TROUBLE SPAWN
Retired educator / military officer(Army Colonel) - Current Ops Div Chief (G333), HQDA / married / political progressive / ED.D. and Army War College Grad. 3277
Joined Nov 2017
Churches give more than spirituality to their congregants, they also seem to be giving them the RONA...
When weighing his responsibility as a faith leader, Mr. Satterwhite said, he returned to his beliefs. “My personal belief is, I have faith in God,” he said. “If God wants me to get Covid, I’ll get Covid. And if God doesn’t want me to get Covid, I won’t.”
RONA HAS NO SPIRITUALITY...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/coronavirus-churches-outbreaks.html
While serving the president, she also pursued her own projects, speaking often on the country’s toxic politics, the need for compromise and issues of the day.
Kathleen Parker in WaPo on Valerie Jarrett as Biden's VP possible choice...
Jarrett, meantime, was “in the room,” as she has put it, on nearly every crucial issue during the Obama administration. Having spent time with her socially and in the White House, I can attest to her graciousness, intelligence and absolute discretion. She’s no one’s fool and holds her cards close.
Greg Sargent in WaPo...Trump has painted himself into a corner with his racism and his 'no response' to a pandemic, and his allies are starting to understand he is in deep trouble...
In short, Trump’s allies are admitting what numerous experts have said for months: That in order to seriously get back on track to economic recovery, we have to tame the virus first. And they’re admitting that this is a key reason he’s in trouble.
Compare the number of Americans who can name the vice president with the number who can name their lieutenant governor. But under our current system, the people’s vote directly determines who their lieutenant governor will be, but not who their vice president will be.
The campaign could be framed as letting the people, rather than some obscure institution, decide. The real American deep state, after all, which thwarts the ability of Americans to govern themselves by the principle of majority rule, is the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate.
Americans are also more conscious of their federal elected officials than their state-level officials.
Harold Meyerson in The American Prospect newsletter on the SCOTUS decision on Electors...
For that matter, if Democrats ever sweep the nation in an election, they should try for an out-and-out repeal of that Article II provision. Most Americans, if they ever think about it, reflexively favor the idea of popular sovereignty, even though Republicans are turning against it—so far, implicitly rather than explicitly—as the nation’s electorate becomes more racially diverse.
we’ve all seen pictures of Americans who won’t deny themselves their summer pleasures, insisting they happen just as they always have.
But how can we be surprised? Our leader is standing knee-deep in the shallows, smiling and beckoning and telling us that the water’s fine.
Jennifer Weiner in NYT, it wasn't the shark in Jaws we should have been afraid of, it was the Mayor.
This shouldn’t be so hard. It shouldn’t be so hard for the government to support workers. It shouldn’t be so hard for citizens to stay home as much as possible, to wear a cloth mask, to postpone birthday parties and barbecues. From the Ozarks to Fire Island to the Jersey Shore, ...
Increasingly over the last few days, I find myself struggling with this 'heroic' image of Trump as a fighter, which he likes to portray. But what really does he fight? He fights nothing, he just lobs silly little bombs with little effect.
If he truly wanted to rise to the level of American Hero, he had his opportunity. The Pandemic could have made him a rock star, but he didn't even put up a fight.
Trump is no hero, he is certainly no fighter, and he will be remembered as worst Pres ever.
That kind of debate and only that kind of debate would be worthy of voters’ consideration and Biden’s participation.
Otherwise, Joe, stay in your basement.
even though I promised that I wouldn’t and even though Biden has shown you his. And there will be no debate, because I should be able to make any statement I want without any independent fact-checking.”
Only if leading into the debate, American voters have a clear picture of Trump’s tax returns alongside Biden’s, and only if, coming out of the debate, they have a clear picture of who was telling the truth and who was not, will they be able to make a fair judgment between the two candidates.
Thomas L. Friedman in NYT on 2 Conditions for a Trump-Biden debate...Trump must show his tax returns and a fact-checking team must be used before end of debate to tell who was promoting truth and who was promoting lies...
Of course, Trump will stomp and protest and say, “No way.” Fine. Let Trump cancel. Let Trump look American voters in the eye and say: “There will be no debate, because I should be able to continue hiding my tax returns from you all, ...
Trump can spend the next four months raging against protesters, defending Confederate monuments and attacking Black celebrities. He can play the hits for his supporters and whip his most devoted followers into a frenzy of MAGA enthusiasm. He can turn up the racism dial as much as he wants and as far as it will go. But if he’s looking for approval, he won’t get it.
Jamelle Bouie in NYT on Trump campaigning as a Fixer...
If this is true — if it takes a decent economy to make voters conducive to the campaign Trump wants to run — then he is, at this moment, speeding down an electoral dead-end. As long as Covid-19 is out of control, as long as there is mass suffering, sickness and economic distress, then nothing short of actually doing his job will help him get ahead. There simply is no substitute for good governance.
In fact, the only thing that can be said for them is that they aren’t the two failed solutions we’ve already tried: ignoring the virus in the hope that it won’t be so bad or huddling in our houses and waiting for a medical breakthrough that may be years away.
Third, we need not just freely available mass testing but also a reliable process for certifying a recent test result — and a lack of shame about demanding to see a very recent certificate before letting someone into your home or place of business.
They will be very, very hard for governments and businesses to execute competently.
This means there is a small but real chance that it might be impossible to reach herd immunity without a good vaccine. It could be years before such a thing exists.
Here are three suggestions that deserve more attention.
First, move everything outdoors — as much as possible and much more than has been done already.
Second, we need masks. Not just more people wearing them but also better masks.
Let’s assume we’re not going to try for herd immunity, for two reasons. First, unless much better treatments are developed, reaching herd immunity is likely to involve a large number of deaths as well as not-yet-quantified — and possibly debilitating or permanent — severe complications. Second, antibodies appear to quickly decline to undetectable levels in at least some patients.
Megan McArdle in WaPo on our new normal...
Now that the virus is endemic, Americans will be only as safe as our least competent county health department can make us. Whatever is happening 3,000 miles away will eventually show up at your doorstep. Until a vaccine is created or herd immunity is reached, we are going to have to adapt to the constant threat.
TROUBLE SPAWN
Retired educator / military officer(Army Colonel) - Current Ops Div Chief (G333), HQDA / married / political progressive / ED.D. and Army War College Grad. 3277
Joined Nov 2017