4575

Texas has become the mark for conservative carpet baggers, because conservative Texans cannot reject a conservative for any reason whatsoever.

To be fair though nobody seems to really care about Dan Patrick one way or the other, which is tbh probably more the root of evil than the result.

4576

If I take him at face value and believe he’s being sincere, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how epidemics work. I encounter that all the time with people I speak to where they argue we need to open the state back up now because the numbers haven’t been increasing exponentially. It’s like… that’s correct, they aren’t increasing exponentially because of the lockdown. The lockdown is having its intended effect.

Again, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt, he doesn’t understand how this works. Saying “Just 500 people are dead, we can’t lose all our small businesses over that” is missing the point. Those 500 quickly become 5,000 or 50,000. And forget just the deaths, I feel like everyone fixates on that number. What about the people who are hospitalized and laid out for weeks? I had to pay for 5 days of ICU care last year. You want to talk about economic damage? What about the medical debt people are going to get buried under when they’re sick, missing work, and having to pay for days if not over a week of hospitalization? What is that going to do to the health insurance industry? What do your rates look like next year and thereafter?

And it’s not like businesses are going to thrive and things are going to go back to normal without a lockdown order. Even if Utah gives the green light tomorrow, I’m not going to a concert or a crowded restaurant or a Utah Jazz game anytime soon. What about the factories and plants that have COVID-19 sweep through their workforce? They’re not going to be able to operate regardless.

4577

We’ve trained our population to only take the quick and easy path with the outcome they want. They’re not going to pause and think that hey it’s only 500 because of these things. They’re going to do what you’re saying, because it’s this thing I shouldn’t have to. The keyword for the GOP has always be me/I. The fact that we have to do anything as a group that might lead to a benefit later is just not in the playbook anymore.

4578

You leave your crazy college boy logic out of this. As Herbert Hoover said “the business of America is business”… we need… more business, dammit!

4579

Is this the same guy whose primary claim to fame is cheating at Donkey Kong?

4580

Ignoring quarantine and getting infected with my MAGA homies!

4581

Hahaha apparently being a Billy Mitchell dooms you to a life of performative lying (and possibly hot sauce manufacture).

4582

That’s a strong claim in a world where Jim Hoft exists, but I grant the possibility.

4583

You are forgetting Alex Jones.

4584

Harsh but not unfair.

4585

Probably unfair. What the Dems won in the negotiation was a national testing program, something the Republicans absolutely opposed.

Again, it’s a shit sandwich. Every piece of legislation that wins support in the Republican Senate will be a shit sandwich. We’re going to have to get our bread one sandwich at a time.

4586

Ugh. All I can really say is that I wish more people understood that elections matter. There’s going to be a lot of lives measurably worse due to the election of Trump and the Republicans in the Senate.

Democrats have limited leverage only controlling the House… and not having a propaganda network of their own, I would imagine.

4587

It won’t be the last coronavirus bill. Wait until we get a few weeks trumpeting the downward spiral of employment numbers; the Dems will have more leverage over time for direct support to people and election measures.

4588

Fair points. Also…

4589

You write this as sarcasm, but… Yes, that is their pitch. Anti-education, anti-science, anti-intellectualism are core precepts of today’s GOP.

4590

Signing statement ignoring national testing program incoming!

4591

Another take on the deal:

4592

Yeah, the chuds are quite noisy about getting hair salons, bars, churches, restaurants, and campgrounds opened, but haven’t heard peep one about clamoring for schools to reopen.

4593

Nor should they.

4594

The deadly traps plan is going to claim innocent lives, but I’m thinking maybe this is just how it needs to go down.

At some point, having these folks not die from coronavirus is going to allow them to cause even more death.