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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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43 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

And that was not as much a function of the competence of the CDC but rather a function of the contagiousness and transmission properties of Ebola. 

But 11,000 in Africa.  Is it possible the CDC isn't as bad as you think?

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9 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

carefree rick perry GIF by Dancing with the Stars

Probably a good idea to just go ahead and cut some of them.

 

I didn't say that, either.

But there's this Trump-provoked notion that government was just fine until he came along and fucked it up.  Well, he did fuck it up, but it wasn't just fine, either.  One can be realistic about the limitations of government without wanting to burn it all down.

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14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

No one is absolving Trump of anything by observing that CDC and FDA did standard, administration-independent gubmint fuckups.

Indeed, the dumbass, slow-roll emergency use authorization provisions of the FDA that clogged things up were enacted during the Obama administration.

It's real popular around here to trash Trump for observing that government kind of sucks.  That Trump sucks and makes it worse does not belie that fundamental truth.

This is only partially true.

The agencies actually do, in fact, suck.  The leaders don't help.  The agencies probably suck a little worse now.

Do you trust your local county agent?

How about the health inspector?

Are there fuck ups in government?

Is It worse than bidness? 

Yes, yes,yes, no.

Remember we have health inspection because business doesn't give a shit about your health. 

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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I didn't say that, either.

But there's this Trump-provoked notion that government was just fine until he came along and fucked it up.  Well, he did fuck it up, but it wasn't just fine, either.  One can be realistic about the limitations of government without wanting to burn it all down.

Nah, we're going to have to go back to Reagan for it getting gutted. 

 

I got a damn flashback from him this week. 

"Reagan said trees cause more pollution than cars."

Damn the drunkest librarian. I guess I needed a reminder how long there has been a coordinated attack on good government. 

Edited by cactusflinthead
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11 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Do you trust your local county agent?

How about the health inspector?

Are there fuck ups in government?

Is It worse than bidness? 

Yes, yes,yes, no.

Remember we have health inspection because business doesn't give a shit about your health. 

Not once have I advocated for abolishing the FDA or the CDC.  The FDA is a very necessary and also very problematic agency and could probably stand a top-down revamping.  It is more responsible for out-of-control drug prices than the patent system, for example.

I know less about the CDC, but it's a government agency, so a certain level of bureaucratic incompetence can be expected.

There's a difference between advocating for abolishing government and improving it, reducing bureaucracy and institutional stupidity, where possible.

This is why we need a decent conservative party.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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3 hours ago, Anastasis said:

If you are advocating for a SK style tracing program, you are basically advocating for the CDC under the Trump administration to have access to all of your GPS localizing data, credit card and other financial records, police records, CCTV feeds from every major city, in essentially real time. Can you imagine the reaction if Trump would have proposed something like that in January?

1)  Take this seriously and convey said attitude to the country.

2)  Restrict travel in and out of the country.

3)  Push for social distancing, seriously, as well as SiP and facemasks.

4)  Begin a competent testing program, for Covid and antibodies.

5)  Begin a tracing program that would then use some (maybe all) of the things you list.  

Trump and his administration did ONE of these things, and did that half assed.   Just doing those first 4 would have made a big difference.  But even today he's still out there predicting this miraculous cure.

Your initial response was to take the worst part of what SK did/is doing, liberties wise, and made it seem like their only play.  The hell with all the other things they did.  To me this just came across as a big smokescreen to absolve Trump of not doing more.  

 

17 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

carefree rick perry GIF by Dancing with the Stars

Probably a good idea to just go ahead and cut some of them.

 

I can think of someone I'd like to cut.  

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16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I didn't say that, either.

But there's this Trump-provoked notion that government was just fine until he came along and fucked it up.  Well, he did fuck it up, but it wasn't just fine, either.  One can be realistic about the limitations of government without wanting to burn it all down.

Can 3 years mess up many years of in placed bureaucracy?

Edited by workswithseed
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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, no, the FDA and CDC fuckups were good ol standard gubmint fuckups:  bureaucracy, red tape, and horseshit.  

The complete lack of recovery from the fuckups was a Trump special.

And let’s not forget the complete dismantling of the entire system that was already in place to combat this exact scenario. 

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I got an unsolicited text from Kevin Brady yesterday to take a poll:

image.thumb.png.2d03ebe99f20f97c2cc276a806e7c4d7.png

It led to this poll consisting of only 1 question:

image.thumb.png.1127d90db1ce2361c10d002b59281568.png

I'd like to see how some of you would answer it.

 

 

 

And if you actually would like to answer it...  here's the link   Brady Poll

I figure if wants my unsolicited opinion, he won't mind me sharing the poll link around for more opinions.

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9 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Can 3 years mess up many years of in placed bureaucracy?

Hopefully, we find out soon.

Trump hasn't done anything, as far as I can tell, to productively improve federal agencies.  He's just appointed assclowns and fired a lot of people, mostly on the basis of some kind of loyalty test.  He's cut back regulations, but not in a measured way, just a highly political and crass way (blatantly favoring his donor constituency, as opposed to the people or even the trumpkin voters).

In some cases, quality career civil servants have left because of him, his assclowns, and his policies.  Some, like the Department of State, have undoubtedly been hurt.  Some, like the Department of Justice, won't be permanently damaged as they are highly political to begin with, both from the appointment standpoint and high turnover between government, politics, and private practice.

More technical and less political agencies like FDA and CDC, it remains to be seen.

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7 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

 


Well, was this kind of mafia shit normal before the current administration?

 

 

 

 

 

"Those are our masks."  Jared

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html

Quote

The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE

 

Edited by Bullneck
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28 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not once have I advocated for abolishing the FDA or the CDC.  The FDA is a very necessary and also very problematic agency and could probably stand a top-down revamping.  It is more responsible for out-of-control drug prices than the patent system, for example.

I know less about the CDC, but it's a government agency, so a certain level of bureaucratic incompetence can be expected.

There's a difference between advocating for abolishing government and improving it, reducing bureaucracy and institutional stupidity, where possible.

This is why we need a decent conservative party.

Why is it strictly the purview of the conservatives to eliminate waste and redundancy? Seems like I remember a few calls from the left about waste. It is not about saving money. It's about whose ox gets gored. Take a gander at how much we spend on our inspectors. They don't make shit. That poor kid that could have shut my ass down for verboten palm trees didn't know what he was looking at. He walked right by. And yet we still get a crop every year of do gooders that want to make a difference. I should have italicized it. 

Trump has run off anyone that has some kind of purpose besides kissing his ass. He's the final stage of dumbing down. Birx could feel her soul slipping away. Thanks a lot conservatives.

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22 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Just when you thought peak CR stupidity had been achieved Bullneck comes over the top. 

So you're not a billionaire?  Shit, all that intelligence you have went to waste.  

But you're smarter than me, so you got that going for you.  Which is nice.

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11 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

So you're not a billionaire?  Shit, all that intelligence you have went to waste.  

But you're smarter than me, so you got that going for you.  Which is nice.

Pretty low bar. But self awareness is a rare trait these days, so cheers to you.  

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48 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Can 3 years mess up many years of in placed bureaucracy?

Yes, considering the bureaucracy is subject to political leadership the POTUS can quickly cause a breakdown in bureaucratic rationalization. Bama Chick just provided an example of that breakdown. We have also seen a decline in bureaucratic maturity under Trump not normally seen with previous Presidents. Political appointees as agency heads isn't unusual but what has been unusual is the political interference further down into the layers of bureaucracy where Subject Matter Experts should rule.

With that said, I tend to agree with Anastasis and TwiceHorn regarding bureaucratic failures.

From a Weberian perspective, it is very possible for Trump to fuck up federal agencies and separately federal agencies trapped by the Weberian "iron cage" create their own fuck ups.

 

 

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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

No one is absolving Trump of anything by observing that CDC and FDA did standard, administration-independent gubmint fuckups.

Indeed, the dumbass, slow-roll emergency use authorization provisions of the FDA that clogged things up were enacted during the Obama administration.

It's real popular around here to trash Trump for observing that government kind of sucks.  That Trump sucks and makes it worse does not belie that fundamental truth.

This is only partially true.

The agencies actually do, in fact, suck.  The leaders don't help.  The agencies probably suck a little worse now.

stop the deflection.  

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Of course the FDA and CDC were fucked up by decades of bad and corrupt politicians, but they still served a basic purpose and in emergencies mostly came through. Now that they're headed by stooges of the dumbest politician on the globe they're completely ineffectual. 

Corruption and ineptitude didn't start with Trump but he's taken both to such a ridiculous level that we can't even properly coordinate a proper national response to an attack that is killing over 50k Americans in a little over a month and will end up killing hundreds of thousands if not millions. That is only refraining from wiping out our health care system because we shut every avenue for entertainment and gathering in the entire country completely down. 

So no it didn't start with Trump just like the demolition of a building doesn't start with the detonation. 

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6 hours ago, Anastasis said:

If you are advocating for a SK style tracing program, you are basically advocating for the CDC under the Trump administration to have access to all of your GPS localizing data, credit card and other financial records, police records, CCTV feeds from every major city, in essentially real time. Can you imagine the reaction if Trump would have proposed something like that in January?

Doesn't he already have access to that information?

Under the National Emergencies Act - he is one declaration away from accessing it.

Another fine Act from Congress to build the Imperial Presidency. 

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On 4/23/2020 at 5:19 PM, 4th&Five said:

 

I’m about 2 days behind here, but this is the most bizarre thing I’ve seen/read, and there’s been a lot.This dude doesn’t have the intelligence or competence to run my next door neighbors backyard chicken farm. JFC.

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Ok a few minutes of googling. This is the Lysol thing? What in the ever loving fuck? My methhead chicken farming neighbor would have a more intelligent idea. I understand what board I am posting on and I am pretty sure my last 2 posts are the only ones I’ve ever made here. I won’t post much if any more here, and I won’t fit in, because politics, and I don’t want to , neg away. But I think we can all agree that Trump is the least intelligent motherfucker inside any given Walmart.

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How anyone can question whether Trump could cause harm to the bureaucracies at this point is mind boggling.  
He made the National Weather Service issue false reports on where a hurricane was going to land to try to cover for something dumb he said.  
He made the FDA and CDC release guidance promoting hydroxychloroquine for a month to try to cover for something dumb he said, until the evidence it was killing people became too large to ignore.  
He made the DOJ issue a false summary of the Mueller Report to try to cover for how damaging it was.
He made the State Department extort Ukraine to try to smear Biden.
He has fired countless people who were qualified for their jobs simply because they weren’t toady bootlickers, and replaced them with incompetent yes men.   And not just in the usual political appointee positions.  The scientists working on vaccines for COVID-19 don’t even escape the purity test if they dare (correctly) question Dear Leader’s latest lunatic medical misinformation. 
Look, I agree the bureaucracies are often slow moving and poor performers regardless, with the faulty test kit fiasco being  a prime example.   But we should try to improve them instead of saying burn it all down and grift what you can in the chaos, which is the new GOP ethos.
And whether or not the bureaucracies were ineffective before Trump, he’s undoubtedly made them much worse - to a cartoonishly comical degree.  This is like questioning if Nero could really let Rome burn.  Um, yes!  Have you looked outside?

And you left out the best ones!

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5 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

How anyone can question whether Trump could cause harm to the bureaucracies at this point is mind boggling.  

He made the National Weather Service issue false reports on where a hurricane was going to land to try to cover for something dumb he said.  

He made the FDA and CDC release guidance promoting hydroxychloroquine for a month to try to cover for something dumb he said, until the evidence it was killing people became too large to ignore.  

He made the DOJ issue a false summary of the Mueller Report to try to cover for how damaging it was.

He made the State Department extort Ukraine to try to smear Biden.

He has fired countless people who were qualified for their jobs simply because they weren’t toady bootlickers, and replaced them with incompetent yes men.   And not just in the usual political appointee positions.  The scientists working on vaccines for COVID-19 don’t even escape the purity test if they dare (correctly) question Dear Leader’s latest lunatic medical misinformation. 

Look, I agree the bureaucracies are often slow moving and poor performers regardless, with the faulty test kit fiasco being  a prime example.   But we should try to improve them instead of saying burn it all down and grift what you can in the chaos, which is the new GOP ethos.

And whether or not the bureaucracies were ineffective before Trump, he’s undoubtedly made them much worse - to a cartoonishly comical degree.  This is like questioning if Nero could really let Rome burn.  Um, yes!  Have you looked outside?

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9 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

 

1)  Take this seriously and convey said attitude to the country.

2)  Restrict travel in and out of the country.

3)  Push for social distancing, seriously, as well as SiP and facemasks.

4)  Begin a competent testing program, for Covid and antibodies.

5)  Begin a tracing program that would then use some (maybe all) of the things you list.  

Trump and his administration did ONE of these things, and did that half assed.   Just doing those first 4 would have made a big difference.  But even today he's still out there predicting this miraculous cure.

 

I agree with all of this. I agree that Trump fucked up by being dismissive of the threat, I think that we should been quicker to drop the travel restrictions, and taken a different approach with testing ramp up.  We were weeks behind in our response, and most of that goes back to #1. 

9 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

Your initial response was to take the worst part of what SK did/is doing, liberties wise, and made it seem like their only play.  The hell with all the other things they did.  To me this just came across as a big smokescreen to absolve Trump of not doing more.  

I've talked plenty about SK test development, test roll out, culture of mask wearing, geographic size, population density and other aspects on both this thread and the other one. There is a lot of content on both, so I can understand if you missed them.  I have pointed out things that we can and should learn from SK's response, but there are also some reasons why certain aspects of their response are not so simply transferred to the United States. 

In this case, I was responding to a poster who said that "I mean you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. South Korea has already shown exactly how to do it in a democratic society." So yes, my response focuses on one of the pivotal parts of SK's response and the aspects of their system that are generally incompatible with most people's vision of American democracy. Of course, the immediate response here is "new trumpkin talking points!" and you interpret it as a "smokescreen to absolve trump". And you guys wonder why they try to keep a lid on the CR shit in the other thread?

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Facebook and a whole host of other tech firms have been harvesting our data for years but it is our vision of American Democracy keeping us from adequately responding to a pandemic. 

If we blame American Democracy along with government bureaucracy, we can water down the blame to our leadership and pretend that proper leadership would not have addressed those two supposed barriers

Edited by GW Hayduke
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1 minute ago, GW Hayduke said:

Facebook and a whole host of other tech firms that have been harvesting our data for years but it is our vision of American Democracy keeping us from adequately responding to a pandemic. 

So you support the government building a SK-style tracing system?  You want all of your financial, GPS, communication data, medical records, and anything else they might find useful tracked in real time by people at the CDC?

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41 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Do we need to revisit the Vanity Fair article about the ineptitude of the transition within the Dept. of Energy?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis

Yes we do. This should be required reading for all high school students, if we decide to start teaching them government and civics again (big IF), as well as citizens in general. 

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1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

So you support the government building a SK-style tracing system?  You want all of your financial, GPS, communication data, medical records, and anything else they might find useful tracked in real time by people at the CDC?

Easily. I would very much rather it be the government than Facebook.

They won’t need financial data. Stop fear mongering. Medical data would be limited (positive to a test, negative, antibodies).

GPS data would likely be stored directly on your device and purged after a set time period.

Fear mongering is lame.

insert pic of trumpkin zombies

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7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

So you support the government building a SK-style tracing system?  You want all of your financial, GPS, communication data, medical records, and anything else they might find useful tracked in real time by people at the CDC?

If government bureaucracies are so incompetent, why would you worry about it?

Isn't most or all of that data already mined and sold to the highest bidder?

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1 minute ago, GW Hayduke said:

Easily. I would very much rather it be the government than Facebook.

They won’t need financial data. Stop fear mongering. Medical data would be limited (positive to a test, negative, antibodies).

GPS data would likely be stored directly on your device and purged after a set time period.

 

These statements are not accurate representations of how the SK tracing system works. 

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2 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

 

That article is nuts. Who has been shaming people for going outside?  I’ve walked my dogs every day this shit show has been going on. People are everywhere. Have some people really not left their homes?

I guess maybe in a massive city like NYC it’s different, just based on density, but the author mentions multiple places. 

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