Sunday’s Forum
Another day, another forum.
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, March 22, 2020
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81 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Why does Trump keep harping on unproven drugs as a “major game changer” and implies and keeps implying they could be employed very soon?
Blatantly undercutting Fauci.
It is such a bizarre tactic. Utterly baffles me.
Gross, manifest incompetence at the top level matters.
Thinking out loud: Would it be a good or bad idea for the world’s governments to suspend the trading of stocks and bonds?
ProPublica: A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients
If you know somebody who isn’t taking this serious, print this article out and make them read it.
What can we do as citizens?
I want to volunteer somewhere.
I can clean, mop, stock shelves, move goods from a to b, create a database, disinfect, data entry. Whatever. Will sign a waiver, no problem. Take a burden off someone who could be better used elsewhere.
We have millions of people idle.
Hospitals and grocery stores are essential. We need to get creative in how to maintain and support them.
@Sleeping Dog:
Also thinking out loud, can Americorps or other agencies ramp up and point volunteers at resource gaps?
Hospitals, utilities, supply chain, groceries.
Never let a crisis go to waste: Kentucky Republicans quietly tighten voter restrictions as US focuses on Covid-19
@de stijl:
Look into your local food pantries. I spent three hours yesterday helping pack supply boxes while maintaining safe social distancing. If the United Way is active in your community, they may have things up on their volunteer portal:
https://www.unitedway.org/get-involved/volunteer
@de stijl:
He needs some kind of quick fix because even he has figured out tens (or hundreds) of thousands of Americans dying because he didn’t take COVID-19 seriously will negatively impact his chance of re-election.
I know this is trivial, but it pissed me off that Trump is clearly still tanning.
He has clearly noticeable anti-racoon eyes. It disturbs me greatly. Orange face and fish-belly white eyes. He has tanning goggle eyes.
Trump tans while America burns.
Ordinarily, not a big deal, but now it really pissed me off.
@Mikey:
I think he’s more worried about how the impact on the economy will negatively impact his reelection chances–and in his immoral and inhumane way, he’s probably right about that.
@Kylopod: Either way, it’s about him and his re-election. He couldn’t care any less about anyone dying.
@Mikey: Huh. And I thought it was just because he’s a lying sack of shit.
Joyner just did such a solid.
I messed up and posted on the wrong thread.
It was inappropriate for that thread.
As soon as I realized I was abashed and apologized.
Joyner just moved my misplaced comment to the open thread as I had initially intended. Even removed my “oops” follow on comment.
Didn’t ask for it, he just did it. Mensch. Total dude move.
Joyner rocks.
@de stijl:
He’s got to do something while watching Fox and Friends and awaiting instructions from Hannity, Rush and Putin.
@OzarkHillbilly:
aka, the Moscow Mitch protection act.
I’m frustrated — the Johns Hopkins CSSE data updates have been missing “recovered” cases in the US for 3 days now. Other aggregators are getting the data, so it’s not that reporting has stopped completely, but there’s a glitch in the JHU process somewhere. The other sources don’t make historical time series data available in a downloadable form (that I’ve found), so I can’t do any new modeling. That’s probably better for my mental health in some ways, but worse for understanding.
@de stijl: I royally screwed the pooch on a comment the other day, and made things even worse when I tried to fix it. Somebody, (i half assumed it was Dr Taylor as it was a post of his but could well have been JJ) did the same for me: Fixed my screw up and removed my apology.
A mensch indeed.
All I need to know is that if I get it? I am fucked.
@de stijl:
Do you have any better ideas on what he ought to do with all his copious free time?
@mattbernius: I second the food bank suggestion. They’re always under extra strain when schools are closed. It’s an extra 5-10 meals per week for each child, and a lot of parents can’t manage that.
Trump Writes to Kim Jong-un Offering Help in Virus Fight, North Korea Says
Trump to U.S. Governors: You are on your own
Given that it’s N.Korea, take it with the proverbial handful of salt, but does this not sound exactly like trump?
@Kathy: Drink bleach?
@DrDaveT: You were just saying that you’re a math person – you should realize the limitations and inaccuracies in emergent data. You should also know it doesn’t hurt anyone if your model is three days out of date.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve never seen anyone change a Daily Beast headline to make it more partisan. What Trump said to the governors is good advice. We don’t know what he said to NK. The President is supposed to do foreign policy and aid the states, so even if your headlines are comparable, it’s a good thing.
@DrDaveT: You remind me this from yesterday may be of interest to our OTB community. Cheryl Rofer, who occasionally comments here, has a front page examination of the Imperial College report at Balloon Juice. Takeaways:
– It seems reasonable.
@95 South:
I’m more worried that the model can never be updated, in which case it is pretty useless. We’ll see what happens with the data feed going forward.
…and I don’t think anyone important is depending on my modeling here, so I’ll try to maintain some perspective.
@95 South:
Stick around, I will never pass on an opportunity to say what trump really means (which in the case of that headline would have been more accurate to say “F*** Off” but I’m trying to clean up my language a little seeing as I am no longer on job sites) and it is really interesting to see you say “The President is supposed to… aid the states” right after you noted he told them he wasn’t going to do a damn thing for them.
As far as being partisan, I am unapologetically partisan. I don’t pretend to be otherwise. If you are looking for neutral opinions, may I suggest you just skip mine?
Today we are switching our coverage of Donald Trump to an emergency setting
On Friday, I had quite the scare…
We live of 5 acres in Colorado, in a relatively remote area outside of Denver. We planned ahead many weeks ago with a cache of three weeks of food. The company that I work for has cancelled ALL travel and all employees must work from home. While that seems to be challenging for some, I’ve always worked from my home remote office (when not traveling) and my wife is a stay-at-home that is not big on socializing, so when the idea of “shelter at home” came up it was not such a transition for us.
Since I was traveling before the travel suspension (may last day of travel was Mar 12th), I acknowledged that once traveling stopped I would have to wait seven to 14 days to see if I had dodged the C-19 bullet.
Add to this that I am turning 60 this month, had oral surgery to build up bone before an implant procedure, and I an on antibiotics and a liquid diet; I knew that I was a bit compromised.
So: Friday morning, I wake up, and I am feverish. My body hurts, my kidneys hurt… I have always hated that feeling, as you are burning up and shivering at the same time.
Went to bed, tried to stabilize… As a former ski patroller, even in my fevered state I could identify that I was dehydrated. I started slamming water and Endura to work to rehydrate. Finally in the late afternoon, I started to recover and was able to use the restroom, albeit very little. Chills were still happening. I told my wife that I didn’t think it was c-19 as there was no coughing or impact to my lungs… but I wouldn’t be able to tell until Saturday.
Saturday came around, and I was better… not well, but better. Ditto for today. Still need to drink lots more water to ensure that I continue rehydration.
What’s the point of this commentary? If C-19 is anything like my symptoms Friday, I don’t think any of us could continue a sustained battle against it ourselves And it won’t be like Friday, it will be much worse, quicker, and the length extended.
Isolate. Question everything and everyone you come in contact with. Consider how long c-19 remains on things, and take proper action.
We will come out of this a far different country. I hope I will be alive to see it.
STL and STL County have just shut down:
I guess I won’t be seeing my granddaughters for a while.
@OzarkHillbilly: Speaking of governors, LGM has a tweeted chart comparing actions in Kentucky and Tennessee and the results. Gov. Beshear (D) acted quickly and decisively in KY while Bill Lee (R) in TN did not. TN has done less testing and has five times as many cases. Red states are fwcked. For this among many reasons. But this spreads to the rest of us.
@Liberal Capitalist: Wishing you well and hoping your recovery continues.
@OzarkHillbilly: You can be a partisan, but you don’t have to lie. Trump didn’t say he wasn’t going to do a thing for them, and I didn’t say that.
@OzarkHillbilly: Unfortunately, that’s a recommendation by an academic, not an announcement by a media organization. Given the importance of accurate information the press has a clear duty to stop carrying Trump’s news conferences. But they won’t. I’m hoping they’ll at least cover the shadow press conferences Biden plans to start this week. But they won’t. At least not remotely equally.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Por que no los dos?
I have the same thought. Hopefully we both are.
@95 South:
HA! I editorialized a headline and linked to the article so you could see what it actually said. I must be some kind of genius liar confessing to my sin even as I commit it.
@Mikey: Indeed.
@95 South: How you can look at Trump and see anything other than a shrieking monkey flinging poop is beyond me. He is so obviously a moron.
@gVOR08: Yeah, baby steps. Hopefully some journalists take it to heart.
@95 South: When it comes to anything trump says, it’s a lie. Even when he tells a truth it is in the service of a lie. F*** him,When it comes to you soft pedaling what he says and does… Well let’s just say I don’t have any charitable ways to reply. Therefor I won’t.
@Kathy: @Kathy:
Dance to music you love.
It’s fun. You burn calories and anxiety. Get up move about. You’re at home – no one is going to judge you.
Game.
Board or video. Whatever genre or type you like. If you are into it, hours just blow by.
I have been playing Civ5 the last few days (prefer it over Civ6). It gives me a sense of control; I choose how my society develops and expands.
Yes, it is not real, but it feels real. Your actions affect that world. Something that takes you out of yourself is good.
Walking.
Depending on where you live this may not be an option. I like dawn and dusk.
Walking is slow. You get to look at things. The sky. A shadow. I find it comforting. Walking is mostly watching and paying attention.
Is the Moron in Chief still spouting off about how his great brain tells him that this will go away in the summer because, magic? I just checked and Australia just enacted emergency measures as their caseload explodes. It is the middle of Australia’s long hot summer.
@Liberal Capitalist:
Every winter I have persistent dry cough, as does my brother, so it is genetic. I also frequently have build up of phlegm, usually for several weeks after I have had a cold, which I did in January. But yesterday afternoon, I began to have the tired, feverish feeling that one gets before the flu. Needless to say I was getting concerned. I took my temperature, it was normal and after having dinner the pre-flu feeling passed. The prior 2 night I hadn’t slept well, but last night I did and I feel fine. It scares the bijesus out of you and that was before I read the description of treating Covid patients by the respiratory therapist.
This piece at LGM is the first I’ve seen on something I’ve been thinking about – timing of the recession – and electoral effect. It cites Goldman Sachs as forecasting a bad current quarter and a terrible second quarter. But they, and others, predict a steep V shaped recovery. I commented a day or two ago that the virus is a neutron bomb. It just takes out the people. The facilities, the demand, and the money are still there. Once the workers and customers return, boom.
Voters respond most strongly to current conditions. Second and third quarter growth in per capita income seem to be strong drivers of support for an incumbent prez. Pelosi and Schumer are pushing for worker focussed relief while Rs are more focussed on business relief with enough else to sell it. The good news is that if GOPs weren’t stupid they’d realize it’s in their best interest to align with Pelosi and do all they can to drive a quick recovery. The bad news is twofold. First, they are stupid. Or more accurately, as Lemieux at LGM puts it (and I’ve said here often), they believe their own BS. Second, a good third quarter recovery with expected lowering of case numbers would allow the dweeb to claim victory, maybe getting reelected and carrying a senate majority.
@MarkedMan:
It’s actually early fall in Australia, but given the climate there, it will be hotter than summers in northern US.
@Liberal Capitalist:
For those interested
Don’t be deluded by the “lasts up to three hours in aerosol”.
The paper actually contends that the decay of viability of SARS-CoV-2 less than 50% after 3 hours at ambient temperatures.
Stated in plain language, breathing “infected” (more technically inoculated ) air is dangerous, even after 3 hours.
Earlier this week, the Boston Globe reported that the wealthy were escaping to their summer homes on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in the hopes of escaping the virus. Much to the chagrin of year rounders. Well they failed to escape or brought it with them as both islands have announced cases and Nantucket went straight to a stay-at-home order.
@gVOR08:
I only serve a couple thousand readers, but I’m filtering what news I print–and none of it includes national news (with the exception of verified sources like the CDC).
I had a bit of a breakdown yesterday and yelled at the EMS chief for sending out “news” about everything except the EMS service. I’m drafting my apology in my head–haven’t gotten around to typing it yet.
I can’t imagine what it’s like being a national news source and having to decide what to print/show from the White House. Print at least has be benefit of lag time to think about what’s being said and properly interpret it. Editors for live news must be freaking out bit-time.
I know that Cronkite, Donaldson, et. al. shaped the news as much as they reported it, but… I think we could use a healthy dose of that right now.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hydrate.
Be well.
Rand Paul is infected.
@MarkedMan: Trump didn’t say anything dumb in those articles though. I wish we had someone as smart as Cruz in the White House, but in the mean time I’m capable of reading two articles and saying “Trump didn’t say anything dumb”.
@Sleeping Dog: I guess it is the equivalent of September. The first infected travelers fanned out from Wuhan in the equivalent of June/July. And Australia has a lot of People coming and going to China.
@95 South: Perhaps if you interpret everything he says in the most favorable light possible, he occasionally spouts words that could be generously interpreted as correct. What has he ever done to earn that interpretation.
There is no way to know if President Puke said anything dumb as his lickspittles in the White House do not make public what he says.
Clearly the murderer Communist Dictator Kim Jong-un is deserving to know Trump’s words and thoughts but American Citizens are not.
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Italy will no longer be offering respirators to those over 60.
@de stijl:
So… Maybe there is a God?
@gVOR08: Everyone always predicts a V-shaped recovery. The last time that actually happened in employment was in 1981-2. Since then, each employment recovery has been U-shaped and each recovery has taken longer than the one before. It’s pretty much a given that every business owner that is currently shut down is thinking, “If I get to open again, how can I do it with fewer employees?”
@95 South:
We live in different worlds.
You think Trump is doing fine.
I view him as the least capable person to lead.
@Michael Cain:
And a lot of businesses won’t be hiring because they’ve gone bust.
I’m not sure what point Trump was making in that Daily Beast piece. Of course, I think the DB probably wasn’t interested in explaining it to me. That’s a sort of “look at the dumb thing Trump said” piece.
Now, as it turns out, I’m liberal and Democrat, but I still want an accurate picture of what’s going on in other people’s heads. Publications like this post don’t provide that.
I too, would prefer Ted Cruz to Trump. That’s saying a lot, because in general, I don’t like Ted Cruz, like, at all.
But I don’t think Trump is dumb, per se. I think he’s narcissistic to the max and a bit senile, perhaps. But that’s not the same thing as “dumb”.
But that leaves me wondering: why does he think governors trying to get ventilators “on their own” is better? It’s mystifying.
@Michael Cain: Krugman, and many others, predicted recovery from the last recession would be “L shaped”. That we’d have a long slow recovery. They said that’s how “balance sheet” recessions work. They were right.
@Jay L Gischer:
No, he is genuinely stupid. A stupid psychopath, with all the well-tuned predatory instincts and the bravado of a psychopath, but too stupid to know how to step up to a crisis. A smart psychopath could exploit this and end up being the American Napoleon or Mussolini or, I don’t know, Kim Jong Un? Thankfully, he is genuinely stupid. Imagine the damage he could do if he were at least a tiny bit smart.
@Jay L Gischer:
Maybe he bought stock in a ventilator company a month ago and he likes the idea of NY and CA getting into a bidding war.
Great visualization of how the virus has spread, based on factual data.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, that’s part of it too. A really important part.
@95 South: Gee, where I’m from “you’re on your own” means exactly that.
How to care for someone who has C-19 in the home.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/03/21/coronavirus-how-safely-take-care-someone-sick-covid-19/2866984001/
Perhaps karma is real…
@Jay L Gischer: @Michael Reynolds:
In Trump, the lizard brain predominates. Bigly.
Trump just Tweeted that he’ll be throwing a “News Conference” from “our beautiful White House” at 5 p.m. Apparently there is much to discuss.
FEMA Admin Repeatedly Dodges Questions On Hospital Supply Shortages
And
Dr. Fauci Refutes Trump’s Denial Of Medical Supply Shortage: ‘It Is Happening’
Another Trump COVID-19 press conference, another 5% limit down stop to stock futures trading.
If he’d just shut the fuck up, maybe the markets would start to recover…
@Mikey: Shut The F*ck Up Donny!
It’s going on the back of my truck this week.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Going bowling next Saturday.
Wanna join?
I’ve read on conservative websites people who are bitching and complaining about how liberals are supposedly using this crisis to promote their own pet projects (never let a crisis go to waste and all of that)…meanwhile, it is Republicans who are trying to use this crisis to bail out their friends and special interests….it continues to be nothing but projection with these people…
@An Interested Party: To them saving the population from impoverishment is nothing but a liberal pet project. Socialism, in fact.
@gVOR08: Yes, of course…socialism is only good if it is used for the betterment of the wealthy and the powerful…everybody else should just figure out what they are going to do on their own…forget Nazi comparisons, the Republicans these days seem to have more in common with the scerlotic Soviet Politburo of the 70s and early 80s…
@de stijl: Will the Jesus be rolling?
@OzarkHillbilly:
The Jesus is *always* ready.
The Jesus. That whole bit. None of it was necessary.
It did not move the plot at all. It was so awesome and Turturro killed.
Movies need more throw-away bits like that.
The plot of Lebowski was just to get characters up and moving and doing stuff, it was deliberately Chandleresque and unintelligible. It was a screwball comedy full of weirdoes. The real value is the little jokes, like how a good portion of the Dude’s dialogue was errant phrases that he just heard a few minutes before. Or how they keep telling Steve Buscemi to shut the fuck up, because in his previous movie Fargo he babbled too much. Stuff that you don’t pick up on the first time you watch it. 😀