Comments

1

While I completely agree that Trump shouldn't get smug about comparative Covid deaths, Germany's 590 deaths as a proportion of their population is just about as bad as the US as a one day total. Their overall record, however, is still much better. The message shouldn't be mockery, but that everyone should be taking this shit seriously.

3

and then there's this from the Guardian:

Nearly 160 people were arrested when authorities in Los Angeles county raided an underground house party over the weekend, officials reported on Monday.

Deputies with the LA sheriff’s department were tipped off on the giant gathering, which was held in a vacant residential home without the knowledge of the property’s owners, with reports that many inside weren’t wearing masks.

“Even without the health order, these actions were criminal in nature,” said the Los Angeles sheriff, Alex Villanueva, during a Tuesday news conference. A statement released by the department also noted that these parties “typically involve drugs, alcohol, weapons, minors and prostitution”, and that the criminal behavior is complicating efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Villanueva vowed to crack down harder on “super-spreader” events, and instructed officers to prioritize that above enforcing county orders at restaurants or other small businesses that have been struggling to stay afloat.

Sheriff’s Lt Paul Zarris told the local news station KTTV that the department hopes to send a message to other party planners with the massive arrest. “We just want to make sure that this doesn’t happen, especially in our area, Zarris said. “We’ll let them know that this is not acceptable”.

--Gabrielle Canon

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/08/los-angeles-underground-house-party-arrests-covid-19

4

Thank you Nathalie for crossing out "good old days" so that the faux-patriotic Karens don't have a fit about being glad that the (ahem) leader of the free world" being disrespected.

6

If anything good could come out of this living nightmare, it’s that COVID-19 might knock off a few of the abusive, toxic, and destructive Republinazis that’re tormenting this country and stealing everything they can get their greedy psycho hands on. And yet like monsters in an endless horror movie, they just won’t fucking die and keep on spreading their cruelty, insanity, stupidity, and diseases.

We truly are a cursed people.

7

The Chicken @1, good perspective here. While Trump has been uniquely horrible in responding to this pandemic, the fact is that the failures to respond effectively to COVID-19 extend so far beyond him. And we can see that these failures are not unique to the United States. And in fact, they extend to nations that had previously been success stories.

The question I have is, what's going wrong in Germany and some of these other European nations that had been doing such a great job for so long in keeping the virus at bay?

Makes you appreciate all the more nations like Australia and New Zealand:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/new-zealand/

Granted, they do have some geographic advantages.

10

Refreshing to see a Sheriff determined to fight this virus by enforcing quarantine orders rather than one vowing to fight government tyranny by refusing to enforce such orders instead. That's my Sheriff and most other of these other self-described "Constitutional Sheriffs" around here.

Mine has promised his deputies will use deadly force against government tyrants if they set foot in our county to threaten everyone's freedumbs! And the rubes madly cheer that shit on and re-eelect him.

After all, the refrain I'm seeing increasingly repeated in my neck o' the woods is "ordered into masks today, ordered into boxcars tomorrow." I have no idea how a rational person counters that level of delusional, paranoid irrationality.

11

@2 & @5 - don't ever change

12

Meanwhile, over in Idaho: https://apnews.com/article/idaho-health-board-meeting-halted-8f13d99fa5ddc8720c106a2f8ff50663

15

It's going to suck if our state ever gets to reopens and there's nothing left except grocery stores, churches, and amazon. It may grant you a feeling of moral superiority knowing that lives are being saved but it would be wise to acknowledge that it comes at an immense societal cost. The consequences will mostly be borne by those working in the service sector, the middle class, the poor who rely on social services (which will surely be cut in the coming days of austerity), and future generations. I'm not saying that actions to prevent the pandemic from overwhelming our hospitals aren't warranted, but I do hope some effort is made to justify the tradeoffs when implementing extreme measures like lockdowns. There are many young lives at stake and they should be just as worth saving as the lives of the physically vulnerable.

20

@18: "Giving people money to stay would be the correct response."

Yes, but we don't and won't. Instead, we close restaurants without providing additional unemployment for those who live at the margins that will no longer have unemployment benefits as of Dec. 26. Cutting off benefits the day after Christmas is as on brand for America as responding to every social ill with more incarceration.

No subsidies for the restaurant owners that employ those marginalized no one else will hire, but we have billions for the airlines, the banks and hospital executives who take the money, then lay people off their employees to goose the stock price and their year end bonus.

Of course, starving the poor may lead to more violence in the streets, but fuck em, because we have the most repressive, violent and heavy handed police in the world. Who needs to help the poor when we can simply act smug and self-righteous about their need to expose themselves to feed their families, then arrest them when they step out of line.

The Stranger had to go all the way to New York to find racists cops who post their true feelings online? This is an area where local law enforcement could really help. Seattle is the land of technology. We should have our own police train the NYPD how to make racists posts online without exposing their identity. This is an unsung area where Seattle Really leads the nation.

23

@22 LMAO. Get out of here with this dumb shit. It's so tired. The "trigger" is a fucking once-in-a-generation highly contagious novel coronavirus worldwide freaking pandemic with no vaccine or cure. The indicator of widespread buy-in to Inslee's approach is his landslide reelection a month ago.

Go sell sunglasses with Biker McDumbass.

24

It is truly sickening how these states, these Republicans are continuing this bullshit farce. Suing other states? Yeah let's get down in precedent. I look forward to all of the states that generate the most federal tax dollars (read: blue states) suing the shit out of every red state that takes all of that money that isn't theirs while they do everything in their power to burn the country down. These fuckers want to secede from the United States? These fuckers want to destroy our so-called democracy and end things as we know it? BRING IT THE FUCK ON. THEY WILL BE BRINGING ABOUT THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION AND IT WILL HAPPEN SO FAST THEY WON'T KNOW WHAT HIT THEM. ENOUGH BULLSHIT!!!

As for the constant bleating on this forum by the troll of the day insisting it will be so sad when all businesses no longer exist, keep at it, dude. Businesses will go down faster and stay gone longer if they are responsible for sickening and killing people. McConnell may want to force people to work and prevent them from being able to sue their employers for making them work no matter the risk of illness or death - but there will be NO customers for businesses when people die from going there. Those businesses will no longer exist and they will never be brought back because NO ONE will trust them ever again. Oh it sucks that so many businesses are being destroyed. It sucks that hundreds of thousands of people are DEAD and tens of millions of people are sick and we have a resident squatting in the White House who refuses to do anything about it and a GOP senate led by the Grim Reaper himself who also refuses to do anything about, they own it, all of it. Be pissed at them. Be pissed at how they have chosen to thoroughly destroy the country in a temper tantrum because they did everything in their power to rig the election so Trump would remain in power AND THEY STILL LOST SO BADLY THEY CAN'T EVEN GET AWAY WITH STEALING IT THROUGH THE COURTS.

As another person posted here, businesses can be created again. People cannot be brought back from the dead. And this country is going to pay the steepest price worldwide in terms of loss of life, long term health problems of COVID survivors, damage, destruction, and desertion of the health care system and medical field due to trauma, and all of the economic loss - of businesses, of towns/cities/states, of people forced into homelessness and joblessness, etc. All because of the total and complete incompetence of the person a minority of people in this country chose to put in a position of power (and then attempted to do so again even after the destruction was 9 months in).

25

Limited capacity, distanced indoor dining with restrictions made for venue size aren't going trigger an outsized spike. It’s also not likely to save many of those establishments and jobs near term.

That said lack of demand is probably a bigger driver in many areas rather than capacity restrictions or shutdowns. The capacity restrictions have hit smaller establishments that make food that isn’t takeout friendly. People simply aren't going out like they were pre pandemic.

Endless rounds of restrictions and lockdowns don’t end pandemics. Never has. Vaccines will help but pandemics don’t end until they’ve ravaged through enough of us.

26

If only people would complain about people like Bezos instead of endlessly whining about shutdowns being put in place to stem the spread of a deadly disease that has totally overwhelmed hospitals nationwide.

New Research Shows 'Pandemic Profits' of Billionaires Could Fully Fund $3,000 Stimulus Checks for Every Person in US

"America's billionaires could pay for a major Covid relief bill and still not lose a dime of their pre-virus riches."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/09/new-research-shows-pandemic-profits-billionaires-could-fully-fund-3000-stimulus

But instead people will continue to pretend that taxation of the obscenely wealthy and corporate predators will end society as we know it.

When this pandemic has succeeded in destroying everything and millions are dead and there are hundreds of thousands homeless, jobless, hungry, sick, and dying >>> Remember, at least they didn't tax the rich!!!

27

Where the fuck is Dr. Nelson with his magical herbal cure for Covid?

28

Oh and one more thing - as the next "stimulus" bill keeps getting smaller and smaller (and is being held up solely because Mitch McConnell insists companies be shielded from being sued by their employees, Bernie Sanders makes it very clear why this should not be allowed (and why he will not vote for any bill that includes this legislation):

11,000 Tyson employees got sick and 36 died while managers took bets on how many would get sick. Conditions were so bad they shook a local sheriff to the core.

Companies should be given permission to sicken and kill their employees (and their employees' families and anyone they come into contact with) and if they choose to do so, they need to be held accountable and their employees need to be able to sue them into oblivion for doing so.

This is why the GOP won't help people. This is why the GOP is allowing people to suffer and will cause so much more unnecessary suffering after 12/31/2020 BECAUSE THEY WANT CORPORATIONS TO BE PROTECTED FROM BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF THEIR EMPLOYEES AND THE PUBLIC.

But hey, at least no one is taxing the rich, amirite?

29

*should NOT be given permission to sicken and kill their employees

30

@12 - So proud to be an Idaho resident where wearing a mask is likened to the Holocaust. Dumbass mother-fuckers. The area I live has made national news at least 4 times this year alone for stories regarding its paranoid extremism.

Too bad the kid in the story didn't start capping mother-fuckers beating on his door, claiming he feared they were breaking in. That would fly here and give these dipshits a taste of their own shoot first medicine.

31

@28: No xina, you're wrong - again:

The rich generally pay more of their incomes in taxes than the rest of us. The top fifth of households got 54% of all income and paid 69% of federal taxes; the top 1% got 16% of the income and paid 25% of all federal taxes, according to the CBO.

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/who-are-the-rich-and-how-might-we-tax-them-more/

33

Xina, people that have no money or jobs aren’t whining. They’re desperate to survive. They’ve had to sacrifice their livelihoods and had their families suffer. It's a serious issue with which you and many others here fail to recognize. There is plenty of lip service but nothing that helps people in this situation.

Multi paragraph screeds blaming others do not help those in need. There is plenty enough blame to go around. What is needed are local solutions. The feds aren’t going to help even when Biden takes office. It’s going to be a year or better before the pandemic subsides enough for things to get back to normal. We need suggestions and models of how to balance both needs.

34

@33 People with no money or jobs aren't whining, you're right. The people who are whining are the people who want to be able to go out to eat, to have parties, to gather in groups, and to travel. The people who have had to sacrifice their livelihoods and had their families suffer understand that their businesses cannot thrive while hundreds of thousands of people are getting sick every day and thousands are dying every day. Those people are expecting help from the federal government, help that is not coming because the Republicans refuse to provide that help. The Democrats indicated that help was needed in May, when they passed the second multiple trillion dollar stimulus package.

I fully recognize the catastrophic loss and damage being done. I also fully recognize that had Trump and his administration not destroyed the pandemic response team put in place by the Obama administration and done what needed to be done starting in December 2019/January 2020 we would not be here. I fully recognize that people do not want to hold the people who are responsible for this show responsible. Every single person that is desperate, suffering, and facing unfathomable loss - due to no work, no money, no ability to pay their bills or take care of themselves or their families is going through what they are going through because of the total abdication of leadership and responsibility of the Trump administration and the continued insistence of a huge faction of the population in denying the severity of this public health crisis.

What is needed is a HUGE stimulus package from the federal government that goes directly to PEOPLE (and does not get siphoned off like the first one to the already rich and the huge corporations). Every peer country of the United States has paid out in cold hard cash to their people EVERY SINGLE MONTH since the pandemic began.

NOTHING can get better until the pandemic ends. That means nearly every person in this country needs to get vaccinated (and the same 40% who complain they can't go out to eat and that wearing a mask is fascism are the same assholes who are saying they won't get vaccinated).

There are suggestions and models of what to do - WORLDWIDE SUGGESTIONS AND MODELS. This country has chosen to do nothing. Period. Nothing. And every ounce of suffering is 100% the fault and responsibility of the Trump administration and Mitch McConnell and their bat shit insane, science denying, everyone else is responsible for all of our problems supporters.

Local solutions are not coming. Local solutions require federal support. Local solutions require federal distribution of the vaccination, just like local solutions require federal distribution of PPE and behavior guidelines (shutting things down, physical distancing, wearing masks, washing hands, not gathering in groups, etc.) The scientists have been screaming for 10 months now on how to put an end to this and the people in this country, led by their delusional and deranged golf player grifter liar shit bag squatter in the White House have refused and continue to refuse to listen. Even as they take their last breaths, dying from COVID, the deniers insist that this is all a hoax, a lie, an overblown flu, nothing to see here.

We are beyond the point of being able to manage this crisis without federal intervention, period. That's where the money is, that's where the power is, and that's where the ability to organize a nationwide response is.

35

Oh and one more thing, when a country's entire economy is built solely on the service industry surviving, it's a country that will fail when something like this happens. Restaurants, hotels, traveling, cruise ships, salons, spas, etc. etc. etc. are not things that a country needs to exist. Even grocery stores are not required, because people are expected to know how to grow their own food or work with people who do grow food to obtain food to feed themselves. Americans have put 98% of their food production in the hands of immigrants and other countries. We cannot even feed ourselves. We are a total sham. There are plenty of countries in this world where those things don't exist. They aren't first world countries that call themselves the greatest country in the world. Our peer countries are not like us and they are watching in abject horror at what we have allowed to happen here.

This pandemic has proven that our entire country is a house of cards that relies on the labor of the poor to ensure the lifestyles everyone else. When an entire country can be brought to the brink of economic extinction because of a pandemic like this (except for the billionaires), what is wrong with that country existed long before the public health crisis brought it crashing down.

There will be no returning to the way it was before. Ever. This country is either going to pull its head out of its ass and change, drastically, or it is going to be destroyed. Trump put the final nail in the coffin. The Republicans are hammering that nail in HARD. We either evolve or we cease to exist. It is going to be an excruciating and painful death knell but without changing just about every single thing this country does and how it does it, there will be no more country. That's what makes the Republican agenda so confounding. What's the end game? When they have finally succeeded in destroying everything and killing everyone, do they really think they will be able to continue in their piles of money, wielding any power? It's total fucking insanity.

36

Without aid, millions of renters are on the brink of eviction, financial ruin

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/9/2000980/-Wednesday-Night-Owls-Without-aid-millions-of-renters-are-on-the-brink-of-eviction-financial-ruin

https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/without-financial-assistance-renters-brink-of-eviction/


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