Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[nonameelf]

Trump's Chief of Staff tests positive.

EDIT: Shit, forgot the good stuff.

Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus



Developing story. Let's see who else gets sick, because Team Trump still has feet without bullet holes in them.

I hope they deep clean and quarantine the White House for 2 weeks before Biden moves in.

[beanman12345]

Trump's Chief of Staff tests positive.

EDIT: Shit, forgot the good stuff.

Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus



Developing story. Let's see who else gets sick, because Team Trump still has feet without bullet holes in them.

it is what it is

[swiftowner]

@Benggaul I think we are past 20k jumps per week being a possibility, and fully into that being the norm. Looks like our weekly Friday increase is probably going to be in the 30k range. So my previous estimate of 150-160k for next Thursday might be right, but looks like Friday will be closer to 165-170k next week. This is getting really bad really fast.

Edit: The only silver lining is it looks like Texas might have started to get its act together since today was lower than yesterday. But it’s 1 day, which isn’t a trend yet. And too many other states are spiking hard.

Edit(2): also, idk which is more important or valid or if both are, or which is reported to other sites, but for Indiana, they have positivity separated into two categories: 7-day average for all tests, which is 8.9%, and 7-day average for unique individuals, which is 17.3%. To me, it seems like the positivity for unique individuals is more useful, and it has been going up steadily, and glancing around at sound counties, some are in the >30% range. So pretty sure Indiana is fucked.

[Breccia]

@Benggaul I think we are past 20k jumps per week being a possibility, and fully into that being the norm. Looks like our weekly Friday increase is probably going to be in the 30k range. So my previous estimate of 150-160k for next Thursday might be right, but looks like Friday will be closer to 165-170k next week. This is getting really bad really fast

The NYTimes has its own tracker, but the numbers are similar. THey report a 54% increase in cases in the last two weeks. Hold on.

81,210 new cases, roughly 9.5k more than last Friday

If anything that's more than 54%.Not like the average rate was any better, either.

+54% in two weeks won't be +20k/day for a while, and we're coming up on the usual low-reporting days.

Of course, deaths and hospitalizations are up, too.

903 deaths is about what we had last Friday

I believe at the time I commented that I was relieved it was still under 1,000...just because it's a benchmark, 900 is plenty scary. Obviously, we're beyond that now.

Our rolling 7-day average just became 895. 14 days ago, it was 763. Yep. Our seven-day average, including the low report days, is as high as a high report day 14 days ago.

Colbert had a good point Oct 27 when he pointed out that, the valley between the second wave and the third wave (the one we're now in) is higher than the peak of the first wave in April, for cases. What did we do to beat the frist wave down? Took this shit seriously. Now we're looking back fondly at when things were "only as bad as April".

Let's say this trend continues for another 28 days, like a zombie movie. We'll be wandering ouit of November with a 7-day rolling average of 1231 -- the higher points of this week. That probably means just under 2,000 deaths a day in the work week and 600-800 on the low report days.

Then let's pretend we still learn nothing and it happens again.

"Whoa, you're getting dark."

The entire election thread has been "if this trend continues" so now it's my fucking turn. 28 days later, we come to the new year with a 7-day average of 1,694 deaths. Easily over 2,000 deaths four days a week, maybe five.

Do not let this trend continue. Take this shit seriously.

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Where is Mike Pence?

Vice President Mike Pence hasn’t been seen publicly for three days.

Pence, who heads the coronavirus task force

Hold on a second. Is Meadows on the task force?

(checks news)

Oh good, it's just his deputy.

and serves as president of the Senate, was not with the president in the briefing room Thursday night. Pence had nothing on his schedule for the last three days, and now, per his just-released schedule, has nothing for the weekend. He has not issued any official statements on Friday or posted on social media. His office has been silent when asked about his whereabouts. He has not chaired a task force meeting since October 20, while cases are breaking records across the country.

But a source familiar tells NBC News that Pence was pretty active at the White House today. Additionally, and separately, he was asked by campaign to talk with donors to raise money for the legal defense fund today which he did. NBC News previously reported that Pence was in the meetings over strategy and legal battles at President Trump's campaign headquarters in Virginia on Wednesday.

While Pence is making moves in his capacity as a loyalist to the president, there are also impressions that Pence is trying to stay out of the limelight. Politically, Pence appears to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. He may not want to say anything to override the president’s message as he goes on a full-out assault of the electoral system as it does not produce results in his favor, and simultaneously has to protect his own path forward with potential aspirations for a White House run of his own in 2024.

Yeah, that's not a flattering angle when you're so proud of what your boss is doing you're hiding from cameras.

[swiftowner]

@Breccia I think your numbers are still assuming a proportional increase in deaths based on increase in cases. I don’t think it’s factoring in hospitals running out of capacity to treat patients, which I believe has already been brought up where that is already a potential issue in some places.

Now I don’t pretend to know what that would look like, but we could easily see much higher than 2000 deaths per day in that scenario. *I think*

- - - Updated - - -

The thing is, we need someway to get republicans on board with wearing masks. Maybe it’s not republicans, it might just be Trump cult. But it seems too hard to reason with them.

I got into an argument on Facebook when a distant relative was spewing BS about the elections, and it enviably turned into him calling the pandemic “fake”. After I essentially called him an idiot, he dm’d me. I tried again to reason with him, providing ample reason to believe it’s not fake, he says it is just a strain of the flu. After explaining that they aren’t even remotely the same virus, he still says it’s fake and studies proved it to be a fraud. I called him out on it and said those studies do not exist, and if they exist, they absolutely do not conclude that it’s fraud. He then changed the subject, still trying to say that it’s fraud. So I said he’s dumber than a rock and blocked him. You can’t reason with stupid

[Breccia]

@Breccia I think your numbers are still assuming a proportional increase in deaths based on increase in cases.

No. I was using the increase in deaths over the past two weeks. Number of cases was not involved in my calculations. It was also assuming that rate continued indefinitely, which over 2 months, seems unlikely. It was more an example than a prediction, but it does fall in line with even Trump's own CDC's predictions. If anything it's lower.

[Blur4stuff]

tens of thousands of americans will die before the new year

[passingthrew]

tens of thousands of americans will die before the new year

Its sad. And there is only so much Biden is going to be able to do when you have people who think this is a hoax, people who refuse to follow any safety orders and when those orders wont be enforced in certain parts of the country.

[Breccia]

tens of thousands of americans will die before the new year

Yes.

The 7-day rolling average is 895 as I've made myself ill repeating. That's fifty thousand dead if we assume no changes till Jan 1.

If...we don't, if we see the increasing trend, it be far higher. Based on two weeks' ago's numbers, deaths are climbing at 1.14% per day. If that trend continues through Jan 1, it would be 77, 000 -- over a 50% increase.

Or -- and I was cautioned against using this, so this is a worst-case scenario and not an actual projection -- deaths could follow cases by two weeks. If that horryfing and hopefully false situation comes to pass, we'd start seeing deaths increase like cases, which has been 3.13% on average over the last two weeks, tho much faster now. Again, this isn't all that likely, and I'm glad, because it would be 174,000 dead by Jan 1. This is just shy of the 200,000 predicted "nobody wears a mask" CDC prediction.

- - - Updated - - -

And there is only so much Biden is going to be able to do

This is also true, and we need to remind Trump's rabid fanbase every single day that this was their fault, they encouraged this, they supported this, they did this.

Fortunatelly:

1) A vaccine will happen between Jan 1 and Dec 31 by pretty much every prediction. Widespread? Eventually.

2) States still get to make their own choices. Eventually, the death count will be so high in Trump-infected areas that teven they will say "this isn't working, we have to change plans". Or I guess we could cross off North Dakota's star right now and save everyone the trouble.

3) Every case that affects an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, science-denier or other, well, insane person who thinks this isn't lethal will at least change their minds, and hopefully, the minds of those who know them well. "Hey did you hear about Bubba Bo John Bubba?" "Aw yeah man, he caught the CHINA VIRUS CHINA VIRUS CHINA VIRUS! Damn, he looked like sheeeeeeeeet." "Yeah man, I guess this thing's real. Guess we gotta be careful." (grabs crotch) (spits)

4) Or, well, failing all that, the rest of the world could effectively Wall us off and restrict the damage. It'd have to be really bad, but if the rest of the free world basically got together and said "Look, you're risking the goddam planet. No more travel in/out, including imports/exports, until you act like you give a fuck." At some point, if we do literally nothing, the escalating risk to the world won't be worth our money. Especially since our money can wait until we act like fucking adults.

Until anything remotely like any of those, I'm teaching from home, and my students are more than okay with it.

- - - Updated - - -

Multiple White House staffers test positive for coronavirus

An official familiar with the matter confirmed the positive test results to The Hill, though did not immediately clarify exactly how many staffers had tested positive.

CNN reported that two staffers had tested positive.

“Any positive case is taken seriously. Contact tracing has been conducted by the White House Medical Unit consistent with CDC guidelines to stop further transmission. Appropriate notifications and recommendations have been made,” said White House spokesperson Judd Deere.

The news comes a day after officials confirmed that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tested positive for the coronavirus, emerging as the latest high-ranking White House staffer to test positive for the highly-contagious virus. It was not immediately clear when Meadows contracted the virus or when he tested positive, but he was seen at President Trump’s campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday afternoon without a mask on.

- - - Updated - - -

Trump to face stricter Twitter rules if he loses

Trump's tweets will face harsher scrutiny from Twitter should he ultimately lose and leave the White House, shedding protections the platform grants to world leaders.

The tech behemoth treats violations of its policies from presidents and prime ministers differently from those of regular users, saying that the public should be able to see what their leaders are saying and that such posts are newsworthy in and of themselves. But that protection does not extend to world leaders once they leave their offices, which means that Trump’s preferred mode of communication could be restricted in ways he’s been able to avoid for the past four years.

Twitter has been loath to delete any of Trump’s tweets while in office, instead opting to flag that his controversial posts may contain misleading or false information and restrict users’ ability to retweet and like them. But a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that Trump’s Twitter account would be treated like any other account should he leave office, which seems increasingly likely.

"Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context. This means that we may apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to certain Tweets," the spokesperson said. "This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions."

Specifically, that means Trump’s tweets could be deleted if they break the platform’s rules and that he could accumulate “strikes” for repeated policy violations, which would worsen punishments from the platform.

This would be all the inspiration Trump needs to start his own media company, trying desperately to make a few bucks before those loans come due and he loses everything.

[Dontrike]

tens of thousands of americans will die before the new year

Unfortunately there is a chance we hit 300k dead before the end of the year.

[Mekh]

Bookmark this page.

Trump landslide.

Easy win.

Hi. /10 chars

[Thepersona]

Bookmark this page.

Trump landslide.

Easy win.

Hello!

[Benggaul]

Bookmark this page.

Trump landslide.

Easy win.

How you doin?

[Kaleredar]

And people have the audacity to still say you're "rounding the corner" on this virus.... holy fuck.

At least, in relatively short order, that message won’t be being spread from the highest office in the land.

[kaelleria]

[xmirrors]

Didn't somebody post a while back about someone betting a lot of money on a red sweep? I wonder how much he lost today.

[Ursus]

Bookmark this page.

Trump landslide.

Easy win.

Brilliant. Got any stock market tips for us?

[Benggaul]

Just real quick: are we all just letting it skate by that Trump's lawyers press conference was held at the Four Seasons Landscaping Firm...not the Four Seasons Hotel?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1672602.html

[Ursus]

Just real quick: are we all just letting it skate by that Trump's lawyers press conference was held at the Four Seasons Landscaping Firm...not the Four Seasons Hotel?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b1672602.html

Best tweet I've seen about that: https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/stat...89983225618433

"Set up a press conference at the Four Seasons."

"The luxury hotel or the landscaping store?"

"Eh, either one."

Also, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company's online reviews on Google and Yelp are getting destroyed right now. Serves them right too. Anyone willing to attach their name to this vile human being and abominable Presidency deserves all the flak they get.

[Benggaul]

Best tweet I've seen about that: https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/stat...89983225618433




Also, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company's online reviews on Google and Yelp are getting destroyed right now. Serves them right too. Anyone willing to attach their name to this vile human being and abominable Presidency deserves all the flak they get.

I like that there's an adult bookstore right there as well so Giuliani has somewhere convenient to stick his hand down his pants.