Now For Some Neuro-Babble: "Teens Ignore Covid Restrictions Because Their Brains Are On A Dopamine High"

"Gimme da dopamine so I can ignore da mask orders!"

"I'm pretty much fighting two wars. A war against Covid and a war against stupidity.  The problem is the first one I have some hope about winning. But the second is becoming more difficult to treat.  Why do I say that?  Because people are not listening.   Whether backed up by science or plain common sense, people are not listening - throughout the country. 

I've been in every possible catastrophe you can imagine, from tsunamis to earthquakes and by far this is the worst. This is the worst because it is a continuous catastrophe.  The thing that annoys me the most is we keep on doing our best to save all these people and then you get another batch of people who are doing exactly the opposite of what you're telling them not to do. - Dr. Joseph Varon, Chief Medical Officer, United Memorial Medical Center, Houston, Texas

"There are all these night club scenes like pop ups that people find out about on instagram. And then they go and party. No masks, lots of booze, everybody having lots of fun. We're seeing this thing everywhere across America. And you can't stop a pandemic if you can't stop that kind of activity."  Laurie Garret, on All In, Tuesday night.

The Wednesday headline on page 5A of The Denver Post appeared two days before the new projection of 300,000 dead from the virus by December. Impossible? No!  Too many millions are still not taking the Covid virus restrictions seriously. Even to the point of some of the rebel lunatics making threats on medical experts' lives,  causing nearly 11 to resign already in as many states.  This has elicited an impatience and even outrage at the level of utter selfishness  and colossal stupidity - as reflected in the words of Dr. Joseph Varon.  As well as medical journalist Laurie Garret (appearing on All In Tuesday night)

In the case of the Post article, the refrain of the medical experts watching this national stupidity take hold -  like a mind virus - is that we know damned well what works.  It is social distancing, mask wearing and lockdowns - if need be - especially when there is a surge and there is no vaccine as yet.   This is not rocket science.  Yet, because of the lack of a coordinated national response, where 2 in 5  'Muricans believe the thing is a hoax or "plandemic", we can't get it under control to the point of really opening the economy - or our schools.  In the words of Rachel Maddow Tuesday night:

"This is not rocket science. Without a cure the only interventions we have are these simple, dumb hard things that we fight over.  Masks, and social distance and keeping schools closed and keeping work places closed and having rules about gatherings. That's what we've got.  You do the things that work and when your numbers show the new  things you're trying don't work you stop trying them,"

Then add to that new memetic horse shit finding it's way into print or on the tube.  Balderdash such as spouted in today's WSJ by the clown Bobby Jindal ('The Biden Bait -and-Switch', p. A13), e.g.:

"Mr. Biden, liberal activists and the media are holding the country hostage, threatening voters with exhausting crises, refusing to reopen schools and the economy..."

Let's face it, only a total idiot could write such claptrap.  And just when you thought the excuses for ignoring  Covid-based restrictions couldn't get much more lame, we beheld this WSJ article entitled:  'Why Some Teens Ignore Coronavirus Restrictions' (Aug, 4, p., A9).  The gist of it is that we are wasting time, and doing much harm, by shaming or getting after party - obsessed teens in the Covid era. 'Let them do their own thing!' is the new refrain. Oh, and besides there's the dopamine, which "peaks in adolescents".  Therefore, it "drives them to value immediate gratification over future gains, which can lead to risky decisions."

Hence:  "Motivation is influenced by rewards like novelty, thrills and the presence of peers.  As a result, something that hits multiple buttons can be particularly enticing - such as the opportunity to attend a party that will be viewed on social media."   

Or, launching a Harvard College Class of 2021 Facebook group, i.e. '“Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens”   in which some of the most despicable and degenerate dopamine-aroused brain expulsions ever  to see the light of day appeared.  The debased antics were first reported by the Harvard  Crimson  and included:

"students sending each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups. One called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child “piñata time.”

 "After discovering the existence and contents of the chat, Harvard administrators revoked admissions offers to at least ten participants "

Clearly  the brain -dictated, dopamine choice turned out to be risky indeed.  Yet not all the prospective Harvard students were in thrall to their dopamine cravings-  which one researcher actually compared to  (WSJ, ibid.) "how a starving person craves food."    For example, then incoming freshman Jessica Zhang.  She initially  joined both chats and liked the original group because the shared messages were "mostly lighthearted",  but she bailed from the split off gr0up which wallowed in hate and mockery.  So did  Cassandra Luca,  who joined the first meme group but not the second, after seeing the garbage spewed.   Like Zhang, her offer was not revoked.

What likely set Luca's alarm bells sounding  is when the founders of the “dark” group demanded students post "provocative" (e.g. execrable) memes in the first group before being allowed to join the second.  This was too much for Ms. Luca, to her credit, and perhaps her upbringing which allowed her to transcend her brain's dopamine imperative.

Of course, on the scale of repercussions from bad decisions (due to overload of dopamine in the brain) the loss of a Harvard admission is nothing compared to the loss of a life. Say arising when teens - instead of sharing debased memes -share coronavirus particles instead.  This, whether from being in party crowds without masks, or without social distancing, or worse, kissing up strangers.  That is like playing Covid roulette and while it may seem like sport at the moment, it won't be if you find yourself on a dialysis machine -- because your kidneys failed as the virus attacked them.

When I consulted my psychology postdoc niece Shayl about this dopamine-brain explanation and the related WSJ piece,  she shrugged, and said:

"Well, it's basically what you would call 'codswallop'.  Look at those Harvard teens that didn't go the route of joining the horrible meme group. They clearly exerted control of their dopamine drives and brain "mandates"  and weren't booted from Harvard. If they could do that one could argue any teen could, given the right guidance."

Indeed, and in the same WSJ piece one finds (at the very end) one Ruben Valera, a med student at Tufts University who has not been tempted to break Covid restrictions "because if all the information he reads about Covid 19".    He also believes other young adults would behave more like him "if they had better guidance and information."

Also, to his credit, "while he agrees there is a biological drive toward socialization in people his age, he can't see it as a valid argument."

So the question becomes:  What's left when powerful arguments or pleas (like Dr. Joseph Varon's) no longer work? Well, in that case the evident solution to lower the stupidity levels is to cut power and water to the offending residences where party crowds gather - as LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has vowed to do, e.g.

https://www.businessinsider.com/la-mayor-warns-water-shut-off-houses-hosting-gatherings-parties-2020-8

Something serious, with enforcement potential and sanction, needs to be done to get people's behavior re-oriented to the crisis we're in.  If they won't do it themselves then external means need to be applied.

See Also:

Covid-19 | Donald Trump | Education Policy

Schools Aren't Safe, and Parents Won't Believe President Bleach-Injector When He Claims Otherwise

Don't Trust The Repuke TRUST Act: It Will Gut Social Security & Medicare On Top Of Leaving 55 Million Without A Covid Lifeline

"True to form, Republicans are trying to gut Social Security and Medicare in the middle of a pandemic. This bill doubles down on using secret, closed-door panels to undo these earned benefits. I will oppose any bill that includes a fast lane to cut Social Security and Medicare."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sen. Ron Wyden's tweet above says it all.

As Jill Schlesinger noted last week when the last jobless numbers came in:

"That extra $600 a week was spent in the economy. So without a new package I think we are going to see the economy flatten out and that would create a really big problem in getting these millions of people back to work."

Let's cut to the chase:  

The Repukes  are trying to use the pandemic to cut  Social Security and Medicare benefits behind closed doors, using a bill with an Orwellian name—the TRUST Act.  The TRUST Act creates a closed-door committee to fast-track cuts to our earned benefits. And now, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have put the bill on a fast-track of its own by including it in the Republican Covid-19 package known as the HEALS Act.

These vermin who are plotting to use this public health crisis as a vehicle to ram through cuts to  earned social insurance benefits, are fungal pond scum. The American people will never forget that they used the worst global cataclysm of modern times to try to rob millions of their Social Security and Medicare benefits. 

Most of the politicians pushing this dastardly plan are Republicans. Prominent Democrats are speaking out against it, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and lead Senate negotiator on the relief packages.  He went on to explain:

The TRUST Act will result in far-reaching cuts to Social Security and Medicare—that is the intention of the bill. The legislation sets up closed-door commissions to fast-track the destruction of these programs. In 2010, a similar closed-door commission made cuts to the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA); hiked the retirement age (which is an across-the-board benefit cut for all retirees); changed the Social Security benefit formula to reduce the amount people receive each month; and made cuts to Medicare that forced seniors and individuals with disabilities to pay more for drugs, doctor visits, and hospital care by increasing cost-sharing like co-pays.

The last thing struggling Americans need right now is a secret panel designed to slash their earned benefits and further undermine their economic security. It’s astonishing that attacking Social Security and Medicare are Republicans’ priorities at this moment, not protecting people’s health care or ensuring families can afford to stay in their homes and put food on the table.

Rep. John Larson (D-CT), lifelong champion of Social Security and chair of the Social Security subcommittee, condemned it with the strongest language possible:

This is a direct assault on Social Security benefits. The TRUST Act Commission would make it easier to fast track cuts, while ignoring the urgent needs to strengthen Social Security, especially during this pandemic. This would just kick the can down the road and ignore regular order. It’s Congress’s responsibility to do this correctly and vote! As Chairman Neal points out, we have seen this before with the 2010 Bowles-Simpson report, which proposed major Social Security and Medicare cuts. Instead, what we need to do is enact the Social Security COVID Correction and Equity Act to increase benefits, rather than cut them.

But a small splinter group of Democrats, publicly led by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), supports the TRUST Act. They are the most reprehensible of all, for giving it bipartisan cover.

It’s not too late for politicians who originally supported the TRUST Act, when it was first introduced in January, to partially redeem themselves. They need to make it clear that even though they supported the bill, they do not support holding the pandemic response package hostage to jam it through behind the American people's backs.

We already know that Mitt Romney and his ilk are  holding personal protective equipment for nurses and doctors hostage so they can cut  Social Security benefits. What Krysten Sinema is doing is holding financial relief for millions of Americans who lost their job through no fault of their own hostage in order to cut Medicare benefits. It is sick, even by the gutter standards of the current reality with a deranged traitor scum as president.

Their justification for including the TRUST Act in the Covid-19 package is telling. They claim that with this coronavirus relief package adding to the deficit, we need the TRUST Act to "rein in the national debt." What they don't mention is that  Social Security doesn't add a single penny to the debt  because it had no creditors.  Even Ronald Reagan understood that!   At the same time Medicare is far more cost-effective than private insurance because it's administrative costs are 10 -15 times lower than private insurance.

This isn't really about the deficit. It's about achieving a long-standing right-wing ideological goal to gut senior Americans'  earned benefits—and using the Covid-19 catastrophe to do it. That's why even AARP, which rarely takes a stance on Social Security legislation, has come out against including the TRUST Act in the next pandemic relief package.

Dems needs to fight like demons to insure no eventual compromise arises which contains this refuse buried inside it, akin to a Trojan horse.

See Also:

Economic Policy | Healthcare Policy | Social Security

Alert! Social Security and Medicare are in Critical Danger

by Dave Lindorff | August 11, 2020 - 5:09am | permalink

And:

Covid-19 | Economic Policy

Forcing People Back to Work in a Pandemic is Both Stupid and Immoral

Yes, We Desperately Need Images Of Patients & Organs Ravaged by the Novel Coronavirus - To Break Through The Wall Of Trumpie BS And Propaganda

We need more images like this of a 20-something's damaged left lung to show the havoc this disease can wreak and that is not the same as seasonal flu!

Among the most horrific images to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic has been that of the diseased left lung (see graphic) of a 20-something young woman whose lungs were destroyed by the virus. She had received a double lung transplant  at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. This marked the first known lung transplant in the United States for Covid-19.

The 10-hour surgery was more difficult and took several hours longer than most lung transplants because inflammation from the disease had left the woman’s lungs “completely plastered to tissue around them, the heart, the chest wall and diaphragm,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat, the chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the lung transplant program at Northwestern Medicine,

He said the patient, who had no serious underlying medical conditions, was recovering well:  However, one of the damaged lungs removed had the appearance of a glob of rotten hamburger and showed clearly that those who dismiss Covid as "not that severe" are detached from reality.  It is severe and is even now filling up hospital ICUs  in at least a dozen states. But that is why we need more images of its horrors.  To get into people's craniums that this is nothing to play around with or take lightly.

If a twenty something woman with no underlying conditions could end up with lungs like the one shown, then so could Bill Maher, Holman Jenkins Jr., Kayleigh McEnany, Ron Desantis or the clowns (from the Hoover Inst.) who wrote an op-ed in yesterday's WSJ (p. A17) proclaiming "the data is in" and we need to open everything up already. This, despite a same  day WSJ  story ('New Cases Grow In Over A Dozen States',  p. A6) noting:

"New coronavirus cases have accelerated in more than a dozen states as summer weather and reopenings have prompted throngs of people to gather across the country."

And let's note many of those gathering refuse to take even minimal precautions, including mask wearing, social distancing.  It's as if they believe just because a yahoo governor says 'Let's open!" a state can do so and all will be well.

Why lurid Covid disease images, aren't news reports enough? No, not when so many proclaim they are fake news or the medical personnel are just play acting.  Of course, it is also possible that assorted mental invalids will also insist the image shown above is "faked" or photo-shopped, but hey, there's a limit of lower IQ for convincing - so we must halt at the idiot level.

 Meanwhile, many of us have assembled a representative, visual archive of the staggering human toll of the crisis from which we all to hope to emerge.  These images are as necessary as those of the Holocaust many of us have also archived, to ensure at some future date no cynical political monster or his zombies attempts to deny the respective reality  - or minimize the pandemic. . Besides, for society to respond in ways commensurate with the importance of this pandemic, we have to see it.   At least its effects on sundry organs if not the patients themselves. For us to be transformed by it, it has to penetrate our hearts as well as our minds.

As my Psychology post doc niece Shayl put it: Images force us to contend with the unspeakable. In this case the unspeakable nature of this virus. The images also help humanize clinical statistics, to make them comprehensible. They step unto the breach.  Sarah Elizabeth Lewis author of   'Where Are The Photos Of People Dyng Of Covid'?  has written that:

 "Visualization is a powerful tool — it can help us more deeply understand the severity of the situation as we work to curb the virus. But the visuals we need most in this time are difficult to come by. What are we missing by not having images that represent the full impact of the coronavirus crisis? In the United States, the frequently recurring pictures in the media are of the president, the virus itself represented as a spiky ball, health care and front line workers deemed essential and visuals conveying economic disarray (empty businesses, winding unemployment lines)."

While there have been some professional images from inside medical zones, ICUs they remain rare. “Make note of what we can’t see,”  CNN commentator Brian Stelter said in March, adding:

 “That’s the suffering happening inside hospitals.”

He went on to discuss a video that was taken covertly in a hospital. What it means, he said, “is that we’re not seeing this crisis with our own eyes.”

Clearly, a backward state like Georgia isn't, having allowed opening of restaurants to full capacity yesterday.  This despite being one of 23 states that saw a rise in Covid cases over the last week. (At least a dozen of them surging by more than 25 percent,)  All of this translates to an ongoing plateau reflecting our "terrible leadership" in Rachel Maddow's words.  This while other nations (Italy, Spain, Germany, UK) cycled through a clear rise, peak and decline.  Meanwhile, in another backward state- Arizona - we learned total hospitalizations have doubled since April and the new daily cases reported has reached record levels.

The two bonehead Bozos - Trump and Pence - insist it's all a reflection of more testing, not grasping that the rate of disease infections exceeds the rate of testing. But then I never believed either of these clowns could do the math anyway.  As Jeanne Marrazzo, Director of Infectious Diseases at Univ of Alabama noted: "It's a real increase in cases we're finding"

In the meantime, a new projection model out of the Univ. of Washington has more deaths in the next 127 days than in the previous 129. (As Maddow reported last night).  This was in the wake of Pence claiming  the Trump gov't response is "cause for celebration".  Really, Pence?  Hundreds and thousands of rotting lungs and 230,000 dead by October 1st is 'cause for celebration'?  What are you smoking anyway?  Especially when the clown spouted:

"Thanks to the leadership of President Trump we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy".

Well, if that's winning, I'd hate to see losing!

All of which shows me we need many more graphic images of the virus effects on fellow citizens to break through the reams of propaganda.  This will not be easy. Medical privacy laws in the United States can present obstacles to this kind of viewing. Instead of images, we have had daily briefings of statistics presented in pie charts and bar graphs. During news conferences, officials such as Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have illustrated how social distancing can flatten the curve through clear numerical analysis.

Statistics alone, however clear, are not historically how we have communicated calamity on this scale. There is an inverse relationship between high numbers and comprehension: It is much harder to picture tragedy of the kind we are now witnessing than it is to visualize one person in pain, or an image that connects with a familiar aspect of the human condition, what psychologists have termed the “identifiable victim effect.”

This is why, as Shayl put it: "We need a lot more personal pain narratives and the grisly images to go along with them.  Americans can't allow themselves to be bamboozled by the ongoing foolishness that Trump and Pence have it all under control."  Indeed, and by October - with two million more pairs of rotted, blown out Covid lungs - it may be too late.  Above all, people need to recognize that a 2nd lockdown is still possible if hospitals - even in Texas- are overwhelmed by the infected.

See Also:

Covid-19 | Donald Trump

Coronavirus Is Resurgent — and Trump Is to Blame

by Amanda Marcotte | June 17, 2020 - 7:58am | permalink

— from Salon

Excerpt:

Donald Trump wants to pretend the coronavirus is in the rearview mirror, but reports over the weekend suggested that instead the U.S. is witnessing a resurgence of the virus after weeks of decline. Twenty-one states have seen an increase of new cases in recent days. Most of the spikes are in Republican-controlled states like Texas, Florida, Georgia and Arizona, where governors curried favor with Trump by lifting restrictions long before meeting even some of the criteria recommended by public health officials. On Sunday, the death toll from the virus, now at 118,000, surpassed the number of American lives lost in World War I.

In response to this surge, Americans living in our polarized political culture are pointing the finger at each other. Conservatives are opportunistically blaming the anti-racism protests spreading across both big urban areas and small towns. Liberals, on the other hand, are casting a gimlet eye on Americans who have crowded into outdoor spaces at bars and restaurants in states that have allowed those establishments to reopen.

And:

Economic Policy

Coronavirus Consequences: Evictions Expected to Spike

by Thomas Neuburger | June 17, 2020 - 5:18am | permalink

— from Down With Tyranny!

Why Paul Krugman Thinks The Recent Unemployment Report Is A Negative Indicator Of Economic Recovery

Incredibly,  the stock market and Wall Street continue to party (e.g.'Wall Street Parties Despite Turmoil'  WSJ, June 5, p. B11)  despite an ongoing pandemic, a cratered economy, great Depression unemployment numbers and civil  unrest in dozens of cities. It is as if the stock market and Maul Street are totally divorced from the realities of Main Street.   Or, to put it into the context of WSJ columnist James Mackintosh (ibid.):

"Why is the market rising even as U.S. cities burn and the prospect of a second round pf coronavirus infections remains real?....It is deeply uncomfortable to watch Wall Street party while Main Street  emerges from lockdown into tear gas."


But the other side of the economic coin which does apply to Main Street is the unemployment report which came out Friday, and saw a figure: 13.3 % - significantly less than what most economists and pundits projected (19%) . For example, when the report was released I watched CBS finance guru Jill Schlesinger fumbling for words to account for the difference from what was otherwise expected.    Of course, the Right was jubilant because to them  the premature WSJ editorial:  'The Economy Rises From The Dead", (June 6-7, p. A12)  blathering "the job market heals faster than expected"  meant no further government money to be doled out to American workers.  Thereby ending further threats of encroaching "statism", or god forbid, socialism.  (Note: a same day column elsewhere in the Journal stated:"The jobs report is subject to revisions.....which given the difficulty in collecting data in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, can be enormous."

I confess that my first inclination, and Janice's, was to suspect that the BLS fudged the numbers the way they do unemployment stats in general, i.e. dropping people off the rolls if they cease job searches for 6 months.   Paul Krugman - Nobel winning economist and NY Times columnist- had a different take, however. This was expressed at the end of All In last Friday.

He warned the Right and Republicans will use the report "positive" result to  rationalize why no more stimulus checks - or continued higher unemployment checks - will be needed.  Which would be a dreadful mistake.  Because we aren't out of the dire conditions by a long shot.   As a Business & Investing piece in the WSJ Friday noted (p. B12):

"The boost from the stimulus checks most Americans received last month is already waning. A recent analysis found that people with less than $500 in their bank accounts spent nearly half their stimulus payments within ten days of receiving them,"

Meanwhile, as reported in The Denver Post Sunday (Business, p. 1K) according to Ali Wolf , chief economist with Meyers Research:

"Many consumers remain unable or unwilling to spend as they did before.  

This is serious because it is consumer spending that props up nearly 70 percent of the American economy.  But Americans are keeping their money in their wallets because they have no idea when the next income check, or stimulus check will arrive  - if at all.   As one economist put it in the Post piece (ibid.):

"Normally, savings are good, but they can be too much of a good thing in an economy that relies on consumer spending for 70 percent of its activity. Anything consistently above 15 or 20% is a dangerously high level."   (Consumer spending plunged 13.6 % in April)"

But you can't blame Americans for pulling in the spending strings -even if it means keeping the economy at low throttle - if they can't depend on congress (namely the Repukes) to cough up the extra money they need. And as Krugman noted, by the end of July all the unemployment bonus checks will also cease, leaving millions in the lurch. Combined with the GOP using the  "better" unemployment numbers to keep money tight - we may be seeing a downturn by the end of the year. As pointed out by economist Wolf (ibid.), given people expect that government support will dry up soon they are stockpiling money to get them through the months ahead.   But this will ensure a prolonged downturn and more serious 'W' -shaped recession.

Reinforcing that view, we now know-  as per a '60 Minutes' report on Sunday -  that the unemployment report was indeed bogus. As CBS' Scott Pelley reported, the BLS had admitted to a "misclassification error"  which saw an additional 5 million Americans uncounted as unemployed.  The BLS conceded the actual unemployment was three percentage points higher, or 16.3 percent - actually in line with what most serious economists believed. The highest since the great Depression.

Never mind, the GOP will still argue that it doesn't matter and the numbers are on their way to improvement, so Americans still don't need more gov't support. Well, tell that to the tens of thousands who have had to take money from  their 401(k)s to stay afloat,  such as one Heaher Semler - identified in a WSJ piece from last Friday about workers raiding retirement accounts.  As the piece noted:

"Ms. Semler withdrew $14,000 from one of two 401(k) retirement accounts she had. She used it to pay credit card bills and buy a car, keeping $3,000 for emergencies."

And Semler is one of the lucky ones given she had a retirement account to raid. Millions more Americans don't - or not enough to cover expenses, including utilities, groceries and medical.  So no wonder they are in the mode of stockpiling any money they get.   Why be surprised when Bankrate estimates that a quarter of U.S. households had no emergency savings even before the lockdowns went into effect?

Who to blame? The tight-fisted Republicans, of course! As I wrote in earlier posts the unemployment check bonuses need to continue at least through September, and at least three more stimulus checks of $1,200 each are needed.  I referred to such a program as temporary "universal basic income". 

But what is the Republicans' solution?    According to a WSJ piece from June 2, p. A5:

"Democrats want to send another round of stimulus checks to U.S. households..Republicans argue that the stimulus is to encourage people to return to work, as well as liability protections as businesses across the country reopen."

In other words, the Republicans are more concerned with protecting businesses in case employees returning to work get infected and even die from Covid-19.  Since they realize telling Americans to get their asses back to work is the way to get more $$$ carries more risk - for business, employers - if customers and workers get ill. 

Moral of the story? Don't hold yur breath for the GOP to do the right thing.  Keep stashing your money, your cash from the unemployment checks and stimulus money from CARES 1.  If that saving means a further downturn or exacerbated recession, so be it.   Blame the Repukes!

See also:

• No RV for Melania: The unemployment rate is really 3% higher than Trump claimed 

And:

• Fewer hours, less pay and more anxiety greet returning workers

And:

Conservatives and the Right | Economic Policy

Meet the Hidden Architect Behind America’s Racist Economics

Trump's Derangement On Mail Ballots Signals A Potential Effort At A November Election Coup

"BWAAHAAHAHA! We got to stop mail voting! It would be the end of me! Melania, change my diapers!"

"How is it that  this man is even president?" - Maureen Dowd, Sunday NY Times 

"So Trump is worried about his reelection prospects and eager to attack mail-in voting that pretty clearly does not give Democrats any particular leg up, raising the possibility that he is setting himself up to accuse Michigan and Nevada of rigging the system if he loses in November." - Heather Cox Richardson,  'Trump's Twitter  Threats On Voting: Is There Really A Bite Behind The Bark?', smirkingchimp.com blog

After yet another weekend with endless histrionics from a "leader" with the moral compass of a slug and self-control of a two year old on a sugar high, even closet Trumpers have to admit the obvious: The nation is saddled with a degenerate whose vile depravity and excesses know no bounds.  This is especially after we beheld the fungus -infested maggot  relentlessly using his Twitter feed to spread slurs and slander about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.  This in connection to the death of Lori Klausutis who worked for him when he was a congressman, inventing outrageous conspiracy ideations about Scarborough being somehow responsible (despite coroner's finding  it was a cardiac condition causing her to fall and hit her head on a desk).   

Even worse, this unhinged swine continued his drumbeat despite  Timothy Klausutis pleading with  Twitter  to take down the offensive Trump posts that have caused deep pain to him and his family.  But Trump, white trash vermin that he is, wouldn't hear of it. Instead ramping up his squalid attacks while drawing next to zero rebukes from the Reepos eager to look the other way as Dotard wreaks havoc.  So again what we have seen the past few days is a swine who calls himself "president" willing to spout almost anything - no matter how inflammatory or untrue - in order to be used in his tawdry political battles.  So  Timothy Klausutis has become yet more collateral damage of Trump's war against critics and we know he has lost it since the COVID-19 pandemic usurped his one sure  track to re-election. Exposing him as the grifting con man and reality show pretender resident he really is.   As the NY Times also noted:

"Among other things on Tuesday, he boasted about the rising stock market and tried to sow doubt about the results of the coming fall election that polls currently show he would lose, saying, “This will be a Rigged Election.”


  The last, of course, is tied to his endless jihad against mail ballots and voting.  His latest ploy has been to create so much turmoil, angst and confusion over mail ballots that state governors bow to his whims and whining and halt the march forward: to making mail balloting a viable option for most citizens in November.  That is, incidentally, when the COVID second wave could be at its peak - thanks to the hundreds of thousands of idiots who think masks are for Halloween, and COVID  intubation scenes in ICUs on the news are medical play acting.

According to a Denver Post piece a week ago, Trump is escalating his assaults on mail voting, with animus especially directed at states like Nevada and Michigan. The foul fungal imp, unable to bluff or intimidate the COVID virus, is trying his best to get as many states as possible to back off a move to mail ballots.  In the course of his tilting at mail ballot 'windmills' he has unloaded so many lies, tall tales and disinformation that even his GOP enablers are starting to worry he's gone too far. After all, Reepo voters like and use mail voting as much as Dem voters, as I pointed out in a previous post, e.g.

Skewering The Strawmen Surrounding Mail Voting

This is important, all Trump's huff and puff and hysteria to the contrary. For example, therein I cited  University of  Florida professor Michael McDonald - who tracks balloting in his own ex post facto research, and found that "Republicans rather than Democrats are most likely to vote by mail".  

So, in effect, the bombastic buffoon brat is trying to kneecap his own voters in the process of trying to halt blue states' efforts like in Michigan.    In regard to that state, Trump really took a brain dump as he went after Jocelyn Benson,  the Michigan Secretary of State, bellowing in one nutso tweet (cf. Denver Post, ibid.):

"Michigan sent absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of primaries and the general election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this voter fraud path!"

An hour later, the Post article notes he made similar threats to Nevada.

Several wacko aspects to note here which are germane to this discussion:  First Ms. Benson did NOT send mail ballots to Michigan residents, she sent applications for mail ballots "just as election officials have done in other states."  That also includes, btw, more than a dozen R-governed states. This alone shows Trump doesn't even know what he's talking or tweeting about before he pulls it out of his fat ass.

Second, the threats made to withhold funding, are exactly the classic impeachable offenses that professor Pamela Karlan of Stanford  cited in a House  impeachment committee hearing last fall.  In her words:

“What would you think if, when your governor asked the federal government for the disaster assistance that Congress has provided, the President responded, ‘I would like you to do us a favor.’ I’ll... send the disaster relief once you brand my opponent a criminal.” 

 That is, trying to extort a political favor  via the threat of no critical funding if said favor wasn't delivered. 

Interestingly, as the Post article points out, all this kerfuffle and flailing from Trump has occurred as polls show him trailing Biden nationally and in key swing states. In Wisconsin alone, polls take before his rage tweets showed him losing over 65 voters by nearly 18 points.  And yet Trump's own campaign staff - writing their own op-eds (D. Post May 17), also are casting baseless suspicion on mail ballots.

I refer to two Trumper campaign clowns, Jenny Ellis and Justin Clark, writing in that Post op-ed ('Mail Ballot Cheating Is Real', ibid.) claiming that: "ballot harvesting creates an environment for potential fraud and election illegitimacy"

Then targeting Democrats in our state (Colorado) for "paying ballot traffickers to go door to door to collect ballots".  It appears these two geniuses neglected to mention the most monstrous such "ballot trafficking" offense occurred in North Carolina. An investigation found that such "trafficking" had been done in the NC 9th congressional district election in 2018.

The result? Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. was indicted for tampering with mail ballots. Again, this was a GOP lackey in the service of the campaign he was seeking to help get elected. No thanks to these shenanigans the Republican Mark Harris narrowly defeated Dem candidate Dan McReady.

To my knowledge, no Dem candidate has benefited from such tampering - even in low level elections to a school board.   The two Trumper propagandists could as well have saved their time and brain power because no one here in Colo. is going to drop mail voting. It's too convenient and too important an option to be left off the table. And as one former election official responded in a Post letter to Ellis and Clark:

"Mail ballots in Colorado are totally secure. A signature is required for validation and this is always compared to the signature at voter registration. Also, a tab is provided which can be removed before mailing and allows the voter to check to see if anyone else has attempted to vote in their name."

Let's also point out, as Oregon Governor Kate Brown did on All In last week, that mail voting is safe from hacking, and also that paper record provides proof of the process being sound.   This skewers the claims of the two Trumpers that "there is a risk of losing the chain of custody of the ballots."   No, there is not, given the response of the Colorado state election official, specifically the signature and the tab to mark custody of the actual ballot. Hence, any voter can determine at any time if his ballot is being misused or copied.

Trump's fulminations are clearly also being done to deliberately undermine trust in the November general election. If he can sow enough distrust of the process, especially if mail ballots are allowed in most states, this slimey despot can try to claim the election was rigged.  As a recent NY Times article  ('Trump Sows Doubt On Voting - It Keeps Some People Up At Night') by Reid J. Epstein put it:


"The president attacked mail balloting again Sunday morning, with a baseless claim that it would lead to “the greatest Rigged Election in history.” And the Republican National Committee said on Sunday that it and other G.O.P. groups had sued to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom of California from mailing absentee ballots to all of the state’s voters... “We’re setting ourselves up for an election where neither side can concede defeat,” Professor Foley said. “That suggests that the desire to dispute the outcome is going to be higher than ever.”

The piece went on to note how Democrats and others are game planning for Trump refusing to leave the White House after a marginal Electoral College loss - and we know he'll be slaughtered in the popular vote. As for the risk of Trump not leaving office if he endures a "narrow" loss, I side with former AG Eric Holder on Real Time some weeks ago: we dispatch the Capitol police and/or SWAT teams, to remove him by force. 

In the meantime, Twitter has at least flagged Trump's false tweets about mail voting - giving an addendum 'Get the facts about mail voting'.  Well, I have provided a lot of them in this and earlier posts.  And btw, should this cockroach try remain in office after being voted out, or try to claim the election results were "rigged" , we will need Americans to erupt in fury in the streets.

See also:

• The Trump campaign isn't about winning, but setting the stage for whatever happens after he loses 

AND:

Donald Trump

Twitter Finally Takes a Step to Counter Trump’s Online Disinformation

And:

2020 Elections | Election Integrity

20 Ways Vote by Mail Could Revolutionize Our Democracy and Save Our Nation—if Election Protection Activists Make It Happen

And:

2020 Elections | Election Integrity

Trump’s Twitter Threats on Voting: Is There Really a Bite Behind the Bark?

And:

2020 Elections | Donald Trump

Trump Moves Openly to Steal the Election: Democrats Should Impeach Him Again

And:

Donald Trump

Overwhelmed and Losing, Trump Is Melting down in a Narcissistic Rage

by Joshua Holland | May 21, 2020 - 7:30am | permalink

— from Alternet