Vaccines, Infrastructure, and Kids In Cages: US Politics April 2021

Lock the old thread

xp I do!

the "luxury wank" i think this was once called on these boards

years from now Tracer's post won't make any sense unless someone looks up the final few posts from Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

Needs more condoms

I will starting April 12!

Gaetz can't be sure where that hand's been

Invisible hand of government iirc

Good thread title

in one of the gaetz things i saw mention of him being endorsed by jeb bush early on, which reminded me of this car with out-of-state plates that I see parked in a catholic church parking lot all the time
https://i.postimg.cc/q7b6wpqZ/IMG-0989.jpg

lol

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/01/russia-warns-of-anti-white-aggression-in-us-a73446

Won't somebody please think of the wites

Meantime, Matt Gaetz everyone

https://www.rawstory.com/matt-gaetz-2651324286/

the sad thing is this is all very acceptable within the current GOP universe, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he somehow made it through all this with little-to-no damage.

The real question though is how acceptable this is in the DOJ/legal system universe.

Feel like the last four years have taught us that being a Republican politician gives you a lifetime pass to commit crime

Not convinced that the Department Of Justice has taken historical interest in people showing each other photos of people they've fucked. Otherwise we'd probably hear a lot more about Gene Simmons doing nine consecutive life sentences, and 90% of your female and gay friends who use dating apps would have stopped hanging out in bars with you long before the pandemic, due to being in priz.

Literally nobody in my entire life, man or woman, gay or straight, has ever showed me a nude picture of somebody they slept with.

Maybe I don't go to enough bars.

I've been to a lot of bars in my life and that has never happened to me either.

Wow, bars have really changed
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M6XTITUhENc/hqdefault.jpg

The other day I was listening to someone who said, "Everyone at some point has taken a nude photo of themselves when they felt good and then possibly shared it" and I was like O__O

I think this is one of those areas where people are flabbergasted to learn their own practices aren't universally shared, like "another think coming" vs "another thing coming"

yeahhhhh, perhaps not a universal experience...

who among us hasn't shared some nude pics

well, me

and yeah, never known anyone who has showed any to me. hopefully i send off vibes to people, like "don't show me naked pics, please"

Whomp whomp

Now it's being reported that Gaetz was in the office with Greenberg "on a weekend" looking at fake IDs of women -- the women Greenberg is charged with sex trafficking -- per CNN.

This is not sounds like it's getting better for Matt.

— Michelangelo Signorile (@MSignorile) April 1, 2021

"Everyone at some point has taken a nude photo of themselves when they felt good and then possibly shared it"

favorite White Album song

nude picture

nude photo

nude pics

naked pics

lotta people telling on themselves itt

Nude sics

Nude sics - that's when you *strip off* the facebook link.

Not convinced that the Department Of Justice has taken historical interest in people showing each other photos of people they've fucked.

The DOJ is investigating Gaetz for sex trafficking. Showing nudie pics are a side issue. Unless Gaetz was showing the nudie pics to angle for interested colleagues he could pimp for.

is this Gaetz thing more than him just travelling across state lines to have sex with a 17 year old?

Vaccines, Infrastructure, and Kids In Cages: US Politics April 2021

oh lol missed that post well shit

interesting way to quantify things

If Biden's infrastructure-plus packages become law, the impact of Ossoff/Warnock wins would be in the ballpark of $4-5 trillion.

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) April 1, 2021

Well well

🚨 The Times has reviewed receipts from Cash App and Apple Pay that show payments from Gaetz and Greenberg to one of the women, and a payment from Greenberg to a second woman. The women told their friends that the payments were for sex with the two men https://t.co/TCS3mC6tkk

— Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) April 2, 2021

What is love?

this is so funny pic.twitter.com/tRJYeqca3C

— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) April 2, 2021

"...and looks forward to marrying the love of his life." Who hasn't been born yet.

ok can we clarify the Nestor thing now

My "Matt Gaetz has never paid for sex" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered etc. etc.

Lol nickn

Thread: The story of how @mattgaetz became a target of the Trump justice department is even crazier and weirder than you can imagine.

It involves blockchain, blatant fraud by a local tax collector, and a scheme to steal people’s government ID.

This is NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE.

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) April 1, 2021

^ now THAT was an interesting tweet thread!

weird how Twitter's trending topic on this starts "Rep. Matt Gaetz says he’s a victim of 'criminal extortion'"

Read that as "I did heinous criminal things that made me easy to blackmail."

I mean, Twitter, the news, whatever, if it's the feds he's already cooked

Meanwhile, a different Gaetz story from CNN:

Sources say Gaetz used his phone to show images of nude women, boasting that he slept with them. He showed such images even while on the floor of the U.S. House.
https://t.co/Lo1buyCjHa

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) April 2, 2021

Sorry I wasn’t up on the latest

Might as well collate this Gaetz story from circa 2013 itt:

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz accused of creating sex game with 'points' for sleeping with staff

"The point system for the game, which was rumored to continue in 2014 and 2015, demeaningly awarded one point for a having sex with a lobbyist, two for a staffer, three for another legislator and six for a married legislator."

The only trip we are planning is to rent a cabin in the UP for a week at the end of the summer, but that's pending where numbers are by then since our son is below the 12-15 range and is very unlikely to be vaccinated by that point.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, April 19, 2021 12:59 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just a heads up, you're likely going to find that mask compliance in the UP is somewhat less than what you've experienced in Chicago. Maybe this is obvious, I dunno, but I'm from up there and my parents still live there, so I hear stories and read news, etc. Depending on where you go you may be the only person masked up.

@ Simon H. --- fair!! i totally can appreciate that sentiment. fingers crossed for you.

Just a heads up, you're likely going to find that mask compliance in the UP is somewhat less than what you've experienced in Chicago. Maybe this is obvious, I dunno, but I'm from up there and my parents still live there, so I hear stories and read news, etc. Depending on where you go you may be the only person masked up.

I mean, nothing is set in stone at all yet. We're just all desperately in need of a trip to look forward to and a cabin within (longish) driving distance seems reasonable to plan four or five months out. Obviously if shit looks dire, we'll cancel. I mean, we wouldn't dare head up there right now with the numbers as they sit, but I'm hoping for a turnaround by then.

I was in marquette and houghton in the UP in the past month and it seemed like everyone in the former was wearing a mask while nobody in the latter was.

If you are vaccinated, and you adhere to all guidelines and requirements (masks, tests, etc.), and the destination country has no problem with you arriving, should you not travel?

Just using the US as an example, we only just hit 25% of the population fully vaccinated. That isn't even close to what we need for herd immunity, so unnecessary air travel is a terrible idea right now. The new case rate needs to be near zero before people start flying everywhere.

Maybe you're vaccinated, but A. new variants are popping up that you might either not be protected against or you can carry asymptomatically and B. the vaccines aren't 100%... they're awesome in terms of protecting you from hospitalization and mean we can hit herd immunity faster than we would with vaccines only 50-60% effective, but we need to see that herd immunity in full effect before going back to normal, and we just haven't got there yet.

I dunno, if the goal is herd immunity and zero cases, I imagine that rules out travel for ... a couple more years? Which seems pretty untenable.

I saw this Nature article on why herd immunity is likely impossible at this point:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2

I mean, we probably are never hitting her immunity at this point, so I guess travel is just over forever if that's our benchmark.

"herd immunity"

we still need to know more about the risks that vaccinated people pose to the greater population, but it seems like an odd thing to fret over when a large portion of the country plans to remain unvaccinated and refuses to observe any semblance of masking or distancing whatsoever.

I dunno, if the goal is herd immunity and zero cases, I imagine that rules out travel for ... a couple more years? Which seems pretty untenable.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, April 19, 2021 2:36 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the UK had one (1) death yesterday. it doesn't need to take two years.

f. hazel said we need herd immunity and

the new case rate needs to be near zero before people start flying everywhere.

2,963 new cases and 4 new deaths in the United Kingdom

And keep in mind, that's the UK, where you currently cannot travel to without a lengthy quarantine. How enforced it is, I dunno, but I think we're operating under the idea of "travel" as "travel that does not require a week+ in a hotel at your own expense."

the UK is planning to lift domestic restrictions pretty soon IIUC. not sure about inbound travel given the situation in the ROW. my point is more that you can set a pretty strict requirement to lift a given restriction and it's not impossible to reach it. (well, it might be in a country in which 25% of adults plan to refuse vaccination.)

I mean, we probably are never hitting herd immunity at this point, so I guess travel is just over forever if that's our benchmark.

Should we travel now? No, we should not. Is herd immunity a pipe dream at this point which will lead to all airplanes being grounded forever? I think that's pretty obviously a different question and involves a lot more conjecture. But this summer, vacations shouldn't involve flights.

xpost I didn't say impossible, I said years, if the standard is no new cases and herd immunity.

i understand. i'm saying that a rich country with access to vaccines could set an aggressive target for lifting all domestic restrictions (probably not zero, but small, like 5 per million or something) and that wouldn't be synonymous with "never lift this restriction" or "years" because they could reach it in the next few weeks.

the UK and israel (both now in the low tens per million) have in fact done this, and are going to succeed.

exponential growth goes both ways (or it does when there is effective healthcare and public health systems and hasn't been epistimic collapse).

Hope you are right! What remains to be seen is how successful these countries remain once they totally open up their borders again, considering tight restrictions on travel, and quarantines and whatnot, are some of the best ways of maintaining that success.

i would imagine the UK, a bastion of civil liberties and famously pro-immigrant island, is going to have a pretty strong stomach for requiring proof of vaccination to enter.

requiring proof of vaccination at the border would be a tough sell in the US because 25% of US adults will never get vaccinated (that number will be more like 10% in the UK, maybe even less). also the UK doesn't have land borders and is already committing unrelated international trade suicide, so there's less to lose by shutting people out.

well they do have that one land border...

new variants are popping up that you might either not be protected against or you can carry asymptomatically

i’d be worried about this if there were a shred of evidence for it. my parents are vaccinated, my wife and i will have had both doses by july, i haven’t seen them in a year and a half, and we’re going to travel to go see them. my dad’s in his eighties, i don’t know how many chances we have left. is this “necessary”? “unnecessary”?

I'm not waiting another year to hug my kids.

well they do have that one land border...

― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Monday, April 19, 2021 3:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha i literally forgot it, which i assume is what the UK government is doing too.

Not to say anyone itt is doing this (I do totally understand what f. hazel is saying, believe me, I'm not planning to leave the country for quite some time yet), but it is frustrating to feel like the goalposts are being shifted wrt what fully vaxxed people can and can't do. I can absolutely see why people are frustrated to have been told to be patient until vaccinations are here, only to get vaccinated and then be shamed for doing things like traveling to see family they haven't seen for over a year.

Maybe you're vaccinated, but A. new variants are popping up that you might either not be protected against or you can carry asymptomatically and B. the vaccines aren't 100%... they're awesome in terms of protecting you from hospitalization

tracer otm. there's no substantial evidence for A.

B omits that they are also awesome at protecting you from _any_ kind of infectionr: https://www.statnews.com/2021/03/29/real-world-study-by-cdc-shows-pfizer-and-moderna-vaccines-were-90-effective/

Participants were tested weekly to look for all cases of Covid infection, even asymptomatic ones. There were 161 Covid infections in the unvaccinated workers, compared with 16 in workers who had received only one dose by the time of their infection and only three infections in people who had received both doses and were two weeks out from their second dose.

there's no equivalent study that I know of for J&J or AZ, but moderna and pfizer appear to be almost perfect vaccines with they make you 90%+ less likely to get covid with or without symptoms (which means they also make you 90%+ likely to give it to someone else). this is based on real world studies with the variants that are circulating now, now whatever was around last summer when the original trials for those vaccines were running.

*not whatever was around last summer

moderna and pfizer appear to be almost perfect vaccines with they make you 90%+ less likely to get covid with or without symptoms (which means they also make you 90%+ likely to give it to someone else).

sorry, I'm just over here enjoying the typo

"I'm not waiting another year to hug my kids." don''t you ... live with your kids? Do you mean you have not been touching them for the past year?

I am divorced. My ex has my kids in TN. I live in MA.

We have joint custody but that's meaningless when you aren't actually allowed to travel

oh shit, I did not know that happened, I'm sorry. I'll PM ya.

anyway IMO if you are fully vaxxed, there is no reason not to travel, particularly for reasons like this (to see family). is there some small chance that vaxxed people can still catch and spread covid? the evidence seems inconclusive at best, and if it were a clear and present danger I think we would not see these declining cases that we've seen in Israel and, in fact, parts of the US where vaccinations are happening at a large scale.

sorry, I'm just over here enjoying the typo

yeah sorry i've had four hours sleep every night for the past year. every comment i post has them these days.

On Friday I went to happy hour with two fully vaccinated coworkers at a brewery with a formidable outdoor seating section. A couple of us teared up. It felt good. Baby steps, man.

Congrats! At this point I'm just looking forward to booking a haircut (cannot wait until I can get my beard professional trimmed again tho) in mid-May.

we're gonna be travelling to Boston with the kids to meet my nephew who is going to be 1. I'm worried about the kids but the evidence seems to be that even if they get it, it won't be a big deal - afaik most people whose kids caught it didn't even know they had it

sorry, I'm just over here enjoying the typo
yeah sorry i've had four hours sleep every night for the past year. every comment i post has them these days.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, April 19, 2021 3:05 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i've really noticed this in my own writing - on ilx, for work - so many typos, lots of times i miss words in sentences. very disconcerting, i used to be able to write really clean copy and not have many edits.

I used to think that, too, but then I occasionally look at old things I wrote (not just here, everywhere) and there's all sorts of wrong shit, even post-edit.

my partner's sister came up from boston and we've had a house with her and her husband (both vaxed) and her three kids (8, 10, 12) for the past three days. It has been an experience.

I used to think that, too, but then I occasionally look at old things I wrote (not just here, everywhere) and there's all sorts of wrong shit, even post-edit.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, April 19, 2021 3:17 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nah it's definitely different for me, my brain is dying, it's real specific stuff that i know didn't happen before. and at the magazine stuff used to get edited like 4 times, twice on paper w.pen, so i am pretty conscious of what it used to be like.

I feel like a negative test in the past 4 days or something is a much more useful barometer to fly than a vaccination card. You can be vaxxed and still theoretically contagious, or at least it's possible.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/covid-flight-record-infections-india-b1833655.html

In theory everyone was tested 72 hrs before travel.

Yep, you're not going to catch everyone. But that's true with people who have been vaccinated too, they can still be positive. I mean, my druthers are for everybody to be vaxxed before they get on a plane, and masked in flight. But I also think a negative test before flying is a good idea.

How's your family, tips?

All fine so far. Youngest kid — our first case — gets to go back to school tomorrow. His brother is in isolation the rest of the week, but has been healthy so far. My wife and I tested negative again on Friday, so it looks like our first shot is holding up pretty well. We should all be clear by this weekend, knock wood.

Minneapolis some kids have gone back, it was up to it parents. but the rest of the week everyone's back home in case the Chauvin trial goes the wrong way. fun times. my daughter's been home anyway

I thought a recent study had shown that people who are fully vaxxed are not contagious?

Very small chance.

The B.1.617 variant was first detected in India, but has since been found elsewhere, including California. It has worried experts as it contains two mutations in the spike protein that, it has been suggested, may boost its ability to escape the body’s immune responses. It is thought the variant may also be able to infect the body more easily.

Every single flight arriving in Toronto from India in the last month has had at least one COVID-positive passenger, and one-third of all international flights have carried the virus.

Whether it mutated in the US or mutated in India, I'm sticking to my "bad idea to fly it in and out unchecked" position.