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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

[REDSTATEWARD]

Oh those scientists!
The percentage of infections at NYC restaurants is 1.4 according to Governor Cuomo.
So, of course, he is closing them down.

[barton]

When newspapers started putting up paywalls they stopped being accessible to most americans.  Information comes at a cost.  But you know what doesn't?  Disinformation.  So over the last decade we've seen disinformation spread on cable news networks, chat room message boards,  social networks, and broadcast radio.

The decision made by the NY Times and others to make their valuable reporting harder to come by has led to disastrous outcomes all across America.

Yes.   Even the "ten free article" deal was way better than total paywall.   Ten free gives you a good sampling of what's important.   One reason I posted most of Paul Krugman's article (above a few posts) was to provide access to those who are paywalled off.   Another workaround that I see people use is to note a NYT story,  then look for a reprint of it on a free news site like NPR,  Yahoo News,  AP,  et al.   The problem you highlight is so serious because it means those who are least resourceful and least likely to make a few agile keystrokes,  are most likely to just swallow some junk feed in an information silo.   

I think NPR offers one of the best options to paywalled proprietary info.   Thorough coverage,  with access to local affiliates all over the country,  and they sometimes reprint reporting from The WaPo and NYT.   Very professional outfit.   Avoids clickbait crap. 

[bankshot1]

I guess Red's going to cancel his Chanukah trip to NYC this year

Red's a regular at Katz's.

corned beef on white with mayo

OY!

[barton]

(...)
The decision made by the NY Times and others to make their valuable reporting harder to come by has led to disastrous outcomes all across America.

(...)
Newspaper subscribers have always been subsidized by advertisers and so are online readers who now have to pay dirt-low fees.
If the information supplied by newspapers is so valuable why the reluctance from you to pay for it?

A question worth asking.   We get WaPo for the dirt cheap price of around $5/month, which is a fraction of what a paper subscription would cost.   

I think Kam's point addresses people who were never going to subscribe to a prestige paper,  and end up with social media junk dumps and clickbait.   The question is how many would go and give pro journalism a try,  if it were completely free.   I'd have to look at readership stats for Reuters,  NPR,  TheHill, BBC News, Toronto Star,   PBS NewsHour et al to get a better handle on that.   

[Hamilton Samuels]

Oh those scientists!
The percentage of infections at NYC restaurants is 1.4 according to Governor Cuomo.
So, of course, he is closing them down.

Need data, idiot?

Threshold: 25+ daily new cases per 100,000 people
Indicates: unchecked community spread


New York STATE is 51 new cases per 100K.

So, seeing a government which cares about the health of the public is a good thing.

Now, your native Ohio is at twice NY State's numbers; 132 new cases per 100K.

NYC has a population density of 27,000 people per square mile.
NYS has a population density of 421 people per square mile.

Seems Cuomo understands his responsibility to the public health.

Ohio state has 286.1 residents per square mile, and 2 times the number of new cases state wide compared to New York.

3,624.0 inhabitants per square mile live in the shit-hole more commonly known as Columbus, OH.

If your address ends with ZIP Code 43201, you live in Ohio’s most affected place with coronavirus outside a state prison.

That ZIP, just east of The Ohio State University campus in a large swath of northern Columbus, has reported the second-most COVID-19 cases in Ohio, according to ZIP Code data newly published by the Ohio Department of Health.

Coronavirus in Ohio Sunday update: 7,700+ new daily cases reported
Ohio’s top ZIP for coronavirus as of Tuesday is Marion County’s 43302, with 4,138 reported cases.



NYC average 3429 new cases per day, with a population of 8.399 million.

Columbus averages 992, with a population of 892,533. So, Columbus averages about 29% of NYC's daily new cases, 9 times fewer people, and with them living further apart.

You are really fucking things up out there in that shit-hole state.

It's okay, though. They'll be fewer tOSU fans and fewer Republicans there in short order.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Speaking of newspapers with integrity:

We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election for Congress.

We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.


During our endorsement interview with the incumbent congressman, we didn’t think to ask, “Would you support an effort to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans in four states in order to overturn a presidential election and hand it to the person who lost, Donald Trump?”

Our bad.

Trust us, some variation of that question will be asked of anyone running for Congress in the future, particularly Republican candidates whose party is attempting to upend the way we choose a president.

Waltz, to our horror, was one of the 10 Florida Republican members of Congress who, on Thursday, signed up to support a lawsuit brought by Texas in the U.S. Supreme Court that’s attempting to throw out the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all states where Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.


https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/editorials/os-op-michael-waltz-endorsement-editorial-apology-20201211-a4er2nccfbbeznc6yyqbq5moku-story.html

Stand up editorial board.

But wait, there's more! They're suing the governor of Florida. Here's why: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-coronavirus-orlando-sentinel-sues-desantis-20201211-a67bacptvfbd5cmzh3c2lvavsa-story.html

[REDSTATEWARD]

(...)
The decision made by the NY Times and others to make their valuable reporting harder to come by has led to disastrous outcomes all across America.

(...)
Newspaper subscribers have always been subsidized by advertisers and so are online readers who now have to pay dirt-low fees.
If the information supplied by newspapers is so valuable why the reluctance from you to pay for it?

A question worth asking.   We get WaPo for the dirt cheap price of around $5/month, which is a fraction of what a paper subscription would cost.   



I think Kam's point addresses people who were never going to subscribe to a prestige paper,  and end up with social media junk dumps and clickbait.   The question is how many would go and give pro journalism a try,  if it were completely free.   I'd have to look at readership stats for Reuters,  NPR,  TheHill, BBC News, Toronto Star,   PBS NewsHour et al to get a better handle on that.

Apples and Oranges.
Newspapers first and foremost serve the local community where they are based.
I remember reading the newspaper at the breakfast counter in Denver a  few years ago when the guy next to me asked what I was reading.  I held up the Masthead page that read Denver Post. He, somewhat dismissively, informed me that he read  a “ real” newspaper and held up the Financial Times of London.
I asked him if the Times carried Denver high school sports scores or obituaries. 

All newspapers today have massive ad revenue losses due to the paradigm shift brought about by Facebook, et al, and the most severely afflicted are in smaller towns.  There are plenty of free apps to run to for National coverage, so many that you can cover the entire political spectrum for free.
But the cost of producing a newspaper is gigantic since it can’t be done without a printing press.  Now we see agreements between papers in near- by cities sharing the printing which leads to days when there is no actual paper printed, only offered on line.
The only lifeline left comes with digital subscriptions that will be able to complement the National sites with local news, etc. 

[kidcarter8]

Congress says "Fuck you" to Little Donnie.


The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Friday to approve a sweeping defense bill with a veto-proof majority, a major rebuke to President Donald Trump who has urged Republican opposition and threatened to veto the legislation. The vote was 84 to 13.

Trump's position on the bill has sharply divided GOP lawmakers, forcing them to choose between loyalty to the President and legislation that sets defense policy for the country. In the end, however, the President's opposition was not enough to stall passage of the legislation through Congress. The Senate vote comes after the House of Representatives also passed the bill with a veto-proof majority earlier this week. Now it will be up to Trump to decide how to respond.



https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/11/politics/senate-defense-bill-trump-veto-proof-majority/index.html

And Trump gets a pretty good defense bill.  Just not something he was never going to get

Who won again?

[kidcarter8]

I guess Red's going to cancel his Chanukah trip to NYC this year

Red's a regular at Katz's.

corned beef on white with mayo

OY!

Wow

What a dick.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Idiots who claim they have a right to engage in health risk behaviors public be damned and claiming it's their "right to be free", should not read Ben Franklin's description of founding a public hospital in Philadelphia in the 1750's---

Yep. Old Ben knew that it was to everyone's benefit to have a viable public health program, and he got it done.

In the era of a KING.

https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-2554043R-bk#page/1/mode/2up

[Hamilton Samuels]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/09/march-trump-dc-rally-planned-ahead-electoral-college-meeting/6394642002/
Organizers expect as many as 15,000 of President Donald Trump’s supporters to arrive in the nation’s capital Saturday – just days before Electoral College votes are cast – to protest alleged voter fraud in the Nov. 3 presidential election, an unfounded claim also pushed by Trump.

Women for America First, a group of conservative women that organized last month's “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington that drew tens of thousands of people, was granted a permit from the National Park Service on Friday.

Pro-Trump participants will gather at Freedom Plaza and march to the Supreme Court of the United States, according to the permit. Speakers include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell,former Trump administration national security adviser Mike Flynn, and ex-Trump aide Sebastian Gorka.

Fuck these assholes.

[Hamilton Samuels]

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/opinion/2020/06/01/june-cartoon-commentary-politics-trump-democrats-minneapolis-slaying/5310942002/image/3848952001/#slide:3848952001

[bankshot1]

I guess Red's going to cancel his Chanukah trip to NYC this year

Red's a regular at Katz's.

corned beef on white with mayo

OY!

Wow

What a dick.

kid's got penis envy

heh

[Hairy Lime]

Moderate GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was disappointed by the Texas lawsuit to overturn the election.

"I am really surprised and disappointed that 43 days before everything is to be certified that there would be an effort by members, effort by states that are not even impacted in the sense of the challenges," she said.
She added she would be surprised if she got a petition sent to her office.

"I don't think they would send one to my office. I would certainly hope not. Because that meant they haven't seen my statements which I have clearly said President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris are going to be beginning a new administration in January," she said.

Asked about his House GOP colleagues joining the amicus brief, including Rep. Steve Scalise, Sen. John Cornyn asked, "Did they read it?" before laughing.

"I'm for people seeking recourse," he said, adding that he looks forward to seeing the Supreme Court decision when it happens.

When asked if he’s aligning himself legally with the lawsuit, close Trump ally Sen. Mike Braun responded, “I just haven’t made my mind up yet.”

“You know I’ve all along said that I want the process to play out and I’m just watching it, observing, not sure what’s going to happen, I’m anxious to see if the Supreme Court is going to hear it, I think they should,” he said.

When asked about the Texas lawsuit, retiring GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander said, "I’m never surprised by the House of Representatives" and laughed.

And Sen. Joni Ernst dodged questions on if she's supportive. "I think it's important all vote be counted," she said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines told CNN he was supportive of the lawsuit.

"Montana has joined it and I'm glad to see why," Daines said, adding he supports it. "I have great confidence in the United State Supreme Court ... and we'll wait to see what the Court rules."[/b]

Montana did precisely what the Texas lawsuit claims WI, MI, PA and GA did illegally: revise voting rules due to the pandemic.  Which makes Montana and Daines hilariously hypocritical.

[LarryBnDC]

K-man could do a mic drop after this one...

I still keep seeing news reports that frame congressional arguments about relief bills as a debate about “stimulus.” But stimulus is what you do when unemployment is high because people aren’t spending enough. And that’s not the problem we face.

Think about it. Why are there still two million fewer workers in “food services and drinking places” than there were before the coronavirus struck? It’s not because people can’t afford to eat out or go to bars. It’s because eating out and gathering in bars are  dangerous activities. In many parts of the country these activities are, rightly, either banned or sharply restricted; even where they’re allowed, many people, understanding the risks, choose to stay home.

The role of economic policy in this situation isn’t to bring those jobs back while the pandemic is still raging — we actually don’t want a resurgence of employment in high-risk sectors until vaccines are widely available. What we should be doing, instead, is minimizing the suffering while we wait. That is, the issue isn’t stimulus, it’s disaster relief.

What should this relief involve? It should provide support for the unavoidably unemployed, sustain businesses through the dark months ahead and aid state and local governments that are suffering severe declines in revenues and that will otherwise be forced to make drastic cuts in essential services.

And no, this last problem isn’t restricted to blue states. In fact, six of the seven states expected to face the biggest revenue declines have Republican governors.

House Democrats have always been willing to pass a relief bill along the lines I’ve described. And as I said, until a few days ago the Senate appeared to be moving toward a bill that, while much smaller than Democrats wanted, would be better than nothing. The main obstacle seemed to be the determination of Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, to include a poison pill — a blanket exemption of businesses from any liabilities related to exposing their workers to Covid-19 risks. But observers were hopeful that an agreement could still be reached.

Then came the Trump administration intervention — a proposal from Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, that McConnell quickly endorsed even though it was disastrously wrongheaded.

I’m not sure whether the coverage of this discussion has fully explained just how bad Mnuchin’s proposal is. Many headlines emphasized the cost, a bit over $900 billion, which was similar to that of the emerging bipartisan bill, suggesting that the administration was weighing in with something positive.

In fact, however, the administration proposal completely eliminated the most important piece of any relief deal — expanded benefits for the unemployed — replacing it with one-time $600 checks that would be sent to everyone.

Again, think about it. For Americans who won’t be able to return to work while the pandemic is still raging, a one-time payment of $600 is grossly inadequate, while for those who haven’t lost their jobs it’s unnecessary. It’s true that people might spend some of the grant, boosting overall demand — but overall lack of demand isn’t the main problem right now.

So what is Mnuchin thinking? We can’t rule out sheer ignorance. It is, sad to say, entirely possible that, nine months into the pandemic slump, administration officials still don’t understand the basic logic of relief. Or they may be in thrall to the thoroughly debunked myth that unemployment benefits actually cause high unemployment.

Or maybe this proposal reflects the expiring administration’s special combination of delusion and cynicism. President Trump is still trying, in ever more desperate and destructive ways, to overturn the results of the election. And in his madness he may imagine that he will gain more politically from sending everyone another check with his name on it than from helping those truly in need.

Just saw Chuck Todd do a local hit and blame “both sides” what a cretin.