[Skuj]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

Just a recap for Skuj, whom I’m afraid may have some sand in his ears.

January 31, 2020Trump Administration Restricts Entry Into U.S. From China

February 1, 2020
Joe Biden Slams President Donald Trump’s Response To Coronavirus Epidemic: This Is No Time For "Fearmongering" & Calls Trump A Xenophobe

Just out of curiousity, did you see his early tweets on this, and did you witness his infamous visit to the CDC?

[Skuj]

Bytor's early posts during this crisis mirror Bumblefuck's, and I cannot help feeling that Bytor is now engaging in damage control....for himself and his beloved Bumblefuck.

[Skuj]

One more:

I actually clicked on those links. Bytor's "summary" of the second one resembles Barr on Mueller. Do you even read your own links?

[Skuj]

I can't help myself:

Here is a challenge:

At least a couple of articles have been posted here over the last few days, detailing the disaster that is Trump and his response to this crisis.

Who can find/post a well written article that details what a great leader/saviour he has been on this? I have no doubt that such an article exists. Lets see it. I want to actually consider that I missed something. Maybe the CDC fiasco was just a bad dream.

[Skuj]

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...nger-just-want

Trump just needs to stop talking/tweeting about COVID-19.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I can't help myself:

lolol, ok

Originally Posted by Skuj

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...nger-just-want

Trump just needs to stop talking/tweeting about COVID-19.

better yet, people need to stop listening to the motherfucker

he’s as useful as cyanide in milk

[Skuj]

I'm impressed with our PM (Canada) during this. And daily, he usually stresses "...because we are a country that believes in science...." I cannot help feeling that the elephant in the room next door causes him to state this.

[Skuj]

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-amer...st-time-in-two

I thought I would post this before Bytor does.

I fear for humanity. He hits 50% at a time when I witness extra special incompetence. I'm just not made for these times.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Skuj

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-amer...st-time-in-two

I thought I would post this before Bytor does.

I fear for humanity. He hits 50% at a time when I witness extra special incompetence. I'm just not made for these times.

okay amigo you need to grow some huevos

you're in militaryland. you're supposed to kill and be killed. i know nobody wants to. but you could be a prisoner in north korea if your norad spyplane had fallen some place wrong.

pretend you're there.

watch werner herzog's "rescue dawn" maybe.

i'm not saying that you have to like this shit. i am saying that you have a duty to endure.

[Skuj]

Wait.....what?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Wait.....what?

“i’m just not made for these times.”

you’re a captain! people depend on you

[Skuj]

Lol. You have a good memory.

I am not able to grasp how Trump can have this amount of support given his numerous episodes of monumental incompetence. Are people just not paying attention? Bytor seems to be an intelligent person: What is it that he is not seeing? Is it merely hatred of anything Democrat?

I live in Canada, so I accept that I'm missing the boat on certain aspects of this.

I've been at this thread for years, and Trump's continued support remains more mysterious to me than Modern General Relativity (which I am studying hard).

[!@#$%!]

well, i can grasp the fact that 50% of the population have an i.q. below average. that's math enough to see the possibilities.

btw i hear your pm has been doing great, and i chat daily with canadians who are hunkering down like champs with no crybaby shit. they keep each other in line. good job.

anyway, did you ever read asimov's "foundation"? a great trilogy there that mimics somewhat the roman empire. a science fiction classic, and the 2nd volume might offer parallels to our day.

anyway cap'n it's your job to lead the troops so i expect you to continue doing your part in this fight. for the sake of the fucking planet.

[Skuj]

Lol. Fascinating. Put the Captain in charge, because the POTUS is clueless.

I'll investigate the Asimov books. I'll do fucking anything to try to understand this phenomenon.

[!@#$%!]

also see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

[ilduclo]

Huge bailout package for Boeing. No strings attached, thanks to Mitch-n-Trimp.

As little chance of averting the plunge from $400 to $150 as there is to stop the plunge of a 737MAX.

 

[h8kurdt]

Trump tweeting about how good his TV ratings are from his addresses to the nation is just another notch in the "yes he is a raging narcissist" coloumn

[!@#$%!]

RAW COPYPASTA. im not cleaning it up you sort it out:


We have always been at war with the Chinese virus

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Author Headshot
By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
It’s hard to feel any sympathy for Trish Regan, the Fox News host who was fired after a rant in which she called the coronavirus “yet another attempt to impeach the president.” We may never know how many Fox viewers became gravely ill or died because they ignored social distancing in response to people like Regan, who told them that the pandemic was a politically motivated hoax. But the number was surely significant.

The twist in the Regan story, however, is that what she said wasn’t significantly different from what her whole network had been saying for weeks. Her career-killing mistake wasn’t saying something false and evil, it was her timing. She apparently missed the abrupt turn in the party line by a few hours.

For Regan’s rant came just after Fox and right-wing media in general suddenly changed their line from “the pandemic is a liberal hoax” to “everyone must unify behind our great leader in his heroic struggle against the Chinese virus.” And for some reason Regan didn’t get the memo.

Actually, Regan wasn’t the only person who didn’t get the memo. A number of people on the religious right are still sticking with the virus-as-hoax story, notably Jerry Falwell Jr., who defied public health experts by reopening Liberty University — and promptly created his own personal virus hot spot. But most leading figures on the right have swerved on command.

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Needless to say, the mounting coronavirus death toll hasn’t produced any apologies from pundits who previously claimed that the virus was a hoax, let alone admissions that the terrible, horrible, no-good mainstream media were actually giving accurate information. Perhaps more surprisingly, as far as I know there haven’t been any howls of protest from Fox viewers, or Rush Limbaugh listeners, who are now being told something completely different from what they were hearing three weeks ago. Their trust in Fox, their disdain for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and, above all, their faith in Donald Trump are apparently unshaken.

The parallels with George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” are obvious. When Oceania suddenly shifts alliances, and its former ally Eastasia becomes an enemy, everyone knows what to believe: not only was the nation at war with Eastasia, it had always been at war with Eastasia. In Orwell’s vision, however, this mind-set was produced by a totalitarian state whose vigilant Thought Police stamp out any hint of independent thought. America isn’t a totalitarian state — not yet, anyway — yet there are tens of millions of American apparently willing to act and think as if the Thought Police were already up and running.

Orwell wrote a great essay a few years before “Nineteen Eighty-Four” titled “Looking Back on the Spanish War.” In it he wrote of his vision of a “nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ — well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.”

Well, a lot of Americans evidently already live in that nightmare world. And that scares me more than Covid-19.

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Quick Hits

Democracy effectively died in Hungary a while back, but the ruling party is exploiting the pandemic to go full totalitarian. Yes, it could happen here.

Laurie Garrett warned for years that something like this could happen. Her thoughts on America’s response.

The Republican about-face on deficits prefigured the sudden swerve on the coronavirus.

The economy is taking a hit. Unemployment might go as high as 32 percent.

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If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week’s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at krugman-newsletter@nytimes.com.

[The Soup Nazi]

^ Although it's not news, brilliant and extraordinarily soul-crushing.

I wonder whether someone as un-thrilling as Biden (I'm talking about the candidate, not necessarily the policy) really can take on this shit.

[The Soup Nazi]

^^ This, by the way, is why Francis Fukuyama has spent 28 fuckin' years moving the goalpost for his "End of History".