Posts

Election Day Countdown: 4 Days

/79 Comments/in , , /by

After the phone call I just got, I have zero patience for language policing today. If you can’t stomach f-bombs, hit the the exit now.

I am goddamned sick of this tangerine-tainted blowhard and his constant incitement to violence. I am FURIOUS at his malignancy — his trash-talking about anyone who is competent and capable while he systematically fails this country.

I am just so fucking fed up with having to worry about COVID because that slack-assed corrupt sponge can’t be bothered to turn over the job of stemming the pandemic to competent people and instead finds every opportunity to siphon money off every thing he touches.

Wow, Rayne, you seem triggered…

You’re goddamned right I’m triggered. My younger kid just called and told me their boss tested positive for COVID. They’ve been in contact with their boss several times this week indoors at a retail entertainment venue, though part of those times the boss or my kid was wearing a mask.

And my spouse was in contact with the same boss at least three times in the last week, indoors, not wearing a mask all the time.

One of my BFFs was also in contact several times with the same COVID-positive person, indoors, with and without a mask.

All three — kid, spouse, friend — will have to get tested. If any of them test positive, I have to get tested, and then I have to make a bunch of phone calls to people with whom we’ve been in contact.

I’ve had three different companies here in my house doing repairs this week — two teams didn’t wear masks, one did.

My spouse met our other kid up north last weekend to go bow hunting, staying overnight with my elderly in-laws, one of whom is being treated for cancer. I dread telling my older kid about the potential exposure because they were just tested 10 days ago due to a workplace exposure; the test administrator injured my kid with the swab. Kid has a little PTSD after that episode and is reluctant to get tested any time soon.

Our financial advisor met my spouse after a multi-state road trip earlier this week — they’re on their way back across the same states. This advisor is a self-employed small business owner, has kids at home who are in a K-12 public school.

My kid’s COVID-positive boss is a small business owner — a first-time business owner who hasn’t yet finished their second full year running this operation. The business may have to shut down for two weeks depending on the rules covering their type of business.

Meanwhile, the utterly useless apricot-brained fuckwit is campaigning yet again in my state after causing a small spike in COVID cases when he campaigned here in September, spouting this kind of trash in front of his unmasked mouth-breathing base:

God damn it.

My kid’s boss, somebody we’ve known for years, one of my spouse’s friends, is now part of today’s COVID statistics.

For all I know my kid’s boss may have a second wave infection from the September campaign rally. Nobody is making money here off that wave of infection. Nobody will make money off the second wave.

Unless you’re an executive or stockholder of Regeneron up to this week’s problems with phase 2/3 trials of COVID therapy drug remdesivir, that is. What a pity for Trump’s Briarcliff member, Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer.

How the hell is this country supposed to return to normal if it never makes a sustained effort to stop COVID’s spread?

How is the economy supposed to turn around when the one person who could apply the powers of the executive branch to effectively end the pandemic, persists in undermining the states’ efforts, incites seditious acts against states, and actively spreads COVID by holding rallies which are not socially distanced or mask-mandatory?

How is this country supposed to simply muddle through without leadership to a safe and effective vaccine which may be one to two years away?

Vote that fucking hacktastic moron out of office in four days if you haven’t already cast a vote.

Help others vote that stupid orange fuckweasel out of the White House if you have already voted.

Do it for the 228,701 Americans who have died from COVID, and all the families who have to put up with this unending COVID circus.

October Surprise: Didn’t Have COVID-19 on the Bingo Card [UPDATE-2]

/331 Comments/in , , /by

[NB: Check the byline, thanks! Updates, if any, will appear at the bottom of the post. / ~Rayne]

So…back on August 22, I asked folks to offer their best bets on what Team Trump would pull for an October Surprise given the long history of such election gaming in American presidential politics.

I suspected Team Trump would try to force both the Durham investigation to announce a skewed finding, and development of a COVID-19 vaccine through testing and approval by some time in October.

But I didn’t have Trump testing positive for COVID-19 on the bingo card of possible surprises.

Only one community member, Terrapin, saw that as a possibility (and not with a good outcome).

But after all the squirrelly reporting around Hope Hicks’ positive test earlier on Thursday, it wasn’t clear when Trump and his wretched wife were tested and with what kind of test.

Is this being gamed, too?

Trump managed to shoot himself in the foot politically again by blaming military personnel as the source of Hicks’ infection:

… Trump suggested Hicks could have contracted it from members of the military or law enforcement.

“It is very, very hard when you are with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them,” the president said. “You get close, and things happen. I was surprised to hear with Hope, but she is a very warm person with them. She knows there’s a risk, but she is young.” …

Exposure to COVID-19 didn’t cause that kind of stupid.

The situation is annoying no matter how much anyone may like/dislike Trump. He’s still the White House’s occupant, still the president and commander-in-chief even if the means by which he came to those roles has been in question since day one. The American people deserve better transparency about the health of the person occupying the White House and whether he is or isn’t incapacitated at any time.

The other challenge before us: After mocking his opponent for wearing a mask, Trump was on stage this week with Joe Biden, and neither wore masks during their debate. Trump spent a lot of time pushing aerosols as he spoke and may have been contagious.

A whole host of other problematic scenarios emerge:

The October Surprise may be one we never thought of or planned for in August.

What other fresh surprises should we expect this month before the election?

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 12:00 P.M. 02-OCT-2020 —

No, fuck no. This Brit needs to do some basic research, like reading the U.S. Constitution before flapping off like this.

Trump tried to float this same lead balloon back in April. Not going to happen; that’s why he attacked the U.S. Post Office to damage its capacity to handle ballots on a timely basis.

Rick Hasen has already written about the possibility Trump leaves office due to illness or death before the election, and how that might be handled.

LOL GMTA

Just wish I knew how they’re going to wrap up this season — will it be a series finale?

Would be nice to know how to hedge this. My retirement fund is getting seasickness from all the ups and downs.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 7:00 P.M. 02-OCT-2020 —

Trump has been taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. His doctor says he’s been given Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody infusion — a drug cocktail which is still in testing phase. Earlier reports said Trump was running a low grade temperature.

Look, it’s time for media people to do a better job of reporting by which I mean GET THE TIMELINE OF EVENTS.

Did the temperature come on before/after going to Walter Reed?

Was the infusion administered before/after going to Walter Reed?

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Going through Twitter I can piece together part of the answers:

Mid-day — Trump did not attend a conference call for which he was scheduled; VP Pence attended in his place a planned discussion about COVID-19 support for at-risk seniors.

4:11 p.m. — Press Sec McEnany released via Twitter a copy of a memo from Trump’s physician, Sean P. Conley. Conley wrote that Trump received the Regeneron infusion as a precautionary measure.

4:18 p.m. — NBC News reported President Trump has a low-grade fever.

5:19 p.m. — CNN reported Trump would be transported to Walter Reed.

6:17 p.m. — CNN’s Jim Acosta reported Trump didn’t take questions as he walked to helicopter Marine One.

Based on what little I pulled together, it looks like Trump received an experimental drug administered by IV at the White House, that he continued to experience symptoms typical of COVID-19 including a temperature, and that he was then moved to Walter Reed.

Something is still missing in this tick-tock. Why did the President of the United States receive an experimental drug? When was it administered today, or was it administered last night before/immediately after the positive test was reported? Why was he moved to Walter Reed after the infusion rather than before it was administered?

Were they waiting for the goddamned market to close before they revealed he received this drug therapy? Or that they decided to move him to Walter Reed?

Pay attention to the timing.

And note the black holes: there’s no mention of hydroxychloroquine, no mention of Gilead’s remdesivir (though this may not be administered this early in the illness and only to more seriously ill patients).