CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Player 4575]

If you vote for Republicans, you don't care if people die. 

Vote Democrat- the ass you save might be your own.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

53 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Man, those Republicans must have gone long on hydroxycloriquine or however you spell it

 

[Bateshorn 9928]

Kemp was going to look like a genius....until the end of next week.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

10 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Any smart House Republican knows when you're dirty you use the Russian Laundromat: Hydroxychloroquine! It gets you clean!

[DixonHur 11342]

What is this Mullin guy getting at?

[LurkingHorn 1066]

Holy shit, this Mullin dipshit from OK is basically trying to make Bright look like an asshole for getting a paycheck. Yes, he gets paid by the federal government, asshole. What's your freaking point?

[TXSG8R 3362]

Just now, DixonHur said:

What is this Mullin guy getting at?

Being a dick, basically accusing Bright of faking hypertension to ride his paycheck and get out of work to come in front of congress.  

[406W30th 1111]

Just now, LurkingHorn said:

Holy shit, this Mullin dipshit from OK is basically trying to make Bright look like an asshole for getting a paycheck. Yes, he gets paid by the federal government, asshole. What's your freaking point?

Distract, confuse, ad hominem attacks. Anything to avoid having to talk about public health.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

1 minute ago, 406W30th said:

Distract, confuse, ad hominem attacks. Anything to avoid having to talk about public health.

Ah yes, takes me back to those impeachment hearings. I remember those days. They never really left. Seems like a Frank Sinatra song. Familiar and bittersweet.

[Jive Turkey 12621]

17 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Hydroxychloroquine!

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Just now, Jive Turkey said:

Drink it and double the clean!

[DixonHur 11342]

Holy crap...how much is Trump paying Hudson

[conVINCEd 21469]

1 minute ago, DixonHur said:

Holy crap...how much is Trump paying Hudson

Trump doesn’t pay people, he has Russians pay people on his behalf. 

[triplehorn 2664]

This HCQ deal in the US is really something.  It's been politicized all around and potential applications as a part of a larger coordinated approach appear misunderstood, (assuming apparent successful incorporation by multiple other countries is the standard).  It's just one facet of our national incoherence to manage the pandemic at home.

[Anastasis 23478]

6 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

This HCQ deal in the US is really something.  It's been politicized all around and potential applications as a part of a larger coordinated approach appear misunderstood, (assuming apparent successful incorporation by multiple other countries is the standard).  It's just one facet of our national incoherence to manage the pandemic at home.

It's been politicized because people, and one person in particular, got way over their skis in making broad statements and recommendations with no strong basis in the clinical evidence. If somebody generates level I evidence supporting that HCQ is both safe and effective for the treatment or prophy of COVID-19, the discussion around it will turn on a dime.  Right now all we have is wishful thinking mixed with a good dose of quackery, and level III, IV, V evidence. 

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

Pardon me while I turn the thread into my facebook post, since I don't have facebook.

TLDR (you'll need it): Not anti-science, but turning into what I describe as a fatalist.

I moved my family to a place where they knew nobody back in December.  For a few weeks, the kids only had each other to play with, and there was lots of grieving for their missed friends and locales.  The townhome we rented is in a great location, but no immediate families with kids their ages in the area.  School finally starts up (the schools in the area were one of many reasons I wanted to move here), and they were accepted by peers immediately and started making friends quickly.  Daughter got invited to birthday parties, and they were even getting playdates set up when boom, no more school/pandemic closure time.  So back to only having each other.  We put in an offer on a house at roughly the same time, not knowing how bad things were about to get.  Ignorance, desperation, I don't know.

Fast forward to this week and we're finally starting the move in process.  One day I was there with my son and we thought we'd skateboard the street and I see sooooo many kids playing together. I think, hmm, they can't all be from the same family.  This area is a pretty small subdivision and there would be no reason for through traffic.  You go into the neighborhood only if you live there, really. Next thing you know a giant gaggle of kids run up to me and start introducing themselves, asking questions, e.t.c.  Eventually their parents start walking over and doing the same.  If there was no pandemic going on, you'd think I moved into a Norman Rockwell scene with a forest background. Most of the kids were girls, and younger, but then there is a boy my son's age and I just couldn't help it, I let them visit, play.  For my son, after all this time cooped up, well, I imagine it was like water to a thirsty man.

As I talked to the parents, I realized I myself have been lonely too, and I was so happy to get all these friendly welcomes and just talk to some friendly adults in person.  Adults who know the area, who have kids, e.t.c.  I didn't want to offend in any way, so I tried to crack a joke about "so, not quarantining the kids, eh?"  The answer was essentially "we don't go anywhere, and they all know each other." 

Now, I KNOW that's not a great answer.  I KNOW the safest thing I could do is keep my kids cooped up.  But having them in their new place watching all the neighborhood kids play in the yards from the windows, well I'm not enough of  a Kurtz I guess.  I'm a fucking softie.  So I confess, I let the son walk off and talk to his new friend (kids make friends so fast).  The next day I let the daughter run with the other girls.  

I KNOW that's not smart. But I want you all to know that its not political, at least on my part.  Its tiredness, its loneliness, its wanting my kids to have some joy in these dark times.  And its a fatalism thing.  The area I'm in has had 0 deaths so far, that we know.  The testing is of course, minimal.  But if this thing is so hyper contagious that we're all about to get it anyway (or maybe had it and don't know), at some point I find myself finally giving up, a bit.  I don't plan on going to mass gatherings.  I don't plan on eating in a restaurant in person.  I shaved my head a few weeks back, so I don't care about haircuts.  I wear my mask when I shop for groceries or go to Target.  But not only do I not want my kids to be lonely, I'm tired of not knowing anyone myself in this place I've been in for six months.

If letting my kids play with the neighborhood kids is going to give it to me, then I'm getting it.  If talking outside to my neighbors is going to give it to me, then I am getting it.  I'm not anywhere close to ever voting for a Republican, much less a Trump (although as a lefty a lot of Dems don't please me either).  But I feel like some here would group me with science deniers/ak-47 protesters.

Confession over.

Edited May 14, 2020 by MC Fresh Breath

[Anastasis 23478]

And as far as this hearing, haven't really been able to pay attention, but just gonna point out that wearing masks in these hearings is pretty pointless if the speakers are going to take them on and off repeatedly and touch their face with their hands in the process.  They would be better off just removing them one time after they enter the room and settle, and replacing them when they leave.  

[pyrohornIII 4816]

13 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I don’t feel good about this Burr news at all.  He runs the Senate Intelligence Committee.  

Chances he will be brought to justice in this administration: 0

I disagree somewhat.   I think it's a move to discredit him, maybe remove him from office, or certainly all the committees he sits on.  Now will he see jail time?  Thinking his reaction will determine how hard they go after him.  I fully expect him to turtle on this.  

See below.

3 hours ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

Saw a few tweets talking about this being punishment for Burr not protecting Trump and using his role as Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence to kill the 'Russia Report'.  If Loeffler isn't investigated I think it makes it pretty clear that Burr was targeted for his perceived 'disloyalty'.

I concur, the timing and exclusivity (targeting only Burr) is suspect.  Our droopy AG is definitely behind this.

[washparkhorn 9939]

And update on who has been bailed out - in the Wall Street v. Main Street paradigm - Wall Street won again:

Quote

How the COVID-19 Bailout Gave Wall Street a No-Lose Casino

While ordinary Americans face record unemployment and loss, the COVID-19 bailout has saved the very rich

In late April Marko Kolanovic, a financial analyst for JPMorgan Chase, wrote to clients with good news. Pandemic aside, investors should expect stock prices in S&P 500 companies to return to record numbers some time early next year!

“The S&P 500 should attain previous all-time highs,” Kolanovic wrote, “if the monetary measures are sustained.”

The key part of this phrase was the last bit, “if the monetary measures are sustained.” In countries that did not have a Federal Reserve Bank shooting a bazooka of cash daily at Wall Street, Kolanovic suggested the coronavirus would result in a 30 percent decline in the present value of earnings.

In other words, without intervention by the Federal Reserve, the United States in the coronavirus era would be looking at a Depression-level contraction.

Assuming the Fed bazooka keeps firing, however, a large portion of the investor class is already on a road leading back to champagne and confetti. And that, as Robert Frost would say, has made all the difference.

Spoiler

On the road more traveled, on the real side of the coronavirus economy, the pain has been historic. As of this writing, 30 million people have filed jobless claims during the COVID-19 crisis, and millions have lost their employer-based insurance.

At least one in three can’t make their rent, millions more can’t afford groceries, and workers in supermarkets, medical clinics, warehouses, and other professions are now in a macabre race to see if they’ll turn blue and die before corporate employers decide to slash their salaries or retirement benefits — which has already happened to front-line caregivers in some cities.

There are no projections of record earnings in the futures of such people. The best case is survival, and the grim reality of diminished economic horizons. Yet for the tiny sliver of people whose fortunes depend not on salaries, tips, and commissions, but upon the prices of financial products like stocks and bonds, the coronavirus response heralds a brave new world.

The $2.3 trillion CARES Act, the Donald Trump-led rescue package signed into law on March 27th, is a radical rethink of American capitalism. It retains all the cruelties of the free market for those who live and work in the real world, but turns the paper economy into a state protectorate, surrounded by a kind of Trumpian Money Wall that is designed to keep the investor class safe from fear of loss.

This financial economy is a fantasy casino, where the winnings are real but free chips cover the losses. For a rarefied segment of society, failure is being written out of the capitalist bargain.

This is a fresh take on a long-developing dynamic. Dating to the late Eighties, when then-Fed-chief Alan Greenspan slashed interest rates after the 1987 stock-market crash, there’s been an understanding that the government would be there to help Wall Street back on its feet in hard times.

That belief was so strong it had a name: the “Greenspan put.” Bloomberg’s Tim Duy defines the term as “the implied promise that central bankers led by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan would bail out market participants who indulged in risky behavior.”

The Fed stepped in to flood Wall Street with cash (these are called “liquidity injections”) after a series of messes in the Clinton and Bush years, from the Asian-currency debacle to the collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund in the late Nineties to a deflation panic in 2002.

A prolonged period of liquidity injection in the early 2000s prompted a now-familiar pattern of pushing investors out of traditional safe-haven investments (the low interest rates punished savers) and into ever-riskier gambles in commodities, stocks, and the housing markets.

All three arenas saw bubbles, but the one in the U.S. housing market burst after an orgy of Ponzi-style scheming sent mortgage prices shooting through the roof. In the space of a few months in 2008, the pension funds and municipalities that had been urged by greed-sick bankers to invest in a “real estate boom” (actually a fraud-driven speculative bubble) lost fortunes.

Taxpayers and homeowners bore nearly 100 percent of the pain. Nearly 3 million people filed for foreclosure in 2010 alone. Back then, the notion of using state funds to rescue these folks was rejected as laughable, a dangerous “moral hazard.” As billionaire Charlie Munger put it in 2010, homeowners needed to “suck it in and cope,” and not wait for a handout.

Wall Street, though, got the mother of all rescues. The response wasn’t limited to a traditional liquidity injection. Banks were given trillions in bailouts and emergency loans, allowed to dump years of bad investment decisions into special garbage facilities set up by the Federal Reserve, and urged to “drink themselves sober” through years of free money from a zero-interest-rate policy.

The Fed, beginning in late 2008, added a new crisis-response tool called quantitative easing (QE), a fancy academic name for printing trillions of dollars and using it to buy everything from mortgages to government debt. This was with the ostensible aim of increasing “the availability of credit” for things like home purchases, but also to “foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally.”

The dubious underlying logic was that rescuing the economy and rescuing the financial markets were the same thing. To save people, we had to save the economy in which they operate, which meant saving the high-risk investments of Wall Streeters, as much as they might suck.

What’s happening in the COVID-19 crisis is the next step: a financial bubble where the Fed isn’t the cleanup mechanism, but the source of the mania itself. While the real economy is seeing record disruptions, Wall Street has seen prolonged rallies of “rational exuberance” over the Fed’s decision to usher in “QE infinity” and essentially ban losing in finance capitalism.

Though this is a Trump bill — El Pompadour is so determined that the CARES Act be remembered as his work, he fought to get his signature on relief checks — it passed unanimously, by voice vote in the House, and 96-0 in the Senate.

Talk to Democrats on the Hill and they will tell you this is a bailout to be cheered and supported, nothing like the 2008 rescue. This time is different, the argument goes: Three-quarters of the money goes to real people.

This is true, if one squints and uses a narrow definition of “money.” The $2.3 trillion imagines $560 billion for “individuals” (including $300 billion in cash payments, much by way of the famed $1,200 “Trump” checks), plus $377 billion for small businesses, as well as $339 billion for state and local governments, and $100 billion for hospitals and other health care providers, plus some aid for students and children.

Technically, “only” about $500 billion of the congressionally passed rescue package goes to “big business.” Moreover, the big-business aid ostensibly comes with a range of draconian-sounding conditions barring greedy hijinks, meaning no layoffs, no stock buybacks, no big bonuses, etc., if companies want the handout.

The loophole comes via $454 billion created as part of that big-business package. This “emergency fund” will be dumped into a “special-purpose vehicle” used to backstop further lending by the Federal Reserve.

That $454 billion is designed to grow by a factor of 10 or more. “We can lever up to $4 trillion,” said Steve Mnuchin, playing the “free-spending Goldman Sachs-trained Treasury secretary” role that apparently is a prerequisite for financial-disaster narratives in modern America.

Democrats early on expressed concern about old-school Tammany Hall-style graft, i.e., that the fund would be used to invest in businesses with connections. “We’re not here to create a slush fund for Donald Trump and his family,” is how Elizabeth Warren put it.

However, once Democrats won superficial oversight concessions (including the creation of a Congressional Oversight Commission), Warren and everyone else in the caucus approved the “slush fund” concept, despite the far more radical issues it poses than individual graft.

The CARES Act “slush fund” imagines a future in which markets for all financial products are stressed, perhaps permanently, by lockdowns. In place of a heartless free market of panicked investors who might want to cut their losses and sell, the plan is to simulate real buying and selling of financial products like mortgages and bonds with directed deployments of the Fed’s endless trillions.

And they will be endless. As Fed chief Jerome Powell put it, the Fed is “not going to run out of ammunition” in the war against the economic crisis. Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform said, “The Fed’s perspective on this is, they want to create normalcy.” But what does “normal” mean in an economy that may be changed forever?

Investors were fleeing stocks, bonds, money-market funds, etc., in the first weeks of March for the perfectly logical reason that most businesses suddenly looked like dicey investments. But the instant the Fed announced its new purchasing programs, most of these markets bounced back nearly all the way up.

Major bond funds that were on the brink of failure on March 23rd — like BlackRock’s $30 billion LQD fund — rebounded and recovered nearly all of their value in the next days. The S&P 500 sank 34 percent in 23 trading sessions at the beginning of the crisis, then after the Fed’s announcement on March 23rd, rose 27 percent in its next 16 sessions. The NYSE Composite hit a low of 8,777 on March 23rd, then started a long march back up over 10,000 and then 11,000 from that day forward.

Investors have begun following the Fed. Analysts are encouraging clients to “buy what the Fed is buying,” because “the stimulus seems to be endless.” The boom isn’t in any particular kind of company or product, but in the Fed itself.

“The Fed is the market, and all the big players know it, while the real economy will stagger far behind,” is how Nomi Prins, author of Collusionand an expert on central-banking policy, puts it.

This plan is getting support from both the right and the left. Wall Street analysts are cheering Fed chief Powell’s decision to act “forcefully, proactively, and aggressively” to forestall financial collapse, while liberal economists seem to cheer the spectacle of the government abandoning harrumphing conservative rhetoric about fiscal restraint to invest massively in the economy.

“I’m more sympathetic than I might otherwise have been,” says noted progressive economist Dean Baker, adding that the extraordinary crisis has created real trouble for a lot of good companies that the Fed’s actions will address.

Decades ago, America started down the road of creating two economic worlds. Our once-mighty brick-and-mortar economy went into decline and began to be exported overseas, to cheap labor zones and countries with less-stringent environmental laws — places that, as economist Larry Summers infamously put it, were “vastly underpolluted.” That American factory workers would be left behind by this process was just their bad luck, another thing requiring a “suck it in and cope” attitude.

Not so for their bosses, though, who were rescued from the decline by transitioning to even-more-profitable work in a new, “financialized” economy. This world emphasized making money by moving it around in the capital markets — prioritizing fees, interest, capital gains, etc. A generation of minds that were trained in the logic of “financialization,” and its underlying principles — which include the idea that workers are fungible, parasitic drains on the more crucial “wealth creators” above — accelerated the aggressive tilt to the political right by America’s wealthy in recent decades.

Even the experts at the Federal Reserve, whose official mandate includes attaining “maximum sustainable employment,” became more and more removed from their real-world purpose over the years, devoted instead to tending to the needs of this second, sandcastle economy over the problems of disenfranchised working people, whose fates mostly couldn’t be helped. And why not? What Fed official ever interacts with anyone not employed in the financial sector? How could the real world ever seep in?

The coronavirus bailout could end up being the last chapter in this hideous story. Although we’re seeing a graphic demonstration of how “unskilled” workers like home health aides and delivery people and grocery clerks are actually the vitally important people in our society, they’re not getting the radical rescue. There’s no sudden universal health care, no guaranteed sick leave, no massive jobs plan, just Band-Aids. They will die in massive numbers and emerge from this crisis, if and when it ends, poorer and more vulnerable than before.

But the financial markets are getting the World War II-style “whatever it takes” financial commitment, based upon the continuing fallacy that “wealth creators” must be the first in line for rescue in any crisis. This was a wrong assumption on the decks of the Titanic, a wrong assumption after 2008, and a criminally wrong assumption now.

Continuing belief in the trickle-down myth that has been destroying and dividing this country for decades will kill us faster than any pandemic. If we’re going to spend in “unlimited” amounts, let’s for once do it in the real world and for the people who need it most.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/taibbi-covid-19-bailout-wall-street-997342/

 

[henrygandorf 29192]

3 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

Other solutions? Like Lysol?

 

i'm gonna start ending emails with "likewise, other solutions!"

[burntorangebongos 10747]

16 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Pardon me while I turn the thread into my facebook post, since I don't have facebook.

TLDR (you'll need it): Not anti-science, but turning into what I describe as a fatalist.

I moved my family to a place where they knew nobody back in December.  For a few weeks, the kids only had each other to play with, and there was lots of grieving for their missed friends and locales.  The townhome we rented is in a great location, but no immediate families with kids their ages in the area.  School finally starts up (the schools in the area were one of many reasons I wanted to move here), and they were accepted by peers immediately and started making friends quickly.  Daughter got invited to birthday parties, and they were even getting playdates set up when boom, no more school/pandemic closure time.  So back to only having each other.  We put in an offer on a house at roughly the same time, not knowing how bad things were about to get.  Ignorance, desperation, I don't know.

Fast forward to this week and we're finally starting the move in process.  One day I was there with my son and we thought we'd skateboard the street and I see sooooo many kids playing together. I think, hmm, they can't all be from the same family.  This area is a pretty small subdivision and there would be no reason for through traffic.  You go into the neighborhood only if you live there, really. Next thing you know a giant gaggle of kids run up to me and start introducing themselves, asking questions, e.t.c.  Eventually their parents start walking over and doing the same.  If there was no pandemic going on, you'd think I moved into a Norman Rockwell scene with a forest background. Most of the kids were girls, and younger, but then there is a boy my son's age and I just couldn't help it, I let them visit, play.  For my son, after all this time cooped up, well, I imagine it was like water to a thirsty man.

As I talked to the parents, I realized I myself have been lonely too, and I was so happy to get all these friendly welcomes and just talk to some friendly adults in person.  Adults who know the area, who have kids, e.t.c.  I didn't want to offend in any way, so I tried to crack a joke about "so, not quarantining the kids, eh?"  The answer was essentially "we don't go anywhere, and they all know each other." 

Now, I KNOW that's not a great answer.  I KNOW the safest thing I could do is keep my kids cooped up.  But having them in their new place watching all the neighborhood kids play in the yards from the windows, well I'm not enough of  a Kurtz I guess.  I'm a fucking softie.  So I confess, I let the son walk off and talk to his new friend (kids make friends so fast).  The next day I let the daughter run with the other girls.  

I KNOW that's not smart. But I want you all to know that its not political, at least on my part.  Its tiredness, its loneliness, its wanting my kids to have some joy in these dark times.  And its a fatalism thing.  The area I'm in has had 0 deaths so far, that we know.  The testing is of course, minimal.  But if this thing is so hyper contagious that we're all about to get it anyway (or maybe had it and don't know), at some point I find myself finally giving up, a bit.  I don't plan on going to mass gatherings.  I don't plan on eating in a restaurant in person.  I shaved my head a few weeks back, so I don't care about haircuts.  I wear my mask when I shop for groceries or go to Target.  But not only do I not want my kids to be lonely, I'm tired of not knowing anyone myself in this place I've been in for six months.

If letting my kids play with the neighborhood kids is going to give it to me, then I'm getting it.  If talking outside to my neighbors is going to give it to me, then I am getting it.  I'm not anywhere close to ever voting for a Republican, much less a Trump (although as a lefty a lot of Dems don't please me either).  But I feel like some here would group me with science deniers/ak-47 protesters.

Confession over.

Good luck to you and your family.  I sincerely mean it.

I got around my extended family when I traveled to another city to visit my mother before her death. I knew that they were all using best practices to avoid contracting Covid due to my mother's health and nephew with medical issues. But I risked travel and exposure to get to them and eventually grieve for the loss of my mother with them. All this to say that it may come back to bite me and I will still deem it worth it.  I hope you are truly okay with the risk that you are taking and view it as worth it as well.

What I see as very troublesome is that these folks practiced no precautions before getting close to you, a stranger. Whereas my family made me spray alcohol all over myself and wear a mask and gloves before allowing me into the house where my mother was and washing my hands first thing after removing the gloves and mask. Just saying...maybe have your kids run around with hand sanitizer and at least a bandana when playing with the others. When they come home, off with the shoes and mist some alcohol in their hair and feet and run to wash hands first thing. Concerned female advice completed. Sorry if it seems naggy.

[Guest Lobo]

5 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i'm gonna start ending emails with "likewise, other solutions!"

I read that in the voice of Jennifer Coolidge (Stiffler's Mom in 'American Pie') when they're having that formal reception, "Likewise, I'm Sure."  That's about the sophistication level of Trump.  Plus he likes to bang age-inappropriate people.

[Foosters 17858]

53 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Pardon me while I turn the thread into my facebook post, since I don't have facebook.

TLDR (you'll need it): Not anti-science, but turning into what I describe as a fatalist.

I moved my family to a place where they knew nobody back in December.  For a few weeks, the kids only had each other to play with, and there was lots of grieving for their missed friends and locales.  The townhome we rented is in a great location, but no immediate families with kids their ages in the area.  School finally starts up (the schools in the area were one of many reasons I wanted to move here), and they were accepted by peers immediately and started making friends quickly.  Daughter got invited to birthday parties, and they were even getting playdates set up when boom, no more school/pandemic closure time.  So back to only having each other.  We put in an offer on a house at roughly the same time, not knowing how bad things were about to get.  Ignorance, desperation, I don't know.

Fast forward to this week and we're finally starting the move in process.  One day I was there with my son and we thought we'd skateboard the street and I see sooooo many kids playing together. I think, hmm, they can't all be from the same family.  This area is a pretty small subdivision and there would be no reason for through traffic.  You go into the neighborhood only if you live there, really. Next thing you know a giant gaggle of kids run up to me and start introducing themselves, asking questions, e.t.c.  Eventually their parents start walking over and doing the same.  If there was no pandemic going on, you'd think I moved into a Norman Rockwell scene with a forest background. Most of the kids were girls, and younger, but then there is a boy my son's age and I just couldn't help it, I let them visit, play.  For my son, after all this time cooped up, well, I imagine it was like water to a thirsty man.

As I talked to the parents, I realized I myself have been lonely too, and I was so happy to get all these friendly welcomes and just talk to some friendly adults in person.  Adults who know the area, who have kids, e.t.c.  I didn't want to offend in any way, so I tried to crack a joke about "so, not quarantining the kids, eh?"  The answer was essentially "we don't go anywhere, and they all know each other." 

Now, I KNOW that's not a great answer.  I KNOW the safest thing I could do is keep my kids cooped up.  But having them in their new place watching all the neighborhood kids play in the yards from the windows, well I'm not enough of  a Kurtz I guess.  I'm a fucking softie.  So I confess, I let the son walk off and talk to his new friend (kids make friends so fast).  The next day I let the daughter run with the other girls.  

I KNOW that's not smart. But I want you all to know that its not political, at least on my part.  Its tiredness, its loneliness, its wanting my kids to have some joy in these dark times.  And its a fatalism thing.  The area I'm in has had 0 deaths so far, that we know.  The testing is of course, minimal.  But if this thing is so hyper contagious that we're all about to get it anyway (or maybe had it and don't know), at some point I find myself finally giving up, a bit.  I don't plan on going to mass gatherings.  I don't plan on eating in a restaurant in person.  I shaved my head a few weeks back, so I don't care about haircuts.  I wear my mask when I shop for groceries or go to Target.  But not only do I not want my kids to be lonely, I'm tired of not knowing anyone myself in this place I've been in for six months.

If letting my kids play with the neighborhood kids is going to give it to me, then I'm getting it.  If talking outside to my neighbors is going to give it to me, then I am getting it.  I'm not anywhere close to ever voting for a Republican, much less a Trump (although as a lefty a lot of Dems don't please me either).  But I feel like some here would group me with science deniers/ak-47 protesters.

Confession over.

SIAP. Letter to the NYT from parents chronicling their difficulties parenting during this time. Makes me feel better about job I'm doing, but I acknowledge that I've been dealt a much better hand than most.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/opinion/parenting-coronavirus-burnout.html

[HenryJames 66133]

Our plan is in a binder.

[DixonHur 11342]

3 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Our plan is in a binder.

Ours is much better, but we're not going to show it to you, or implement it...that's how good it is.

[Lagunamadre 1975]

7 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Our plan is in a binder.

Jesus christ. "You see Obama's plan was just a packet of paper and it sucked. Our plan, as you can see here, is in a binder, so it's much better. See guys, I'm not lying to you, here is their packet, NO BINDER, and our packet, BINDER. So we have obviously been working hard. We have even purchased two 3-hole punches for the white house." 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Lagunamadre

[henrygandorf 29192]

7 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Our plan is in a binder.

see, mcdonald's has the golden arches.  mine is the golden arcs.

[Doc Sam Beckett 5793]

Wait, so now they are saying it wasn't the guy's fault from 3 years ago? So they *did* have a plan, and this was it huh? 

[HenryJames 66133]

 

[Wanker Bob 379]

3 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Hang in there. Do you have enough PPE?

She ran down to Walmart for some force flex heavy duty trash bags. 

[Wanker Bob 379]

20 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I read that in the voice of Jennifer Coolidge (Stiffler's Mom in 'American Pie') when they're having that formal reception, "Likewise, I'm Sure."  That's about the sophistication level of Trump.  Plus he likes to bang age-inappropriate people.

Every time trump speaks or tweets there needs to be a Jennifer Coolidge "ok, dumbass" immediate automated response generated. 

[henrygandorf 29192]

4 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

 

and here it is.  this is his one move.

if someone says something bad about him, or something contradictory to anything he says or believes, then that person is disgruntled, angry, and is likely a never-trumper.  anyone like that has an axe to grind, and they're acting out of emotion and fueled by revenge, therefore they cannot be trusted, and are definitely not telling the truth.  also he never met them.

[Guest Lobo]

So we should support Trump because his staff found an open Kinko's during a pandemic?  

Don't get me wrong, I had to print and bind a bunch of pitch decks last month and it was a bitch trying to find one that was open.  

This is obviously the hallmark of a President worthy of his own monument.  
 

I think we all remember that middle school field trip to the "Binder Monument"     The lecture on the three rings took awhile and we were hungry for lunch, but it was still epic.

[Chuckie Finster 22702]

 

[jimmyjazz 45985]

5 hours ago, TXSG8R said:

Now imagine they had even half of our vulnerable population makeup wrt minorities, obese, etc.  

Who gives AF about minorities?  #righttolive

[Irwin F Fletcher 3550]

Well thank goodness they're finally breaking out their Pandemic Plan in (checks notes) fucking May.

[Red Five 40873]

"See! We have a plan! It's even in a binder! And so much better than that stupid Obama plan from three and a half years ago that they didn't give us."

[burntorangebongos 10747]

4 minutes ago, Irwin F Fletcher said:

Well thank goodness they're finally breaking out their Pandemic Plan in (checks notes) fucking May.

I think those were just binders filled with empty papers....there is no plan.

[Irwin F Fletcher 3550]

I think those were just binders filled with empty papers....there is no plan.

In all honesty, blank pieces of paper with no actual plan, would be better than what Trump has already offered up.

[Snake Diggity 4625]

1 hour ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Pardon me while I turn the thread into my facebook post, since I don't have facebook.

TLDR (you'll need it): Not anti-science, but turning into what I describe as a fatalist.

I moved my family to a place where they knew nobody back in December.  For a few weeks, the kids only had each other to play with, and there was lots of grieving for their missed friends and locales.  The townhome we rented is in a great location, but no immediate families with kids their ages in the area.  School finally starts up (the schools in the area were one of many reasons I wanted to move here), and they were accepted by peers immediately and started making friends quickly.  Daughter got invited to birthday parties, and they were even getting playdates set up when boom, no more school/pandemic closure time.  So back to only having each other.  We put in an offer on a house at roughly the same time, not knowing how bad things were about to get.  Ignorance, desperation, I don't know.

Fast forward to this week and we're finally starting the move in process.  One day I was there with my son and we thought we'd skateboard the street and I see sooooo many kids playing together. I think, hmm, they can't all be from the same family.  This area is a pretty small subdivision and there would be no reason for through traffic.  You go into the neighborhood only if you live there, really. Next thing you know a giant gaggle of kids run up to me and start introducing themselves, asking questions, e.t.c.  Eventually their parents start walking over and doing the same.  If there was no pandemic going on, you'd think I moved into a Norman Rockwell scene with a forest background. Most of the kids were girls, and younger, but then there is a boy my son's age and I just couldn't help it, I let them visit, play.  For my son, after all this time cooped up, well, I imagine it was like water to a thirsty man.

As I talked to the parents, I realized I myself have been lonely too, and I was so happy to get all these friendly welcomes and just talk to some friendly adults in person.  Adults who know the area, who have kids, e.t.c.  I didn't want to offend in any way, so I tried to crack a joke about "so, not quarantining the kids, eh?"  The answer was essentially "we don't go anywhere, and they all know each other." 

Now, I KNOW that's not a great answer.  I KNOW the safest thing I could do is keep my kids cooped up.  But having them in their new place watching all the neighborhood kids play in the yards from the windows, well I'm not enough of  a Kurtz I guess.  I'm a fucking softie.  So I confess, I let the son walk off and talk to his new friend (kids make friends so fast).  The next day I let the daughter run with the other girls.  

I KNOW that's not smart. But I want you all to know that its not political, at least on my part.  Its tiredness, its loneliness, its wanting my kids to have some joy in these dark times.  And its a fatalism thing.  The area I'm in has had 0 deaths so far, that we know.  The testing is of course, minimal.  But if this thing is so hyper contagious that we're all about to get it anyway (or maybe had it and don't know), at some point I find myself finally giving up, a bit.  I don't plan on going to mass gatherings.  I don't plan on eating in a restaurant in person.  I shaved my head a few weeks back, so I don't care about haircuts.  I wear my mask when I shop for groceries or go to Target.  But not only do I not want my kids to be lonely, I'm tired of not knowing anyone myself in this place I've been in for six months.

If letting my kids play with the neighborhood kids is going to give it to me, then I'm getting it.  If talking outside to my neighbors is going to give it to me, then I am getting it.  I'm not anywhere close to ever voting for a Republican, much less a Trump (although as a lefty a lot of Dems don't please me either).  But I feel like some here would group me with science deniers/ak-47 protesters.

Confession over.

This mirrors my experience in a big way.  I am mostly liberal, I intend to vote for Biden, and I ABHOR Trump.  But I have 2 kids under 5 at home and both my wife and I work from home full time.  They haven’t been to daycare or around any other children since early March.  It’s driven all of us insane (not joking).  So last week I relented and let my wife go over to my SIL’s so the girls could play with their cousins, knowing my in-laws are Trumper “this is a hoax/flu” people who haven’t been social distancing at all.  I felt ashamed at allowing something that seemed so selfish, stupid, and careless.  But I was just too tired of fighting it.  Too tired of being the only person willing to listen to reason and continue to self-sacrifice for the greater good.  At this point even if the number of cases/deaths doesn’t keep going down, I will let my kids go back to daycare when they’re allowed.  It might be the biggest mistake I ever make, but I feel the needs they have that are currently being unmet outweigh the risks.

[henrygandorf 29192]

9 minutes ago, burntorangebongos said:

I think those were just binders filled with empty papers....there is no plan.

[BradInATX 9208]

49 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

and here it is.  this is his one move.

if someone says something bad about him, or something contradictory to anything he says or believes, then that person is disgruntled, angry, and is likely a never-trumper.  anyone like that has an axe to grind, and they're acting out of emotion and fueled by revenge, therefore they cannot be trusted, and are definitely not telling the truth.  also he never met them.

This sounds like a certain someone on this board when he's losing arguments

[Biff Tannen 45692]

49 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

 

 

He forgot to add at the end:  or you're a fucking liar

[honolulu horn 6164]

1 hour ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Wait, so now they are saying it wasn't the guy's fault from 3 years ago? So they *did* have a plan, and this was it huh? 

Exactly what I was thinking. "Let's trash the old ignored plan and focus on our new totally failed plan." 

[triplehorn 2664]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

It's been politicized because people, and one person in particular, got way over their skis in making broad statements and recommendations with no strong basis in the clinical evidence. If somebody generates level I evidence supporting that HCQ is both safe and effective for the treatment or prophy of COVID-19, the discussion around it will turn on a dime.  Right now all we have is wishful thinking mixed with a good dose of quackery, and level III, IV, V evidence. 

I don't think it will turn on a dime.  Take the safety example you reference.  HCQ was approved for use in the US in 1955, has been dosed tens of millions of times, and has a well established and accepted track record for safety.  Despite this, there was a lot of scaremongering that happened starting in March.  I'm aware of one open study for HCQ prophylaxis that had willing subjects dry up right as a lot of political distortion and misinformation got fanned.  The damage in safety perception will be hard overcome despite it being safe for over half a century of use in the US.  I think it's unfortunate, putting it mildly.

HCQ use has been associated with decreased adverse cardiovascular and thrombotic events in RA/SLE patients, and has not been associated with negative cardiac events despite some QT prolongation in patients with active covid infection.  

Safety of HCQ is one example.  It's the lack of a coherent national approach, lack of truthfulness and transparency from the top, and manipulation of decision making driven by political calculus that will continue to subvert public trust and effective deployment of a national approach regardless of what the science says.

[DixonHur 11342]

Is anyone else still watching the congressional hearings?  This guy, Mike Bowen, gives zero fucks...and he's a life long Republican who voted for Trump, but he's ripping the GOP a new one.

[jimmyjazz 45985]

7 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

I don't think it will turn on a dime.  Take the safety example you reference.  HCQ was approved for use in the US in 1955, has been dosed tens of millions of times, and has a well established and accepted track record for safety.  Despite this, there was a lot of scaremongering that happened starting in March.  I'm aware of one open study for HCQ prophylaxis that had willing subjects dry up right as a lot of political distortion and misinformation got fanned.  The damage in safety perception will be hard overcome despite it being safe for over half a century of use in the US.  I think it's unfortunate, putting it mildly.

HCQ use has been associated with decreased adverse cardiovascular and thrombotic events in RA/SLE patients, and has not been associated with negative cardiac events despite some QT prolongation in patients with active covid infection.  

Safety of HCQ is one example.  It's the lack of a coherent national approach, lack of truthfulness and transparency from the top, and manipulation of decision making driven by political calculus that will continue to subvert public trust and effective deployment of a national approach regardless of what the science says.

Wait . . . are you saying that the negative cardiac issues reported with HCQ use in Covid patients didn't actually exist?  I'm not making a call either way, but it sure seemed like there was significant evidence floated up that there were heart issues in some patients.  Never mind the additional studies which seem to indicate it doesn't actually do any good in fighting Covid.

[henrygandorf 29192]

8 minutes ago, honolulu horn said:

Exactly what I was thinking. "Let's trash the old ignored plan and focus on our new totally failed plan." 

it's not even that outlandish or unusual in a business setting.  anyone here who has worked in an office has seen it.  a new dept head comes in, and basically dismisses all the old standards and protocol in favor of his own.  he brings in new people, new ideas, new policy, and trains his staff on the new plan.

but there are several notable differences in this situation. 

first, he's clearly doing it out of hatred and revenge because he's always been bothered by how popular obama was (and still is).  he definitely didn't read or get told what was in any plans he ditched, and none of it was done on the merit of the plan.  second, being president and dealing with presidential problems is a very unique situation, and since so few people have actually done it (and since you have to hit the ground running on day one), every president needs to rely on some guidance from the former administration(s).  we always hear how helpful bush's people were with obama's transition team.  third, usually when someone scraps an old plan, they actually replace it with a new plan, even if it's incomplete or inferior (in this case, there was no plan).  and last, typically changing up of policy and protocol doesn't leave actual human life hanging in the balance.

even if you support the idea of "new guy in charge, new plans and policies", he has failed in every possible conceivable way to institute replacement plans and policies, it just didn't become international news until people started dying and looking to trump for answers.

guess we're gonna have to elect trump 3-4 more times to actually hear about his new healthcare plan. 

[Anastasis 23478]

Just now, triplehorn said:

I don't think it will turn on a dime.  Take the safety example you reference.  HCQ was approved for use in the US in 1955, has been dosed tens of millions of times, and has a well established and accepted track record for safety.  Despite this, there was a lot of scaremongering that happened starting in March.  I'm aware of one open study for HCQ prophylaxis that had willing subjects dry up right as a lot of political distortion and misinformation got fanned.  The damage in safety perception will be hard overcome despite it being safe for over half a century of use in the US.  I think it's unfortunate, putting it mildly.

HCQ use has been associated with decreased adverse cardiovascular and thrombotic events in RA/SLE patients, and has not been associated with negative cardiac events despite some QT prolongation in patients with active covid infection.  

Safety of HCQ is one example.  It's the lack of a coherent national approach, lack of truthfulness and transparency from the top, and manipulation of decision making driven by political calculus that will continue to subvert public trust and effective deployment of a national approach regardless of what the science says.

Yes, a known and well established safety profile (which includes retinopathy, CV, neurological, hepatotoxicity and know drug interactions with things like...wait for it...azithromycin). The known safety profile is further relevant because the effectiveness in this setting is unknown. Scientifically established benefit in treated COVID = null; Scientifically established risks based on 70 years of use = non-zero. The rest is a simple benefit:risk ratio. I disagree strongly that if benefit could be definitively established, the benefit/risk assessment wouldn't turn.  It absolutely would, everybody wants a way out.  A well known drug that is orally administered, readily available, and dirt cheap would be a god send.   

Unfortunately that benefit has not been established.  It exists at the current only at the intersection of wishful thinking and quackery.  That could very well change.  But until it does, HCQ is simply not part of an evidence based national approach to managing COVID.

BTW, two recent articles from JAMA nad NEJM, directly relevant to both effectiveness and safety. These studies are not definitive, but they sure don't fall in the HCQ should be part of a coherent nation approach to COVID management. 

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766117

 Abstract

Importance  Hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, has been considered as a possible therapeutic agent for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, there are limited data on efficacy and associated adverse events.

Objective  To describe the association between use of hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, and clinical outcomes among hospital inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Retrospective multicenter cohort study of patients from a random sample of all admitted patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in 25 hospitals, representing 88.2% of patients with COVID-19 in the New York metropolitan region. Eligible patients were admitted for at least 24 hours between March 15 and 28, 2020. Medications, preexisting conditions, clinical measures on admission, outcomes, and adverse events were abstracted from medical records. The date of final follow-up was April 24, 2020.

Exposures  Receipt of both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine alone, azithromycin alone, or neither.

Main Outcomes and Measures  Primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes were cardiac arrest and abnormal electrocardiogram findings (arrhythmia or QT prolongation).

Results  Among 1438 hospitalized patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 (858 [59.7%] male, median age, 63 years), those receiving hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both were more likely than those not receiving either drug to have diabetes, respiratory rate >22/min, abnormal chest imaging findings, O2 saturation lower than 90%, and aspartate aminotransferase greater than 40 U/L. Overall in-hospital mortality was 20.3% (95% CI, 18.2%-22.4%). The probability of death for patients receiving hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin was 189/735 (25.7% [95% CI, 22.3%-28.9%]), hydroxychloroquine alone, 54/271 (19.9% [95% CI, 15.2%-24.7%]), azithromycin alone, 21/211 (10.0% [95% CI, 5.9%-14.0%]), and neither drug, 28/221 (12.7% [95% CI, 8.3%-17.1%]). In adjusted Cox proportional hazards models, compared with patients receiving neither drug, there were no significant differences in mortality for patients receiving hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin (HR, 1.35 [95% CI, 0.76-2.40]), hydroxychloroquine alone (HR, 1.08 [95% CI, 0.63-1.85]), or azithromycin alone (HR, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.26-1.21]). In logistic models, compared with patients receiving neither drug cardiac arrest was significantly more likely in patients receiving hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin (adjusted OR, 2.13 [95% CI, 1.12-4.05]), but not hydroxychloroquine alone (adjusted OR, 1.91 [95% CI, 0.96-3.81]) or azithromycin alone (adjusted OR, 0.64 [95% CI, 0.27-1.56]), . In adjusted logistic regression models, there were no significant differences in the relative likelihood of abnormal electrocardiogram findings.

Conclusions and Relevance  Among patients hospitalized in metropolitan New York with COVID-19, treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both, compared with neither treatment, was not significantly associated with differences in in-hospital mortality. However, the interpretation of these findings may be limited by the observational design.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2012410

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Hydroxychloroquine has been widely administered to patients with Covid-19 without robust evidence supporting its use.

METHODS

We examined the association between hydroxychloroquine use and intubation or death at a large medical center in New York City. Data were obtained regarding consecutive patients hospitalized with Covid-19, excluding those who were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department (study baseline). The primary end point was a composite of intubation or death in a time-to-event analysis. We compared outcomes in patients who received hydroxychloroquine with those in patients who did not, using a multivariable Cox model with inverse probability weighting according to the propensity score.

RESULTS

Of 1446 consecutive patients, 70 patients were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation and were excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 1376 patients, during a median follow-up of 22.5 days, 811 (58.9%) received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg twice on day 1, then 400 mg daily for a median of 5 days); 45.8% of the patients were treated within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department, and 85.9% within 48 hours. Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (median ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen, 223 vs. 360). Overall, 346 patients (25.1%) had a primary end-point event (180 patients were intubated, of whom 66 subsequently died, and 166 died without intubation). In the main analysis, there was no significant association between hydroxychloroquine use and intubation or death (hazard ratio, 1.04, 95% confidence interval, 0.82 to 1.32). Results were similar in multiple sensitivity analyses.

CONCLUSIONS

In this observational study involving patients with Covid-19 who had been admitted to the hospital, hydroxychloroquine administration was not associated with either a greatly lowered or an increased risk of the composite end point of intubation or death. Randomized, controlled trials of hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19 are needed. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health.)

[triplehorn 2664]

3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Wait . . . are you saying that the negative cardiac issues reported with HCQ use in Covid patients didn't actually exist?  I'm not making a call either way, but it sure seemed like there was significant evidence floated up that there were heart issues in some patients.  Never mind the additional studies which seem to indicate it doesn't actually do any good in fighting Covid.

I could be wrong, but I think what happened in one study was that more patients died who had received HCQ/AZ than who had not received it.  That does not mean that HCQ/AZ contributed directly to them dying. I am not aware of any study showing that HCQ/AZ becomes less safe as a result of active Covid infection.  That's an important distinction.