Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalAre all of these handmade cloth masks people are making useful?
I know that they are nowhere near professional use quality PPE, but are they helpful at all? Or are they just better than nothing? I hear a lot of conflicting information. And some states are starting to require them (mine isn't yet) but what's that based on?
So, how safe are "Drive-In" Church services?
Our good friend Barr has decided to intervene in a religious dispute sparked by fines on a Mississippi Church during a drive-in service (can't these people just get their services livestreamed already? It's 2020), claiming that the city that issued the fine (but now will not collect due to the outrage generated) is a violation of people's religious rights (naturally)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-religion/u-s-justice-department-sides-with-church-in-covid-19-religious-dispute-idUSKCN21W2OR
Points about banning abortion during COVID-19
1. Abortions do not require significant PPE. If Abortions are really causing a shortfall in PPE, that is a problem that has NOTHING to do with Abortions and more to do with outside factors.
2. Births/Deliveries require significant PPE. If the point of this is to prevent a shortfall in PPE, then forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term actually EXACERBATES the problem, in addition to the initial problem of forcing women to carry unwanted to pregnancies to term, which is bad enough.
3. Abortions cannot just be "delayed" like other medical procedures, especially thanks to the raft of restrictions and burdens that states like Alabama have placed on the procedure.
4. This is about right-wing Republican-controlled states taking advantage of a serious medical crisis to achieve a goal they're seeking, specifically banning all abortions in open defiance of Roe V. Wade without demonstrated evidence of a substantial benefit to public health or safety.
The last impeachment was over Ukraine
This is, of course, a much different (and dire) issue. I don't see any sign that Trump is course-correcting on anything. If anything, he just keeps making it worse.
I understand that two Impeachments in a year probably isn't viewed by most as politically feasible but it seems like we are getting to a point where Trump's malign incompetence is literally causing a critical public health safety threat IMHO, especially if he decides he's going to try to bully State Governors into voiding their public health emergency orders or purposely withhold critical supplies for everybody other than his allies.
A LOT of folks on my FB feed are 100% that Trump has just been re-elected with Biden
Aside from some of the smears I won't repeat here, they basically complain that people aren't going to be enthusiastic enough to get to the polls. To which, I say, if getting rid of Trump and making sure he doesn't replace RBG and, possibly, Breyer, doesn't work to get your a** to the polls, then I don't know what to tell you. Not everybody was crazy enthusiastic about Bernie either. I wanted Warren, but if Bernie had won the nomination, it still would've been a no-brainer to go out and vote for him in November. I almost feel like some Bernie fans *want* Biden to lose to Trump so that they can come back to the rest of us and taunt us with their prophecy, which would likely be in part to some of them refusing to vote or voting third party.
Why are some Sanders supporters saying that he hasn't dropped out of the race?
They point out that he "suspended" his campaign, which is par for the course for when all of the other candidates have ended their campaigns, but they think that he is still in contention for the race and will resume his campaign when the current COVID-19 Pandemic crisis is over (but we actually don't even know when that will be of course). Is this just denial or misunderstanding? I kind of want to point this out to them but they're hopping mad about Sanders and talking revolution and protests right now and I just don't really want to get into it with them, really. He *is* out of the race and no longer seeking the nomination, isn't he? Or did I totally miss something somewhere?
So, what's the plan going to be in terms of "re-opening the economy"?
The virus has not gone away, nor will it likely one day "magically disappear", as Trump once prophesied. More cases and more deaths will occur, there is no vaccine, no widespread testing, no certified treatments, did I mention no vaccine yet? So, how will it be safe to stop social distancing and "re-open the economy", by which I assume Trump and his minions mean that they're going to deem it safe for people to go back to work and, basically, back to their more or less normal lives while this virus continues to ravage through the country? Anybody on the inside asking these questions (probably not)? They have a daily platform to talk about this sort of thing, but AFAIK they're not really. Before any of us go back to work, before any business thinks to call their workers back to work, before any state governors (the ones that smartly followed medical advice and shut things down) tell their citizens to go back to their "normal" lives, they'd better think long and hard about this. Before any us go back to work or to our normal lives, we need to be prepared to push back against them if there's no reasonably safe and scientifically sound plan for us.
Who determined that these next two weeks are "Pearl Harbor Weeks"?
I probably missed the "briefing" where this was discussed but how have TPTB reasoned that these next two weeks are going to be the worse for the Coronavirus Outbreak, especially considering how awful things already are/were?
Also, horrible analogy.
The most depressing and enraging part of this Pandemic
for me is that this is 2020, NOT 1917-1918 and we should be much better prepared as a country for these sorts of things and we should not be in such a panic/crisis as we are. I'm not saying that, even under the best of circumstances, that there wouldn't a lot of people catching this or some people dying but, because we have piss poor leadership in this country, because we've had years and years of electing people to government to hobble it, deconstruct it, and diminish its importance, to diminish and scoff at the importance of facts and knowledge and....gulp....SCIENCE, we now find ourselves in this kind of predicament. And now lots of people will be paying for this with their lives. Once this is all over, we CANNOT go back to the way we used to be. We have to push back against HARD against people who want to tear government down, who refuse to consider facts, whom refuse to acknowledge, well, REALITY and FACTS. Willful ignorance and "Know-Nothingism" KILLS people. This- what we are going through right now- is the culmination of years of George W. Bushes, Sarah Palins, Mitch McConnells, Tea Parties, and, of course, Donald Trumps.
Elect Trump/GOP
THIS is what you get. Oh yeah, having dismantled and hollowed out government is all fun and games until something like this happens and now we have secondary and tertiary crises and likely additional waves of crises unfolding from it.
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,406
