…what’s going down? [DOT 23/5/20]

when a metaphor just isn't enough...

…I don’t really know if it makes sense or if reality has finally cracked & just decided to start pranking us with this stuff…but guess what…the US has literally sunk to new depths, apparently

geodesists, who calculate the Earth’s shape, size, gravitational field and orientation in space over time, are redefining the reference point, or vertical datum, from which height is derived

…I’d like to claim it puts things in perspective…but…well

…so bear with me…because there’s some tiresome shit to follow

President Trump’s decision may be viewed as more evidence that he is preparing to exit the one major arms treaty remaining with Russia: New START, which limits the number of deployed nuclear missiles.

…& that might somehow not even be the dumbest shit he’s said this week

Trump Orders States to Allow Places of Worship to Open, Though He Has No Authority To
President Trump ordered states to reopen places of worship, but several governors said that decision would be their call. Persistently high case levels in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington have medical experts concerned.

A study of 96,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on six continents found that those who received an antimalarial drug promoted by President Trump as a “game changer” in the fight against the virus had a significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/22/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-study/
Trump Suggests Virus Death Count Is Inflated. Most Experts Doubt It

…sadly…it looks like the error is almost certainly in the other direction

C.D.C. Test Counting Error Leaves Epidemiologists ‘Really Baffled’

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

…I mean, what kind of monstrous asshole would deliberately be in a hurry to skew those numbers if that would maintain a fiction guaranteed to compound the final toll?

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/499054-trump-says-he-will-not-close-country-if-there-is-a-second-wave-of

…okay…that’s a little hard to fathom on any level that isn’t sickeningly venal & mortally offensive in a fashion some might even call literally deplorable…but let’s not lose all perspective, people…it’s not like he’s really talking about busting out the for-real nuclear option…because surely not even he’s that dumb

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-administration-discussed-conducting-first-us-nuclear-test-in-decades/2020/05/22/story.html

…well…shit…probably shouldn’t even be surprised…he has ever boasted breadth & depth & many, many flavors of dumb…public & private then & now…& of course both foreign & domestic

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-guidelines-places-worship-include-face-coverings-avoiding-shared-n1213106

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/20/trump-just-said-corrupt-part-out-loud/

…because when was it otherwise?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html

…even the quiet[-ened] bits scream guilt implicitly & explicitly

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/state-department-ig-trump-fired-should-be-digging-saudi-arabia-ncna1212441

…if we keep heading east it doesnt look much better

New security laws would allow Beijing to take aim at the protests that have roiled the semiautonomous city and posed a direct challenge to the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hong-kong-lawmaker-mourns-end-homeland-china-mulls-anti-protest-n1212721

China Doesn’t Just Want to Control Hong Kong
Xi’s Move to Rein In Hong Kong Is One of His Boldest Yet

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/politics/trump-china-dilemma-punish-beijing/index.html

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-news-today-markets-drop-china-hong-kong-law-2020-5-1029226299

…seriously…even by his abysmally low standards the bar has been digging deep to find new depths to sink to of late…although he has had some help

Kayleigh McEnany Displays One of Trump’s Checks in a Little Too Much Detail

…there’s just a ton of this you-couldn’t-make-it-up bullshit everywhere you look, really

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/21/man-who-filmed-ahmaud-arberys-death-arrested-murder-charges-georgia-authorities-say/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-confirms-john-ratcliffe-as-next-director-of-national-intelligence/2020/05/21/story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/early-release-cohen-manafort-shows-how-unfair-prison-system-experts-n1212001

…but I guess what constitutes fitness is kind of a sore spot for the picture of rude health

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-remains-mum-questions-about-trump-s-annual-physical-n1213266

…I just want to quietly while away my long weekend with recurring bouts of potentially problematic drinking & overconsumption of barbecue like any self-respecting malcontent but somehow I just poured a fresh cup of coffee & settled down with the headlines like some kind of amateur

In the latest twists in a highly politicized case, Michael Flynn’s lawyers are trying to force a judge to end the case immediately, and the F.B.I. will weigh whether it committed misconduct.
Nobody could make supply chains sing like the United States. And now maybe nobody can, period.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-moving-another-round-coronavirus-relief-here-are-battle-lines-n1212486

With Unemployment Expected to Reach 20%, Senators Take a Vacation

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dispute-over-south-dakota-tribal-checkpoints-escalates-after-gov-kristi-n1212161

How Women are Getting Squeezed by the Pandemic

…yes, even the ones that voted Dolt45’s way

Jane Roe’s Pro-Life Conversion Was a Con

…maybe Lucy could explain it so even Republicans could understand?

…or…failing that…maybe Nancy could give it a whirl?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-voting-united-states-under-assault-n1212236

…& who knows…maybe some people might pay attention, even

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/here-s-how-early-battleground-map-has-opened-joe-biden-n1211101

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-s-vice-president-shortlist-emerges-demings-klobuchar-say-they-n1212481

…seems like the odds of him needing to pick someone he’s sure everyone can agree is black might have spiked somewhat

Biden Apologizes After Saying Black Voters ‘Ain’t Black’ if They’re Considering Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-says-black-voters-who-arent-already-supporting-him-aint-black/2020/05/22/story.html

…so I don’t know whether to hope Liz stays put & takes it to ’em in the Senate or takes the VP slot, to be honest…sure is something to think about though

If Joe Biden selects Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, the ticket would be a marriage of contrasting policy ideas and governing philosophies unlike any in decades.

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21 Comments

    • Why is the DNC like this?

      They dangled the possibility of a WOC only to turn around and do this. Why are they dragging out the VP process? Why don’t they ever see the actual, politically correct thing to do? Which would be to choose Stacey Abrams or Elizabeth Warren.

      When word got out about this Tim Kaine started trending with Clowncars name and it feels exactly like it did in 2016. This year is 2016 but worse, somehow.

      • …technically they still have a chance not to make it a complete screw up…although it’s not as though they have a great track record of that sort of thing

        …the only thing that might make me feel better about one of those two not being the eventual pick would be the notion that post-election the VP slot potentially gets less done than the positions those ladies occupy at present?

        …still inclined to agree with you, though…the impression I get is that they think drawing the process out allows them to triangulate better what they need to round out the ticket…which is kind of a joke with Joe who is very much a known quantity so you’d think they might have known that stuff going into this thing?

    • Supposedly Harris, Warren, & Abrams were also being vetted, is that no longer a thing? I hope Biden isn’t stupid enough to think he already has the black vote so now it’s time to go after the republican-lite crowd that Klobuchar represents. I will be very disappointed but not surprised if this is his pick.

      • …the shortlist doesn’t seem to have got noticeably shorter as far as I know?

        …there’s a link a little north of the “Biden apologizes” one that mentions some other names like Deming’s or whoever…so I guess we’ll see?

      • I don’t know that any of them were officially vetted by his campaign. I feel like they were dangling those name to appease the left side of the party. I hope this doesn’t blow up in his, and our, face(s).

        • …could be…but a number of people were quoted as saying this or that candidate was contacted by his campaign on that basis…so on balance I’d go with it being true for at least a given value of “vetting”?

          …they may already know their order of preference so who knows what it means in terms of who gets what offer on what basis & when we hear about it being a done deal but like you I’m hoping however it shakes out it doesn’t blow up in our faces

          …much the same way I’d take more comfort in the polling that has Joe leading Trump handily in some useful places if it weren’t for the fact that the polling looked saner than the result last time?

    • …I guess that just leaves me wondering why they have that preference in the first place?

      …no disrespect intended to Klobuchar but what makes her their “final girl”?

        • …sigh…& somehow still I was hoping for something a little less tribal in its motivation…I really should know better

          …sometimes it seems to me like the foundational issue is people’s unwillingness to really be interested in the distinctions between candidates on anything more than an explicitly superficial level?

          …it’d be nice to live in a world where the answer to that question was more along the lines of something-something-something old people would be better off & she’s always been about that something…instead of “this candidate makes me comfortable continuing to not think about any of this shit”

  1. This cracked me up #sorrynotsorry
    I just want to quietly while away my long weekend with recurring bouts of potentially problematic drinking & overconsumption of barbecue like any self-respecting malcontent but somehow I just poured a fresh cup of coffee & settled down with the headlines like some kind of amateur

    • …don’t get me wrong…I know some incompetent men…but that is fucking ridiculous

      …makes me wish I’d been caffienated enough to have swapped out the “women getting squeezed” caption for that piece from the UN lady with this quote of hers instead:

      “Our formal economy is only possible because it’s subsidized by women’s unpaid work.”

    • From watching the women in my own life to stories like this, I really don’t know why women bother with men. Yeah, someone needs to open the pickle jar and in theory you won’t die alone, but the thought of having to look after an adult man for the duration of our married life sends me into preemptive fits of rage. It would be all the more harder if I genuinely loved and cherished a man to find out, after we’re married, that he’s useless at running a household but that I need to put up with it.

      Obviously, Not All Men, but a disappointing amount of them.

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