Publicly praise Trump, get crumbs of desperately needed medical supplies. This is so completely ■■■■■■ up.
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That’s how God works, so checks out.
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I agree with the author of the article in that it “seems unseemly.” However, it does seem like this is more of a political attack rather than actual concern.
On one hand, you’ve got some of the public clamoring for the feds to do more than what they’ve done, and to ensure the relatively scarce amount of medical supplies are distributed to where they are needed most - currently, that appears to be in the Northeast. On the other, you have state officials (in this instance, Colorado mostly) that believe they need 500 ventilators but only get 100 due to federal interference in the market. This brings to mind Gov. Cuomo saying that it’s a bad idea to have all 50 states competing against each other for supplies - he advocated the feds take charge and distribute as needed. But when you do that (as they’ve done), you open the door for questions like this. Add on top of that Trump’s public assholian persona, and well, there ya go.
Well, I’d say that you can’t have it both ways. Yes, I’m all about local governments deciding what’s best, but if we’re not going to let the market increase prices in response to scarcity and let the states compete for them, this is kinda how it goes. Although it would be nice if Trump would stop with the “I’m not calling this governor because she was meansies to me.”
Very honestly, I don’t think anyone will really understand what worked here and what didn’t until it’s all over. By then, the Democrats will have developed their political talking points, and the Republicans theirs.
@Sun_Tsunami, good article. I’d argue though that, IMO, this isn’t so much a reflection of Biden’s fecklessness in the face of the Twitter Left, as much as it’s a reflection of a career politician.
What I mean is, sometimes there’s political value in supporting the Hyde Amendment, especially when trying to court moderate Democrats. I’m assuming the reasoning here is that moderates will vote for any Democrat who runs, but the activist Left will not. The activist branch will demand that he be in lockstep with the vast majority of their thinking, or they’ll be activists and vote for Mickey ■■■■■■■ Mouse.
In other words, I don’t find his flip-flop on it concerning. I just find it as business as usual in American politics.
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His position was wildly anachronistic in the Democratic party, that said the article bemused me for a simple reason. Namely, that he seems to do this for most positions. This is hardly something new, and has I’d argue been a staple not just of politics as usual, but of his career. I mean, really take a look at what he’s running on.
To be fair I suppose, given the time period we’re discussing he may very well have changed his mind on a lot of things. That said, the reasons I’ve argued so strenuously that he unnerves me are his past behavior/positions.
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Or a deluded God-King.
Though in the current case I am more reminded of a protection money racket. The film in my of Trump calling a governor and saying something like:
I’ve talked to Don Jr., he said the virus is bad. It would be a…
shame…
if the hospitals in your state were lacking ventilators. Like they will where that Whitmer woman lives.
From an outside point of view, being ‘nice’ to Trump does pay off. If one is nice enough, he even may instruct his son-in-law to share a little from what he calls ‘our stockpile’. 
‘Public’? Ya think he’s a nice guy in a private setting? Better hope you’re not female and ‘his type’.
It is concerning anyway. Biden is the boring DNC favourite who’s biggest plus is that he was vice president some years ago. His gaffes aside, again from an outside point of view, he isn’t very convincing. And even worse, he is just the opponent Trump is hoping for. Firmly entrenched in the Dem political ‘elite’ and vulnerable to the whole shebang of crap that worked in his campaign against Clinton. Trump can even reuse the 2016 slogans 
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Biden as nominee is proof that the DNC and GOP are cancerous growths on the corpus of government and should be excised swiftly to have the best chance at a healthy governance. I mean, obviously the Dems are trying to make it easy for Trump, and neither party has the population’s best interest at heart.
Who’d like to see the US in 2020 and beyond doing it’s best French Revolution impression? Paging Monsieur Bailly. I’ll put a keen edge on the guillotine in preparation.
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I appreciate the jokes, but I’m assuming Trump isn’t totally insane, and I’m also assuming he’d like to win reelection. Again, assuming those two things are true, I believe it would be bad for his chances in 2020 if he were to let Michiganders die out of political spite.
Again, assumptions.
I’m assuming he’s always an ■■■■■■■. The point in writing “public” was to stress how… unusual it is that a politician act that way in public.
I tend to view our government more akin to House of Cards than the West Wing. But it is unusual for an American politician to say “■■■■ your baby!” instead of kissing all the babies. Then again… would anyone want Trump or Biden sniffing their baby? Methinks not.
Yeah. I don’t disagree. Even worse, and granted I’m no doctor, but Biden seems to be slowing down mentally. Maybe I’m just not used to hearing him speak in public, but he often seems confused and a little angry when people ask him stuff. Reminds me of when my grandpa was first starting to suffer from dementia. He was often confused and angry.
Either way, it wouldn’t take too much to convince me that the DNC is running Joe as their sacrificial lamb. If he wins, great, but much more likely is that he loses. But it’s Biden - he’s old and just about done with politics, so a loss won’t hurt him much because he’s likely about ready to get out of the game anyhoo.
True.
Well, lemme be the first to say that I’d rather we not have a violent revolution here. Especially one that mimics the French one… because France, and because I don’t know that we have enough cake to eat up in herre.
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Jokes and Washington Times headlines aside, that is something that bothers me, too.
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Yeah. I really wish he weren’t running because it’s just a sad thing to watch. I don’t wish that on anyone - I mean ANYONE - it’s an awful thing and from my armchair doctoring, really seems to be what’s happening.
But, then again, wtf do I know? I wouldn’t offer an engineering opinion based off some ■■■■ I saw on TV, and I’m not a doctor so wtf. But, like I said, reminds me of a lot of what happened to my grandpa.
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Same, but I suspect you knew there was sarcasm dripping in that post even though I skipped the emoji.
I do believe that is the business I will start to survive the inevitable economic downturn. Get ready for bacon cakes with maple buttercream to be the new staple food.
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Of course - you might be the least violence-inclined of us all. (I might be the most - I will cut a bitch.)
Sounds ■■■■■■■ delicious.
Although, I am very increasingly worried about the economy.
I’m afraid by the time things start to open up, there won’t be too many places for the laid off workers to go back to. Hoping I’m wrong, but it’s definitely something that worries me and keeps me from sleeping at night. What’re we up to now, 16 million recently unemployed? That’s a LOT of workers and families that are really worried about the future. I feel for them.
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It was a cake I made for my friends birthday several years back, and it was.
I agree that the economy is something to be concerned about, but if we lose too many people that won’t really be good for business either. Makes me think that the bailout should’ve been structured differently. Like, bailouts for small businesses and loans for big ones. I don’t know, maybe that makes too much sense to be practical. 
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but economic data is a look at the past. Things are worse than they appear.
Regardless, I think people are largely forgetting that this is a consumption based economy. The bailout was never going to work. It strangled the last recovery, and it’ll strangle this one too most likely. Sure, it might prevent things from cratering, but for the economy to revive the public needs money and a willingness to spend, not more assistance for failing businesses. In terms of the economy the damage done is mostly going to be from people not spending, and we haven’t even began to see what that’ll do.
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I may have had a different idea of what a better structure would be, or not had a thorough grasp of what would be actually helpful, but we do agree that the way the idjuts structure these things is wrong. Yes, I believe that people should get these benefits, but I think that the people in office are looking at a mirror image and don’t really understand cause and effect. Failing them actually understanding that consumers need the money more than businesses and doing the right thing I think the best we could hope for is small businesses getting more benefits than corporate juggernauts. Of course, all of these things are dependent on people learning something or acknowledging their errors, which is to say so unlikely as to almost be impossible.
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Quote of the day : “We could have a depression because so many people are out of work,” Pelosi said in an interview on “Mad Money” with CNBC’s Jim Cramer.
Although context matters, I think underselling a potential (aka likely) depression is either grossly naive or ridiculously idiotic.
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A lack of understanding of the bottom up nature of a consumption based economy is one of the many, many problems with the underlying logic of our legislature…
As for a depression though, I’m dubious. Even the great recession was only around halfway there.
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I have the impression that the GOP still believes in trickle-down economics.
A short primer on that:
Yep.
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You could, I suppose ignoring the oil market, say that this recession is different from the last. The last was a result of the mortgage bubble, which led to banks failing (too big to fail? THEN LET THEM ■■■■■■■ FAIL or break 'em up) and in turn sending the economy into free-fall.
This time, it’s part The Virus and part The Shutdown. Assuming that the overall footing of the economy was sound (yes, depends upon the economist), the potential for it to come back fairly quick is good. However, I’m still worried. Mostly 'cause I’m not so sure I believe a few of my assumptions.
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Sure, it’s different, but that’s different from the economy being sound. Remember the yield curve? The discussion of overvaluation? The papering over of problems like labor force participation that were still extant due to saving all those too big to fail jackasses (who we’re now bailing out a new round of, with even less excuse)?
Regardless, I’d be surprised if we really had a v shaped recession. I wouldn’t be shocked by a brief bounce before things continue to be bad, but we aren’t responding in a way that reasonably should cause such a recovery.
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