[golden child]

I love life

[h8kurdt]

When Donald Trump tweeted: “Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu”, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy responded, also on Twitter with: “This is a lie. The flu doesn’t kill 100,000 a year.”

The United States has the world’s highest death toll from the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths. By comparison, influenza typically kills between some 22,000 and 64,000 people a year in the United States.

[LifeDistortion]

Trump just told his Republican aides to stop negotiating for Coronavirus relief for the American people until post election. Tell me how we shouldn't wish this man harm when he continues to enact it with every possible opportunity on his part. Vote this motherfucker out, so the American people can not have to constantly be hurt by a president who cares nothing for the people.

[Savage Clone]

Aww Stephen Miller has it. Poor baby total fucking asshole who denied it when his own grandmother died from this.....

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showpost.php?postcount=1354&p=1405085

Imagine being such a brain-dead deluded bigot. I (and everyone with a modicum IQ) could demolish every single stupidity posted by you there, but enough is enough. Life isn't only too short, it's already too fucked up to waste it on little bitches several sandwiches short of a picnic. We have real problems to worry about.

[The Soup Nazi]

Opinion piece in The Guardian, which I'm posting now because if I don't smile I'll vomit:

After Donald Trump's deranged balcony address, we're all gasping together

The president tells us he beat coronavirus like a man: the kind who takes all the best drugs and leaves everyone else exposed

By Marina Hyde
Tue 6 Oct 2020 13.20 BST
Last modified on Wed 7 Oct 2020 00.15 BST

A rare moment of unity in the US election, as Donald Trump marked his return to the White House by gasping along with his detractors. On Monday night, the president puffed up the front staircase of his residence, his face coated in several more gallons of paint than the front elevation of the building. “Don’t let it dominate your lives,” he panted of the virus, a bad case of which tends to dominate your death.

Yet there he was, this hideous kink in the arc of history, giving the most dangerous balcony performance since Michael Jackson had his baby crowdsurf off one. The American people are all Blanket now.

As for the optics, “deranged balcony address” is certainly a look – but not one that tends to end well. How might this version turn out? Unfortunately, it’s not a question Trump’s attention span equips him to answer. His reference points for the form are the occasional three minutes of historical documentaries he’s forced to watch while searching his stomach-folds for the TV remote. It feels like he switches over to Fox News before discovering how a whole series of 20th-century balcony stories ended.

Still: don’t call him Wussolini. He beat this illness – which he still very much has – like a man. One of the really manly ones, who takes all the best drugs and leaves everyone else exposed and misled and unprotected. Even so, early reactions to the gasping spectacle suggest the move could only have backfired more if Trump had ascended the front steps via a hastily installed stairlift carrying a pack of adult diapers.

Once he’d wheezed through the unpleasantries, all that remained was to remove his mask and set about infecting any remaining staff yet to be exposed to his droplets. Think of Trump as the 83rd Airborne, parachuting his deadly particles deep into butlers’ respiratory systems. He won’t give you a Purple Heart, but he might give you purple lungs.

Alas, it’s disappointing to find potential victims failing to feel grateful for the opportunity. One current secret service agent assigned to the first family’s detail expressed frustration, telling CNN: “We’re not disposable.” Two housekeeping staff have already tested positive for the virus. As the events of the past week show, the president’s respect for human life is so low that he is willing to send an entire army of servants into 14-day isolation or worse in order to keep up a steady stream of trans-fats being fed to him. Dying in the line of duty used to mean taking a bullet for the president; it could now involve taking him a Diet Coke. Thank you for your drinks service.

As for how Trump spent the rest of his evening, I assume it was straight on to the monstrous leaders’ WhatsApp to josh with the other bros about how they kill their underlings. RocketmanKim loves a firing squad, Vlad69’s a huge chemicals guy, but Trump just clears his throat while being brought his fourth burger of the day. Boom! “I cough on them like a bitch! When you’re famous you can do that.”

Face it, he’s absolutely bossing the likes of Kim and Xi and MBS in the fantasy evildoer leagues. It’s not that the other guys don’t have lethal motorcades and abysmal interiors taste and balcony addresses and death cults and doctors who mislead the world. But doing them in a democracy – well, that makes it triple points.

Speaking of physicians who really need to heal themselves, what a striking misinformation campaign it’s been from presidential medic Sean Conley, who has been continually obfuscating about Trump’s condition since calling his symptoms “mild”, only for even the White House to contradict him. For me, that’s the new low. Of course, we now expect the president of the United States to lie as default – to tell us black is white, or up is down, or to claim he never said something he’s on camera saying. But for a professional and senior doctor to mislead apparently without remorse shows how necrotic the body politic has become, from the very top down. The lying, the reality-denying is not a one-off case – it’s the other epidemic.

In fact, it’s kind of amazing that conspiracy theorists have lined up so supportively behind Trump, when he’s really the most convincing proof yet of all their worst fears. The Man really is lying to them, he really is wicked, and he really does want to kill them. The damning evidence is right there in front of everyone. Only, instead of begging Oliver Stone to make a film about it, they want to give Trump a second term.

Like me, you probably hate to see a conspiracist wimp out of their beliefs just when it’s coming up roses for them. It’s as if the moon landing hoaxers were signing over their life savings to Nasa, or the flat Earthers booking a round-the-world ticket. So come on, guys – back yourselves! After all, if not now, then when?

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by LifeDistortion

Trump just told his Republican aides to stop negotiating for Coronavirus relief for the American people until post election. Tell me how we shouldn't wish this man harm when he continues to enact it with every possible opportunity on his part. Vote this motherfucker out, so the American people can not have to constantly be hurt by a president who cares nothing for the people.

Another one of those "I don't get how anyone can defend this move". Certainly doesn't benefit him saying it anyway.

[!@#$%!]

Opinions
I’m a former Secret Service executive. The willingness to put agents in danger is inexcusable.

Opinion by Joseph Petro
Oct. 6, 2020 at 2:46 p.m. EDT

Joseph Petro is a former special agent and senior executive with the Secret Service.


I served as a special agent and senior executive in the Secret Service for 23 years, including in supervisory roles under President Ronald Reagan and Vice President Dan Quayle. During my time with Reagan, we required the agents to wear protective vests whenever they accompanied the president outside the White House. These vests were very uncomfortable, but everyone understood and accepted the need to wear them. On a number of occasions, I asked the president to wear one. His response was similar to that of the agents, but he never refused to wear the vest.

We did this because the safety of our agents and those we were protecting was always our highest priority. Today, it seems, that is not always the case.

The most recent example is President Trump’s decision over the weekend to take a ride in a Chevrolet Suburban around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for the sole purpose of waving to those gathered along a street. Given the president’s covid-19 infection, this was a gratuitous and dangerous political exercise that needlessly exposed his Secret Service agents — as well as their families — to the potentially deadly novel coronavirus. Where was the Secret Service senior management? Did anyone resist this potential danger to these agents and perhaps their families? It was an avoidable risk, and someone should have objected.

That was by no means the first time Secret Service agents have been put in danger. Our nation’s health professionals have consistently advised that wearing protective masks in public places is the single most important protection against covid-19. The president, however, has politicized compliance with this recommendation. He has refused to wear a mask on nearly all occasions, and his staff and most attendees at his rallies follow his example. The inevitable result has been the surge in positive cases among the president’s staff and other associates.

I have noticed that the Secret Service agents assigned to the president have also not been wearing protective masks. This is very disappointing. I can tell you from experience that wearing a protective mask is not nearly as uncomfortable as wearing a protective vest. The unfortunate irony is that an agent is much more likely to be exposed to someone with the coronavirus than to a bullet being fired toward the president.

I hold the management of the Secret Service responsible for this inexcusable lack of concern for the lives of the agents and their families. These agents attend a presidential event surrounded by staff members, including the president, and thousands of attendees not wearing protective masks and then return home that night, potentially exposing their families and their local communities to this deadly virus.

The Secret Service has had the responsibility to protect our president since 1901, when it began protecting Theodore Roosevelt in the aftermath of the McKinley assassination. In all the years since then, the agency has recognized the importance of training agents to keep them safe. What has happened to that commitment?

I would hope the Secret Service would reflect on the decades of effort made to protect the agents in the performance of their important duties and require them to wear masks. The Secret Service cannot protect the president from himself, but its management has a solemn responsibility to protect those agents who put their lives on the line every day to protect him. It should not be that hard to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...-joseph-petro/

[The Soup Nazi]

USA Today publishes nifty opinion pieces from time to time. And by conservatives, at that. Whoulda thunk.

The only bright spot in Trump's Soviet-style COVID-19 strategy is that it's not working

Trump is telling America to ignore basic COVID protocols and believe in miracle cures that don't exist. He couldn’t care less about risking their lives.

Tom Nichols
Opinion columnist
Published 4:00 a.m. ET Oct 7, 2020

Over the past few days, we have seen the sickly gasps, literally, of a fading authoritarian regime. A brush with a potentially mortal illness might change other men, but not President Donald Trump, whose immaturity and selfishness are as immutable as the elements themselves. Other men might have spoken to a concerned nation with empathy and reassurance. Trump play-acted the part of a petty dictator, mugging and saluting for the cameras.

When the president climbed the stairs to the Truman Balcony — named for one of the many far better men to occupy the White House — and stood there gulping for air and pantomiming bravery, observers saw many images, from Mussolini to Pinochet. Broadway star Patti Lupone, who won a Tony for her portrayal of Eva Peron, had perhaps the best reaction. “I still have the lung power,” she tweeted, “and I wore less makeup. This revival is closing November 3rd.”


Trump is like a fading Soviet leader

But I saw something else. I had a flashback to my early career studying the old Soviet Union, and in Trump I saw the fading Soviet leaders who climbed to the top of Lenin’s Tomb, gamely waving and putting on a brave face as their health and grip on power slipped away from them. Trump was Leonid Brezhnev or Konstantin Chernenko, but this time struggling to take in the muggy night breeze in Washington instead of the frigid and polluted air of Moscow.

And this Washington version of the old Kremlin is the pathetic station to which the United States has been reduced in the waning days of Trump’s misrule. We have a paranoid leader who will do anything to hold on to power, including squashing any talk of allowing his second in command to act in his stead even for a day. (Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush allowed such temporary transfers for health reasons.) The White House is now a bunker, administered by a cult of personality whose disciples treat the Boss’s health as a secret, while the favored television networks of the state air cheery obfuscations about the president’s strength and selfless devotion to country.

Meanwhile, the president’s medical team sounds like the doctors from the Soviet Ministry of Health. They are all very honored,they made sure to tell us, to be on the great leader’s medical team. The president is a “phenomenal patient” and we must all do our part to keep up the happy talk. You could hear the echoes of the old USSR as Physician to the President Sean Conley gave his reports.

“Comrades. The president is a strong man, and he has a slight flu, as many of us do here in Moscow. The Central Clinical Hospital here in the Kremlin has the best care in our nation, and he is receiving drugs developed by our scientists that are available nowhere else in the world. His fever and the condition of his lungs are, as I am sure you understand, a matter of state security, and we will not be discussing them. The president is attending to matters of state even in his suite, and indeed, we have cautioned his aide, Comrade Meadows, to stop trying to give him yet more work!”

After these farcical briefings, Trump returned to the White House and he and his claque continued his assaults on science and the public’s health. He pulled off his mask like a spoiled toddler pulls off his shoes after being told he has to wear them for the grownups. He overcame the virus — “maybe I’m immune,” he mused, as infections continue to rip through the West Wing — while Sen. Marsha Blackburn tweeted that the president has “once again defeated China,” a moment of cringe-worthy sycophancy that managed to stand out in a week full of such embarrassments.


When did Trump know he had COVID?

And while Joe Biden pulled negative ads against Trump while the president was in the hospital, Trump got right back to business. “I’m back!” he said in a fundraising note sent shortly after he checked out of Walter Reed. “Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life! This is the greatest country in the world, and under the Trump Administration, we have developed some really great drugs and knowledge. WE WILL BEAT THIS, TOGETHER!”

Millions of people are heading into the cold weather and facing both the coronavirus and the flu. The president, like all authoritarians, couldn’t care less about the risk to the lives of the citizens under his charge. At the end of weeks of mendacity, evasion and outright lying — we still don’t know when Trump first knew he had the virus — the American president is calling on his followers to ignore basic health protocols and instead to believe in miracle cures that do not exist. (As for Mrs. Trump, who also tested positive, she has vanished from the public eye, just like the Soviet wives of old.)

The only bright spot in all this is that none of it seems to be working. The president is falling behind in the polls and his path to reelection is, at least at this point, vanishing. If this really were the old Soviet Union, we would all have to wait for our televisions to start playing nothing but classical music, after which we would find out who was chosen as our new leader.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for Fox or OAN to start playing “Swan Lake.” We can vote and bring this sad detour into the Soviet past to a quick, democratic, and very American end.

Tom Nichols is the author of The Death of Expertise, a senior adviser to The Lincoln Project and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

[The Soup Nazi]

"Prove it / Just the FACTS / Confidential..."

Almost four years into this psychotic horrorshow (plus the campaign!), it's still remarkable how these people remain so incompetent that they can't even get their bullshit together. From FactCheck.org:

Timeline of Contradictory Statements on Trump’s Health

By Eugene Kiely and Jessica McDonald
Posted on October 5, 2020

Since President Donald Trump announced on Oct. 2 that he had tested positive for COVID-19, White House staff and the president’s physicians have provided confusing and at times contradictory information about the president’s health.

Trump’s medical team has portrayed his illness as relatively mild and improving, but also has shared details that would suggest the president may be sicker than they have described.

Here, we share what was said when and highlight instances in which information was not relayed with full accuracy or transparency.

Thursday, Oct. 1

Evening

Between 9 and 10 p.m. — Trump tells Fox News’ Sean Hannity: “I’ll get my test back either tonight or tomorrow morning. But, you know, I spend a lot of time with Hope, and so does the first lady,” in confirming that White House counselor Hope Hicks had tested positive. But before the Hannity interview, Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 using a rapid-results test, the Wall Street Journal later reported. He was awaiting the results on a more accurate test.

Friday, Oct. 2

Morning

12:54 a.m. — In a tweet, the president announces he has tested positive for COVID-19. “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”

1:06 a.m. — Shortly after Trump’s announcement, the White House releases a memo dated Oct. 1 from the president’s doctor, Navy physician Sean P. Conley. “This evening I received confirmation that both President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 virus,” Conley says. He also says, “The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.” But those plans changed later in the day.

Afternoon

About 1:45 p.m. — In remarks to reporters, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany says the president is “hard at work despite the mild symptoms.”

About 4 p.m — In a late afternoon memo, Conley provides a second update on the president’s condition and treatment. “As of this afternoon, the President remains fatigued but in good spirits.” But, he adds, “as a precautionary measure he received a single 8 gram dose of Regeneron’s polyclonal antibody cocktail.”

“In addition to the polyclonal antibodies, the President has been taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin,” Conley says. There was no mention of the president receiving supplemental oxygen, which the public did not learn about until Sunday.

About 5 p.m. — Trump is taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In a statement, the press secretary describes the president as being in “good spirits” with “mild symptoms.” McEnany says, “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days.”

Evening

11:34 p.m. — The White House issues a third medical update from Conley. In the memo, Conley says that as of “this evening” Trump is “doing very well” but he had recommended that the president be moved to Walter Reed “for further monitoring.” Conley adds, “He is not requiring any supplemental oxygen, but in consultation with specialists we have elected to initiate Remdesivir therapy. He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably.” In fact, Trump did receive supplemental oxygen that day.

Saturday, Oct. 3

Morning

At a late morning press briefing, Dr. Sean Dooley, a pulmonologist at Walter Reed, says that “the President this morning is not on oxygen, not having difficulty breathing or walking around the White House Medical Unit upstairs.” Asked if that meant the president did not receive any supplemental oxygen, Conley responds, “He’s not on oxygen right now.” Pressed again, Conley falsely says, “Yesterday and today, he was not on oxygen.”

As for other medical treatments, Dr. Brian Garibaldi says, “About 48 hours ago, the president received a special antibody therapy directed against the coronavirus, and we’re working very closely with the company to monitor him in terms of that outcome. Yesterday evening, he received his first dose of IV remdesivir. And our plan is to continue a five-day treatment course for remdesivir.” Garibaldi’s statement on when the antibody therapy treatment started seems to contradict Conley’s Friday evening memo.

Conley also causes confusion when he says that Trump was “72 hours into the diagnosis,” raising questions about when Trump was first diagnosed. A reporter asks Conley, “You said 72 hours. That would put it that Wednesday.” He responds, “So Thursday afternoon, following the news of a close contact is when we repeated testing. And given clinical indications, I had a little bit more concern. And that’s when, late that night, we got the PCR confirmation that he was.”

As for the president’s fever, Conley says, “It’s important to note the president’s been fever free for over 24 hours.” He gives a generally upbeat assessment, describing the president as “doing great” — although that would almost immediately be contradicted by a top White House staffer.

After describing Trump’s vitals in good shape and his blood pressure in particular as “great,” Conley is asked why the president had been transferred to the hospital, to which Conley replies, “Because he’s the president of the United States.”

(continues below...)

[The Soup Nazi]

(cont'd)

Afternoon

About 12 noon — In an email sent to reporters, the White House pool reporter traveling with the president passes along a statement that is attributed to “a source familiar with the president’s health” that says: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.” It was later disclosed that the anonymous source was White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

About 1:50 p.m. — The White House releases a statement from Conley that seeks to address the confusion about when the president was diagnosed and when treatment began.

“This morning while summarizing the President’s health, I incorrectly used the term ‘seventy-two hours’ instead of ‘day three’ and ‘forty eight hours’ instead of ‘day two’ with regard to his diagnosis and the administration of the polyclonal antibody therapy,” he says. “The President was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on the evening of Thursday, October 1st and had received Regeneron’s antibody cocktail on Friday, October 2nd.”

Evening

6:51 p.m. — Trump speaks to the public for the first time since being hospitalized in a four-minute video that he posts on Twitter. “I came here, wasn’t feeling so well. I feel much better now,” he says. “We’re working hard to get me all the way back.”

9:08 p.m. — The White House releases a statement from Conley that says the president had made “substantial progress.”

“This evening he completed his second dose of Remdesivir without complication,” Conley says. “He remains fever-free and off supplemental oxygen with a saturation level between 96 and 98% all day.” Conley’s statement does not clarify if the president had been on oxygen.

Sunday, Oct. 4

Morning

Shortly before noon — Conley and other doctors treating Trump give a press briefing. Conley says that “the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation,” indicating Trump’s lungs may be compromised. As a result, the president began to take dexamethasone, a steroid drug.

Conley also discloses for the first time that the president had received supplemental oxygen on Friday, for about an hour. “Late Friday morning, when I returned to the bedside, president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%. Given these two developments, I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness,” Conley says. “I recommended the president we try some supplemental oxygen, see how he’d respond.”

Asked why he failed to disclose earlier that the president had received supplemental oxygen, Conley says: “I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction and in doing so, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.”

When asked if Trump had received oxygen a second time, Conley suggests that the answer is no, but he isn’t definitive. “I’d have to check with the nursing staff. If he did, it was very, very limited,” he says, emphasizing that Trump was not on oxygen then and the only oxygen that Conley ordered had been on Friday morning.

The addition of dexamethasone to the president’s regimen is particularly curious, as the drug is not recommended for patients who are not on supplemental oxygen.

The RECOVERY trial in the U.K., which established the drug had a mortality benefit in hospitalized patients who were ventilated or on supplemental oxygen, did not find a benefit — and identified possible harm — in providing the drug to those who were not on oxygen at the time of randomization.

This had led some physicians to speculate that Trump’s condition might be worse than what has been shared with the public, or that Trump might be receiving very aggressive treatment, which may not necessarily benefit him.

Conley also refuses to provide specifics on other information that would get at Trump’s medical condition.

When asked about what X-rays or CT scans show, and whether there are signs of pneumonia or lung damage, Conley responds vaguely, “We’re tracking all of that. There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.”

“Expected findings,” some doctors say, likely means some signs of lung damage — or at least enough concern to initiate the dexamethasone. As Vanderbilt University infectious disease expert Dr. William Schaffner told ABC News, Trump’s oxygen levels and CT scan results are “undoubtedly what targeted physicians’ decision to add dexamethasone.”

Afternoon

5:16 p.m. — Trump posts a short video on Twitter. “We’re getting great reports from the doctors,” he says.

About 5:20 p.m. — Trump briefly leaves Walter Reed in a presidential motorcade to visit and wave to supporters outside before returning to the hospital. At least two Secret Service members, wearing what appeared to be N95 masks, were inside the enclosed vehicle with the president, who wore a mask. While the White House said the trip had been “cleared” by the medical team, some experts, including a physician at Walter Reed, considered the excursion unnecessarily risky for his security detail.

Monday, October 5

Afternoon

2:37 p.m. — Trump tweets: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. … I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

About 3:10 p.m. — Conley, the president’s physician, and others on the president’s medical team give an update on Trump’s health and his scheduled return to the White House. “Though he may not entirely be out of the woods yet, the team and I agree that all our evaluations — and most importantly his clinical status — support the president’s safe return home,” Conley says.

Dooley says the president’s temperature on the morning of Oct. 5 was 98.1 degrees. Conley says the president has not received fever reducing medication for the last 72 hours.

Conley declines to discuss some details, such as the date of the president’s last negative test. Conley also would not share any information on the president’s viral load or possible lung damage. He would only say that the supplemental oxygen wasn’t required and the president wasn’t short of breath when it was administered, which happened twice. “It was more of us trying to anticipate needs and see how he’d respond,” he says, adding it was given for a short period of time.

[Bytor Peltor]

 

[Savage Clone]

That’s a nice doctors note the president wrote for himself.

[The Soup Nazi]

He would know:

 

So much for the "sudden outbreak"...

[The Soup Nazi]

^ In a little more detail:

Mitch McConnell just admitted what we all know about Trump

(CNN) — At an event back home in Kentucky on Thursday, Mitch McConnell acknowledged what we all know: Donald Trump and his White House are not even coming close to following the accepted guidelines on how to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

"I actually haven't been to the White House since August 6, because my impression was their approach to how to handle this was different than mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing," said McConnell.

Which, well, exactly.

McConnell has been a loyal Trump lieutenant for the duration of the President's first term, but it appears that his own health is not something the Senate majority leader is willing to risk in support of Trump.

McConnell is 78 years old, and survived polio as a child. He has, to his credit, been far more aggressive in ensuring that senators (and staff) stick to best practices when it comes to mask-wearing and social distancing.

Not all of his colleagues have been as strict. Sens. Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Mike Lee (Utah) and Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) have all tested positive for the virus in the last two weeks. Both Tillis and Lee attended the Rose Garden ceremony for SCOTUS nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, an event from which a number of positive tests have emerged. (Earlier this year, Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul, McConnell's home state colleague, tested positive for the virus.)

The numbers are important because McConnell is desperate to confirm Barrett prior to the November 3 election, when -- if polling holds -- not only will Trump lose, but Republicans will lose the Senate majority as well.

And if several GOP senators are unable to vote for her due to coronavirus quarantines, well, then that is a major problem for McConnell. (Johnson has said he would vote for Barrett in a moon suit if need be.)

Whether Trump acknowledges the virus or, as he did in an interview Thursday, suggests that "when you catch it, you get better," it's clear that on this issue at least, some other Republican leaders aren't following his (terrible) example.

The Point: Covid-19 doesn't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. Or if you believe in it. Mitch McConnell -- and a majority of the country -- get that. Unfortunately, McConnell can't seem to convince Trump.

In all the deluge of stupidity I actually missed the fact that Rand-o was the first senator (that we know of, at least) who tested positive, way back in March 22. Asshole used the private senators' gym, where he swam laps in the pool on that very day's morning — until he received the results of his coronavirus test sometime after his workout, meaning he was already waiting for his results at that point. And the guy's a fucking doctor! And later he had the nerve to try to fuck with Fauci! You really cannot make this shit up...

[Skuj]

He's a Republican doctor!

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

He's a Republican doctor!

Worse: he's a Libertarian Republican doctor!

[Bytor Peltor]

 

[choc e-Claire]

It's a bit early in the evening to be talking about "viral loads", you flirt you.

[_tunic_]

 

We have such an exponential growth in infections (see the graph on the bottom left) that as of tonight we're going back into partial lockdown for three weeks