Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

uh what

I'll pass, thx tho

we need a businessman in charge of the treasury

friedfic

You know who should be in charge of the Treasury, is Martin Skreli

I was wondering what absolute genius would come up with that idea and had it in one guess

enjoy Friedman's idea where he's like.. what if they just appointed a bunch of sitting congress members into all these positions? way to give away the senate, buddy

At this point Tom Friedman is just filling up perfectly good empty space with a stupidity that has to be parked somewhere until he dies.

Sanders cabinet should be exclusively drawn from podcasts

I would argue the "at this point" qualifier

some years ago I went to a department-wide meeting at my corporate employer and they mentioned Friedman by name when referencing something he said in a book, and my first thought was "this guy is not going to be a VP for long if he thinks these are good ideas"

guess what!

he's kind of a dumb person's idea of what a smart person thinks about business, politics, and commerce

he should be freed, man (fired)

I support him keeping his nytimes job because we don't need him on the streets or in a boardroom

tbh I'm now wondering if said VP was responsible for taking a group of chinese nationals on a tour of research labs

flat world theory in effect

I support him keeping his nytimes job because we don't need him on the streets or in a boardroom

Now I'm mad because my brain is trying to complete a "Friedman in the streets / ________ in the sheets" joke

I'm mostly mad because I can't get past "Peedman"

lol

"Speedman" unfortunately not an accepted shorthand for "two pump chump"

hot take that no one on earth has thought of:

coronavirus, given the trump administration's incompetence and demolishment of epidemic preparation operations and budget, has the potential to be trump's Katrina for the 2020 elections.

this is going to be a big fucking mess, regardless of who is in charge. with trump's team calling the shots? it's going to be bad, and they're going to look very, very, very, very, very bad.

(disregard if you're already annoyed by reading about coronavirus, and like rush limbaugh, want to think that it's equivalent to the common cold)

i was gonna say that bernie should make it a big point in the debate given how it's starting to grow into a full blown panic and pharma corps apparently have little incentive to spend on vaccination research

I'm having similar thoughts KM

idk the fact that you might have to pay over $1000 just to get *screened* for this virus which actively disincentives people from getting tested seems like a good point in Bernie's favor

as of yesterday, i think only 3 states (IL + two others i forgot) even have the capability to test for it

Given his administration has no problem rounding up and caging people who *aren't* sick ...

and the official word from the president and his cronies is "everything is fine, buy stocks on the dip"

bernie + democrats should be bashing the living fuck out of this on the campaign trail. talk about trump's dismantling of the very administrative infrastructure that was built to confront a pandemic like this

he did it for no fucking reason, and now he's having to ask congress to authorize funds for a pool of money that shouldn't been taken away in the first place

xpost tbf "go shopping" was W.'s response to 9/11, and that solved everything.

tracer posted this earlier today: recommended reading

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without wondering, “What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?”

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it isIf the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark

(disregard if you're already annoyed by reading about coronavirus, and like rush limbaugh, want to think that it's equivalent to the common cold)

― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 25, 2020 1:23 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ohhhh cool, I was just this morning wondering when the CoronaTruthers were gonna start seeping out of the woodwork.

they'll probably come out on ilx too, i'd guess. not "truthers" but the "it's not a big deal" crowd. it's a very natural response, and i remember catching a bunch of shit when the ebola stuff was happening. a lot of people are naturally inclined to see these things as a boy who cried wolf situation

A friend of mine, who is of Chinese descent, is convinced that the mortality rate has been blown out of proportion by Western authorities for the sole purpose of making China look bad.

He's also a Big Brother and Uyghur 'reeducation' camp apologist, so 🤷.

It is vital to remember that the utter-catastrophists are wrong, then it means the it's-a-nothingburger contingent must be right. in every situation, there are only these two options.

Truer words were never spoken.

My immediate response to that line of commentary is: are there people who benefit from blowing this out of proportion? If you can't explain who those people are and what their angle might be, maybe just stfu, I dunno.

(Re: the 'blown out of proportion' hot take)

it's certainly the job of people who track diseases to paint a picture of the worst case scenario because the worst case is a very possible scenario. But it does make one wonder whether or not you should actually panic. I"m not panicking, but we did cancel our spring break trip just to avoid airports and planes for the time being.

xp 'Western imperialism' would be his answer.

we've seen what happens in situations where we were prepared (y2k computer issues, etc) and what happens when we've failed to keep on our toes (9/11 intelligence being left in a folder, catastrophic failure of infrastructure and support systems during multiple hurricanes) and the response seems to be that people don't give a shit unless their lives are personally affected

people are incredibly bad at risk/reward calculations, and if they didn't succumb to a risk, they assume they're not reaping any benefits -- because the benefit is that your life continues on

imo you could argue that humanity is even worse off when the worst does happen. our government tortured people in search of facts that simply didn't exist in order to solicit confessions implicating collaborators and future planned attacks, when those were pure fictions

you can't waterboard people until you've undone 9/11, but that's exactly what was going on. you can't undo a catastrophic event with future actions

preparing for the worst in this case would actually all be beneficial. bitches should be washing hands more anyway.

yeah I mean wash your hands and don't go to China

bad reason to buy vodka though.

I've been looking for an excuse to start bodyslamming douchebags who leave the restroom without washing their hands, and I think I've finally found one.

(NB, I will not be bodyslamming anyone anywhere but in my mind, but still)

... when there are so many other better reasons to buy vodka you can choose from.

Just choke down some Purell, it has a multitude of uses.

imo every major urban center should be running drills at the very least annually where they pop up temporary expanded facilities, run through quarantine protocol, make sure communication lines to the CDC are dedicated and proofed against disruption by natural or intentional factors, and have a full set of mock patients come through