[Terez]

It's all good.

Another senator tested positive: Ron Johnson of Wisconsin ®. That makes 3 senators, all Republicans.

Rick Scott of Florida said he was positive on Fox this morning but he misspoke. False alarm. We thought it was 4 senators for a bit.

[QuickTidal]

CHris Christie now has it and is receiving medical attention

[Aptorian]

Good. I wish I could say something more constructive but good is all that comes to mind. Chris Christie is a human door mat.

[Obdigore]

I can only hope they all get all the bleach injections and hydroxoco-whatever they could possibly want.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Obdigore, on 03 October 2020 - 03:58 PM, said:

I can only hope they all get all the bleach injections and hydroxoco-whatever they could possibly want.

'The CEO of Regeneron has been a member of Trump's Westchester County golf club.'

https://slate.com/ne...d-hospital.html

'Trump’s Staff Decided to Send Him to the Hospital While He Could Still Walk on His Own

White House staff made the decision to fly President Trump to Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland on Friday to ensure that he would still be able to walk to the Marine One helicopter on his own'

https://www.thedaily...e-wapo?ref=home

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 October 2020 - 04:10 PM

[amphibian]

It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump knew he was Covid-19 positive at least as late as the morning after the debate.

Then he's required supplemental oxygen at some point and has a fever and a cough.

We're now finding out that almost a dozen people at his events over the last few days are COVID-19 positive, including his wife, Kellyann Conway, three GOP senators, the president of Notre Dame university, Chris Christie, and more. The fundraiser Trump and the others attended is refusing to turn over information to tracers.

This is such a cluster fuck driven by people who are batshit buffoons.

[QuickTidal]

They not only did this to themselves, but knowingly seemed to do this to others. It’s sickening.

[Lady Bliss]

He apparently showed up too late for the debate to take a test, but they let him proceed on the honor system. What do you want to bet that he KNEW he had it and was hoping to give it to Biden? For anyone else, I would think this is a nut job theory, but I wouldn’t put it past Trump.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

amphibian, on 03 October 2020 - 05:40 PM, said:

It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump knew he was Covid-19 positive at least as late as the morning after the debate.

Then he's required supplemental oxygen at some point and has a fever and a cough.

We're now finding out that almost a dozen people at his events over the last few days are COVID-19 positive, including his wife, Kellyann Conway, three GOP senators, the president of Notre Dame university, Chris Christie, and more. The fundraiser Trump and the others attended is refusing to turn over information to tracers.

This is such a cluster fuck driven by people who are batshit buffoons.

'Trump is having trouble breathing: Jim Acosta reports White House advisor is admitting "this is serious"'

Had a vision of a figure formed of swarming (gigantic) COVID-19 instances kneeling on Trump's neck as he whines 'I can't breathe'....

'Trump's base stands firm on COVID-19 being a hoax: "There's no pandemic"
[...] Many of Trump's supporters are already circulating conspiracy theories to downplay the spread of the virus. Others are attempting to justify how the president may have contracted the virus insisting someone may have "planted it," [...]

"If he's sick, then they planted it when they tested him. It's what they did to me when I went to hospital for my heart beating too fast. Two weeks later I got a cold," he said. "It's political. I don't trust the US government at all. Who are they to mandate personal safety? I listen to Trump."'

https://www.alternet...es-no-pandemic/

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 October 2020 - 06:49 PM

[Malankazooie]

Chris Christie is probably going to be in a world of hurt. He checks most of the boxes.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Azath Vitr (D, on 02 October 2020 - 08:52 PM, said:

They probably care enough about the Supreme Court nomination to find a way around it. Even if that means remote voting.

It's more complicated than I thought:

'Will the Senate Have a Quorum to Confirm Judge Barrett?

[...] the Senate needs 51 Senators to conduct business on the floor. This might present a problem for Senate Republican plans to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

There are 53 Republican Senators. As of this morning, three Republican Senators (Tillis, Lee, and Johnson) have tested positive. This means there are only 50 Republican Senators who can attend Senate proceedings. (The Vice President does not count for these purposes.) So if Senate Democrats boycott proceedings, they might be able to grind Senate business to a fault.

[...] someone usually needs to be present to note the absence of a quorum, so this could mean a Senate Democrat would have to come to the floor to note the lack of a quorum, so fifty Republicans might be enough, because the arrival of a single Democrat for a quorum call would establish the necessary quorum.

Third, as you may have noticed, Article I, section 5 authorizes the Senate to compel attendance. This is done by instructing the sergeant-of-arms to go find absent members and bring them to the floor. This does not happen too often, but it has occurred. Some readers may remember this from 1988[...]

"Angry Republicans accused Democrats of turning the Senate into a "banana republic" yesterday after Capitol Police forced their way into the office of Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), arrested him and carried him feet-first into the Senate chamber in a flamboyant climax to a bitter all-night filibuster fight."

[...] remote attendance may be possible. [...] That sort of rules change would require Senate approval. [...] There is a proposed Senate Resolution [...] to allow remote voting. [...] changes to the standing rules of the Senate requires a 2/3 vote, so instituting remote voting would require Democratic cooperation or using the procedural trick Senator Reid used to get rid of the filibuster for judicial nominations.'

https://reason.com/2...-judge-barrett/

But it seems like that 'procedural trick' requires Senate approval, which would require quorum:

'Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) triggered a rarely used procedural option informally called the "nuclear option" to change the Senate rules.

Reid and 50 members of his caucus voted to change Senate rules unilaterally to prevent Republicans from forcing votes on uncomfortable amendments after the chamber has voted to move to final passage of a bill.

Reid's coup passed by a vote of 51-48, leaving Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fuming.

The surprise move stunned Republicans, who did not expect Reid to bring heavy artillery to what had been a humdrum knife fight over amendments to China currency legislation.'

https://thehill.com/...ure-filibusters

McConnell might not hesitate to order the Sergeant of Arms to locate enough Democratic Senators and drag them back to the Senate floor. Might have to do that for some Republican Senators too.... But I doubt it will come to that. Even if it were possible to stall until after the election, there's still the lame duck session. The only remotely possible scenario where Barrett would not get confirmed might be if Trump and Pence both die suddenly and Pelosi, assuming power, officially rescinds the nomination (then again, since there's debate about the constitutionality of the Speaker of the House being third in line, it would probably go to the Supreme Court...).

[Edit: if the Wisconsin Senator dies, Wisconsin law dictates that his replacement would be by means of a special election. If the North Carolina Senator dies, the governor---a Democrat---has to appoint his successor, but the appointee has to be a Republican. Perhaps the governor could stall and/or appoint a pro-choice Republican who opposes Barrett's nomination?...

https://ballotpedia....the_U.S._Senate

]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 October 2020 - 07:32 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

Malankazooie, on 03 October 2020 - 07:08 PM, said:

Chris Christie is probably going to be in a world of hurt. He checks most of the boxes.

There's no point thinking like that. I've heard of a 90 year old and someone 2 months into chemo both shrugging it off in a couple of days. I still don't think the data is out there on statistically how likely each risk group is likely to be seriously ill. It's probably low enough that lots of people would be willing to take a chance. Still not low enough for healthcare services to cope if we all went back to normal lifestyles though.

[QuickTidal]

27ppl now sick from what is now being called The Rose Garden Massacre.

Which I admit is a better term than the other one I heard, The Republican Red Wedding.

Also note ELEVEN debate staff. Fucking hell...

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 04 October 2020 - 11:33 AM

[Aptorian]

I can't believe the Democrats were willing to infect so many White House staffers with the China virus just to get to Trump. Have they no shame?

[Tsundoku]

Someone should play The Rains of Castamere at the start of the next debate, if it goes ahead.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Biden Lead Widens as Most Americans Think Trump Could Have Avoided Coronavirus

[...] for Americans at large, there doesn't seem to be much sympathy for the president and the vast majority believe he could have avoided contracting COVID-19 if only he had taken the appropriate precautions. Almost three in four Americans—72 percent to be exact—said that Trump neither took the "risk of contracting the virus seriously enough" nor "the appropriate precautions when it came to his personal health," according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll, meanwhile, found that 65 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that "if President Trump had taken coronavirus more seriously, he probably would not have been infected." Even though there is a big partisan split in the question with nine in 10 registered Democrats agreeing with that statement, five in 10 Republicans also said they see it that way.'
As Trump continues to battle the virus, Americans are increasingly concerned about the possibility of contracting COVID-19. Overall, 81 percent of Americans say they are very or somewhat concerned about contracting the virus, an almost 10-point increase from two weeks ago. That increase is largely evident among Republicans, whose concern soared 18 points, according to the ABC/Ipsos poll. Amid that growing concern, there seems to be little trust in what the president is saying about the pandemic. Only 34 percent of Americans said they thought Trump was telling them the truth about COVID-19, compared to 55 percent who said the opposite[...]

[...] Among registered voters, Biden now has a 14-point lead over Trump—53 percent to 39 percent—according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that was taken after Tuesday's presidential debate but before Trump tested positive for COVID-19. That marks a sharp increase from the eight-point lead Biden enjoyed before the debate [...] Trump's sharpest drops in support came from senior citizens, who are backing Biden 62 percent to 35 percent and suburban women who are siding with Biden 58 percent to 33 percent. Women in general favor Biden by a whopping 27 percentage points.

The debate seems to have also made voters in two key states reconsider their votes for Trump as Biden leads Trump in the swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll [also before the announcement of Trump's illness), Biden leads Trump by five points in Florida—47 percent to 42 percent—and seven points in Pennsylvania—49 percent to 42 percent.'

https://slate.com/ne...ly-avoided.html

From the Reuters poll:

'Biden's 10-point edge over Trump is 1 to 2 points higher than leads Biden posted over the past several weeks, though the increase is still within the poll's precision limits of plus or minus 5 percentage points.'

https://www.reuters....l-idUSKBN26P0DT

But are the polls really representative?

''If "shy" Trump voters were a thing, for example, you might expect a difference in how respondents reply to surveys conducted via telephone versus those anonymously submitted online — the idea being that social desirability bias is less likely to kick in when a respondent is dealing with a faceless computer instead of a real person. However, as Morning Consult's new 2,400-respondent study shows, Trump performed about the same against Joe Biden, regardless of whether the pollster interviewed respondents by phone or online.

[... in] 2016 [...] many state-level polls underrepresented the number of white voters without a four-year college degree in the electorate, a group that overwhelmingly backed Trump in 2016. [...] some pollsters have since weighted their surveys by education, but not all have. It remains a critical cleavage that pollsters still need to address.

Weighting for education is complicated[...] highly educated Americans are more likely to answer a poll than less educated Americans, and in an era of increasingly lower response rates, this could be a problem as underlying samples may be more educated than the actual population. [...] even if a pollster is weighting its respondents to match the educational breakdown of a state's population, it still may not be reaching enough voters with lower education levels. This could in turn affect the poll's findings for the presidential race because the educational divide is now one of the most important predictors of party support besides race.'

https://fivethirtyei...g-some-of-them/

It seems most polls are conducted by news or academic organizations. Trump's ranting about 'FAKE NEWS' would be expected to decrease the response rate among his supporters. Who also tend to have a very negative view of academia. Though that should be fairly easy to test, so it probably would have been mentioned in the article if true?... hmm.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 October 2020 - 04:27 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Trump's doctors said that the president was on dexamethasone, the steroid used for the sickest Covid-19 patients. [...]

Dexamethasone works by reducing inflammation in and around the lungs, which can make it difficult to get enough oxygen into the blood. The treatment is not recommended for mild illness because, in some cases, it can make the infection worse by helping the virus replicate. The NIH recommends against using the steroid for patients who don't require supplemental oxygen.'


https://www.nbcnews....isodes-n1242057

'On Saturday night, the White House released photos of Donald Trump appearing hard at work while in hospital, where he remained for a second night after a "very concerning" period.

His daughter, Ivanka Trump, shared one of the photos on her Twitter, with the caption: "Nothing can stop him from working for the American people. RELENTLESS!"

[...] examined the photos and upon zooming into one of them, found that Mr Trump "appears to be signing his name to a blank sheet of paper".

[...] "That's the only kind of 'work' he knows how to do. And in his mind, as long as he makes it look like he's working and his base believes it, that's every bit as good, if not better, than actually doing something."'

https://www.independ...ed-b778464.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 October 2020 - 05:59 PM

[Cause]

I can only presume that in trying to keep this under wraps they shrunk the circle for the staging of the photos but man how stupid do you have to be in this day and age to not realize someone would zoom in on the paper or check the time stand and geotags on the photos.

Hell I’d have thought all that would be scrubbed as a matter of course for security.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Well surprise surprise:

'Trump COVID-19 treatment: President had stakes in Regeneron and Gilead, makers of antibody cocktail, Remdesivir'

https://www.usatoday...vir/3610111001/

'Regeneron stock higher after news its COVID-19 trial drug given to Trump'

https://www.marketwa...rump-2020-10-02

OTOH it's possible he thinks aggressively over-medicating (including the steroids, which are only used for severe cases because they can 'help the virus replicate') and using experimental treatments is his best chance of being able to semi-plausibly declare himself 'well' enough to do in-person rallies and campaign again ASAP. Hopefully he'll end up making it worse....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 October 2020 - 10:02 PM

[QuickTidal]

Claudia Conway has it now...her mother literally was around her all day after she knew she was positive...no mask...imagine doing the “hide the zombie bite” thing to your own family.

Kellyanne should be arrested for reckless endangerment.

This will help with Claudia’s attempts to get emancipated from her horrid parents,