Prickly City by Scott Stantis for May 28, 2020

Winslow may be on to something: Maybe this is the real reason why virus deniers don’t want to wear masks!

Where’s Donkey when we need a Tic Tac?

(With apologies to Shrek)

Is it government overreach to save your butt from a burning building? Or the police helping you out of your car after an accident or call an ambulance for you? And Carmen, it’s your people pulling out the ARs and body armor to protest their poor hair care.

Winslow…….cut down on the roadkill.

Day 35 of the Georgia Economic Recovery.

Geez, I gotta remember to quit reading the comments here! You red people are all nut cases! Do you honestly think the Novel Coronavirus cares about your politics? Go ahead, feel free to exercise your Constitutional Rights and expose yourselves to it during this worldwide pandemic, despite anyone’s attempts to get you to behave safely and sensibly, with some sort of minimal consideration of anyone but yourself. Just keep the hell away from me, and my family and friends after you come down with COVID-19. I only wish I could withhold spending my tax dollars on your treatment until you die from it. On the up side, after it’s killed you, that’ll be fewer Trump voters to worry about.

Anybody who thinks wearing a face mask during a pandemic is oppression has no idea what actual oppression is.

They think THEY are being oppressed, when they’re the ones screaming at some poor store clerk for enforcing the store’s rules.

Grow up, pitch in, and help. Throwing a damned tantrum does nothing but hurt the country.

Day 35 of Georgia Governor Kemp’s reckless disregard of the health, safety and well-being of his constituents, and his long-term sabotage of Georga’s economy.

When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19.

That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR.

“If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic,” said David Michaels, who was head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017.

There are still no specific federal regulations protecting health care workers from deadly airborne pathogens such as influenza, tuberculosis or the coronavirus.

✁

Studies conducted after the H1N1 crisis found voluntary federal safety guidelines designed to limit the spread of airborne pathogens in medical facilities often weren’t being followed. There were also shortages of personal protective equipment.

✁

OSHA experts were confident new airborne infectious disease regulations would make hospitals and nursing homes safer when future pandemics hit. That’s because similar rules had already been created for bloodborne pathogens such as Ebola and hepatitis.

~

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/26/862018484/trump-team-killed-rule-designed-to-protect-health-workers-from-pandemic-like-cov

I observe that the violent riots, arising over the death of an innocent in Minnesota, mostly exist in areas where the lock-downs persisted too long. That seems to me a normal human reaction to government actions.

Seriously, what is wrong with conservatives? Can we not raise objections to masks, social distancing, and the pandemic protocols without making fools of ourselves?

The stories I’m hearing from conservative friends around the country are really embarrassing. Mask off, if that’s what you want, but please, grow up.

UPDATE: A reader comments:

The conservatives tell a story about themselves as smartly and scrappy, yet downtrodden patriots, bravely resisting an over-weening, oppressive liberal government filled with stupid and incompetent busybodies.

– It has to be wrong and stupid to wear a mask, because it fits the narrative.

– The people telling you to wear a mask have to be incompetent, or have ulterior motives, because it fits the narrative.

– The wearing of masks must be revealed to have been a worse decision than the hoi polloi decision to spurn masks, because that fits the narrative.

– It has to be brave and virtuous to go against the dictates of the experts with all the power, because that fits the narrative.

I have conservatives all around me who live by this narrative, and when I talk to them, they are grasping at any morsel or rumor that vindicates this story, effectively warping the truth about the reality that we live in so that it gives them their proper place in the story they tell about themselves.

~

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/anti-mask-snowflakes-of-the-right-dan-fagan/

I’ve GOT it! We’ll tell MAGAnauts that the government is ordering them to breathe!

The masks are not required routinely. They are merely the new virtue signal of those who,suport state control of our lives.

Tomillustrate this point, in Georgia, where things are opening, there are very encouraging numbers from Georgia DPH.

The mortality rate has fallen by half even in the face of a second (smaller) peak of new daily cases.

The second peak was undoubtedly due to an increased, free, testing regimen in Georgia. This detected many asymptomatic or mildly ill people with covid.

The peak 7 day average of new cases was on 4/22 at 769 new daily cases. The 7 day average number of deaths was 41 on 4/22.

The average daily case rate then fell by 33% on 5/11 to 512 and rose again to 703 on 5/19. Before starting to fall again.

The daily new death rate has NEVER gone up once since it started going down on 4/22. At the height of the second smaller peak on 5/19, the daily death rate attributed to Covid was 19.

Thus, while the daily rate (second peak) was down 9% on 5/19, the mortality was down 50% on the same day.

This proves that the Covid infections are becoming far less deadlier as Georgia opens its economy. Despite the predictions of more and more people dying, fewer and fewer are. Good job Georgia!

A new commentary on the lockdowns, by noted social scientist Ray Stevens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjceaknzHQ&fbclid=IwAR2tQ9eP7gH_zlVQ7BZSAgOaz2cDKgSwBCs10yPxW1_iRE6ayFiHKAut540

Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, is “arrogantly forcing the residents of her state to remain alive,” Attorney General William Barr charged on Friday.

In a blistering takedown of the Democratic governor, Barr said that Whitmer was “depriving Michiganders of their constitutionally enshrined right to die before their time.”

Hinting that the Justice Department could soon file a lawsuit against Whitmer, Barr alleged that her “unhinged obsession with keeping her state’s residents breathing” represented “government overreach at its worst.”

Barr also suggested that Whitmer’s “blatant anti-coronavirus bias” would likely come back to haunt her at the ballot box.

“Gretchen Whitmer never asked Michiganders for their consent to remain alive, and they won’t forget that any time soon,” Barr said.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/michigan-governor-arrogantly-forcing-residents-to-remain-alive

While I have some issues with government overreach during the pandemic, I don’t see why not wearing a mask is anyone’s approach to voicing their displeasure. It makes less sense than hippies burning their draft cards. Just wear the damn mask! It’s not a productive means of opposing real or perceived government infringement of your rights.

Pelosi’s letter contained a bullet-pointed list of what she said was “the truth of what has put us in this position.” It included the following items: The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster. The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and economic disaster. The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster. The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering. The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives. The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.

UGH! I KNOW, RIGHT?!? D’X

News flash from the Bee:

Nation That Revolted Over Three-Pence Tax On Tea Now ‘Pretty Cool’ With Government Locking Everyone In Their HomesMay 27th, 2020

U.S.—The nation that once revolted over minor taxes on tea and stamps is now “pretty cool” with state and local governments locking everyone in their homes and robbing them of their livelihood indefinitely.

A new poll has confirmed that the country that threw crates of tea into a harbor because they’d have to pay a little more for their caffeinated beverages is fine with tyrannical states destroying everybody’s lives, as long as they have their Netflix and Amazon Prime.

“A lockdown with no end in sight that destroys the economy, robs us of our constitutional rights, and probably doesn’t stop the virus at all? Yeah, that’s tight,” said Bernard Humphrey of Portland, Maine. “Tight, tight, tight.”

Most people polled were fine with paying many months of their income to the government every month in exchange for their rights being trampled as well. “Yeah, 30% of my income goes to the government, once you calculate income tax, sales tax, payroll tax, property tax, and a few hundred others,” said Mike Bunson of Los Angeles. “Sounds fair.”

When asked what it would take to get them to revolt, most people agreed that if something really important were threatened like easy access to their favorite Starbucks beverages, they would be the first to start the revolution.

In an escalation of his spat with Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, Donald Trump is demanding that the 2020 Republican National Convention relocate from Charlotte to Moscow.

“North Carolina has been difficult every step of the way, and meanwhile Moscow has always been very helpful to me,” Trump wrote, in one of a series of early-morning tweets.

Additionally, Trump argued, moving the R.N.C. to Moscow would save the Republicans millions in airfare. “The most important people working on our 2020 campaign will already be there,” he tweeted.

Finally, he claimed, Moscow boasts far better accommodations than “that sad city of losers, Charlotte.”

“I have fantastic memories of the Moscow Ritz,” Trump wrote.

~

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-demands-that-republican-convention-move-from-north-carolina-to-moscow

Then the jackanapes here, on both sides, totally ignore the humor in the last panel.

I observe that the violent riots, arising over the death of an innocent in Minnesota, mostly exist in areas where the lock-downs persisted too long. That seems to me a normal human reaction to government actions.

===

I wonder how long before the Minneapolis cop gets a presidential pardon?

Doctor Flip Flop Fauci at it again;

On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, returned from his media hiatus with two key interviews and a seemingly substantial change in tune. The scientist and member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, who has long been advocating a cautious approach to the country’s reopening, delivered some made-for-headline soundbites that raised lots of eyebrows, including his statement that extended stay-at-home orders could cause the U.S. ‘irreparable damage.’

“I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for a prolonged period of time is the way to go,” Fauci to CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on the networks show Halftime Report.

^^rkc,

I don’t think those things count much. At least not yet.

I didn’t read all through all of them, but,

So far, Trump wins every battle inside the WH and stuff like quashing economic forecast and other bad news is standard. If it leaks out, it’ll be attacked as fake. Or something.

.

More important, NONE of those Republicans* in any of those reports are legislators or other elected officials. I also don’t see any evidence that there is financing from any big Republican* donors.

I see them as just a little nibbling around the edges kinda like all the “concern” of Republican* Senators who all voted to suppress impeachment evidence. Symbolism is important, but there needs to be more.