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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[Echo4]

Another day, another promising response to Coronavirus from another unreviewed study without double-blind or anything else that would make it real...

but the med is cheap and available!

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/heartburn-drug-may-have-potential-against-covid-19?fbclid=IwAR3y0g3q6XmDqfcnfVYXm8426vBADEOQt5JfIn7xD9j1ZrijRk6FGL4_4t8

[Hairy Lime]

A lot of America's downfall

Downfall?

Well,.Trump these days does remind me of crucial scenes in Das Untergang.

[facilitatorn]

A lot of America's downfall

Downfall?

Falling down from the Obama economy into this shitty trump one.

It’s like the downfall from Clinton to Bush only much more so.

Republicans, like many other venereal diseases, tend to get worse over time before they destroy the system.

A decent education cures republicanism and inoculates you from becoming infected by dumb conservative fascist affiliations in the future.

Many of the great books are free online. It’s not too late to start, Red.

[oilcan]

I had to look up Das Untergang in the Akashic chronicle.   Yep,  it's bunker time.   The eternal wheel of cause and effect has come round again.   

Carlos Castaneda was my dabble in mysticism in the seventies.

[Echo4]

I had to look up Das Untergang in the Akashic chronicle.   Yep,  it's bunker time.   The eternal wheel of cause and effect has come round again.   

Carlos Castaneda was my dabble in mysticism in the seventies.

A separate reality.

[bankshot1]

The economic downfall is just the tip of the Trump iceberg. He has debased and contaminated about every core institution and polluted our core beliefs with his idiocy, racsim politics of division and hatred and his inability to govern. He has attempted to poison our long-standing and strategic relationships with many key global allies, while selling us out to our enemies, for his personal gain. He has weakened this country in so many ways.

We need to rif America of the cancer that is Trump.

[facilitatorn]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/29/brett-kavanaugh-bob-woodward-washington-post

Dirty dirty boy.

[LarryBnDC]

Early on, the US response seemed disorganized and chaotic, without enough urgency.  And I thought about raising the alarm, but I figured they had plans for stuff like this, that the US Gov't has a lot of resources, that they'd get in gear after a bit and handle it okay.  I thought the main issue was they were wasting time and missing an opportunity to get ahead of the virus. 

Never did I imagine the US would just bungle the whole thing, then the Feds would wash their hands and punt to the States, and that there never would be a coordinated national policy.  Even more mindboggling was the politicization of the virus itself and mask-wearing.

And then after inadequate lockdowns and half measures, many states started opening up too soon.  While the Feds own reopening guidelines were just tossed in the trash.  And again it looked like a disaster and I should raise the alarm. 
But I'm not there and don't see what's going on.  Most of my info comes from family in NJ and CA.  And it's hard to believe states would just reopen and let the virus spread.  But that's what is happening.  It's really unbelievable stuff.

Except for backing masks strongly, I feel like I was too quiet and mild about what I feared was going to happen, and basically what was inevitably going to happen given the behavior of the US population and the gov'ts.  I haven't focused on numbers and data and trends in the US, but just kept focused on how to stop transmission of a respiratory virus.  It's not that hard to do.  A 10-12 week fairly strong national lockdown with mask wearing in public places would have limited the spread, the infections, the deaths the harm to the economy.  And plenty of unemployed folks should have been employed as contact tracers.  So mini-outbreaks could be stamped out quickly.

This endless rolling disaster was avoidable and an embarrassing failure.  It really is sad.  Have to say I'm glad I'm not in the US.  I was intending to return for a month in December, for the first time since 2008, but the way things are, I doubt I'll venture into what will likely still be a medium to high-risk zone.  We'll see.

I hear you.

But this country was doomed for this disaster when people kept quoting the percentages of those who perished

[LarryBnDC]

Imagine some decades from now, far removed from the daily scrum we see these days of Trump loyalists and everyone else.  What gets written in the history books  won't be Trumps daily twitter feed stoking and praising the white christian people (who will no longer be the majority).  What will get written,  will be the facts and some key quotes.   I can understand why trump has his supporters today. We are all near-sighted.  We all quote the news sources that confirm our biases.  But with the benefit of decades of hindsight I can't imagine history will be kind to this presidency's crisis response.  Things might look bad for Trump now, in terms of his re-election chances, but I think things will be far far worse for Trump's legacy.  He won't be alive to defend it or distract from it.  I hope to be alive in 25 years and be able to look back either pointing the finger at where America completely fractured, or the turning point where we buried our collective demons.

I hope to look back and marvel at the moment when the mythical America became a reality.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to make a more perfect union than at any point in modern times,

[LarryBnDC]

Imagine some decades from now...

Kam, while I agree with your assessment of what history's view of Trump will be with 20-30 hindsight (we think it's perfect, but we're wrong), my fear is that in 50 years we will not have the wherewithal to do that kind of retrospective look as we could with today's tools.

We have a long haul before we are at a position of being confident in the world's economic and technological future and its capability.

And for all the balanced "we all post what we already believe," there are issues that are not based on a point of view, but for which disagreement is politically motivated, but agreement does not seem to be, quite so much. The utility of wearing masks has proven to be one of them (for all, as I have said, that I swallowed the public CDC line at the initial time). Climate change/crisis seems to be another of them.

And, again, I don't see a way past it and until both sides buy into it, we're in deep doodoo - and the longer we go without consensus that it is a problem that needs serious effort to fix, the harder fixing it is going to get.

p.s. Bambi, any response from you to this will get deleted.

There really isn’t a both sides dynamic whenone side does try and do the right thing for the most part and the other side is batshit crazy and corrupt as fuck.

To bring this back from the brink the GOP gets no driving input (NONE) for it has earned its place in the backseat.

[LarryBnDC]

A lot of America's downfall can be traced to the Bush response to 9/11, where bin Laden suckered us into attacking two countries

Can't blame our attack on Iraq on bin Laden, Bo.

Bush used bin Laden as an excuse to turn his sights on Hussein.

The response to 9/11 was stupid and opportunistic for the GOP donor class to transfer great amounts of wealth upward.

19 guys with passports, credit car d and box cutters is an act of terrorism, not an act of war. It was a crime and should have been treated as such.

[NeedsAdjustments]

American officials provided a written briefing in late February to President Trump laying out their conclusion that a Russian military intelligence unit offered and paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, two officials familiar with the matter said.

The investigation into the suspected Russian covert operation to incentivize such killings has focused in part on an April 2019 car bombing that killed three Marines as one such potential attack, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/us/politics/russian-bounty-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[LarryBnDC]

A lot of America's downfall can be traced to the Bush response to 9/11, where bin Laden suckered us into attacking two countries

Can't blame our attack on Iraq on bin Laden, Bo.

Pretty much a direct reaction.
Maybe bin Laden was hoping we'd attack Saudi Arabia though.
Or both.

It was a direct reaction on our parts, but it was not something done because of bin Laden. It was done because of Bush Sr's choice and Jr's reaction, plus Rumsfeld, at all.

Don’t forget John Bolton and Bill Kristol

[NeedsAdjustments]

Is this finally what makes Republicans unwilling to cover for Trump?

I doubt it. But I guess there is a chance.

[LarryBnDC]

This column didn’t age well...

Old rich, white guy on why he would vote for Trump.


“We are under no illusions about Trump. We know that this Man Who Would Be King is a classic bully and a world-class demagogue in his personal, professional and political lives. He will continue to demonize his perceived enemies and take the low road at every opportunity.

And we know that if Trump makes it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the view after that is murky at best. We’re confident that he will surround himself with smart and capable people from the business world, as well as some Capitol Hill veterans. But here’s the rub: Past business associates describe him as a micromanager who likes yes men at his side. How long this new Washington brain trust will last in a Trump administration is anybody’s guess.

Who’s to blame for the Trump phenomenon? There’s culpability on both sides of the aisle for the absence of bipartisanship that fueled his rise. The left blames the policies of a fragmented, delusional, right-wing GOP. But the left bears responsibility, too. Turns out that the obstructers in Congress weren’t just the Republicans, as Bob Woodward reported in his book “The Price of Politics.” President Obama kept “moving the goal posts” in the 2011 sequester negotiations with Republicans. And who can forget the way Republicans were bullied over health care? They were left with no choice but to use every procedural maneuver in their arsenal to block, delay or postpone the liberal legislative agenda.”

Hoo boy...





https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-hate-donald-trump-but-he-might-get-my-vote/2016/06/28/ddeee5f8-398d-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html