Of course. But the stakes in a democratic primary runoff when I’m perfectly happy with either of the candidates are a tad different. This would be the type of election where I voted simply for the procedural joy of exercising my franchise, rather than being concerned about or invested in the outcome.
At least in Texas votes in the Democratic primary hit record numbers for primary elections even before Election Day, even with a contest that doesn’t really thrill anybody.
This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but one of my favorite ever political headlines had to do with a statewide referendum in I think Alaska. It read, Marijuana Legalization Initiative Fails Due to Voter Apathy.
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You’re at least half-Texan.
I voted by mail for the run-off. I’m not 65 yet, either (but close), and so far Paxton’s goons haven’t found me out and rounded me up. But like Jim, I’m worried that they’re going to fuck up the by-mail vote in the general, so I suspect I’ll end up doing early voting there.
Of course you’re not 65 yet. We’re twins.
This is really bad news. Banana Republic stuff.
Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data
Hospitals have been ordered to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington, raising questions about transparency.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.
The new instructions were posted recently in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.
It’s the corollary to “if we tested less, there’d be less cases.” Now, it’s “if we control the data, the virus will disappear.”
It’s truly banana republic shit, just as the Stone commutation was, or just another day in Trump’s America. Fuck all those who voted for the POS and still support him; all this shit is your fault.
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The virus is coming for Republicans too.
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At least 9 Senate and House members have/had it:
** Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
** Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA)
** Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) (along with his wife and son)
** Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL)
** Rep. Ben McAdams (R-UT)
** Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA)
(three Democrats in the House also tested positive) -
Gov. Stitt of Oklahoma has tested positive.
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At least 26 members of Mississippi’s State Congress tested positive after they insisted on holding in-person, mask-optional legislative sessions. It was so bad that the Governor put out a warning for anyone who had been in contact with anyone working in or around Congress to get tested.
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Mike Pence landed in Louisiana the other day for a meeting about COVID with the state AG. He was informed as he landed that the meeting was cancelled because the state AG had tested positive.
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A North Carolina state senator has tested positive after attending that state’s in-person, mask-optional legislative sessions. Every member of the state legislature is being encouraged to get tested.
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The sheriff of Pinal Co., AZ - who vowed not to enforce any new COVID restrictions - has it.
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A Florida lobbyist who held an in-person, mask-free fund-raiser for the state’s GOP members tested positive, sending the GOP reps scurrying for a test.
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Herman Cain
If it all wasn’t so tragic, we could rename the virus KARMA-19.
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Also, if you hear people pricking on about heard immunity, it might not be a thing:
Covid-19 immunity from antibodies may last only months, UK study suggests
(CNN) - After people are infected with the novel coronavirus, their natural immunity to the virus could decline within months, a new pre-print paper suggests.
The paper, released on the medical server medrxiv.org on Saturday and not yet published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, suggests that antibody responses may start to decline 20 to 30 days after Covid-19 symptoms emerge. Antibodies are the proteins the body makes to fight infection.
“We show that IgM and IgA binding responses decline after 20-30 days,” the researchers from institutions in the United Kingdom wrote in the paper, which also found that the severity of Covid-19 symptoms can determine the magnitude of the antibody response.
It should be called the Trump virus.
This is what make the “herd immunity” hyenas so fucking aggravating. This does not mean that any eventual vaccine would be ineffective, or that there will be no natural resistance gained, but it does mean that any natural immunity acquired from contracting the illness is likely limited. This is the case for a number of viruses, not just SARS CoV-2. I hope it does not end up being like dengue fever which has the horrifying attribute of not only being capable of re-infecting recovered victims, each subsequent re-infection gets evermore severe.
Smallpox was not eradicated by natural herd immunity and survivors got very effective immunity upon recovery. Natural herd immunity may have been a part of pre-history, but only after massive die-offs. I know of no historical example of natural herd immunity controlling a disease like this. The 1918 influenza pandemic almost certainly ended because the virus mutated away from the deadly variant sometime in 1920.
Herd immunity is only possible with an effective vaccine, which may not happen. If one is developed, it may require regular boosters.
If a vaccine is never developed, I have faith that effective treatment will be. It may take years, but eventually there will be a pill or a shot that will keep us alive and relatively unharmed. AIDS went from a death sentence to a daily pill. I believe that something similar is possible, even likely, over the next two years.
That’s still a long time.
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Lots of technical discussion going on about this and way too early for conclusions.
Of course, but allowing controlled infection to generate herd immunity is a lazy argument against shut-downs, masks etc., which is why everyone needs to work on avoiding infection until we know the facts. Sweden famously tried this as a national policy, and suffered greatly as a result.
This is just par for the course for the Trump Administration. Mike Pence yesterday said CDC guidance shouldn’t be a reason why schools don’t reopen next month. I despise everyone in Trump’s inner circle and wish they would all enjoy long stays in prison after Trump is voted out in November. The same goes for Republican governors who worship at the altar of Trump like DeSantis, Abbott, Ricketts and Stitt.
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Of all the things I had on my OWA bingo card, ‘DVauthrin Radicalized’ was not one of them.
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It’s the 5G.
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There is something terribly, terribly wrong that this can be.
UnitedHealth posts most profitable quarter in its history
UnitedHealth Group registered more than $6.6 billion in profits in the second quarter — by far the conglomerate’s highest quarterly profit ever, according to an analysis of company financial data from FactSet.
Why it matters: Most companies struggled in the second quarter as the coronavirus pandemic froze the economy, but health insurers like UnitedHealth heavily benefited as people held off on going to the doctor or hospital, resulting in fewer medical claims that needed to be paid.
my daughter is crazy to get a 5 g phone…did not know it was contagious
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The Trump Administration’s pathetic “response” to a pandemic will do that to a person. Pretty much every day, Trump or someone in his administration does something or makes a comment that angers me.