Tag: Pandemic

Herman Cain Dies of Covid Caught at the Trump Rally

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At Tulsa, No Mask

Where the former Presidential candidate actually caught the virus is not certain, but the timing of his infections strongly implies that he caught the virus at Trump’s Tulsa campaign rally:

Herman Cain, who rose from poverty in the segregated South to become chief executive of a successful pizza chain and then thrust himself into the national spotlight by seeking the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has died. He was 74.

His death was announced on Thursday on his website and on social media accounts. It did not say precisely when or where he died. Dan Calabrese, the website’s editor, attributed the death to the coronavirus, which President Trump, in a White House briefing, later referred to as the “China virus” and a “horrible plague” in affirming it as the cause.

Mr. Cain had been hospitalized in the Atlanta area this month after testing positive for the virus on June 29.

………

Mr. Cain had attended President Trump’s indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20 and had done “a lot of traveling” recently, Mr. Calabrese said.

“I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected,” he said at the time. “We’ll never know.”

I am not a fan of Mr. Cain, and the opportunity for meming this tempting, but I’m not going to go there.

Just wear your f%$#ing mask, OK?

Stupid and an Asshole to His Staff

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PLAYBOOK PM: After we reported that @replouiegohmert was positive, we got an email from a Gohmert aide. pic.twitter.com/x31CSOdkLf

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 29, 2020

The big news is that Louie Gohmert has tested positive for Covid-19, and the distinguished gentleman with nothing between his ears but a shock absorber is blaming the few times he wore a mask for catching the disease.

This guy is stupid. Really stupid. Really, really, really, really stupid.

That’s not what matters in Congress.

Hubert Humphrey was generally considered to be one of the smartest men, if not the smartest man, in the Senate during his tenure there, and he was also known to be hamstrung by low quality staff.

In comparison, Teddy Kennedy was known for his ability to recruit and sustain an absolutely first rate staff, and arguably got a lot more done, despite generally not being considered a particularly noteworthy intellect.*

A significant portion of Louie Gohmert’s staff HATE him.

If they didn’t, you would not see leaks like this.

If his staff views him with this level of hostility, he cannot deliver, either on the national level, or in his district.

While this does not make him vulnerable to a Democratic Party challenge in the general election, TX-1 has a PV of R+25, it does mean that an enterprising Republican could successfully challenge him in the primary.

H/t Atrios.

*My father mentioned this in his recollections of discussions with Alaska Senator Ernest Greuning now and again.

Busy Day for the ‘Rona?

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In major league baseball Marlins have canceled the home opener over a a Coronavirus outbreak on their team while the Phillies Yankees game has been postponed.

In the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings have announced that their Infection Control Officer has tested positive for Covid-19. (Not a joke)

Trump’s National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien has tested positive for the virus.

Also, total reported Covid-19 deaths are approaching 150,000, though the CDC excess death data indicates at least 170,000 pandemic related deaths.  (The last 6-8 weeks are incomplete)

And the Award for the Most Transparent Covid Excuse Goes To………

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The Fascist and racist regime in Bolivia which is using Covid-19 as an excuse to put off elections that it will almost certainly lose:

Bolivia has postponed its presidential election for a second time due to coronavirus, which will leave its unelected president Jeanine Añez in power through to the end of the year.

The vote was due to take place on September 6. But with Covid-19 cases still rising in what is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, the top electoral court set a new date of October 18, with a second round, if needed, on November 29. The new government would take office in December.

The court said that “there is a consensus that the [coronavirus] peak [in Bolivia] will come sometime between the end of July and the first days of September”.

The decision is good news for Ms Añez, who had argued that Bolivians should not go to the polls until the worst had passed, and a blow to her main rival, Luis Arce, leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party that held power under longtime president Evo Morales until last year. He has accused Ms Añez of using the pandemic to cling to power.

………

It seemed she would be in the job for a matter of weeks — just long enough to organise fresh elections and oversee a transition. But after repeatedly saying she had no intention of running for the presidency, she did a U-turn in January and threw her hat into the ring.

The election was first scheduled for May but then pushed back due to the pandemic.

………

The last key poll before the pandemic suggested Ms Añez was third in voter intentions, behind Mr Arce and Carlos Mesa, a former president and the more centrist of the three candidates. Some polls since then have suggested Ms Añez had regained ground, but they have all been conducted online because of the lockdown.

Earlier this month, the Bolivian right moved to block Mr Arce’s participation in the election, saying he had breached electoral rules by publishing an opinion poll during the campaign period. The case is before a court.

Bolivia’s right, and its center-right, believe that it is illegitimate (literally an affront to God) for the indigenous majority in the country to hold political power, so I would expect further lawfare, and further violence, against the MAS and the poor.

Welcome to the Brotherhood of Sh%$-Hole Nations

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Much of the Caribbean is rolling up the welcome mat to American tourists because of our bungling of the Covid-19 pandemic:

As Caribbean beaches and resorts begin welcoming back international tourists, there’s one group that’s increasingly being left out: Americans.

 Tropical vacation spots across the region are giving U.S. citizens the cold shoulder amid fears they might spread the coronavirus, cutting Americans off from one of the few regions that was still accessible to them.

 This week, the Bahamas will begin barring commercial flights and passenger ships from the U.S., even as it invites Canadian and European tourists to visit. The Dutch countries of St. Maarten and Curacao have also reopened to almost everyone but U.S. travelers.

So much winning.

Oh, Snap!

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It looks like Donald Trump won’t get his massive convention in Jacksonville.

The event has been cancelled, which means that the convention will be conducted in a far more sparsely attended manner in ……… I dunno ……… Maybe back to Charlotte, NC?

In a stunning reversal, President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he was canceling the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, abruptly calling off an event he’d pushed only weeks earlier to relocate from North Carolina to his home state.

Trump announced the decision during a White House news conference, saying “the timing of the event is not right” amid the surging coronavirus outbreak in Florida, where earlier in the day officials announced a state record of 173 COVID-19 deaths.

“I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention,” Trump said, adding that his campaign would still hold “tele-rallies” and online events. “I’ll still do a convention speech in a different form, but we won’t do a big crowded convention per se. It’s just not the right time for that.”

Trump’s announcement — which caught some of his closest allies off guard after he pushed the event out of Charlotte, N.C., in the hope that he could give his nomination acceptance speech in a packed arena in Florida — signals a shift in position on the novel coronavirus pandemic, which he’d attempted to write off for months as a minimal threat.

The decision also avoids a potentially embarrassing clash with Jacksonville city and law enforcement officials, who warned early this week that attempts to gather thousands of law enforcement officers to police the event had fallen short. A workshop with the city council was scheduled Friday to go over make-or-break legislation that some council members had said they might not support.

“We appreciate President Donald Trump considering our public health and safety concerns in making this incredibly difficult decision,” Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and Mayor Lenny Curry said in a joint statement.

This is a complete cluster-f%$#, which I find intensely amusing.

Major props to Atrios for calling it, “Trumpstock.”

I wish that I came come up with that.

This is Literally Inhuman

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From the Death Certificate

Stephen Miller, xenophobic racist and Shanda fur die Goyim, has had a tragedy in the family, his maternal grandmother has died of complications of Civid-19.

What is unbelievably horrible is that Miller has remained silent while the Trump administration as flat out lying about his grandmother’s death.

I get that Miller hates black and brown people, but this is about your grandma dying.

What the f%$# is wrong with you?

This month, Stephen Miller, the extremist anti-immigrant Trump adviser who has promoted white nationalist ideas, lost a relative to the coronavirus pandemic, and his uncle tells Mother Jones that the Trump administration is partly to blame for this death.

 On July 4, David Glosser, the brother of Miller’s mother, posted a Facebook note announcing the death of his mother, Ruth Glosser, who was Miller’s maternal grandmother:

This morning my mother, Ruth Glosser, died of the late effects of COVID-19 like so many thousands of other people; both young and old. She survived the acute infection but was left with lung and neurological damage that destroyed her will to eat and her ability to breathe well enough to sustain arousal and consciousness. Over an 8-week period she gradually slipped away and died peacefully this morning.

………
In response to a request seeking comment from Miller, a White House spokesperson sent Mother Jones this statement:

This is categorically false, and a disgusting use of so-called journalism when the family deserves privacy to mourn the loss of a loved one. His grandmother did not pass away from COVID. She was diagnosed with COVID in March and passed away in July so that timeline does not add up at all. His grandmother died peacefully in her sleep from old age. I would hope that you would choose not to go down this road.

………

Moreover, Ruth Glosser’s death certificate—which her son shared with Mother Jones—lists her cause of death as “respiratory arrest” resulting from “COVID-19.”

 Informed that Ruth Glosser’s death certificate cited COVID-19, the White House spokesperson replied, “Again, this is categorically false. She had a mile [sic] case of COVID-19 in March. She was never hospitalized and made a full and quick recovery.”

I get that he doesn’t care about black and brown people, but this is his GRANDMOTHER that they are lying about.

Weep for the Overpaid Executives

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There are claims that Russia is trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research from the US, UK, and Canada.

The hand wringing over this is kind of silly for two reasons:

  • The more people who have access to this research, the more chance there is for a successful vaccine to be developed and manufactured.
  • The only people who could possibly be harmed are big-pharma profiteers.

I’m sorry, but, “Think of the overpaid pharmaceutical executives’ bonuses,” is just not something that inspires me to paroxysms of fear.

Clearly, We Must Open up Schools Immediately

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For all those people demanding to open the schools, this is another indication that they are delusional as to the impact of this action:

In the heated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread the virus to others.

A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.

………

Several studies from Europe and Asia have suggested that young children are less likely to get infected and to spread the virus. But most of those studies were small and flawed, said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The new study “is very carefully done, it’s systematic and looks at a very large population,” Dr. Jha said. “It’s one of the best studies we’ve had to date on this issue.”

In the places pushing hardest to open schools, areas where infections are exploding, opening schools will be a complete disaster.

Gee, You Think

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The first Governor in the United States has caught Corona Virus.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt tested positive 2 weeks after he attended Donald Trump’s campaign rally, though he claims that this is completely unrelated.

Yeah, right.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said on Wednesday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus but feels “fine” and will be isolating.

Stitt is the first governor to announce a coronavirus infection, though other governors have self-quarantined or gotten tested after potential exposure. Stitt, who has resisted recommendations from public health officials throughout the pandemic, said he does not know where he got infected but does not believe his positive result could have stemmed from his attendance at President Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20, where the governor was photographed without a mask.

………

Stitt drew fresh criticism as Trump’s rally in Tulsa — the president’s first since the pandemic set in — approached in June. Local health officials warned the indoor event at a 19,000-person arena could cause a dangerous spread of the virus in a county that was already seeing a spike in cases.

As the saying goes, “バカにつける薬はない”.*

*Pronounced in Japanese, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.” Apologies for any inaccuracies in the text, I do not know Japanese.

Florida, Man ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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On a day with record numbers of Covid-19 diagnoses, Disney World is reopening.

Seriously, Florida must be proof of Weisshaupt’s dictum, “I firmly believe that if you can’t fool all of the people all of the time you should start breeding them for stupidity.”

The Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, a Magic Kingdom hair salon where little girls get styled like Disney princesses, remained closed this weekend. Buzz Lightyear was only able to wave from a distance. Parades and fireworks? Scratched.

And the coronavirus continued its rampage through Florida, with officials reporting more than 15,000 new infections on Sunday, a daily record for any state, including New York.

None of which stopped Sonya Little and thousands of other theme park fans from turning out — in masks in the scorching Florida heat — for the reopening of Walt Disney World. After closing in March because of the pandemic, the mega-resort near Orlando began tossing confetti again at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Two of its four major parks, the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom, welcomed back a limited number of temperature-checked visitors, with some attractions and character interactions unavailable as safety precautions. Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios were set to reopen on Wednesday.

………

To safely reopen, however, the Magic Kingdom had to allow some of the grimness of pandemic life to puncture the utopian fantasy. To ward off germs, Disney now leaves rows of seats empty on rides like Pirates of the Caribbean. Employees constantly disinfect ride vehicles and lap bars. Face masks are mandatory, and, for some visitors, the coverings quickly grew wet with sweat.

Am I the only one to think that the is completely bat-sh%$ insane?

Tweet of the Day

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In the future, definitions in @Dictionarycom are going to need to include what “essential worker” came to mean during the COVID crisis.

You were essential, but your health, your income, your life, your safety net, and your well being turns out are “not as essential.” 2/

— Andy Slavitt @ 🏡 (@ASlavitt) July 7, 2020

The whole Twitter thread is worth a read.

It tersely (Twitter, you know) documents how the weakest, poorest, and most vulnerable are being made to bear the burden of dealing with a pandemic than the rich, who have looted the sh%$ out of this crisis.

It’s why I want the Guillotine concession when the revolution comes.

Gee, You Think?

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The director of the Tulsa health department is saying that Donald Trump’s damp squib of a rally probably led to a surge in Covid-19 cases.

Well, color me completely not surprised:

President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa that drew thousands of people in late June, along with large protests that accompanied it, “likely contributed” to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday.

 Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday.

 Although the Health Department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings “more than likely” contributed to the spike.

 “In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Dart said.

As the saying goes, “バカにつける薬はない”.*

*Pronounced in Japanese,”baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.” Apologies for any inaccuracies in the text, I do not know Japanese.

I Am Feeling Way Too Much Schadenfreude over This

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The most wack-doodle politician in Latin America, Jair Bolsonaro, has tested positive for Covid-19.

If I were a good person, I would wish him a prompt recovery, but I am not a good person, so I’m hoping for a poor outcome, because a poor outcome would be good for the people of Brazil, the Amazon, the indigenous people of Brazil, and the world.

It would also be profoundly ironic:

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, who has railed against social distancing measures and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the coronavirus as the epidemic in his country became the second-worst in the world, said Tuesday that he, too, had been infected.

Critics at home and abroad have called Mr. Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic cavalier and reckless, allowing the virus to surge across Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation. At one point he dismissed it as “a measly cold,” and when asked in late April about the rising death toll, he replied: “So what? Sorry, but what do you want me to do?”

As the caseload has skyrocketed, Mr. Bolsonaro has shunned masks, attended mass rallies of his supporters, insisted that the virus poses no threat to healthy people, championed unproven remedies and shuffled through health ministers who disagreed with him.

Brazil now has more than 1.6 million confirmed cases and more than 65,000 deaths — more than any country except the United States.

Mr. Bolsonaro fell ill two days after he and a handful of his ministers attended a Fourth of July luncheon at the residence of Todd Chapman, the American ambassador in Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro and other attendees sat shoulder-to-shoulder, embracing with no masks. The ambassador and his wife have since tested negative for the virus, but will remain at home, in quarantine, the embassy said.

………

Mr. Bolsonaro did not express contrition for his handling of the pandemic, and doubled down on his assertion that the virus poses little risk to healthy people. He characterized the diagnosis as a predictable outcome of a leadership style that requires him to be among the people. 

Of course he expressed no contrition.  That would require a level of self-awareness that he lacks.

I’ll Have What She’s Having

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Preach It!

Well, here is another sign of the apocalypse, I am favorably impressed with a realtor. (It’s a family thing, realtors, and real estate developers, have always been the enemy)

This realtor is just a trifle upset that she is showing houses to people who refuse to wear masks or socially distance, and she lets loose with a real “Palmer Moment.” (You Gotta Be F%$#Ing Kidding………)

I’m thinking that we need to strap the never-maskers into a chair, use clips to hold their eyes, hook up the electrodes, and make them watch this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Finally an aggressive, and somewhat profane, case for masks, gloves, and social distancing that doesn’t resort to fear mongering or moralizing.

I don’t know who this woman is, but if she ever runs for office, I am making a donation.

Also, she is wearing her f%$#ing seat-belt.

Always wear your f%$#ing seat-belt.

Ditch Mitch

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel, never does anything unless it presents an opportunity to screw ordinary people to favor his patrons.

Case in point, Moscow Mitch wants to take away the rights of ordinary people to benefit big business in the next stimulus package:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) outlined new details Monday of what he wants to see in the next and potentially final coronavirus relief package, including a five-year liability shield for businesses and a possible new round of stimulus checks aimed at workers making $40,000 a year and less.

………

“I can’t comfortably predict we’re going to come together and pass it unanimously like we did a few months ago — the atmosphere is becoming a bit more political than it was in March,” McConnell said. “But I think we will do something again. I think the country needs one last boost.”

………

McConnell has consistently said the next bill will include liability protections for businesses, health-care providers, universities and schools. He offered a time period for these protections on Monday, saying he envisioned a “narrowly crafted liability protection” for activities related to the novel coronavirus that would kick in December 2019 and last through 2024.

“Unless you’re grossly negligent or intentionally engaged in harmful behavior, you shouldn’t have to be penalized by getting sued on top of everything else, so that’ll be in there, I guarantee it,” McConnell said.

………

The new markers McConnell laid down will make the next round of negotiations even tougher than the last ones, especially as the election nears and partisan tensions rise. In addition to his comments on liability protections, McConnell has privately stressed to top administration officials that the price tag on the next bill should not exceed $1 trillion.

So basically, McConnell’s pet lobbyists want to take away the right to sue, and McConnell is doing back-flips for them.

This man is a cancer on the Body politic.

This Is Going to Be Ugly

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It now appears that office rents in Manhattan are set to fall by more than a quarter.

Considering the leverage of most developers, and the relatively short term of real estate loans, they typically have to be refinanced every 5 years, we are looking at a huge number of bad loans popping up in the not too distant future:

Manhattan’s office rents are likely to plummet to the lowest level since 2012 if the U.S. economy doesn’t recover quickly from the pandemic.

Asking rents could decline 26% to about $62.47 a square foot (roughly $672 per square meter) in a prolonged recession, according to a report from Savills. Rents haven’t fallen to that level since 2012, the real estate services firm said.

………
Savills’ research used indicators that it says are correlated to rental rates, including gross domestic product, unemployment and office vacancies in Manhattan.

Also, there is going to be a f%$# load of work from home which is likely to permanently depress office demand, because literally hundreds of thousands employers have discovered that you don’t have to have someone in the office 5 days a week. and that it saves them a fair chunk of change.