Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, December 8, 2020
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73 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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Another great person has left us during this miserable year; Chuck Yeager has died. Age 97 it says. Actually, ageless.
Admissions in our network increased by 25% in the last week compared with 15% the week before. Not nearly as bad as I feared from Thanksgiving. However we had a 19% increase in staff testing positive, our single largest increase. Our people have been very good at being careful with infection treated well below the National averages. I think it is wearing thin for a lot of us and we are seeing some letdown. Of note the percent admissions from nursing homes is way down.
Steve
via Anne Laurie over at Balloon Juice, Rebekah Jones, who is the former data scientist at the Florida Dept of Health who got fired for refusing to manipulate C-19 data, got raided yesterday:
She also has a gofundme specifically for the associated legal expenses. Currently at $69K of a hoped for $150K.
I wonder if one of Kyle Rittenhouse’s rich benefactors will see their way to contributing.
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….
It will surprise absolutely nobody here that the trump admin thinks it’s OK if the Nazis did it:
“Amtrak Joe’s” inaugural arrival
For every 100 females that are conceived, 150 males are conceived. But due to pre-birth attrition, the birth rates of females and males are about even. However, from birth onward, males are, we might say, survival-challenged. The death rate for males exceeds the death rate for females in every decade. An empirical data point for this fact was recently recorded in the village of Haltemeinbier, Germany.
Both the Times and Post have articles up this AM on the Admin passing on securing additional vaccine supply beyond the 100M doses contracted for. Plus, Pfizer’s admission that another significant supply won’t be available till June/July.
Supposedly, the soon to be ex prez, will sign one of is monarchical exec orders to force Pfizer to turn over production. The problem here is that the 100M doses are the entirety of US production with the vaccine that is committed to the EU, UK and Canada, being produced in the Germany and the UK
@Sleeping Dog:
I guess this joke is a bit outdated, but here goes:
Q: How is Donald Trump like a dog?
A: He pays attention only after being hit by a newspaper.
@sam:
Demonstrating my superior sense of survival — given my gender, of course — the question that gets me in trouble is not “What could go wrong?” but rather “How hard can it be?” I have one piece of hobby software that after eight years has all of the original planned features (and a number of incidental ones), and another that’s just getting started, that are the result of that question blurting out of my mouth at a wrong time.
@sam: 150 males to 100 females is not the traditional figure. I thought it was 105/100. https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio
@sam: Stupid human tricks.
According to the NYPost, Jared and Ivanka have paid $30 million for a 1.84 acre lot on Indian Creek, a heavily-guarded Miami island. They apparently intend to build a house there, although they’ll keep the place in Manhattan and the “cottage” (currently being expanded) at Bedminster.
There are 27 residences on this island and a 13-member police force. I suppose the Kushners feel they need all the protection they can get.
@sam: The video is completely believable. As is your supporting data. But… Halt-meine-bier, a village in Germany. C’mon… Somebody needs to try a little harder.
Yet another monolith has appeared in downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina.
@sam: I’ve always found that to be so interesting. From in-utero on, males are more likely to die, so it’s not just risk-taking that is at issue.
Aliens in hiding until mankind is ready, says ex-Israeli space head
If they were talking to Trump, they might think it’ll be a long, long, long time.
@Jen: I’ve heard I has to do with our Y chromosome, which is essentially a deficient X chromosome. So women have two copies of everything on there and so can better resist genetic damage, whereas men only have one copy of most of the alleles and so any defect has immediate impact. Not sure if any researcher has actually done the work rot show whether or not it could explain the discrepancy.
Texas seeks to overturn other states’ election results:
Link
@Monala:
The Trump Fan Club is yelling “God bless Texas!”
Today is Safe Harbor day. Trumpian shenannies notwithstanding. And about that Texas suit — never gonna happen in SCOTUS.
@Monala: That would be Indicted Felon Attorney General Ken Paxton who is under indictment for securities fraud, under additional investigation by the FBI for corruption, who fired at least 7 high ranking employees who blew the whistle on him, and who also cheated on his wife.
He’s a piece of work. Of course, he get re-elected here in Texas.
This, like Ted Cruz’ court activities, is a stunt. Unfortunately, there a no consequences for these stunts.
Are there limits to what may be “political speech”? Can there be actual punitive consequences?
Christopher Krebs sues Trump lawyer who said he should be ‘shot’
Despite the many precautions I took pre-pandemic, like using hand sanitizer and keeping from touching my face, I usually caught a cold or two over the summer or fall, and then one more in winter.
This year, I’ve caught nothing since early March (technically late winter), before masks were commonplace.
I’m not saying this is a good thing to come from the pandemic. But I will say it shows the value of masks. I think I’ll start wearing a mask when colds seem to be going around, and during flu season as well from now on.
@Monala:
@sam:
I expect that the supremes will reject, saying that Texas lacks standing.
@Scott: Paxton is obviously trolling for a Trump pardon with this idiocy.
@Monala:
@Scott:
Cui bono? Always ask who benefits, but also how.
In this case, I think this individual is angling for a preemptive pardon from the King of the Covidiots.
@Sleeping Dog:
Yeah, that was my first thought.
@Mikey:
I just “missed it by that much!” 🙂
Now Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis has COVID-19. She attended a West Wing Christmas party last Friday.
Did she get it there, or give it? Who can know with this bunch of incompetents?
@sam:
If Trump knew about actual factual aliens you couldn’t get him to shut up about it with a laser blaster.
Oh f*ck. Recalling news stories last December about some mysterious illness in Wuhan, China, here’s a story today in Business Insider:
@Teve:
No, you couldn’t. In a way, we were lucky he refused to read any briefing papers or to sit through meetings about policy, etc. The less he knows that he can blab to the highest bidder, the better.
I wouldn’t put it past him to sell whatever he does know, for money or revenge against the country that rejected him.
Apple just announced AirPods Max. Over the ear headphones with noise cancellation. $549.
I guess we’ll see if they have the courage of their convictions.
@Kathy: I’ve seen it pointed out that wearing masks was always an effective way of reducing the spread of illness. The problem of course was the lack of social acceptance. Before the pandemic it would have gotten a person tagged as a weirdo (it’s the sort of thing TV’s Monk would do). I’m curious to see how much mask-wearing continues to be practiced after the rollout of the vaccines and the gradual return to normalcy. Will a lot of people continue to wear masks in public? How much will it be accepted? Of course acceptance of masks isn’t uniform even today, as it depends on the level of Covid-denial in a particular area. And as I’ve discussed before, Covid-denial isn’t black and white; there’s a spectrum of views, and there are many people who take the virus at least somewhat seriously but who think it’s overblown to some degree or who have a simplistic understanding of it, such as believing that as soon as they take the vaccine they can immediately end all the precautions and start gathering maskless in big groups.
@Kylopod:
I’ve heard that in several Asian countries, it’s customary for those infected with a cold or flu to wear a surgical mask in public, to avoid infecting others. I know in most other places it’s seen as odd.
During the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, masks were common in Mexico City, though not universal, and the ordeal lasted only a few weeks.
I had a coworker long ago who wore a mask, every day. She was odd in other ways, too, that the mask seem the least of it.
@Monala:
Do you think maybe Gaia’s immune system is finally reacting to us?
Seriously, while one should always be vigilant and investigate such things thoroughly, outbreaks of that kind are rather common in less developed countries, especially in densely populate areas. They can even happen in more developed countries, as the emergence of Legionnaires’ Disease showed.
I worry a great deal when a new respiratory disease appears, because those can be highly contagious, as we’re seeing right now.
@Kathy:
I can speak for Shanghai and a number of other places I’ve been to in China: it’s considered rude and ignorant not to wear a mask if you are sneezing or coughing. People also wear them on bad air pollution days
Does anyone here have an Apple TV 4K device thingy?
Right now, when we want to watch something that streams to my husband’s MacBook, he brings the laptop from his office to the TV and we connect it to the TV using an HDMI cord. Would buying the Apple TV device eliminate the need to physically move the laptop? In other words, would this device use the wifi network in our house so that it, not the laptop, is plugged into the TV?
Carrying the laptop from one room to the next isn’t THAT big a deal, but if this would work it’d be a decent Christmas gift. The Apple website seems to assume a person knows all of this stuff already. 😐
@Jen:
I can’t comment on Apple, but I own a first generation Chromecast, which does work with WiFi. It hooks to the TV’s HDMI port, and then with a micro-USB to either a wall charger or a port on the TV. You set it up either with a phone or a PC.
The kicker is the service you use has to be set for Chromecast. Thus far, this goes for Chrome and Youtube (naturally), and for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+
@sam: Are you filling in for Tyrell while he’s on vacation, or was that post a one-off? 🙂
@Mikey: If it was only yesterday that she was showing symptoms, she probably brought it with her. I recall hearing that incubation time can be as high as seven days and is rarely smaller than 3 or 4.
@Kathy: In Korea, mask wearing is associated with “Yellow Dust” season, when desertification storms blow fine sand from China to the peninsula. That the season coincides with cold and flu season is happenstance, I assure you. 😉
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I can see how dust could increase contagion. People sneeze and cough more, infection or not. That’s a lot of droplets all over.
On other COVID news, Pfizer says it’s vaccine is about 52% effective ten days after the first dose. I’d wondered what one dose did, now I know.
I’ll make a modest prediction: after this pandemic ends, research will be partly directed to an effective mRNA vaccine which will work in one dose.
We’ll see, but I’d bet way too many people won’t take the second dose, either because of misinformation, or because they think it’s just a scam to get them to pay extra or something. At least half of those likely won’t be contagious, but the other half will drag the pandemic on longer.
Taking a break from COVID news, I’m wondering what Biden can do as to structural reforms in the rather unlikely case the Democrats can take both of Georgia’s Senate seats*, and assuming the Democrats int eh Senate repeal the legislative filibuster (absent both, nothing I say next is possible).
IMO, reforming the Supreme Court, either by expanding it or introducing term limits, is out. At best Biden can appoint a very young, very liberal Justice to replace Justice Breyer.
One thing that can be done with a simple majority si increase the size of the House. This won’t be easy, and we’d see current Democratic House members demand concessions in return for essentially diluting their influence, if they take to the notion at all. Worse, yet, it’s not an idea much discussed outside policy enthusiast circles.
As I understand it, it takes a simple act of Congress to admit a state into the Union. This means Biden could push for admitting Puerto Rico. I don’t think admitting DC as a state is possible without engendering massive resentment on the right. Of course, the right will grow resentful no matter what Biden does.
I think there’ s decent chance of admitting PR, perhaps even with Republican support. I’d also try to add DC at the same time, in order to be able to give it up at the bargaining table. the big caveat here is getting the support of Puerto Ricans to be admitted. They have to get something out of it besides giving the democratic Party two seats, for now, in the Senate, and some seats in the House. IMO, no state has ever been hurt by having representation in Congress. There’s a case to be made for the benefits, but there’s also a portion of the population who want independence. So it’s not as simple as holding a vote and opening the door.
Best of all, adding PR tot he Union has been discussed, so it doesn’t come out of left field.
All this, if it can be done, presupposes a great deal of work beforehand. We need hearings. We need a plebiscite in Puerto Rico, one where its citizens want to vote either yes or no. We need a great deal of public debate and discussion on both measures, and in such a way that the Democrats don’t come off as merely taking power away from the Republicans. I admit that’s part of it, but only insofar as reconstituting, or constituting, majority rule will benefit most the party that i favored by a majority.
And, of course, all this must wait for the pandemic to end and the economy to at least begin to recover. A big misstep on either, or not so big, might render Biden a premature lame duck.
@Jen:
Any of those devices, Apple TV, Chromecast or Rokku will make your life easier. Most have a variety of services that you can subscribe to or you can stream anything you find on the internet (at least with Chromecast). We don’t bother with any of the services, but if we want to watch a movie that we can rent on YouTube, Amazon etc, we do that via a computer in the house and ‘cast’ it to the TV. As @Kathy said these devices plug into the TV via an HMDI port and also to the house wifi.
Also many newer TVs have these service built in and all you need to do is subscribe to one. No computer needed.
@Kathy:
As well described in recent posts here, the right’s resent-o-meter is already wrapped around the peg. Is it really possible to make them any more resentful than they already are?
As best I can tell, in the collective mind that is the American right, the resentment levels are set at a level that takes for granted that the Dems have already made DC (and Puerto Rico, and Mexico) states, and have socialized medicine, and have offered cash bounties for women to get abortions, and have forced decent God-fearing heterosexuals into Sharia Queer Unions, and have confiscated all of the guns and incandescent light bulbs and internal combustion engines in the country. Not to mention the pedophiles in the pizza parlor and the tracking chips in the vaccine…
@sam:
Thanks, Sam. I REALLY needed that laugh!
@Sleeping Dog: Thank you!
I am hopeless at understanding how these devices work together/with one another, so the “this will make your life easier” statement was extremely helpful. A former boss used Sling to watch TV on his phone, and for some reason I could grasp how that worked, but once we get into these connected devices I get hopelessly lost. I typically defer all of this to my husband (he actually likes faffing about with these things, I find them frustrating if they don’t work immediately), but that makes it hard to buy presents! 🙂
Samuel Alito, on behalf of SCOTUS, has denied the attempt by Trump allies to block Pennsylvania’s slate of electors and toss out 2.5 million votes.
In UK news PM Johnson to meet EU Commissioner President von der Leyen in Brussels tomorrow in a final attempt to secure a post-Brexit trading agreement (and it is final; there is no time left for EU ratification after this date).
Will they won’t they?
Dunno.
Basically UK has been trying to play chicken, with a clown car versus a freight train, in regard to fishing rights in UK waters, “level playing field” rules, and retaliation/adjudication mechanisms.
Johnson’s apparent belief that going to the last minute is the best tactic, and that threatening the previously agreed “no-deal” rules for Northern Ireland is leverage.
Rational analysis indicates UK need to concede.
Even the current proposed “free trade” deal will damage us, with loss of Single Market and Customs Union integration.
Full on “no deal” will be far worse, and there are some indications the penny is beginning to drop with ministers who remain residents of this planet.
OTOH any deal, even though it amounts to what, during the referendum campaign, would have been termed “hard Brexit”, will cause the ERG, the “Tufton Street Brigade” lobby-tanks, the right media and the KIP-Con “base” to explode with shrieking outrage.
Can Johnson ride that out?
More accurately, does he have the will for such a fight?
Johnson has an enormous weakness for indecision and the path of least resistance.
One thing I think favours a deal being in the offing: von der Leyen has very limited powers to actually negotiate.
She is in many ways merely a official acting on behalf of the 27 States.
That being so, and Johnson being fully aware of that, would he go to Brussels simply to make a vain appeal and fail?
More likely, there is some already discussed chance of some face saving window dressing from the EU that can enable Johnson to concede but claim victory
Or maybe not.
In other UK new: we haz monolith!
@CSK:
That doesn’t sound like him.
@Kathy:
It doesn’t, does it. But…it seems to have happened. This is breaking news now, so there will be a fuller story to follow.
@Kathy: @CSK:From NPR :
@JohnSF:
Clearly.
The European minister was quoted yesterday as saying “a bad deal is worse than no deal”, and then Boris tried to assert that this cuts both ways. But it doesn’t — “no deal” isn’t particularly bad for Europe, while “no deal” is catastrophic for Britain. Johnson’s negotiating position is slightly weaker than “Do what I want or I’ll hold my breath ’til I turn blue!” but he doesn’t seem to realize this. What makes him think Europe cares enough about the UK to offer them a rich reward to come down off the ledge?
@JohnSF:
Either someone is doing WAY too much traveling in these virus-ridden times, or there are instructions on YouTube for how to build your own and mount it in a scenic location…
@DrDaveT: At this point I have to think it is a group of artists working together.
@Kathy:
What would be the upside for him? Unless there’s a real chance of him getting the entire election overturned–which would require far more than this case, and would need him to get four other justices on board–all it does it put him on record as participating in an attempted coup, but without the desired outcome.
The right-wing justices are all authoritarian thugs. But they aren’t idiots.
@DrDaveT:
Oh, he’s fully aware of that by this point.
The thing is, if Johnson has to decide between the good of the country and the wrath of ths Brexiteers that might cost him his job, and will require His Imperial Idleness to actually put some effort in….
In good news in the UK: first covid vaccination takes place.
Part of initial programme of 800,000 vaccinations of elderly and NHS staff.
@DrDaveT:
The audience for Johnson’s whole performance is in the UK; and specifically the “active” Kipper/Con voter base, and the pro-Brexit newspapers.
@OzarkHillbilly:
OMG. Amy Coney Barrett has betrayed them.
@Kylopod:
I expected a comment like what his colleague Khomeini said when agreeing to end the war with Iraq, “It’s like eating poison.”
I wonder if Trump kept the receipt for the ACB nomination. Might be having buyer’s remorse at this point.
Fox News is claiming that Goya has gone through the roof because AOC boycotted them. The truth is, AOC made one joke tweet that she was googling her own adobo recipe. So why have Goya sales exploded?
@Teve: SQUIRREL!!!!
Back on COVID news, the government has announced a vaccination schedule. First it will be healthcare workers between the time the first doses arrive until February, then it gets staggered by age range. I’d get a vaccine between April and May next year.
Damn, that’s like many more months away than I would like.
The larger unknown is which vaccine I can get. Reports state there will be a small number of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines to begin with, but then it will be either AstraZeneca/Oxford, or, and this worries me due to lack of information, some Chinese company called CanSino Biologics. That’s an adenovirus vector vaccine, like AstraZeneca’s, and has already been approved for limited use in China.
Well and good. I don’t care where it comes from, so long as it’s effective. What worries me is there’s little info about the specifics of effectiveness. And I’ve question about AstraZeneca’s announcements as well.
Well, no one said producing billions of doses would be easy or quick.
@Kathy: I’m not anticipating that vaccine will be available until near the end of next year, but I live in a really small town in a county that, even with skyrocketing numbers has only approached 1% infection rate in the last month or so.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I had been planning on July or so, with a declining chance of getting infected by other people because they had been vaccinated. (My wife and I seem to be in my state’s next-to-last tranche, over 65 but otherwise healthy.) Then we had today’s stuff in the news that the administration hasn’t paid for more known vaccine doses than 100M people or so. August? November?
LOL