Saturday, February 29, 2020
Talkin' About My Generation
Our Medical System
No epidemic plan that doesn't deal with this reality is a plan at all.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Hack Season
How To Keep That Gong Alive
Wow The Chinese Government Sounds Bad
The Chinese government silenced whistle-blowers, withheld information and played down the threat of the new coronavirus. Now the ruling Communist Party is trying to rehabilitate its image by rebranding itself as the leader in the fight against the virus. https://t.co/yfiLxW18bM
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 28, 2020
Can You Provide A Means of Payment
All props to individuals and institutions who make it work better than this, but as a system... It just can't be done, my friends.
I have no idea if this will be a real epidemic or if it'll just fizzle out soon, but if it fizzles the lessons we will learn are... precisely zero. DC brains just can't even handle what needs to be done, which is not a sliding income-based scale of vaccine affordability, with tax advantaged vaccine savings accounts and vaccine empowerment zones for urban areas.
If there is an epidemic and any sort of vaccine available, even an imperfect one, you have to get it to 300 million people. Now. You set up vaccine administration stations everywhere. Schools, malls, offices, everywhere. I don't know you have strictly have to make it compulsory - probably, though that might be more trouble - but you go door to door with it.
This is a massive problem which would require the entire weight of the state, not some argument about WHETHER FREE VACCINES ARE SOCIAMALISM. It isn't like "oh, well, give up your iphone to get your vaccine, peasant." It's "save civilization."
And the people who run the country - and not just the Trumpkins - have no idea.
Details: Pelosi and Schumer said in their joint statement that additional funding Congress grants to the Trump administration to combat the coronavirus must include the following provisions:People got no money. What the fuck is affordable? I suppose an 18 page form on a broken website should answer the question, as long as you filed your taxes in a timely fashion!
The president cannot transfer these new funds to anything other than the coronavirus and fighting infectious diseases;
Vaccines are affordable and available to all that need it
Humanity died because DC Wonks spent 6 months coming up with a Rube Goldberg machine to make sure the sons of billionaires had to pay for their vaccines. NO FREE COLLEGE OR VACCINES FOR BILLIONAIRES.
Thursday, February 27, 2020
True
The decision to put Mr. Pence in charge was made on Wednesday after the president told some people that the vice president didn’t “have anything else to do,” according to people familiar with the president’s comments.
Keep Talking
The White House press pool is being called for an unscheduled event in the West Wing, per @JenniferJJacobs. Looks like Trump wants to talk after markets got hammered again today.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) February 27, 2020
THE DOW IS PLOTTING AGAINST ME
We Can't Do It, My Friends
Lunch Thread
All Dozen Of Them
Nevertheless...
My Friends In Bethesda All Agree
No Worries
I'd feel slightly better if I believed any of these assholes actually prayed.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Culling The Herd
Here's the clip of Azar not assuring Rep. Schakowsky a covid-19 vaccine will be affordable to all. pic.twitter.com/Z8aNd4wLWj
— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) February 26, 2020
They Died On Teevee
But it's a bit harder to hide dead people at home and its consequences. If the coronavirus ends up being a major thing, it's going to be a major thing whether or not CNN acknowledges it.
Here's The Thing, Rush
Bring In The Boss
Bloomberg campaign is hawking these.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOHZjZWemrUX1SYHscKvWtvafuWLmhyLLX7Q5Catw1srC10nfjtytoHJL36GrriO3pg2NjHtXkJl5PNVZ7wWgdvMws21083L6DdgKgxS_132qyACsmrydFBTWARJrg9F30HKZH/s400/mike.jpg)
Incivilitude
And Then Everyone Got Rich
The Betsy DeVos chain of hospitals just appeared out of nowhere!
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Seeing Red
I remember this and I also remember that in some circles (like Mad magazine!) red-baiting was an object of ridicule. I didn’t know then that it had been an object of ridicule for years before that, going back to the beatniks, The Manchurian Candidate, and Joseph Welch. But as I grew older it became more obvious that red-baiting was some bullshit, and anyone who pulled it was probably trying to get away with something. In fact culture reflected that: Red-baiters were figures of fun, obviously flim-flam men, the Tartuffes of democracy.And sign up for his newsletter. If you only sign up for one newsletter (like me) let it be that one.
When the Soviet Union actually collapsed, and with it any chance of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat in our lifetimes, I figured that nonsense was over for good. People only called you a commie-pinko as a joke, like calling you an Albigensian.
But here we are in 2020, and last week Michael Bloomberg literally called Bernie Sanders a communist in a Democratic debate, and today we have people practically drawing a Stalin mustache and red star on Sanders because he noticed that Cuban kids don’t get rickets anymore and can read.
Nothing To Do
I don't know how you make our health care system work unless you start calling up for profit hospital CEOs and saying, "we own your hospital now." I don't know how you mobilize the necessary resources for the public good unless you overturn 40 years of dogma. I don't know how you begin to have a for profit medical system, as we have constructed it, serve the public need. Half of Missouri could be dead and they'd be debating President Obama's ATTEMPTED SOCIALIST TAKEOVER OF THE MEDICAL SYSTEM on Hardball, and the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional, 5-4, with RBG casting vote 5 against.
Not sure what happens if half of NoVa is dead, but...
Because America
I Don't Think We Have A Plan For that
After returning to Miami last month from a work trip in China, Osmel Martinez Azcue found himself in a frightening position: he was developing flu-like symptoms, just as coronavirus was ravaging the country he had visited.
Under normal circumstances, Azcue said he would have gone to CVS for over-the-counter medicine and fought the flu on his own, but this time was different. As health officials stressed preparedness and vigilance for the respiratory illness, Azcue felt it was his responsibility to his family and his community to get tested for novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19.
...
But two weeks later, Azcue got unwelcome news in the form of a notice from his insurance company about a claim for $3,270.
Monday, February 24, 2020
But What About My Part In The Story
Few elite pundits spend 4 seconds thinking about policy, except against some 20 year old mental model of what Reagan Democrats want. But some candidates for president threaten the most important thing, their own importance.
Everybody I Talk To. You Know, Everybody Who Matters
Pretty much every person I cover and talk to and email and text with day to day think it’s impossible Bernie can win. Maybe they are just massively wrong. I honestly don’t know.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 23, 2020
I don't want to debate Bernie's "electability" which people can have differing opinions about, but when all the Serious Politics Knowers you chat with day to day who inform you on everything in politics, and who you presumably think of as spanning the relevant ideological spectrum, have a unanimous belief on this issue which is completely at odds with polling, maybe you aren't getting the full perspective on all the non-Bernie issues, too.
Maybe the bubble is YOU!
Bye Harvey
A jury convicted Mr. Weinstein of felony sex crime and rape, but acquitted him of the most serious charges against him, predatory sexual assault.
My Foreign Policy Vision
We did pretty good post-WWII Europe. For a bit.
Everybody Gets Sick
Thinking it's all gonna be good for you, personally, is one of those follies of youth things which extends right up until the point where you or yours actually has to deal with it. Then we're all communists now.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Politics As Fandom
Our Dumb Discourse
Even if you aren't a big Bernie fan you can maybe see that's a... problem.