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Speaking of the British Empire, how in the world can British Gibraltar remain after Brexit? Gibraltar’s border with Spain still in doubt after Brexit (apnews.com) The article leaves me with the impression that they just want to pretend that Brexit didn’t happen and try to convince the EU, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it did.
Gibraltar is a very weird place, I visited last year. Pretty much only British people live there but loads of Spaniards go in and work there daily. It makes absolutely no compromise to its location, although a large section of the people there speak it you won’t see a word of Spanish anywhere. You’ll sit in a British pub with BBC on the TV being served fish and chips and steak and kidney pie by Spanish ladies who you’ll pay in pounds and pence. It’s like being in a small British town – albeit one that looks out on the coast of Africa with lots of Spanish workers.
How will it remain British after Brexit? Probably through practical concerns. While the article says 96% voted to remain in the EU, 99% in a different referendum voted to remain British. Spain could cut it off and make life very difficult but they also have those people who work there who’d suffer if they did.
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It’s also really tiny, 2.6 square miles. The border runs alongside the airport runway in this pic.
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It’s also really tiny, 2.6 square miles. The border runs alongside the airport runway in this pic.
One time I was there we had to wait for a plane to land before we could actually cross onto the Rock.
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Michael Sheen is a personal hero. I also know his dad.
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Not that it matters, I think we can kill them indiscriminately.
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Michael Sheen is a personal hero. I also know his dad.
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Michael Sheen is a personal hero. I also know his dad.
He’s not polish, he’s welsh.
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Speaking of the British Empire, how in the world can British Gibraltar remain after Brexit?
I just saw that a deal has been made on this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55497084
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From that:
The plan is to have a six-month transition period and then formalise the new arrangements with a treaty.
Someone’s getting sold a bridge by Johnson.
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I saw something where Johnson’s dad is try to get French citizenship to avoid the Brexit shitshow.
Nigel Farage tried to get German citizenship post-Brexit referendum on account of his wife being German, but his application was rejected.
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Nigel Farage tried to get German citizenship post-Brexit referendum on account of his wife being German, but his application was rejected.
That’s interesting. I wonder on what grounds they rejected it. Germans stereotypically are pretty scrupulous about the rules and such.
If I had to guess, it was that they were already over-supplied in the smarmy slimeball category. There was really no demand for another one.
What exactly is Farage’s profession? What’s his job? How’s he make a living?
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I saw something where Johnson’s dad is try to get French citizenship to avoid the Brexit shitshow.
Johnson’s dad though actually went against his son and campaigned for ‘remain’ in the referendum. I hate him either way, he has a horrible sense of entitlement constantly breaking Covid rules, but the move isn’t quite as hypocritical from him as it first appears.
That’s interesting. I wonder on what grounds they rejected it
It’s pretty unusual to grant citizenship to a spouse unless they are resident there for a period of time. It’s a bit of a cliche of fiction that you marry a stranger and automatically get a passport but I know that isn’t the case in the many I’ve seen and a quick Google says in Germany you are eligible after 3 years of permanent residence. As far as I’m aware he’s only lived in the UK and Belgium (where the EU parliament is).
It’s usually only automatic if you have a parent from that country (or grandparent in the case of Ireland). The US a slight outlier as it goes more with place of birth than blood ties.
Also Farage and his German wife have split now, he has a French girlfriend instead.
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Merry Brexit Day or, as I’m calling it “do all those foreign websites I occasionally import things from still ship to the UK given the new import VAT rules that came in overnight day”. Not a catchy name, I’ll admit.
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How much did it cost you to post that, Martin?
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What exactly is Farage’s profession? What’s his job? How’s he make a living?
He’s been a member of the EU parliament for twenty years. Kinda killed his own job there.
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What exactly is Farage’s profession? What’s his job? How’s he make a living?
He’s been a member of the EU parliament for twenty years. Kinda killed his own job there.
Like that guy on Sky News the other day who was talking about how he was going to have to shut down his Eel farm because his European customers were going elsewhere on account of the changes in import duty, and he wasn’t getting new customers from around the world to replace them. Of course he voted Leave, was a huge UKIP supporter, and was quoted as saying “this isn’t what I voted for” on the news.
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Also Farage and his German wife have split now, he has a French girlfriend instead.
That seems like a tactical error. He’d have more chance of getting citizenship from a Belgian.
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Of course he voted Leave, was a huge UKIP supporter, and was quoted as saying “this isn’t what I voted for” on the news.
He’s been getting a lot of ridicule and “serve him right” comments, which I think is unfair. We should be sympathising with him exactly as we would with any other person who was the unwitting victim of a slick con-artist, and saving our anger for the real criminals.
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Good question @allisonpearson! What did they do in China and Wuhan that has allowed them to get back to normal? pic.twitter.com/oLOtKg1suG
— Sam Bowman (@s8mb) January 1, 2021
Worth a click to read the full thread.
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Of course he voted Leave, was a huge UKIP supporter, and was quoted as saying “this isn’t what I voted for” on the news.
He’s been getting a lot of ridicule and “serve him right” comments, which I think is unfair. We should be sympathising with him exactly as we would with any other person who was the unwitting victim of a slick con-artist, and saving our anger for the real criminals.
Absolutely. And as I understand it, he’s a literal millionaire, so he’ll be fine. There’s not much schadenfreude to be had there Any employees he has are fucked though
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We should be sympathising with him exactly as we would with any other person who was the unwitting victim of a slick con-artist, and saving our anger for the real criminals.
Well, to be fair, I’d be fairly non-sympathetic towards any victimg of a con-artist if the con was based on the victim’s xenophobia and patriotic arrogance. That’s the moment in a caper movie where you’re thinking, serves the fucker right!
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Like that guy on Sky News the other day who was talking about how he was going to have to shut down his Eel farm because his European customers were going elsewhere on account of the changes in import duty, and he wasn’t getting new customers from around the world to replace them. Of course he voted Leave, was a huge UKIP supporter, and was quoted as saying “this isn’t what I voted for” on the news.
My favorite was the florist, another Brexit supporter, who routinely drives his van to France to pick up fresh cut flowers to bring back to his shop. He was interviewed while he was stuck in a long customs line on his return, watching his shipment of flowers (that he now has to pay extra duty on) wilt in the back of his van.
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We should be sympathising with him exactly as we would with any other person who was the unwitting victim of a slick con-artist, and saving our anger for the real criminals.
Well, to be fair, I’d be fairly non-sympathetic towards any victimg of a con-artist if the con was based on the victim’s xenophobia and patriotic arrogance. That’s the moment in a caper movie where you’re thinking, serves the fucker right!
Yeah, exactly. People who get conned by having the compassion or loneliness of faith in human nature played upon are sympathetic. People who get conned by having their greed, xenophobia and jingoism played upon deserve no sympathy.
I did a quick survey of a few websites I could think of off the top of my head regarding the new import VAT rules. AliExpress and Amazon US both calculate VAT as you order (which Amazon sort of did before with the import fees deposit but not quite). A couple of t-shirt sites and a miniatures site I tried had no obvious changes. 80sTees though have seemingly removed the UK from their country list when you go to check out (and they definitely shipped here before).
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We should be sympathising with him exactly as we would with any other person who was the unwitting victim of a slick con-artist, and saving our anger for the real criminals.
Well, to be fair, I’d be fairly non-sympathetic towards any victimg of a con-artist if the con was based on the victim’s xenophobia and patriotic arrogance. That’s the moment in a caper movie where you’re thinking, serves the fucker right!
Yeah, exactly. People who get conned by having the compassion or loneliness of faith in human nature played upon are sympathetic. People who get conned by having their greed, xenophobia and jingoism played upon deserve no sympathy.
I did a quick survey of a few websites I could think of off the top of my head regarding the new import VAT rules. AliExpress and Amazon US both calculate VAT as you order (which Amazon sort of did before with the import fees deposit but not quite). A couple of t-shirt sites and a miniatures site I tried had no obvious changes. 80sTees though have seemingly removed the UK from their country list when you go to check out (and they definitely shipped here before).
If you order it to me instead, I’ll send stuff to you from here. As gifts. You’ll have to supply money for the extra shipping though. And pray we don’t have the same t-shirt size. Or taste in books.
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Yeah, exactly. People who get conned by having the compassion or loneliness of faith in human nature played upon are sympathetic. People who get conned by having their greed, xenophobia and jingoism played upon deserve no sympathy.
There is the old saying “you can’t con an honest person.” Also, obviously in most con jobs, the people who profit the most from whatever scam eventually falls apart are not the people charged with the crimes and go to jail. Many times the real criminals are the ones who profit from the scams and then claim to be victims of it when it’s discovered.
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Secret Service Switching Up Agents Over Worries About Trump Allegiances: Report
The Secret Service is shaking up assignments for President-elect Joe Biden’s detail because of concerns about some agents’ worrisome ties to Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported.
Biden supporters have expressed fears that some agents are too closely politically aligned with the outgoing president, sources told the Post.
Some senior officers who previously protected Biden when he was vice president will be called back to the White House to again be part of the contingent assigned to him, according to the Post.
In an example of the concerns that spurred the change, one agent assigned to Trump was allowed to take a leave to become a White House political aide and became enmeshed in a particularly contentious, controversial incident marking his presidency. Anthony Ornato, who worked as White House deputy chief of staff earlier this year, helped arrange the photo opportunity in June when Trump posed with a Bible across Lafayette Square in Washington as peaceful protesters were attacked by federal officers. The protests had been sparked by the police killing of George Floyd days earlier in Minneapolis.
Ornato also helped arrange Trump’s dangerous political rallies where — often in violation of local laws — maskless supporters were jammed elbow to elbow. The rallies were linked to COVID-19 case spikes and deaths from the disease.
In another instance, Secret Service agents assigned to Trump tried to persuade their colleagues not to wear masks on trips in order to please the president, contradicting recommendations from administration health experts, the Post has previously reported.
More than 130 Secret Service officers who helped protect Trump and Vice President Mike Pence either tested positive for COVID-19 or were forced to quarantine because of contact with infected co-workers, the Post reported last month.
The change in Biden’s protective detail will give him the “comfort of the familiar,” a former Secret Service executive told the Post. “You want him to be with people he knows and trusts, and who also know how he operates.”
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In a first, Congress overrides Trump veto of defense bill
Congress has overridden President Donald Trump’s veto of a defense policy bill, a first by lawmakers since he took office nearly four years ago.
In an extraordinary New Year’s Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump’s objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a stinging rebuke just weeks before his term ends.
Congress has overridden President Donald Trump’s veto of a defense policy bill, a first by lawmakers since he took office nearly four years ago.
In an extraordinary New Year’s Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump’s objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a stinging rebuke just weeks before his term ends.
Trump had lashed out at GOP lawmakers on Twitter, charging earlier this week that “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass.″
Trump called the looming override vote a “disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to Big Tech. Negotiate a better Bill, or get better leaders, NOW!”
The 81-13 vote in the Senate followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House of the widely popular defense measure. The bill provides a 3% pay raise for U.S. troops and guides defense policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals. Many programs, including military construction, can only go into effect if the bill is approved.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said before the vote that Congress has passed the National Defense Authorization Act every year for 59 years in a row, “and one way or another, we are going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday.‘‘
The bill “looks after our brave men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform,‘’ McConnell said. “But it’s also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad. It’s our chance to ensure we keep pace with competitors like Russia and China.‘‘
The Senate override was delayed after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., objected to moving ahead until McConnell allowed a vote on a Trump-backed plan to increase COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000. McConnell did not allow that vote; instead he used his parliamentary power to set a vote limiting debate on the defense measure, overcoming a filibuster threat by Sanders and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
Without a bipartisan agreement, a vote on the bill could have been delayed until Saturday night. Lawmakers, however, agreed to an immediate roll call Friday once the filibuster threat was stopped.
Trump rejected the defense measure last week, saying it failed to limit social media companies he claimed were biased against him during his failed reelection campaign. Trump also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honor Confederate leaders.
There was no immediate comment Friday from Trump or the White House.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was “disappointed” with Trump’s veto and called the bill “absolutely vital to our national security and our troops.″
“This is the most important bill we have,″ Inhofe said. “It puts members of the military first.″
Trump has succeeded throughout his four-year term in enforcing party discipline in Congress, with few Republicans willing to publicly oppose him. The bipartisan overrides on the defense bill showed the limits of Trump’s influence in the final weeks of his term.
Earlier this week, 130 House Republicans voted against the Trump-backed COVID relief checks, with many arguing they were unnecessary and would increase the federal budget deficit.
The Democratic-controlled House approved the larger payments, but the plan is all but dead in the Senate, another sign of Trump’s fading hold over Congress.
Besides his concerns about social media and military base names, Trump also said the defense bill restricted his ability to conduct foreign policy, “particularly my efforts to bring our troops home.″ Trump was referring to provisions in the bill that impose conditions on his plan to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Germany. The measures require the Pentagon to submit reports certifying that the proposed withdrawals would not jeopardize U.S. national security.
Trump has vetoed eight other bills, but those were all sustained because supporters did not gain the two-thirds vote needed in each chamber for the bills to become law without Trump’s signature.
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Trump’s Dec. 23 veto a “parting gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin “and a lump of coal for our troops. Donald Trump is showing more devotion to Confederate base names than to the men and women who defend our nation.″
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Starting not to care about Trump anymore, eh? About fucking time. But it’s interesting that this is happening before the Georgia runoff elections are done with. Trump is supposed to hold a rally on January 4th in Georgia to give Republican voters a push. Knowing Trump, I wonder if he’s even going to do that anymore now. Or if he does, whether they’re safe from him going off on the GOP on stage.
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Starting not to care about Trump anymore, eh? About fucking time. But it’s interesting that this is happening before the Georgia runoff elections are done with. Trump is supposed to hold a rally on January 4th in Georgia to give Republican voters a push. Knowing Trump, I wonder if he’s even going to do that anymore now. Or if he does, whether they’re safe from him going off on the GOP on stage.
Knowing Trump he is definitely going to hold that rally. Man needs sustenance, and the adoration of the willfully ignorant is his favourite kind.
Whether or not that rally will be to the detriment of the GOP, however, remains to be seen.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky
Mitch McConnel is R Kelly?
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Starting not to care about Trump anymore, eh? About fucking time. But it’s interesting that this is happening before the Georgia runoff elections are done with. Trump is supposed to hold a rally on January 4th in Georgia to give Republican voters a push. Knowing Trump, I wonder if he’s even going to do that anymore now. Or if he does, whether they’re safe from him going off on the GOP on stage.
He may still throw a rally, but his messaging on the run-offs has been all over the place. From don’t forget to vote for Loeffler and Purdue to these run-offs are illegal and rigged. It’s hard to say if he’s helping or hurting their chances at this point. Fingers crossed his erratic nonsense of yelling fraud deters just enough people to help both Dems win. It’s a bit of a longshot, but it sure would be nice to see McConnell demoted. If only for a couple of years.
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It throws in so many variables. I mean the polling would suggest the Dems win one and lose one but I did hear audio of Republicans at a rally saying they wouldn’t vote as it’s rigged. We can’t know how many would do that. Will Democrats be fired up to get a tie in the Senate or be less enthused to turn out because Trump is beaten which was the big narrative?
It’s very hard nowadays to change minds so the battle is really about who can turn out the most voters. With that in mind I tend to think the more Trump does get involved the better it would be for the Republican candidates, as much we may not like it he does get his base out.
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Well, the image below from The Guardian proves that, no matter what else is happening, Ministers always have time to pose for vapid, wannabe-macho photos:
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There is just no way of telling if this is true or not.
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Wait, has Trump just been watching Rattatoulie?
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Well done for correctly identifying the joke, David.
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Reading the new lockdown rules for England.
“Exercise with one other person from a different household is permitted”
Why? Just… why? Is it because it’s unsafe for upperclass twits to play horse polo solo?
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What it is is arrogant stupidity that ensures this lockdown will fail before its begun.
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Looking from the outside the various ‘exercise’ clauses in the UK seem to have been a back door to cheating the restrictions from the start. In the original lockdown I chuckled at the calls to increase to 2 hours a day as if anyone other than pro athletes are training for 14 hours solid a week. There’s no ‘need’ to exercise with another household, it’s just code to jog a little and meet up at the park.
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The easiest way round the restrictions is to become a Premier League footballer, then you can exercise for as long as you want with as many people as you need.
Well, I assume it’s easy to become a Premier League footballer. I’ve never tried it but it looks like all you need to do is run about a bit and then roll over clutching your knee
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As long as people keep a 2m distance and stay outdoors, I have no problem with them exercising together for as long as they like. “Exercise” doesn’t mean “training,” it can mean going for a walk. And if you don’t have to go to work, who *wouldn’t* want to go for long walks or bike rides.
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“Exercise” doesn’t mean “training,” it can mean
buying cocaine, having an affair, breaking into a closed shop, conning money out of exercisers, beating up a faggot or threatening a foreigner – the possibilities are endless!
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buying cocaine, having an affair, breaking into a closed shop, conning money out of exercisers, beating up a faggot or threatening a foreigner
What a two hours that was!
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In related Trump News…Liz Cheney released a 21 page memo detailing all of the dismissed attempts to overturn this election as she calls out those in her party attempting to challenge the results. It’s a hell of a world we’re in when Liz fucking Cheney comes off as one of the more reasonable members of the GOP.
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@BRUCE, look who may be coming to visit you!
I love the response from Scottish leadership:
Scottish Leaders on Trump Trip Rumors: Stay the Hell Away, Unless You’re Bringing Tax Records
I’m glad he’s staying out of the European Union.
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In related Trump News…Liz Cheney released a 21 page memo detailing all of the dismissed attempts to overturn this election as she calls out those in her party attempting to challenge the results. It’s a hell of a world we’re in when Liz fucking Cheney comes off as one of the more reasonable members of the GOP.
Hell, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were among the Defense Secretaries who signed the letter telling Trump to accept the results of the election and stop fighting it.
Welcome to the asylum.
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I couldn’t help myself. Will you forgive me?
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@BRUCE, look who may be coming to visit you!
I love the response from Scottish leadership:
Scottish Leaders on Trump Trip Rumors: Stay the Hell Away, Unless You’re Bringing Tax Records
4 users thanked author for this post.
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@BRUCE, look who may be coming to visit you!
I love the response from Scottish leadership:
Scottish Leaders on Trump Trip Rumors: Stay the Hell Away, Unless You’re Bringing Tax Records
If he should happen to taint the soil of your great country, I hope there is a line of people holding signs like that so that shows up on every newsfeed when they show him landing.
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“Vaccinate Britain”.
The NHS thinks it can increase the current rate of vaccination to 2 million a month. (The government promises more, but the government routinely pulls unsubstantiated numbers out of its ass so I’ll go with the NHS estimate on this.)
At 2 doses per person, we need roughly 130 million vaccinations to vaccinate Britain.
Hold on, I’ll use a calculator to check my maths on this…
… 65 months.
Five and a half years to vaccinate Britain. Kier Starmer might want to re-think his “simple contract”.
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I just scrape into group 8. And I forget the exact numbers in each of those groups, but there’s something like 30 million people ahead of me. So I should be safe some time in 2024. Or dead. One or the other. Statistically, probably dead I think.
I mean, I might as well be an anti-vaxxer because it won’t make any difference
*evil thought* … become a very loud, very persuasive anti-vaxxer to convince people ahead of you to decline the jab and move you up the list…
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I just scrape into group 8. And I forget the exact numbers in each of those groups, but there’s something like 30 million people ahead of me. So I should be safe some time in 2024. Or dead. One or the other. Statistically, probably dead I think.
I mean, I might as well be an anti-vaxxer because it won’t make any difference
*evil thought* … become a very loud, very persuasive anti-vaxxer to convince people ahead of you to decline the jab and move you up the list…
Just get a job at a hospital, you’ll be fine.
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I opened a new tab to google the word “centrist”.
My fingers typed the word “nazi”.
I’ve never felt so proud.
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I asked our fire chief if his people had gotten the vaccine yet. He said most did but about 7-8 didn’t. One didn’t for religious reasons and the others wanted to “wait and see”. He expects all of them to eventually get the vaccine.
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Starmer was saying the day before schools went back that it was inevitable that more would have to close. Then the government briefing that they were going to close schools began halfway through the next day, the day that primary school kids had already gone back. The fucking idiots.
I feel fairly strongly about this as my wife and I had to make the decision on Sunday night whether to send our young kids into school the next day, which led to a good deal of heartache and a sleepless night for both of us. But despite our worries and concerns, we ultimately did let them go in on Monday, as we didn’t want to keep them away from the school environment and their education indefinitely if the schools were staying open (and our school has been very good at observing hygiene measures and keeping the kids safe – over the entire autumn term just two class bubbles had to self isolate for a fortnight as a precaution. All other teaching was uninterrupted and they did a fantastic job under difficult circumstances.)
So to have Johnson then come out on the Monday night and furrow his brow and gravely tell us all that primary schools had to be shut as they were a vector for transmission – the very day that he’s let all the kids go back and mix, against all calls to the contrary, shortly after a Christmas that has seen many families dangerously take advantage of relaxed restrictions enabled by the government’s own policy on multiple-household contact over the festive period – was massively galling, and I felt like I’d been taken for an absolute mug.
Making that decision a day earlier – even 12 hours earlier – would have saved all those kids from going back and enabling further spread of the virus. The timing of these decisions counts, and this one counted a lot.
And Starmer did in fact say on the Sunday, the day before term started that it was pretty clear that schools would have to be further closed down, in harmony with a lot of other major teaching unions and education authorities. All before the kids went back the next morning, and more than a day before Johnson announced that it would happen, on the Monday night. By which time the horse has bolted.
So trying to use the whole debacle to make a party political point aimed at undermining Starmer’s position on this is, to my mind, a case of not being able to see the massive fucking continent-sized rainforest for the trees.
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“Vaccinate Britain”.
The NHS thinks it can increase the current rate of vaccination to 2 million a month. (The government promises more, but the government routinely pulls unsubstantiated numbers out of its ass so I’ll go with the NHS estimate on this.)
At 2 doses per person, we need roughly 130 million vaccinations to vaccinate Britain.
Hold on, I’ll use a calculator to check my maths on this…
… 65 months.
Five and a half years to vaccinate Britain. Kier Starmer might want to re-think his “simple contract”.
The figure being thrown around is 2 million per week, not per month.
Around a million vaccine doses were already administered in the first month of availability, and that was only the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Now multiple vaccines are available.
Regardless, vaccine production/availability is still the main barrier to mass vaccination at the moment, not the infrastructure needed to deliver it.
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Democrats moved one victory closer to exceedingly narrow control of the Senate on Wednesday after winning one runoff election in Georgia and remaining ahead as votes continue to be counted in another.
Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, a pastor from Atlanta, defeated GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler after a bitter campaign. Warnock becomes the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from a Southern state.
The win brings Democrats to 49 seats in the Senate with one race remaining. If Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old Democrat challenging Republican David Perdue, holds his early Wednesday lead, the Senate will be in a 50-50 tie. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker, giving Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House for the first time since 2011.
Ossoff’s narrow lead — about 16,000 votes early Wednesday — left the race too close to call despite he and Warnock campaigning together. If his lead holds, Ossoff will become the youngest sitting senator and the first Jewish senator from Georgia. Although the race hasn’t yet been called, Ossoff claimed victory Wednesday morning.
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So if Ossoff holds on to win his Senate race, which appears pretty likely right now, the Dems basically owe Stacy Abrams big time. It’s highly doubtful Georgia would have turned blue without her effort. If the results keep trending the way they are, Stacy Abrams should be a damn hero to the left for getting control of the Senate away from McConnell (if only for a couple years).
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the first Jewish senator from Georgia.
Mcconnell loses majority postiton
hmm, this sounds familiar3 users thanked author for this post.
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So… when’s the re-election? This was obviously fraudulent.
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So trying to use the whole debacle to make a party political point aimed at undermining Starmer’s position on this is, to my mind, a case of not being able to see the massive fucking continent-sized rainforest for the trees.
I mean, that suggests that Starmer has a position that can be undermined.
From the detached position of not being a parent, I have a lot of anger towards the handling of schools in both the UK and Ireland, because over here it feels like they’re being kept open at times to provide child care so people now working from home remain as productive as possible, as opposed to decisions being made with the health of parents and children in mind. An Opposition Leader should be asking hard questions and demanding uncomfortable answers of the government, and it feels like Starmer’s unwilling to do anything unless he thinks it’s going to be popular. I think it was Tony Benn who described people like that as less a roadsign and more a weathervane?
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The figure being thrown around is 2 million per week, not per month.
They do like to throw big targets around. I suspect though they will catch up to at least get closer to those targets and it won’t take the several years the current rate would indicate. While being incompetent generally they did eventually catch up with their testing numbers. Apart from a blip when supplies ran out for a short while it’s not being raised as an issue any more that people can’t get tested.
It’s then measuring the results, if it’s as effective as is hoped then hospitalisations will drop as they run down that priority list, according to ONS figures on the BBC if you get to number 5 (the over 65s) that covers more than 90% of the deaths so far. The only easy metric is by age at 90% so adding in the care/front line workers and those with underlying conditions would take it over that.
The stats also show that there are just under 3m people aged 80 or over in the UK, if they could manage those in the next few weeks (plus the couple of weeks needed to fully build up the immunity) then we’ll be able to see how much that demographic reduces in various stats on testing and hospitalisation relatively soon.
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