Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[rayvio]

Betsy DeVos is the worst Secretary of Education we've had in decades. This Dana Bash interview just highlights how unfit she is for the position.

honestly is there anyone in the trump administration who isn't the worst you've had in forever?

[Thekri]

honestly is there anyone in the trump administration who isn't the worst you've had in forever?

Well yeah, about half of appointed administration positions are still empty. Those empty chairs are generally the most moral and ethical part of the administration! While they are of course useless, empty chairs are not malicious.

[Thelxi]

Between the polling and not being able to draw crowds to his rallies I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he meets with advisers these days.

[Felya]

2020 Dems: "Looks like we lost the black vote, how can we lock up the hispanic vote and defeat Trump?"
BLM: "I gotchu fam!"
2020 Dems: "..."

Can you pretend the B in BLM stands for statues? That way we can avoid division...

[Breccia]

Reading through that link, I would say that the resident right now is Neutral Evil.

I completely agree. Just because you're incompetent doesn't make you Chaotic. But "I want it all, everything for me, me me me" is Neutral Evil.

In other news: Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies are joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to push back on the Trump administration's bid to bar foreign students from staying in the U.S. if their colleges are only offering online classes in the fall.

That's above and beyond what they're likely planning for DACA and cutting work visas.

[Thepersona]

12.6k reported by Florida, which would have been their record had they not set it yesterday at 15k.

35 deaths reported.

Fuck Florida.

So let me get this straight. FL reported 12k cases. That's twice the highest daily case count of my country ever, and only had 10% of the death count?
Yeah sure.

[Benggaul]

So let me get this straight. FL reported 12k cases. That's twice the highest daily case count of my country ever, and only had 10% of the death count?
Yeah sure.

To be fair, it's Monday and deaths on Monday (and Sunday) are always, always underreported. However if there isn't a correction shooting above 100 tomorrow--after nearly two weeks of astronomical new case counts--we can all safely call shenanigans.

[Belize]

So let me get this straight. FL reported 12k cases. That's twice the highest daily case count of my country ever, and only had 10% of the death count?
Yeah sure.

I mean, Florida is already well past 5x the number of average annual "pneumonia" deaths, so it's not exactly hard to read between the lines.

[Easo]

A good time is when we don't have half the population in massive debt, and spending 50% or more of their meager incomes on rent. Not to mention all the covid related unrest, and more to come when evictions and higher taxes start to kick in.

Why do we gotta start somewhere? Whats the rush?

To be clear, I don't think NASA is a total waste, but I do think expensive manned missions are overly expensive vanity projects. I get that people are eager to advance our stalled space exploration, but I just don't see how it can be justified.

Funny thing about predatory capitalism/conservatism, we're never going to be in a place to advance while it still exists.

To put it simply - just because someone want's to eat does not mean other things do not matter. This is why country budgets are a complex things. If we gave the average Joe power to distribute them he would give most of it to the education system, to wellfare programs, to police force, etc. and cut a lot of other spheres. The Joe would not balance anything at all.

The debt issue does not cancel anything and it is not only because "there is not enough money", but more due to other factors, like... politics, mentality and decades upon decades of corporate propaganda, yada yada.

Why do we gotta start? Knowledge decays. Case in point - USA's nuclear missiles, their upkeep and replacements. Wanna spend decades catching up on what was already once known before? Or... wanna let China be the ones going to Moon and Mars first?

Space missions are not vanity, they are mankind's future. Resources, living space, etc. Does USA not want to lead that progress?

[Breccia]

This just in: China sanctions US.

Well, sanctions Cruz, Rubio, and some other GOP lawmakers.

"What do the sanctions do, exactly?"

China didn't say. I suppose make it illegal to, say, work with Cruz in China? Or for Cruz to have a bank in China? I don't really see him as that type.

"Sanctioned US for what?"

For sanctioning them, for putting people in dog cages. China skipped the obvious irony and went for "you can't do that, you have no right to act unilaterally".

"Is that true?"

Probably not. But if the US can apply sanctions unilaterally, China can do the same.

Oh, and before any members of the rabid fanbase even start to reply "Well they would have done that to anyone else" or "Clinton would have been worse" I'll pre-emptively point out that's conjecture. That's assumption. We'll never know. Plus I can respond with "If Clinton did this, China would have caved" with equally lacking evidence, and my baseless claim counters y'alls. You get to eat your own party being basically called criminals by the party that was trying to renegotiate a trade deal with them. So save yourself the lame-ass, limp-dick attempts to defend IMPOTUS with handwaving and deflection. Bang-up job on the trade war, by the way. Hey, remember when trade wars were good, and easy to win?

[PhaelixWW]

Speaking of, 270toWin updated their base prediction a few days ago:

Apparently I spoke too soon, as shortly after making this post the other day, 270toWin changed their base prediction:

[Rasulis]

Trump and his supporters have always bragged about the stock market performance under his administration. As somebody who is heavily invested and followed the market, I always have a suspicion that the market is actually driven by a few stocks. Namely, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook. Somebody finally did just that and looked at the stock market performance without those 5 stocks.

The first graph is the market capitalization of Wilshire 5000 Index, which consists of all major US stocks and ETFs, without those 5 stocks. Basically the market performance is pretty crappy. Since January 26, 2018, the market barely breaks even.

Second is the five stocks performance over the same period. It does not need any comments.

Third is the share of the five stocks as percent of the US stock market.

As you can see, Trump’s supporters been sold a false bill of goods. The big 5 has actually doubled their share of the US stock markets, while the rest remained stagnant under his administration. Without the big 5, only a single sector of the stock market has prospered. The "EVIL TECH."

Figure 1


Figure 2


Figure 3

[Benggaul]

Not sure if this has already been posted, but it seems like COVID-19 not only impairs the respiratory system, but likely also has long-term effects on your heart.

The heart: Before, during and after COVID-19

The more Trump lies about how severe this pandemic is the more people are going to die from "mysterious heart disease". I'm sure the death toll is much higher than reported purely from people who have recovered from COVID-19 only to succumb to heart problems later.

[Rasulis]

Not sure if this has already been posted, but it seems like COVID-19 not only impairs the respiratory system, but likely also has long-term effects on your heart.

The heart: Before, during and after COVID-19

The more Trump lies about how severe this pandemic is the more people are going to die from "mysterious heart disease". I'm sure the death toll is much higher than reported purely from people who have recovered from COVID-19 only to succumb to heart problems later.

A couple of weeks ago on NPR morning show they had a UCSD researcher. UCSD has been conducting scans of asymptomatic Covid-19 patients and found anomalies in their lungs that were not there before. They think that the disease may have long-term impact even on asymptomatic Covid-19 patients. We just don't know what the disease does to human internal organs right now.

[cubby]

honestly is there anyone in the trump administration who isn't the worst you've had in forever?

Not really. At best they are mildly incompetent. The good news is that most of those Departments have lifetime staffers who really run things. To truly effect change a Cabinet Secretary would have to work very hard. And all of Trump's appointees are lazy grifters, so we've got that going for us. Disaster averted through lazy incompetence.

[Breccia]

Apparently I spoke too soon

The prize is still Texas. But Biden has multiple routes for advancement, while Trump has to defend everything.
1) Trump is in the rock-hardplace with Pennsylvania the most. He barely won that state, and Biden lives next door. Even if Biden did relive the 2016 mistake of not spending time and attention there, the damage taken by the manufacturing industry is enough to sour the state on re-electing him.
2) Trump being a blatant racist against brown people, plus the lethal outbreak's new epicenter, means Florida is up for grabs. Biden has an obvious attack pattern there, saying "Remember when Obama and I helped you get health care?" in Spanish.
3) I don't know the issues North Carolina thinks are most important, but the NC DOJ seems to think it's health care fraud and/or opioids. Remember when Trump promised he'd work on that, and even I hoped he was telling the truth? Remember how he put Conway in charge and went golfing?
4) Arizona, holy shit, where to start? COVID-19, the useless rusting Wall, the military on the border...Biden has Arizona flanked physically and politically.
5) But my personal advice, yeah I'm sure my non-expert advice is a prize asset to a Presidential campaign, would be to campaign hard in Utah and Georgia. Specifically, finding help from Romney and the mayor of Atlanta. Force Trump to divert time and energy just to hold onto two states a Republican should easily win. It's not that I think Biden will win either state (although taking Georgia would be a game ender), but instead on playing on Trump's fragile childish tempter-tantrum-throwing ego refusing to let those go. Every rally Trump holds in Utah is one he doesn't hold in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, and definitely Texas.

This is the end of Fallout: New Vegas where the Legion backs off, having been told they are spread too thin and can't defend what they've taken. A competent government would have helped the states that voted for him, but Trump only rewards himself. I'm almost eager to see what Trump tries to push in Iowa. "Hey, remember all that socialist bailout money I gave a few of you, because of the trade war with China I started and now admit I lost? Well, that money's gone. MAGA!"

- - - Updated - - -

honestly is there anyone in the trump administration who isn't the worst you've had in forever?

Besides Fauci? Um...I mean, Carson hasn't fucked up royally. Trump's token black friend has just sat in the back, hoping nobody notices.

- - - Updated - - -

In other news: Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies are joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to push back on the Trump administration's bid to bar foreign students from staying in the U.S. if their colleges are only offering online classes in the fall.

Speaking of "spoke too soon"...

Fifty-seven more schools join Harvard and MIT.

So did 17 states.

[cubby]

Not sure if this has already been posted, but it seems like COVID-19 not only impairs the respiratory system, but likely also has long-term effects on your heart.

The heart: Before, during and after COVID-19

The more Trump lies about how severe this pandemic is the more people are going to die from "mysterious heart disease". I'm sure the death toll is much higher than reported purely from people who have recovered from COVID-19 only to succumb to heart problems later.

There is also ongoing research and study as to how COVID-19 affects the brain - hint: it's not good.

COVID-19 affects on the brain.

Just more and more indications of how grievously Trump's lies are killing and maiming U.S. citizens.

[PhaelixWW]

The prize is still Texas.

Here's the thing about Texas: as long as Texas is a a close enough thing, it will require Trump to split his efforts away from the other battleground states in order to address the 38(-electoral-vote)-alarm fire in Texas.

That can only be a huge positive for the Biden campaign.

[DarkTZeratul]

There is also ongoing research and study as to how COVID-19 affects the brain - hint: it's not good.

COVID-19 affects on the brain.

Just more and more indications of how grievously Trump's lies are killing and maiming U.S. citizens.

I've seen some suggestions that Covid-19 actually isn't a respiratory disease, it's a vascular disease that manifests most visibly in the respiratory system.

[cubby]

A couple of weeks ago on NPR morning show they had a UCSD researcher. UCSD has been conducting scans of asymptomatic Covid-19 patients and found anomalies in their lungs that were not there before. They think that the disease may have long-term impact even on asymptomatic Covid-19 patients. We just don't know what the disease does to human internal organs right now.

And since our Resident is actively attacking science in general and our lead immunologist in specific, we're going to have to hope and pray he loses in November, and then we can back to reality.