US Politics, March 2020 — There’s a very good chance you’re not going to die.

not even the "states" or the people that live in them, just the governor. for example, that woman governor from michigan that isn't showing enough appreciation for what he's done

― Karl Malone, Sunday, March 29, 2020 12:14 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah. exactly. because a person, whose name he forgets, rubbed him the wrong way somehow, the people who they are serving as governor need to die.

who even thinks of americans as, first and foremost, residents of their states, responsible for what their governors do? it's psychotic.

another very ugly thing about this is that it spurs people to lower themselves to that level.

like in that tweet thread are new yorkers saying we actually deserve more resources than other states because of the federal tax revenue we generate per capita.

how about, resources go where they are needed!

i'm with you - i really do think it's straight up murder. white collar murder, on a mass scale. people in executive positions are often forced to make decisions that really do lead to life and death results. choosing which conflicts to enter, or to ignore. states not expanding medicaid to their most vulnerable citizens, that's another form of it. but even that seems more indirect. the situation now, with trump and some of the dumbfuck governors, really does lead to a very predictable range of deaths, in the short term, and he's choosing to favor the lives of people who live in states where he gets along with the governor. he can't die soon enough

yes. politics is life and death, all the time, so no difference there. this seems unique, still, because 1.) there is no way to spin it and 2.) the reasoning is completely stupid and based on the whims of one person, not the interests of the business class or whatever

evidently someone disagrees

Biden was asked by Chuck Todd if there's blood on Trump's hands. He responded: "I think that's a little too harsh."

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) March 29, 2020

this fucker needs to go

biden is a ditz

In stimulus news, I am wondering if most people, like with the 2008 stimulus, might be reluctant to spend theirs, and add it to their savings. Nobody could blame most people for doing that, but that's one thing that prevented the 2008 stimulus from being effective.

There's also confusion about how it works. I'm seeing friends basically saying they'll just save it because it's just going to come out of their taxes next year, which of course isn't true. People are seeing the word "advance" as if it means this $1,200 is an 'advance' from their refund next year, so then when they file taxes next year, if their refund was calculated at $2,000, they'll only get $800 since they already got $1,200 the previous year.

When in reality, it's an advance of a one-time refundable tax credit newly created for 2020, so it isn't impacting your tax refund for 2020 or 2019 at all (other than the possibility that you get overpaid this year because your pay in 2018/2019 was drastically lower than it is in 2020, but that part is murky - government hasn't said whether you'd have to pay any portion back yet). You just don't get the credit next year since you got the check already, but your tax refund or liability is what it would have been had there been no stimulus at all.

As for me, I'm going to commission another Police Academy movie with mine.

who even thinks of americans as, first and foremost, residents of their states, responsible for what their governors do? it's psychotic.

― treeship., Sunday, March 29, 2020

This was a thing through the Civil War and, thanks to the Supreme Court, it persisted through the New Deal. It's one of the quiet conservative projects, this revanchism.

it completely missed me until today that the $1200 is minimum wage for one month rounded up.

biden is a ditz

― treeship., Sunday, March 29, 2020 12:31 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Woah, treesh, don't go being to harsh on the chosen one.

too

Glad he’s got his eyes on the ball

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

When our $2400 arrives it's going in the bank and staying there, as part of the "get us the fuck out of this insane, rapidly devolving country" fund. The country I want to live in says you have to have a certain amount in the bank in order to apply for a residence permit, the number is right on their immigration website, so that's our target, plus a few grand more for lawyers' fees and stuff. $2400 is about 5% of what we need. Not a lot, but not nothing.

My sister was confused by the "advanced tax credit" wording as well, and she's generally pretty savvy.

Apart from the whole touting ratings of a govt briefing on a fucking disaster, just the cluelessness to think that anyone gives a shit about the fucking ratings. What. A. Psycho.

It's like the NWS director bragging about how many ppl tuned in to the Emergency Broadcast System alerts

Interesting in a "root for injuries" sort of way. If only he could set up some kind of Deadhead situation where his knuckle-walking followers could follow him from rally to rally in their RVs, only interacting with (and thereby infecting) each other.

Trump officials are talking loosely about when rallies can resume, looking at end of April/early May, and looking at whether they can be done differently so attendees aren’t all pressed against each other. https://t.co/4EaqgFqwnU

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 29, 2020

Iirc Campbell County, Wyoming is the saddest county in the saddest state.

Have Trumpists gather there, put a plexiglass dome over it. Boom. Done.

Crud, autocucmber. reddest county in the reddest state. But whatevs

i was gonna say montana is pretty, friend

when will these lemmings find their cliff edge? when will their piss piper lead them to oblivion? NOTHING OF VALUE WILL BE LOST

NOTHING OF VALUE WILL BE LOST

They often have minor children.

well okay yes you're right

Kicking and screaming, but he seems to have deferred to "those two" (the doctors).

Don't you think he sounded out of breath and even more incoherent than usual?

I really hope this kills him

Pence as the nominee will be easier to handle no matter what

(xpost) Just caught the last five minutes. His attack on the CNN reporter...I don't know--I'm dumb enough to be surprised it keeps happening, every day.

at least we have such good examples to illustrate DARVO to people suffering from abuse.

he suggested, multiple times, that health care workers are selling the masks for profit, like the entire PPE shortage is just a case of corruption on the part of health care workers.

I’ll admit I do sometimes marvel at the new depths of projection he’ll manage to plumb, without the humans around him or news mechanisms blinking an eye

i feel like sociopathy and psychopathy should be more recognized as being on a spectrum and discussed publicly as such.

I’ve always just heard them used interchangeably by people who don’t know what they’re talking about

When you combine that astounding big-ratings tweet from earlier today with Trump's psychological blackmail of the governors (which he tried to finesse his way around tonight: "I don't call them, but that doesn't mean Mike Pence doesn't call them"...and of course you know, as he says this, that Pence has been told not to call them), it's clear that, consciously or not, he really does view this as some high-wire variation on The Apprentice or Survivor, where he and only he gets to decide which states will pull through and which ones get fired or voted off the island.

Twitter removed two posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro Sunday night in a rare instance of the social media giant censuring an elected world leader for a rules violation.

Bolsonaro tweeted two videos that showed him flouting the advice of his own health officials, hailing the treatment of an unvetted drug to treat the coronavirus, gathering small crowds in the capital, Brasilia, and listening to complaints by locals that the churches should be reopened and people should be out working.

In a statement, Twitter said it is now removing content that it says undercuts public health information.

So they'll start doing this with our Asshole ... when?

lame style: idiocracy predicted future
new style: fury road informed present
lydon style: no future for you

So cool they can create new rules to take down posts from heads of state but won't enforce the existing ones and ban them

tbf, they own the system and participation is wholly voluntary, so they have room to be as arbitrary as they like.

The man has a type pic.twitter.com/vlKSLmZrpm

— Keith Edwards 🍥 (@keithedwards) March 30, 2020

I think they must have gone to work on him over the weekend. 1) It's the coronavirus now, not the Chinese virus. (He paused momentarily, like he had to remind himself.) 2) He readily handed the mic over a couple of times. 3) There seems to be an awareness that working with other countries instead of insulting them might be a good thing.

Tomorrow, who knows.

I do think--and believe me, this is not a defense of Trump; it's a strategy for protecting the world from him--at least for the time being, reporters should stop goading him into saying stupid stuff (which, with Trump, can be as basic as pointing out a lie or a contradiction from yesterday). Because if you do, he'll say stupid stuff. I remember a kid in my school a couple of years who was in the GLD class and had major anger issues. You had to be real careful how you spoke to him if you were on yard duty. He could be unbelievably rude, and sometimes you wanted to verbally get into it with him. I know I did, and every now and again, I stupidly would. One time, when I was needling him about his rudeness, he picked up a rock, and I, momentarily stepping into a Scorsese film, said "What are you gonna do, throw a rock at me?" Guess what? He threw a rock at me (in the direction of my feet, thankfully). I let it go, because I knew who I was dealing with and I let it happen. It's not supposed to work that way with a president, but it does with this one.

(Made my peace with that kid after that, until one day--big surprise, rough home life--he left the school.)

My Pillow guy is giving the presser

My post above was based only on the pre-Q & A part of the briefing today--they cut away, they went back, the usual.

I thought you were joking about My Pillow guy. I'm told he's telling people to read the bible. WTF

The My Pillow guy is a huge evangelical, and holds a lot of sway with the community because of course he does.

Now that Trump has clearly stepped off the ledge in terms of reopening the country, I wonder what Fauci had to say to him behind closed doors to get him there? My guess is--with a little "I respect what you're going through, sir" sugarcoating--something on the order of, "Realize that if you go through with that, you'll go down as the greatest mass-murderer since Hitler." I honestly believe that's what it would take, and I think Fauci would say it.

keep in mind that, even with all of that, which i believe is plausible - trump could completely turn back on that at any moment, based off of what is on fox news

^

Trump also defers to the My Pillow guy because he's on TV alot.

My Pillow guy is giving the presser

― frogbs, Tuesday, March 31, 2020 8:46 AM (three hours ago)

I thought you were joking about My Pillow guy. I'm told he's telling people to read the bible. WTF

― akm, Tuesday, March 31, 2020 11:09 AM (one hour ago)

The My Pillow guy is a huge evangelical, and holds a lot of sway with the community because of course he does.

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, March 31, 2020 11:20 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago)

Trump also defers to the My Pillow guy because he's on TV alot.

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, March 31, 2020 11:46 AM (thirty-one minutes ago)

quick question: what's a My Pillow guy