American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 31 of 57)

One person shows up to the anti Twitter purpose on Trump’s behalf.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/2222 … latforming

Like now. The election has been certified. It's over. Why are we still waiting around for inauguration?

I know why, it's because of a law written when jet travel and interstates didn't exist and it actually took weeks to move about the country.

That day is over. It's time we caught up with the rest of the civilized world.

It should be...

First Tuesday in Nov: Election Day!

Second Tuesday in Nov: Electors vote in their states

Third Tuesday in Nov: Congress certifies the electoral count

Third Wednesday in Nov: Inauguration Day!

Well, it ultimately didn’t serve him, but I’m sure Al Gore appreciated having some time for recounts in 2000.

pilight is right. One psycho in the White House is reason enough to fix the rules. The next president with a vindictive streak for losing an election might not be as stupid, incompetent and inept as Donald Trump.

That's why I suggested getting it done before Thanksgiving.

The electoral college meets whenever the law tells them to.  It can be changed.  We don't need six weeks for the electors to travel to the state capitol by stagecoach anymore.

Seeing that Biden’s stimulus plan includes the promised $15 minimum wage (including tipped minimum).

People do understand that this change will just cause the price of everything to double?  The quality of life of the Burger King employee will improve zero - they’ll be exactly where they are now.  However, salaried workers not under a minimum wage will see no pay raise while facing the new double prices.  It will effectively cut salaried worker income in half.

There is no gain in this scenario.  Only loss.

With my viewpoint, it really comes down to this - if businesses could handle this ethically, then the federal government wouldn’t need to force them to increase wages.  Just look at Jeff Bezos - he’s playing a numbers game at this point and doesn’t need the money; but he’s not passing it along to his employees.  Bezos would rather have the “high score”.

The owners of these businesses never lose.  They don’t cut their salaries or their bonuses; they do whatever it takes to keep their income level or increase it; and to do that, they either lay off workers or increase prices.

Though it has its own problems, a government managed living wage to supplement hourly pay would probably work better.  Such an idea could spread out the cost more evenly in a population through taxes.  Salaried workers would still lose purchasing power as taxes take part of their income, but it wouldn’t be half.  The two main problems with a living wage program are trusting the government to manage it well (which is rare); and wealth could also run from the US to avoid even the smallest tax increase.  Again, business always wins.

There will always be variations and outliers to behavior, but I truly believe most businesses do not want to help people even a little.  If they did want to help, they would be doing it now.

In truth, I don’t like it; but something is going to change now, so it’s choosing the best of those options.

It would be easier for me to swallow the basic income idea as long as it’s handled like our unemployment system where you must show you are trying to get a job in order to receive the benefit.  I don’t want people sitting around doing nothing and getting paid as much as the people working their tails off.  That’s fundamentally not fair.

Well, for anyone over 67, I’d want them to be able to do nothing.

For anyone under 67, I think universal basic income would also need universal housing that’s like the student dorms I used to live in — a bed and shared showers and bathrooms for an entire floor — so that if you did nothing, you wouldn’t be on the street, but you wouldn’t have any luxuries without employment to build them.

That said, I don’t subscribe to the idea that the unemployed in this economy (and pandemic) choose not to work.

I wonder who’ll be right on this. Temporal Flux’s intellect is greater than mine, but that also means his errors are correspondingly larger. Slider_Quinn21 knows more than I do, but he has been on opposite ends of this argument.

Anyway, if Temporal Flux is right about minimum wage, I will fly out to his town to buy him dinner at the Olive Garden and if Slider_Quinn21 turns out to be right, I will fly out to Austin and buy him dinner at the Alamo Drafthouse (or whatever equivalent of these institutions exist by the time going to America is anything but some sort of weird suicide pact).

TLDR: If you're currently using cotton masks, it's time to switch to medical grade masks with liquid resistant layers, electrostatic filtering and a nose wire to seal the mask to your face. COVID-19's developed some highly contagious variants with higher viral load.

Very concerned about masks right now. Anti-maskers like our suicidal death cultist Kyle declare that masks don't work, don't prevent COVID-19 -- but the reality is that it depends on the mask.

When the pandemic first hit, North America was unprepared, supplies of medical grade masks were needed for hospitals, so the population was encouraged not to use up the supply. As a stopgap measure, non-health workers were later asked to wear non-medical face coverings; masks made of cotton with earloops.

I don't believe these face masks protect the wearer. I've been examining them closely and when I hold cotton face masks up to a dim lightbulb, I can see the outline of all the threads. Droplets containing the COVID-19 virus wouldn't be stopped by an absorbent layer of cotton that has gaps visible to the human eye.

They would protect the person around the wearer, however, in that if the wearer coughed or sneezed, the large sized droplets from their mouth would be blocked by their own mask. Which is why it helps if people wear them: they prevent a COVID-carrier from transmitting even if they themselves are unprotected.

During the shortages, my mother was wearing disposable non-surgical masks -- these masks look like a surgical mask but made of what's basically tissue which has the same failing as a cotton mask: no resistance to droplet absorbsion. And unlike a cotton mask, these disposables were too thin to be washed and reused. A cotton mask could at least be reused after being sprayed with disinfectant.

I did, however, find a way to augment cotton masks by slipping in a PM 2.5 activated charcoal filter. Positioned over the nose and mouth, the filter could block any droplets that passed through the mask. However, this still leaves a problem: cotton cloth masks lack a nose wire to clamp the mask over the bridge of the nose. Without a clamping wire, there is a gap on both sides of the nose where droplets can make it in, possibly slipping past the charcoal filter. And worse, my mother would never remember to put in the filter if it fell out.

The cloth masks with filters have been adequate, likely reducing viral load in any exposures. However, we're now seeing new variants of COVID that are more transmissible -- but I still see people on the streets and in grocery stores with cloth mask after cloth mask -- often intricately patterned or colour coordinated to their clothes -- and with medical grade masks now more available, I think it's time to move from adequate protection to the best possible protection.

I'm on a rotation of KN95 masks with a charcoal filter added. KN95s have a full seal around the entire perimeter of the mask. My mother says she can't breathe through them. I've put her on a rotation of surgical masks -- these are 3-layer masks with water-blocking layer upfront, an electrostatic layer underneath to catch any particles, a cotton layer against the face, a nose wire for sealing, and I've clipped in charcoal filters for her as well. These surgical masks aren't as tight as the KN95, but it's the best mask that I can get her to wear.

The trouble with these masks: if you spray them with disinfectant, they lose the hydrophobic and electrostatic properties. So after using each mask, I put them in a paper bag marked with the day of the week and let them sit there for a minimum of 72 hours for any virus on it to die.

I still have a bunch of cotton masks with a filter and I'll use them if passing through the hallway of my condo building to check mail or take out garbage and recycling because there are few if any people around, but I wouldn't wear these for any situation with more than one other person present.

COVID-19 is spreading more easily and the new variants have more viral load. We can't count on cotton anymore. I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's coils, Wade's leather jacket, Rembrandt's new boots and the Professor's waistcoats that the personal views of ireactions do not reflect the -- wait, you know what? This is not a personal opinion. This is a statement of fact. Friends, protect yourselves and those around you. Get the good masks.

Places like Walmart love the $15 minimum wage because it busts unions and lets them wring their hands over laying off people in favor of automation.

UBI is fantastic and should be for everyone. This comes from a Ron Paul Republican.

Andrew Yang is running for NYC mayor. Hope this is the start of something amazing.

QAnon weeps that Trump didn't have some masterplan to stop Biden's inauguration, founder gives up.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/2 … day-460926

Domestic terrorists shocked that Trump wouldn't pardon the cons and marks he got to riot in his name to try to stop electoral votes counting, astonished that Trump only pardoned those from whom he hopes to get money or help avoiding prison.

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/01/20/cap … didnt-get/

Local SLIDERS fan relieved that he accurately predicted that Trump would give up and spend his final days in the White House eating hamburgers and French fries and looking at the ceiling in bed.

http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?pid=11034#p11034

Oh thank God. Criticism time!

Biden's vaccine plans are pedestrian at best. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2224 … n-100-days

Very interesting article on minimum wage.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019 … -be-raised

Not sure if its assertions are true. It could certainly just be telling me what I want to hear.

**

I upset someone today. I logged onto a Discord to ask a blogger whose work I enjoy if he'd be reviewing Something. The channel was expressing a lot of grief over the disaster zone that is America right now. I thought I could say something kind by sharing the values I've generally absorbed from CAPTAIN AMERICA comic books -- that Americans are good people who have an incredible capacity to work together to solve their problems, that they have, like any society, made some disastrous choices, but that the American ideal of equality and freedom from monarchs and feudalism and a strong middle class and leadership chosen by people rather than birth is something special and I'm sure that America will find its way again.

The blogger told me that such views of American exceptionalism were repulsive and appalling and offensive that he would ban me from his channel if I kept typing and would likely ban me from his channel regardless and I thanked him for his writing and left and won't go back.

I guess I misread that. I was -- I thought -- being polite in that when your friends (or people with whom you wish to be friendly) are upset, you highlight their strengths and express confidence that they can solve their problems. But I'm going to have to rethink whether or not it's the crowdpleaser I thought it was to say that "Americans are good people who will pull together."

Realistically and truthfully, Americans are an alarmingly white-centric, prejudiced society hostile to objective scientific information and inexplicably certain that genetic origins make them exempt from any consequences after engaging in assault, armed insurrection, bioterrorism -- but Americans are also a nation of scientific minded engineers, civil rights leaders, thinkers, philanthropists, social justice activists, public servants and people who believe that they can govern themselves (even if they often screw it up).

No other society would have created the superhero. As a neighbour to America, I sometimes watch in consternation and dismay, but I also look on at times with admiration and respect and I think any friendship will see the pendulum swing back and forth between the two. I do believe in American exceptionalism -- but I believe that every society has some point of exceptionality. I don't believe in exclusive exceptionalism.

The vaccines haven't been approved for children, which makes 300M impossible.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/3 … eam-464017

Trump has lost his impeachment defence lawyers. Not that it matters. He could just represent himself. Senate won't vote to convict him.

He could not show up at all and he still wouldn't get convicted

Biden is a politician and he signed up to be hurt. Everyone should feel free to take a swing at him. It's the president's job to be the country's punching bag; it is without question the worst job in America and Biden is a deeply average and mediocre human being (as are most of us).

My question is -- will a Trump trial hurt the people? Or will it help them? Will it heal the country? Or will it deepen its wounds?

I honestly don't know, you're a deeply polarized nation.

Biden's administration is trying to work out how to mail masks to every home in America. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurk … ts-spread/

I recently had to give away my entire supply of KN95 masks. My sister had been insisting that my mother start double masking with two surgical masks, my mother protested she couldn't breathe. In the summer, I'd done fit tests with her for KN95 masks, but she said she couldn't breathe through them. But she tried one on now and this time, she could breathe through them. A KN95 with an added PM2.5 filter is six layers, superior to any double mask, and as a senior, if she can wear a KN95, it's the only one she should wear.

I'm currently wearing surgical mask a with PM2.5 filter, repossessed from my mother. My face is odd: surgical masks sit loosely at the sides on most people, but for me, they sit securely without gaps and even moreso with the filter under the mask. I also have three layer cotton cloth masks with a filter pocket. But I feel safer with the surgical mask because with a PM2.5, that's two layers of electrostatic filtering when a cotton mask with a filter pocket only has one electrostatic layer. Except the cotton mask with a filter pocket also has adjustable earloops to wear the mask tonight and really press the filter against the mouth and nostrils for a tighter seal and I'm not sure which one is better.

White House deputy press secretary gets to scream abuse at female reporter in exchange for a week off work:
https://theslot.jezebel.com/white-house … 1846261023

And here we are. The Biden administration turns out to be a political enterprise dedicated to protecting its own.

Witnesses weren't called -- and I don't see what good it would have done. Trump was not going to be impeached successfully. Republicans remain in thrall to their cult leader. But Trump will be investigated for electoral interference in Georgia and financial fraud in New York and there could be a strong case for negligent homicide as well.

**

I've come to the conclusion that between my cloth masks with a PM2.5 filter and my surgical masks, the surgical masks provide the most filtration through their electrostatic properties. The cloth mask may seal more firmly to the face, but the electrostatic filtering is limited to the surface area of the filter which is smaller than the mask that holds it. In contrast, the surgical mask has electrostatic filtering across its entire surface.

I was listening to Tracy Torme's January 2021 Dark Matters podcast and he had some interesting political views.

https://www.spreaker.com/user/kgra/dmr0 … io-tracy-t

Torme said that he felt that the virus had been politicized; that now, someone's masking identifies where they stand politically. He added that his family has been split down the middle by the virus; he has a sister who is very strict and obsessive about masking and sanitizing and social distancing from all friends and family. Meanwhile, he has other family members who dismiss any precautions with the two extremes ripping them apart.

Tracy says that he himself is "in the middle" in that he "takes it seriously" but doesn't obsess. He then described how, for I AM LEGEND, he did a lot of research on pandemics: ebola, smallpox and how horrifying those pandemics were in the past. Torme also described how he recently invited an apparently homeless person to move in with him and his wife for the pandemic.

The host seemed to be a fervent Trump supporter. It was interesting: the host said Biden was ridiculous to ban referencing COVID-19 as the "China virus"; Torme remarked that the Constitution protected free speech. The host said he quit watching football after seeing football players kneeling for the national anthem; Torme said he didn't like people hating on America but could never stop watching football. The host said Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was overblowing her claim that Ted Cruz tried to murder her; Torme replied that while he grew up a Democrat, he finds that Democrats have been radicalized into a lie of wokeness, that the label racism has been vastly overexpanded, and that Democrats have stumbled into an ill-advised love affair with communism and a destructive disdain for capitalism. Torme also wondered if then-President Trump would be able to reveal the truth about UFOs.

Torme seemed to pick up points of discussion in his Trump-supporting friend where he had his own parallel opinions and points of intersection, but I couldn't entirely tell if he agreed or disagreed in his responses touching on adjacent matters and his love for America and the US Constitution. However, someone who isn't aware of Torme's Libertarian politics and healthy disdain for both sides of the political spectrum might mistake his responses as support for Trumpism, just as quotes of Torme declaring himself a radical leftist in past interviews might give the wrong impression that he's a Democrat.

He reminded me of Temporal Flux saying here that he watches both CNN and FOX and finds his answers in the middle.

I wonder if this ability to position himself in the middle is why Torme had and has such a gift for social commentary that is subtle and amusing and artful. As much as I love SOUTH PARK, SOUTH PARK only speaks to people already in agreement with SOUTH PARK. Torme's writing gives you something to think about, but it doesn't tell you what to think.

TOM: "Hey, I got some bad news -- I got your package, but the envelope was ripped open and it was empty!"

IB: "Damn. I'll send you the flash drive again."

TOM: "I tell you, our post office system is really bad these days! Trump made so many cuts to it. It was rough before that too!"

IB: "I am so sorry, Tom. It is entirely my fault. I had a chance for Quinn Mallory to take Donald Trump down back in 2016 and I chose not to use it, that's on me."

I envy you both. I don't expect to be vaccinated until July. Until then... well, it's all about masks for me.

I've been obsessively fit-testing my mother and I've come to the conclusion that the duck-bill shaped KN95 mask, despite four layers of filtering and a 360 seal design -- well, it just doesn't fit my mother's face properly. It's always leaving gaps around her nose after she walks or speaks. Her face and cheeks have an unusual structure that just shifts any mask she wears from breathing and moving. A mask that doesn't seal is a mask that can't protect.

I got her some KF94 masks. Imagine a KN95 duck-bill mask with an unexpanded surgical mask worn on top of it. A KF94 mask is designed to have those two pieces stitched together. Unfortunately, these masks also shifted off her nose and created gaps after a few steps and a few breaths.

I have gotten my mother 25 three-ply surgical masks. The large surface area of these masks means that they can shift on her face without letting the air through. And this is the only kind of mask that firmly wraps around her face without gaps. I've put in PM2.5 filters to add to the protection.

And I myself now have 25 KN95 masks, 50 KF94 masks, and about 60 PM2.5 filters for my own use. Seventy five high filtration masks isn't the same as a vaccine, but it's what I've got.

When time, work and travel restrictions permit, I would actually like to visit Austin, Texas. It's one of my favourite cities in the world on account of the TV show FAKING IT taking place there and I would of course want to take you and your family to dinner followed by dinner again at the Alamo Drafthouse.