Alan and Kate’s birthday is Monday, but we celebrated Friday. A month ago, when I bought tickets to a safe-as-you-can-probably-make-it indoor show, it seemed like a bet worth making. By Friday, however, with cases soaring, it almost seemed irresponsible, but we went anyway:
The details: A large indoor space, seating broken up into twos and fours, well away from one another. Masks required throughout the show, temperature checks upon entering, etc. It was a Miles Davis tribute, and the show was only 65 minutes long, another safety measure. It felt a little like the Israeli audience in Gulf War I who sat through the orchestral performance in gas masks while the Scud missile warnings screamed outside — part defiance, part foolishness. The two horn players would pull down their masks to play, pull them up when the other players were soloing. Can’t blame ’em.
I wore one of our scarcer KN-95 masks, though — tighter seal, harder to breathe in it, but it felt pretty secure.
And now, as of a couple hours ago, the health department issued a new lockdown order — no more indoor dining, drinking, movie theaters, casinos and…high schools and colleges. For three weeks. The health department had to issue it because the GOP-dominated state supreme court ruled a few weeks ago that the governor no longer had the power. You know what happened right after that? Yep, cases began to climb, steeply.
Has the GOP legislature come up with any alternative, after screaming for months that they needed to be part of the policy solution? Um, no.
So that’s where we are, heading into the holidays. I doubt we’ll see anyone outside the nuclear nugget. How’re you all?
Suzanne said on November 15, 2020 at 6:42 pm
This appeared in the local paper but there is a paywall so I found a link to the same article elsewhere. I am reposting from the tail end of the last posting.
https://www.theoaklandpress.com/news/coronavirus/surging-virus-cases-get-a-shrug-in-many-midwestern-towns/article_733d7fc2-26fe-11eb-9d12-8f993e791ad9.html
On top of that, read this short thread from a healthcare worker in S Dakota:
https://twitter.com/jodidoering/status/1327771329555292162?s=21
Gee. Wonder why COVID is surging?!?
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Dorothy said on November 15, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Our campus has one more week, starting tomorrow, of classes and then students head home for a 2 month break. Most of my department’s classes are virtual, and the majority of music/voice lessons are exclusively virtual. I’m sure there’s a strong possibility that they won’t come back in January if cases get much worse. It’s heartening to think that President-elect Biden will be sworn in on the third day of our Spring 2021 semester.
Our holiday plans aren’t really plans – we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing since March: the only family we see is our sons, his wife and their daughter. Maybe twice a month we get together. I feel like a slug so much of the time but I’d prefer slug status to being in the hospital on a respirator.
This is kind of sickening: https://twitter.com/jodidoering/status/1327771329555292162?s=21
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AnnH said on November 15, 2020 at 7:02 pm
Dorothy and Suzanne get a jinx. I posted the same thing today on FB. As usual there’s someone in her twitter feed telling her she’s lying. It’s crazy in the U.P. now. I went from knowing no one here who had it to now knowing at least half a dozen, and there’s a nurse posting that she’s now seeing her colleagues crying at the end of their shifts. Most people are being pretty careful, but on a “what are you doing for the holiday” thread, a couple women said they were carrying on as usual because, of course, they weren’t going to live their lives in fear.
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beb said on November 15, 2020 at 7:18 pm
I was reading about the arrests in DC when a phrase in the media account caught my attention. There were overall twenty arrests, one stabbing, and “two guns were recovered.” Why do reporters always say guns were ‘recovered’? Had they been lost? Were they kidnapped? Did someone issue a ‘missing gun’ alert? Isn’t the proper word ‘confiscated’?
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Colleen said on November 15, 2020 at 8:00 pm
Alex, to answer your question from the last thread, I have adjusted to Florida just fine. The sunshine has done wonders for my depression, and the lack of cold weather is wonderful. It is easy to forget what month/season it is though. My job is great, Tampa General Hospital is a great employer that treats employees well. Overall, a good move. I do miss my friends though.
One of the reasons I was glad to move here was that I would be within 90 minutes of my parents. Who I haven’t been able to see since March thanks to Covid. Ten thousand new cases today. I could do without our governor, who some refer to as DeathSantis…
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Jakash said on November 15, 2020 at 11:07 pm
The state of the union, which is exemplified by the thread posted by Suzanne and Dorothy, clarified by a non-political tweet.
“Quote by a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park on why it is hard to design the perfect garbage bin to keep bears from breaking into it: ‘There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.'”
https://twitter.com/mathematicsprof/status/1327678313876385792
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alex said on November 15, 2020 at 11:13 pm
Glad for the update, Colleen. Wish I were happy in my job, which moves back to the office tomorrow from home despite six thousand-plus new cases per day in Indiana with more than 8K just this Saturday.
Our Gov — Mr. Hokum — isn’t as “out there” as DeathSantis, but he he just won reelection despite quite a thrashing from a Libertarian nutter who won a bigger share of the vote than the Democrat. The Libertarian argued that Hokum’s tepid COVID restrictions were an unconstitutional overreach. No, they’re why COVID is fucking out of control.
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A. Riley said on November 16, 2020 at 12:28 am
We’ll be Thanksgiving-ing at home, just the two of us, with a phone call or a text or two to far-flung sibs & nibs, as usual, which is fine with me. I hate traveling for the winter holidays anyway.
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Dexter Friend said on November 16, 2020 at 3:50 am
So , watching Richard Engel’s special, I learned the vaccine will not be a two-and-done for life, it may be determined it will be two shots yearly, and Covid19 will never disappear, and deaths will occur forevermore, but the pandemic will most definitely end.
For now, it just seems we are generally out of control. Finally, the “seat belt mentally of years past”) is fading slightly, as masks are being worn more and more as I see it here. I also learned I should not feel guilty, as what I thought were N95 masks I have are in reality KN95 which nance mentions. From what I read, not as protective as N95, and mine are from China, so I wear surgical masks and on top of those , the KN95.
Carla Lee is mad , as the food in her nursing home “is just slop”. I drove there and dropped off a bag of snacks and Diet Pepsi Sunday night. She still has 11 days minimum there. Projection is January for the new knee.
The wind snapped off a tree in the back yard; the tree lies at a 45 degree angle into the neighbor’s tree. I will have it taken care of as soon as I can get someone here to cut it up. I quit using chain saws 30 years ago.
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alex said on November 16, 2020 at 6:58 am
Happy happy to Alan and Kate!
Here’s an amusing tale out of Indianapolis: https://nypost.com/2017/08/25/how-a-pimp-built-the-ugliest-house-in-america/?fbclid=IwAR3Icl8a8vDxv3NH3thkc-2x5yGn0hUPd2sQg1Om8khawi3op1fhwU4KhDk
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Connie said on November 16, 2020 at 8:13 am
Dexter, I can send you a link to a pattern for a two sided cloth cover for your kn95 mask. Comparable to two masks. I have made several which my kid uses at work. She received negative test results in 48 hours.
It looks like our four person Thanksgiving will be reduced to two. We had already decided to reduce the turkey to a whole pork loin.
We had decided last Friday to quarantine ourselves, so we were ahead of the new Michigan requirements.
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JodiP said on November 16, 2020 at 9:10 am
Happy birthdays to Alan and Kate!
That report from the nurse is just heart breaking. The virus will virus no matter these people believe.
Please send out good vibes for me and my wife: after many years swearing we’d never get another dog after ours passed away, we have applied to adopt two different dogs. We’ll take just one; kwe applied for two as I think there is a fair amount of competition for dogs. As I joked, “What’s the worse that could hapen? We get two dogs!” Which is NOT going to happen. Hopefully, since they are both around 5 years old, they will not be in high demand.
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Dorothy said on November 16, 2020 at 9:56 am
Jodi my next door neighbor had been trying for at least 6 weeks to adopt a dog, but they go very fast here in Dayton. He finally was allowed to foster one for a week as a try out, and he is keeping the new pup, Apollo. I think he found him in Cincinnati. He’s been active at around 8 different dog adoption sites between here, Columbus and Cincinnati. He shares custody of his kids with his ex and he didn’t want a pit bull mix, which are available in abundance.
It’s been awhile, I think, since any of us shared a recipe. I saw an ad for this on Twitter about 3 weeks ago and could not stop thinking about it. I made it on Friday and GD it was delicious! We’re having the leftovers tonight for supper. Since there was no meat in the recipe, I made beef/pork Italian meatballs from scratch and they were good, too.
https://www.tastemade.com/videos/tomato-caper-crispy-baked-gnocchi
Happy birthdays to the Dad and Daughter Derringer.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 10:01 am
I have a lot of nurse friends from my years as a nurse recruiter. I hear that same story daily. People working in hospitals are burned out from overwork but they are also burned out hearing a seriously ill or dying patient saying the virus isn’t real. The frustration is beyond measure. The people in power who have politicized a virus are responisible for a lot of suffering and death. A president who keeps telling people it’s nearly over, it’s time to reopen is a criminal. His pet doctor who has no experience with epidemiology should be in prison. They are killing people. Trump’s campaign rallies where he ridiculed Biden for staying in his home, ridiculed him for wearing a mask, were crime scenes.
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Jeff Borden said on November 16, 2020 at 10:13 am
Until the coronavirus struck, I was unable to include tRump among the worst presidents of my lifetime based on body counts at home and abroad. I listed Nixon first, for extending the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia and upsetting the Paris peace talks, which led to hundreds of thousands more deaths; W. for the insanely stupid and counterproductive invasion of Iraq, which not only destabilized the region but resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands; and LBJ for turbocharging Vietnam with major escalations, which obviously resulted in great carnage.
Now, with 246,000 dead from the coronavirus, tRump enters the same abattoir Hall of Fame. Not sure how many deaths can be laid directly at his feet, but his failure to take the virus seriously and to downplay it and encourage his cult followers to ignore medical advice surely produced a large number of needless deaths.
And 72 million Americans voted for him. Unfuckingbelievable.
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Bitter Scribe said on November 16, 2020 at 10:33 am
Has the GOP legislature come up with any alternative, after screaming for months that they needed to be part of the policy solution? Um, no.
These people. They think the whole point of politics is to have the power to fuck things up.
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Icarus said on November 16, 2020 at 10:49 am
We were going to have a relative drive down from Michigan for Tday. She doesn’t have much in the way of friends so she socially distanced even in normal times. However, she also is a rightwing nut and doesn’t believe in the virus (or believes it isn’t as bad as it is) and won’t wear a mask. With the increase in numbers, we were regretting the invite.
Fortunately, she is so distraught over the election that she cannot conceive of coming to liberal Chicago so the problem solved itself.
here’s a couple of recipes I put together a few weeks ago:
Easy, Creamy Lemon Garlic Skillet Chicken
Creamy Penne Florentine With Mushrooms and Spinach
https://www.mysteries-of-life.com/2020/11/helping-out-with-cooking.html
I’ve made these twice and as with most things, it was easier with practice.
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Julie Robinson said on November 16, 2020 at 11:00 am
Jodi, here’s hoping you get one of those sweet doggos. They will be blessed to live with you.
Alex, that house rivals the Freeman monstrosity.
We’ll just be the three of us for Thanksgiving, and though we ordered a 10 pound turkey, we aren’t doing anything else complicated. Christmas is another matter. Back when things looked better we bought plane tickets to go see the kids in Orlando. My mom is now terrified to go and I’m not too comfortable either.
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Scout said on November 16, 2020 at 11:15 am
We’ll be hosting Thanksgiving with my parents only. Luckily they enjoy vegan food. The rest of the family thinks they’re immune and will be gathering en masse as usual. I will miss being with my kids, grands and great grandies for the holidays this year. It’s all just so depressing and it did not have to be this bad.
When will the mental patient finally concede? It’s hard to believe the entire GOP is actually going along with this shit, but I guess they are emboldened after keeping the Senate and gaining seats in the House. People who voted split ticket couldn’t see this coming after everything? Sheesh.
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1328340284153933826
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 11:41 am
I found this very funny. I need some funny this morning.
https://uproxx.com/viral/four-seasons-landscaping-lego-rudy-giuliani-photos/
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Sherri said on November 16, 2020 at 11:48 am
The new restrictions here won’t change much for us, except that all my training sessions will be virtual instead of half of them. The garage gym setup is built out this time though.
Thanksgiving will just be with our daughter, who isn’t living with us but is in our pod. We’re going to order Thanksgiving dinner from a nearby restaurant. We’ll miss our usual Friendsgiving with close friends, but none of us want to gather with that large a group.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2020 at 12:03 pm
Jeff B, it is disheartening to say the least that 72 million people voted for the despicable man currently residing in the Whitehouse. It kind of makes me feel better though, to know that 255 million people in the US are of voting age and that means that 183 million people didn’t vote for him, a combo of the 78 million who voted for Biden and the rest who didn’t vote at all. Who knows why so many people didn’t (and don’t) vote, but at least they didn’t vote for Trump. How many of them are complete assholes is anybody’s guess.
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alex said on November 16, 2020 at 12:10 pm
With a smaller Thanksgiving, I’m planning to try a Cook’s Country recipe that I saw a couple of years ago. Instead of roasting a whole turkey, you just brown and braise a turkey breast in a dutch oven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBo6HTqv3sI
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Deborah said on November 16, 2020 at 12:13 pm
LAMary, that Lego set is good, here’s another one I think is funny https://m.imgur.com/gallery/qyILOSl.
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Jakash said on November 16, 2020 at 12:19 pm
Good one, LAMary. I particularly enjoyed the “Loser 2020” signs and portraying Rudy in his classic “All the networks!” pose.
What a clown. As if being called by all the networks hasn’t been the de facto end of an election for decades, and as if he and his puppet-master don’t know that.
Alex, that dutch oven turkey breast idea seems like a good option. Thanks.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 12:40 pm
I like the Rudy character and I like the strange green guys.
The slouching trump guy you shared, is excellent Deborah.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 1:52 pm
That weird comma in my last comment was the result of editing and removing the reason for the comma.
I understand trump is taking credit for the two vaccines saying they were developed during his administration. I want him to add that 11 million cases of covid and a quarter of a million deaths (so far) happened during his administration too. He owns those. Not every one of them, but a whole lot of them.
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Jakash said on November 16, 2020 at 2:00 pm
Obama notes one of the oddest things about Cult 45, their blindness in not recognizing what a weak character their hero manifests, in “The Atlantic:”
“Trump, Obama noted, is not exactly an exemplar of traditional American manhood. ‘I think about the classic male hero in American culture when you and I were growing up: the John Waynes, the Gary Coopers, the Jimmy Stewarts, the Clint Eastwoods, for that matter. There was a code … the code of masculinity that I grew up with that harkens back to the ’30s and ’40s and before that. There’s a notion that a man is true to his word, that he takes responsibility, that he doesn’t complain, that he isn’t a bully—in fact he defends the vulnerable against bullies. And so even if you are someone who is annoyed by wokeness and political correctness and wants men to be men again and is tired about everyone complaining about the patriarchy, I thought that the model wouldn’t be Richie Rich—the complaining, lying, doesn’t-take-responsibility-for-anything type of figure.'”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/why-obama-fears-for-our-democracy/617087/
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Sherri said on November 16, 2020 at 2:44 pm
I think Brian Beutler explains Trump’s appeal:
https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1328359202771890176
Like I said, he hates all the right people.
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Mark zp said on November 16, 2020 at 3:34 pm
Jakash, conspiracy theories are all about not taking responsibility. Bad things are happening because of someone else. It can’t possibly be because of something I’m doing or not doing. It’s not my fault.
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Suzanne said on November 16, 2020 at 4:00 pm
I think conspiracy theories for Evangelicals are all about refusing to accept that life is random, that sometimes what you do really doesn’t or can’t make a difference. That you can pray, go to church, read your bible, only watch Christian movies and listen to Christian music, but still your loved ones get sick, die, become disabled, you lose your job, or your children don’t always do what you’ve taught them. God, for them, is something to help you control your circumstances through divine intervention. When that doesn’t work, rather than rethink what God is and does, they lash out at people who don’t believe or think like them.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 4:12 pm
I agree, Suzanne. I worked with an evangelical at a Catholic non profit and she blamed things on her belief that Catholics worship the virgin Mary and not Jesus. She also complained about premarital sex. This applied to an employee who was pregnant when she got married. This woman thought the whole idea of that company being a church related non profit was a farce. They had atheists working there! There were gays working there! No wonder there were financial issues, no wonder we had dings on a state inspection.
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Sherri said on November 16, 2020 at 6:29 pm
I could write a book about the evangelical mindset. Lots of magical thinking involved, and I don’t mean their belief in God or that Jesus rose from the dead!
I thought the stories about the patients who didn’t believe COVID was real until they got it were bad, but the stories of patients who are dying from it and still don’t believe it’s real are killing me.
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David C said on November 16, 2020 at 6:46 pm
“Jesus and John Wayne” by Kristen Kobes du Mez is a great book on the evangelical mindset. She’s a professor at Calvin University but don’t let that scare you off. Even though they’re owned by the Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, MI they produce a lot of damn fine liberals. My cousin, who is a friend of hers and recommended the book to me, is a fine example of that.
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781631495731
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Jakash said on November 16, 2020 at 8:16 pm
That sounds like an interesting book, indeed, David C. But, hey now…
“Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values.”
…
“And evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of ‘Christian America.’ Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.”
To me this just reinforces how easily these people are duped, or what wishful thinking they are motivated by. Trump is nothing like the men referred to in that paragraph. He *pretends* like he’d like to be, while he’s really an Ivy League-educated, bone-spur-deferment brandishing, Manhattan-condo-set twit. And no president in history has “told it like it was” with less frequency than he has.
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LAMary said on November 16, 2020 at 8:52 pm
I don’t think trump could be described as Ivy League educated. He attended an Ivy League school. I don’t think he got much of an education there. I suspect his father threw enough money at the school to just move him through and let him graduate. He won’t release his transcripts. That should tell you somthing.
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Suzanne said on November 16, 2020 at 9:09 pm
Jakash, you aren’t the only one wondering about this
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/donald-trump-the-most-unmanly-president/612031/
“Perhaps Howard Stern, of all people, said it best: “The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump for the most part … He’d be disgusted by them.” The tragedy is that they are not disgusted by him in return.”
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Jakash said on November 16, 2020 at 9:25 pm
Point conceded, LAMary. I actually thought about that as I was writing it, but didn’t bother coming up with something more accurate. Sad!
Yeah, that article makes a lot of good points, Suzanne. And “tragedy” is not an exaggeration.
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Dexter Friend said on November 17, 2020 at 12:49 am
Connie, thanks for the offer of sending a link for mask covers, but I have enough surgical + NK95 masks to continue with that combo.
Daughter Vanessa is fostering a second doggie. The dog was spayed a few days ago. Soon she too will leave for her already-vetted forever home. I could not do the fostering, I could not part with a dog. Now, the third dog Vanessa fosters, she can keep if she so desires.
Two financial surprises: After a few calls I found a man who works for the city on internet and cable installations and does tree work as a part-time gig. The dead tree in the yard, snapped off like a twig in 60 mph winds Sunday, broke into 3 sections and fell into the neighbor’s tree. I thought a price of about $275 would be fair, after all, we are not dealing with Redwoods here, just 10″ diameter trees, but tall…to my startled amazement, it’s gonna be $500. I would guess 45 minutes tops for the job. I am paying it, I want it done and the wood gone. After every tree but 2 on my property causing damage, three of them causing severe damage to my house, I just want it gone. Of course, my deductible…wanna guess? Yep. $500. Of course. And a garage fixed my headlights, replaced them. A Chevy Impala. The mechanics/techs have to remove the entire front of the car to simply change a fucking headlight. Efficiency maximus. Fuck.
Topping off the day, Carla Lee reported the toilet in her room at the nursing home is clogged and no plumbers are showing up, hours went by, no plumbers. And out west, yet another setback…daughter Lori, sick since 9-13-20, was rushed back to the hospital. Poor woman is on a yoyo string. She has lost 40 pounds in 2 months. Nausea, can’t eat, can’t drink, dehydration sent her back this time for an IV.
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susan said on November 17, 2020 at 1:10 am
Oh man, Dexter. It just keeps on going. Jeebus, you all need a break.
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alex said on November 17, 2020 at 7:20 am
I remember my parents having a Buick that required extensive work just to get at the turn signal bulbs. My dad told a story about going to the dealership after work to pick up the car and seeing the entire front end off of it and people scrambling to put it back together. And then he drove out of the place and the turn signal still didn’t work.
Didn’t Trump’s niece write that someone else took his entrance exams for him at Wharton?
I was reading the other day where someone described the Trump phenomenon as “mass psychosis,” and that seems to sum it up pretty well. He has a gift for channeling resentment and self-pity and all of these infantile impulses that many adults work hard to suppress in themselves but have never fully addressed from a healthy psychological standpoint. He’s giving them a catharsis of sorts by modeling and normalizing tantrums and meltdowns and tizzies for which others are to blame.
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Sherri said on November 17, 2020 at 11:30 am
This interview places Trump in the context of strongman authoritarian leaders around the world, and explains why they happen.
https://the.ink/p/strongmen
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LAMary said on November 17, 2020 at 12:24 pm
I also think that the reason trump transferred from Fordham to Penn was that Fordham probably expected him to actually be a student, go to classes, pass tests, all that schooly stuff. Penn could be bought, but those Jesuits, while they have plenty of other baggage, might have thought money was not a good enough reason to tolerate that POS and have their name attached to his ignorance forever.
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Suzanne said on November 17, 2020 at 12:40 pm
This is utterly horrifying.
“I feel like I’m screaming into the void. And one group of people is hearing me. “Okay, we’re going to stay home. We care about ourselves. We don’t want our kids to die.”
If there’s enough virus out there, your mask isn’t going to stop it, your social distancing isn’t going to stop it, an N95 isn’t going to stop it. And I know that because I’ve gotten influenza through an N95. And I think at this point, we have a circuit breaker lockdown, which won’t come until we get Biden.
We’re just going to have mass infection and mass death for the next two-and-a-half to three months. And I’m just going to cry every day.”
https://lyz.substack.com/p/screaming-into-the-void-a-conversation
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Sherri said on November 17, 2020 at 12:57 pm
I have ties into the fitness industry here, which is pitching a fit because Inslee shit down the gyms. Mental Health! They scream. I’m amazed at all these experts on mental health.
You don’t have any mental health if you’re dead. You can’t exercise to improve your mental health if your sick. You don’t need a gym to get enough exercise to improve your mental health.
There are 250000 people dead. They didn’t commit suicide, they were killed by a virus and a totally inadequate response to a pandemic.
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Mark P said on November 17, 2020 at 1:58 pm
If you Google “us death toll Covid” you get an interesting map of coronavirus cases In the last two weeks around the world. If you scroll around you can see an interesting comparison between the US and China. Whatever else you might say about China, they pretty much stopped the virus. And we didn’t.
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Jakash said on November 17, 2020 at 2:08 pm
The “trolley problem” adapted to the rationale of today’s Republicans.
https://twitter.com/talmonsmith/status/1328315373935058949
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beb said on November 17, 2020 at 5:19 pm
I see where the media is sending out safaris to find out when Trump voters are still Trump voters, or trying to understand Trump voters. You would think that since Biden won the media would be looking into why he won, not why Trump lost. But it just goes to show that the media is wired for Republicans.
The news that Sen. Graham tried to convince the Georgia Secretary of State to toss out ballots in some suspiciously non-Republican counties would have gotten a lot more air-time if it had been a Democrat asking a Democrat SOS to fiddle with the election count. As it is I think Graham needs to be investigated.
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alex said on November 17, 2020 at 6:23 pm
So what’s up with Wayne County?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michigan-vote-canvassing-board/2020/11/17/12141222-287c-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
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Jakash said on November 17, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Almost too good to be true — the boob his supporters think is some kind of 6-dimensional chess player screwed himself in the only dimension that matters:
“In new intv with me, @GaSecofState says 24,000 GOPs who voted absentee in primary did not vote in General – says Donald Trump cost himself the election by sowing distrust in absentee: ‘he would have won by 10 thousand votes he actually suppressed, depressed his own voting base'”
https://twitter.com/JustinGrayWSB/status/1328782492913033219
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Sherri said on November 17, 2020 at 6:55 pm
Alex, here’s your answer: Black people vote in Detroit!
https://twitter.com/nancykaffer/status/1328836317137022976
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alex said on November 17, 2020 at 10:31 pm
Here’s my answer:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-challenges/2020/11/17/ea741372-28f6-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
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beb said on November 18, 2020 at 1:09 am
Interesting article by Kevin Drum on Substack, an interbet forum like Patreon, which allows members to create and distribute newsletter — for a fee. While it’s understandable that people who want to write for a living need to find ways to get people to pay to read their writing there’s a tendency for a lot of people to say, so and so’s comments aren’t that important. As Drum mentions he subscribes to four on-line newspapers which costs him $1000 a year. That’s a lot of money. I’m willing to forgo a lot of people’s thoughts when it comes to that kind of money. At $5 a month ($60 a year) it only takes 15 newsletters to come to $1000/annum.
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Linda said on November 18, 2020 at 4:08 am
Apparently the GOP asshats in Wayne County have reversed themselves.
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David C said on November 18, 2020 at 5:48 am
I knew the GOP asshats would be smacked down hard but I didn’t expect it before I woke up in the morning. I thought they would at least string it along until they were interviewed by the giggling couch tumors on Fox and Friends. This is an amazing takedown. https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1328882122724155393
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Suzanne said on November 18, 2020 at 7:06 am
All you need to do to explain the Wayne Co kerfuffle is to take a peek at the Twitter account of William Hartmann @HartmannDude one of the GOP county election board members. Nutcase x 1000.
Things like this https://twitter.com/hartmanndude/status/1226486742863273984?s=21
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LAMary said on November 18, 2020 at 9:36 am
I like this first paragraph of a story in NY Magazine about Rudy G’s handling of trump’s fight to get the election results magically changed:
“It’d be a little unfair to say that Rudy Giuliani has had the opposite of a Midas touch during the Trump years, as the projects that he has turned into trash were pretty much garbage in the first place. But from his flailing effort to handle the Stormy Daniels blowback to his impeachment-inducing trips to Ukraine, it’s pretty safe to assume at this point that if Trump puts the former New York mayor on a given task, it’s probably not going to work out.”
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Deborah said on November 18, 2020 at 10:32 am
I was relieved when I woke up this morning to read that the Wayne County incident had been reversed. Everything I read last night said not to worry but I still did.
I’m currently at my Dr office hooked up to an IV infusion of a medication for osteoporosis that I will have to do once a year. I had a choice of taking a pill once a week or a pill once a month or a shot every 6 months, this once a year option seemed the best for me. As Simon and Garfunkel sang, “how terribly strange to be 70”.
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Deborah said on November 18, 2020 at 10:42 am
My comment is in moderation probably because of the way I have to hold my phone during this procedure, it’s too far from my face to see it clearly. This comment will make more sense when you see my previous comment.
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Jeff Borden said on November 18, 2020 at 11:57 am
The GOP sold its soul to tRump for those sweet, sweet tax cuts and the federal judges. The party reckoned it could control him. The party was wrong. He has turned the party into a cult of personality with him at its head. tRump voters identify more with their support of tRump than they do with other viewpoints of the Republican Party.
If he decides he’s going to try again in 2024 –ignoring for the moment all the legal and financial shit that will come down on him when he leaves the White House– he ices out all competitors. Little Marco Rubio. Greasy Ted Cruz. Pompous Mike Pompeo. Even Mike Dense, his loyal manservant through his “administration,” won’t be able to do a thing because they’ve hitched their wagons to the orange man.
Thinking tRump will go away quietly is a fool’s errand. He’ll scream ever louder. His lies will grow ever bigger, bolder and more ludicrous. And his cult will get even more angry and scared.
We’re only moving on to the Second Act of this tragic farce.
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Sherri said on November 18, 2020 at 12:06 pm
The governor announced new restrictions on Sunday morning. By Sunday evening, the shelves were stripped bare of toilet paper again.
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susan said on November 18, 2020 at 12:33 pm
Sherri, that’s because he scared the $h!† out people. And well they should have the $h!† scared out of them. So many morons….
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susan said on November 18, 2020 at 1:53 pm
Bet y’all can relate….
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Julie Robinson said on November 18, 2020 at 3:22 pm
There wasn’t a roll to be had at our local Kroger on Monday. Really, people?
On a happier note, everyone I saw was wearing a mask and wearing it properly. First time I’ve seen that.
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JodiP said on November 18, 2020 at 4:26 pm
sue, that second one was great! Great to laugh so hard and cry with her!
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Sherri said on November 18, 2020 at 5:24 pm
When I called Republicans nihilists who couldn’t be reached out to, only destroyed, the other day, I wondered if I had gone too far. Nope.
“ A second official tells CNN their goal is to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/trump-biden-natsec-transition-fires/index.html
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LAMary said on November 18, 2020 at 5:44 pm
No paper towels to be found either. Well, actually Staples has some but all the usual places, no.
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David C said on November 18, 2020 at 8:05 pm
I’ve had good luck lately finding paper towels at Lowes.
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Deborah said on November 18, 2020 at 8:11 pm
LB told me that NM sent out an emergency alert on people’s cell phones that there’s an EXTREME (they used all caps like tha) situation with the virus there. Oh goody, we’ll be in NM Monday. But we registered for tests there on Tuesday morning, we expect long lines of cars. This will be my third test all told.
On our classic movie quest one night we watched “Butterfield 8” and the next one was “Days of Wine and Roses”. Depressing. So tonight we’re watching “Top Hat” with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, to lighten the mood.
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Dexter Friend said on November 18, 2020 at 9:20 pm
If Americans would have united behind Governor Inslee and swept him into President-elect status, he would be champing at the bit with a perfect plan to flatten Covid19 . We really need a competent environment-first President, and with Biden screaming out he is such a big booster of fracking,I am worried a bit. Nonetheless, I wish January 20 was two weeks ago. Trump has decapitated the Pentagon and that huge building is in chaos. A few days ago Trump appointed that crazed gold standard loony Judy Shelton to the Fed, just to make Joe suffer next year. https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/trump-nominates-gold-advocate-judy-shelton-for-the-fed
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