Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Felya]

Motherfucker.

On topic but less morbid: the Gov. of Georgia bails on his final debate to instead rally with Trump.

And in this headline I found from two weeks from now, the Governor of Georgia has been released from the hospital following their COVID treatment.

The rally is yet to be formally announced...

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah... it’s pretty bad... but not completely unexpected. My prediction for tomorrow and Saturday isn’t looking that unlikely is it...

Post Halloween shit show...

[beanman12345]

It's...uh...it's going to be a record again today. No doubt. It's. It's pretty bad, guys.

Saw South Dakota has a positivity rate of nearly 50% holy fuckballs that Governor is a cunt, and what she is doing imo is criminal.

[Breccia]

Saw South Dakota has a positivity rate of nearly 50% holy fuckballs

That can't possibly be right.

[Benggaul]

That can't possibly be right.

*Ron Howard voice* It was.

[beanman12345]

41% apparently.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...s-testing.html

interesting. John Hopkins has it at 46.2% Regardless fuck that cunt of a governor.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/overview


edit - ahh see the difference, NYT is avg of last two weeks, Hopkins is today.

[Zaydin]

interesting. John Hopkins has it at 46.2% Regardless fuck that cunt of a governor.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/tracker/overview

Fun fact: Kristi Noem was not in South Dakota today even as her state is burning.

Where was she, you may ask? Mar-a-fucking-Lago, apparently.

[Benggaul]

91,530 new cases; about 17k more than last Thursday. This is a new national record regardless of your source and the first time the US has passed 90k in a day.

Texas: 7,187 new cases; 113 deaths
Illinois: 6,363 new cases (new record); 56 deaths
Wisconsin: 4,870 new cases; 51 deaths
California: 4,250 new cases; 30 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Michigan: 4,109 new cases (new record); 47 deaths
Indiana: 3,618 new cases (new record); 33 deaths
Ohio: 3,579 new cases (new record); 19 deaths
Missouri: 3,000 new cases; 46 deaths
North Carolina: 2,885 new cases (new record); 38 deaths
Minnesota: 2,867 new cases (new record); 32 deaths
Tennessee: 2,660 new cases; 22 deaths
New York: 2,511 new cases; 22 deaths
Pennsylvania: 2,235 new cases; 38 deaths
Iowa: 2,225 new cases (new record*); 12 deaths
Utah: 1,837 new cases; 10 deaths
Georgia: 1,823 new cases; 47 deaths
Kentucky: 1,811 new cases; 19 deaths
Colorado: 1,806 new cases; 19 deaths
New Jersey: 1,658 new cases; 10 deaths
Nebraska: 1,605 new cases (new record); 9 deaths
Alabama: 1,443 new cases; 3 deaths
Virginia: 1,429 new cases; 20 deaths
Massachusetts: 1,346 new cases; 27 deaths
Connecticut: 1,319 new cases; 5 deaths
Arizona: 1,315 new cases; 13 deaths
North Dakota: 1,223 new cases (new record); 11 deaths
South Carolina: 1,100 new cases; 13 deaths
New Mexico: 1,078 new cases (new record); 3 deaths
Nevada: 1,075 new cases; 3 deaths
Arkansas: 1,072 new cases; 19 deaths
Oklahoma: 1,041 new cases; 20 deaths
South Dakota: 1,000 new cases; 19 deaths (new record)

That's 33 states with 1k or more new cases and several more just missed the cutoff. Texas is soaring. New England is starting to climb a little steeper. Many new records as expected and many states just missed setting new ones. Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota was probably too busy hanging her "Mission Accomplished" banner to notice that her state--the 46th most populous in the US--is currently the leader in cases, hospitalizations and positive tests per 100k in the nation. South Dakota has a positivity rate of just over 46% and they're barely testing an average of 1.5k a day. Not. Fucking. Good enough.

New York hit it's highest since late May. Connecticut is getting up there, making my list for the first time on a non-Monday in ages. There's still only a handful of states (as in 5 or less) that are either holding steady or slightly declining and I'm not sure how long they'll hold up given the onslaught of outbreaks from the surrounding states. We blew past 90k today and tomorrow, Friday, is usually the highest-report day of the week in terms of new cases. If we have 17k cases more than last Friday as we've had the past couple days we'll be within a stone's throw of 100k. And now we're coming up on the elections when a ton of people will still be voting in person and despite any precautions taken there will be outbreaks as a result. I hope everyone who could vote early has done so.

1,047 deaths is around a hundred more than last Thursday and brings the total to 234,177. 33 states had double digits, Texas moved back up into the hundreds--and this is all before the spikes of the last couple weeks have kicked in, giving that deaths are the lagging indicator. Texas could very well go back into the 200 territory if they don't get their shit under control. Arizona is probably very nervous right now given what they went through back in July.

Related news:

2 attendees at Trump rally in North Carolina test positive for coronavirus--Superspreader in Chief strikes again.
Trump admin is 'woefully behind' in stockpiling medical gloves as Covid-19 surges--They didn't have an excuse for not restocking at the start of the pandemic, they CERTAINLY don't have an excuse for not restocking this far in after a couple periods of "relative" calm.
Federal government to pay for coronavirus vaccine for all Americans--Because I think we all need a little bit of good news for a change.

Stay safe, folks.

[swiftowner]

@Benggaul I voted early, but what I noticed, after standing in line for almost 2 hours, is that people don’t spread out. My wife went a different day, and she only had to stand in line for 45min. On both days what I noticed is that people do not spread out. 95% were wearing masks at least, but people were within a couple feet of each other, not 6ft. Maybe being outdoor is enough? Idk, but they also did not seem to be spraying down the voting stations, and people voting were not using the provided hand sanitizer. Indiana is a state where threat of Covid was not a valid reason to mail in our ballot...

[Redwyrm]

What's annoying is that if Biden wins, we'll have to wait almost three months before he can do anything about Covid

[Breccia]

1,047 deaths

At least that's not a new record...just, you know, too high.

[Benggaul]

What's annoying is that if Biden wins, we'll have to wait almost three months before he can do anything about Covid

And even then some of the measures he tries to implement will be ignored by Trump supporters because "fuck that guy!" Count on it.

- - - Updated - - -

At least that's not a new record...just, you know, too high.

I'm sliiiightly optimistic that we won't hit a new national record in terms of deaths because treatment has advanced significantly since the dark days of March/April. That said, the record is around 2.7k and there's a lot of room between 1k and that number.

[xmirrors]

What's annoying is that if Biden wins, we'll have to wait almost three months before he can do anything about Covid

Realistically he won't be able to make drastic changes. Because of Donald Trump we've been forced into wait-for-the-vaccine territory. At least a Biden administration will be better equipped to handle that.

At least that's not a new record...just, you know, too high.

I'm not looking forward to the deaths catching up to the new surge in cases. I have a feeling it may get very, very bad. Maybe not new record very bad, but very bad.

[Breccia]

So, yeah, more info on the fake persona that we've been discussing.

The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm" called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents.

The author of the document, a self-identified Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The intelligence firm that Aspen lists as his previous employer said that no one by that name had ever worked for the company and that no one by that name lives in Switzerland, according to public records and social media searches.

One of the original posters of the document, a blogger and professor named Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of it when asked about it and said Aspen does not exist.

Despite the document's questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing, its claims that Hunter Biden has a problematic connection to the Communist Party of China have been used by people who oppose the Chinese government, as well as by far-right influencers, to baselessly accuse candidate Joe Biden of being beholden to the Chinese government.

An unverified leak of documents — including salacious pictures from what President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and a Delaware Apple repair store owner claimed to be Hunter Biden's hard drive — were published in the New York Post on Oct. 14. Associates close to Trump, including Giuliani and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, have promised more blockbuster leaks and secrets, which have yet to materialize.

The fake intelligence document, however, preceded the leak by months, and it helped lay the groundwork among right-wing media for what would become a failed October surprise: a viral pile-on of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.

Fake faces

Computer-generated faces have become a staple of large-scale disinformation operations in the run-up to the election. In December, Facebook took down a network of fake accounts using computer-created faces tied to The Epoch Times. Facebook removed over 600 accounts tied to the operation, which pushed pro-Trump messages and even served as moderators of some Facebook groups. Stephen Gregory, publisher of the U.S. editions of The Epoch Times, has denied any connection to the accounts.

Last month, Facebook removed another batch of computer-generated profiles originating in China and the Philippines, some of which made anti-Trump posts.

Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said computer-created identities are becoming common for disinformation campaigns, in part because they are easy to create.

DiResta, who helped examine a ring of AI-generated faces tied to the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA last month, said computer-generated profile pictures can be used to "build an army of fake people" to artificially support a cause or to make "disinformation operations harder to discover."

"One of the things that investigators look at to understand the narrative that is spreading is whether the accounts are authentic, whether they're real," DiResta said. "If they were to use a stock photo, it confirms something dishonest is likely happening. By using an AI-generated face, you're guaranteeing you won't find that person elsewhere on the internet."

Reality TV Trump uses nonreality anything source. Hey remember when Trump said "anonymous sources are fake"? I do.

[Benggaul]

So long as we enforce like Australia they can say fuck that all they like... while in cuffs.

Nope. Trump got his SCOTUS picks. Any attempt at making measures--like a mask mandate--punishable in any way will be appealed and struck down.

[Breccia]

That said, the record is around 2.7k and there's a lot of room between 1k and that number.

Also, we've seen multiple predictions of 200,000 more deaths in the last 3 months of the year, lower if more masks are worn. To hit 200,000 more deaths, deaths are going to have to climb massively. To be half that, which Fauci said would require everyone use masks, we will still see 1,000 or more deaths be the norm.

[Redwyrm]

And even then some of the measures he tries to implement will be ignored by Trump supporters because "fuck that guy!" Count on it.

Then there are going to be the Republican Governors... Good luck dealing with those assholes.

[Benggaul]

Also, we've seen multiple predictions of 200,000 more deaths in the last 3 months of the year, lower if more masks are worn. To hit 200,000 more deaths, deaths are going to have to climb massively. To be half that, which Fauci said would require everyone use masks, we will still see 1,000 or more deaths be the norm.

Yes, I believe I said at the time that I don't see us hitting another 200k dead before the end of the year. I know they said that was a worst-case scenario but even then it seemed a bit too high. At this rate a 300k end of the year total is feasible, though.

[beanman12345]

He might not be able to do a federal mandate mask law. BUT he can drastically increase PPE production, pass stimulus bill(if we also get the senate.) That's the thing that is most worrisome, no stimulus or aid of any kind for small businesses and restaurants and bars and shit till near end of January, just so republicans can lay all the blame on Biden, just like they blamed Obama for the recession.

[Antiganon]

Nope. Trump got his SCOTUS picks. Any attempt at making measures--like a mask mandate--punishable in any way will be appealed and struck down.

On what grounds?

Forcing somebody to wear a mask for safety doesn't violate 1A, which is what I'd normally see cited for clothing. You can wear any mask you want.

[Benggaul]

Like they struck down counting late ballots? Oh, they left that in place.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...onsin-n1244865

Also, the bulk of the decisions lately have been without Barrett.

- - - Updated - - -

On what grounds?

Forcing somebody to wear a mask for safety doesn't violate 1A, which is what I'd normally see cited for clothing. You can wear any mask you want.

*shrug* Wait and see. I'd love to be wrong on this. In fact, feel free to bookmark this post and come back and remind me of it if the issue comes up and I'll happily admit I was completely wrong about it.

EDIT: This will likely be what's used for reference and SCOTUS recently came to a 5-4 decision related to it--when RGB was still on the bench.