Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

My latest and greatest electoral prediction (from 270towin)

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I think that Trump hangs on to NC, IA, and OH. but loses FL, PA, MI, AZ, and WI. He could win Florida -- it will be close.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump won Florida by just over 100,000 votes. For Biden to win I would suggest he needs to flip back Pinellas County (St Petersburg) and do better than Hillary along the I-4 corridor. Polk County lies between Tampa and Orlando. It's where Lakeland and bunch of retirement communities are. About 600,000 people in all. Romney beat Obama there by 16,000 votes. Four years later Trump beat Hillary by 40,000 votes. Volusia County is on the other end of I-4 centered around Daytona Beach. Romney won there by only 3,000 votes. Trump won the county by almost 35,000.

Biden doesn't have to win those counties, he just needs something closer to Obama's performance in keeping the margins down. Crazy but those two counties alone account for over 2/3 of Trump's statewide MOV.

And then, like I said, Pinellas County swung from Obama +25,000 to Trump +6,000. A Biden win probably requires flipping that county back.

[Hannibal]

Trump has (IMHO very unwisely) stopped running his very effective anti-riot, pro Law&Order ads attacking Kamala Harris and Biden for BLM, Antifa, etc. Or at least he has stopped them in Ohio. He was gaining ground back when he was doing that in August and September.

[Mike]

That seemed like his best card to play, IMO. Not that it would have been a winning strategy...

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump has (IMHO very unwisely) stopped running his very effective anti-riot, pro Law&Order ads attacking Kamala Harris and Biden for BLM, Antifa, etc. Or at least he has stopped them in Ohio. He was gaining ground back when he was doing that in August and September.

I think they've been pretty off-and-on with ads in Ohio in general. I heard the campaign moved their top Ohio guy over to PA today. On the one hand that's confidence they will win here but on the other, money & resources are better spent in PA at this point.

[Cody_Russell]

If you’re referring to Trump’s dip in polling numbers, clearly it is related to his 1st debate performance that led to the dip.

[Mike]

It’s official: Amy Coney Barrett is the new Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

[lineygoblue]

It’s official: Amy Coney Barrett is the new Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

And she deserves to be. The American Bar Association's endorsement was "highly qualified" and she is. She's every bit as qualified to sit on the Court as Justice Ginsberg was when she was nominated. The only difference is politics. She will be an excellent justice.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Read an interesting article yesterday that demonstrated the predictability of pandemics where the human host is completely vulnerable to it and without immunity. The most comparable pandemic to SARS-CoV-2 is the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. What is striking is that the Spanish Flu had three distinct waves of increasing, decreasing then increasing new cases. After 3y and by late 1920 the virus attenuated becoming less virulent and lethal with each successive wave. Obviously, no vaccine emerged for the Spanish Flu but, according to experts, it is still very much with us in the form of the H1N1 flu virus. H1N1 presents itself every flu season. It is a clear genomic descendant of the Spanish Flu of 2018.

The point of this article was that SARS-CoV-2 is expected to behave much like the Spanish Flu of 1918, i.e., it would attenuate over time without a vaccine and mutate into a distinct seasonal flu like illness. SARS-CoV-2 will become less virulent and less lethal but nonetheless with substantial disease burden on a seasonal basis. Vaccines are, historically speaking, new in the battle against epidemic and pandemic producing viruses. The introduction of vaccines means that SARS-CoV-2 will produce less disease burden over time much like H1N1 has become muted in its impact on the public health because there is a vaccine.

Putting the foregoing into perspective should produce a different perspective on how to deal with the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Mounting a massive response involving severe restrictions to mobility and economic activity in an effort to subdue it's impact is futile. The virus is going to continue to produce undesirable public health impacts in varying but lessening degrees over time. In our day, because there are vaccines, the time frame for the viruses impact will be shorter ..... probably in the neighborhood of 18 months instead of the nearly 36 it took for things to return to normal during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

Without sounding like I'm aligning myself with Mark Meadows and Donald Trump, but his "admission of defeat" as it has been characterized by the media is more a recognition of the reality of virus behavior and propagation among humans than it is one of throwing one's hands up in defeat. Of course, journalists and scientists who have turf to defend, aren't going to allow for a different perspective. That would be one that recognizes there will be public health impacts of C-19 that will still occur but can also be muted. Subduing the public health impact can occur by responding to the virus with less severe mitigation measures - ones that don't incur the staggering economic and social costs that are characterizing typical responses of some governments here in the US and globally.

Not unexpectedly, what's missing from the Trump administration's messaging is an ability to articulate this historical realty that relates to viral pandemics. Of course, the media and Trump's political opponents are as much at fault for misinforming the public and spreading fear as the Trump administration is for failing to articulate their case. It's a mess. TBC, I'm not for being dismissive of the virus as I believe that Trump has been by both words and deeds. What steps were taken by PH authorities in 1918 given that particular viruses impact and available resources to combat it worked. Yep, masking and distancing, and not much more, worked in reducing PH impact in that day and time. The impact of SARS-CoV-2 is similar if not less lethal than the Spanish Flu but the resources to combat it are significantly better than they were in 1918 and that is an understatement.

Trump deserves to be held accountable for his apparent dismissiveness of the virus at the polls next week. But, what is clear is the realty of virus behavior and how unnecessarily damaging the global response to it has been. We should learn from that but it is unlikely that we will as signs that more severe restrictions to mobility and economic activity are already being re-imposed. I'm taking the long view. We're going to screw this up trying to combat the virus that will do it's thing regardless of the missteps we take. People are going to suffer in lots of ways both because of the realty of the virus's behavior and the dumb things we do thinking we're combating it. We're not. The good news is that things will get better over time.

[iam416]

The most frustrating thing about PDJT is his inability to articulate clear policy decisions and defend political positions. There are positions and arguments Biden and Harris have made that are insanely stupid and extremely easy to abuse, but PDJT really can't do it. Or chooses not to. Either way. You can see the difference even in Mike Pence when he shreds Harris and her rampant idiocy. It's not hard. Especially when Biden, e.g., is so brazenly lying about some shit.

The messaging is so frustratingly bad on virtually everything. It's astounding. I won't miss that at all along with the vast majority of his other messaging on inconsequential shit.

But, to the actual substantive points -- developing an effective therapeutic is the real end game. The vaccine will be important for the initial return to normalcy, but it's long-term efficacy is an open question. Being able to treat severe cases effectively and even FURTHER lower CFR is the key to long-term management (IMO). I think we're close on both fronts, but, as you noted, not as close as we'd like to be seeing as how I think we're fucking exhausted of this thing. Another 18 months seems like an eternity.

[Dr. Strangelove]

He's a car salesman who doesn't know the first thing about how a car works, sneers at the mechanics who try to show him, can tell you nothing about the engine specs, but does know that this is the most phenomenal vehicle ever built.

At the end of the day, the biggest cause for Trump's messaging problem is he doesn't actually know very much about...well...anything. He's not used to having to maintain long-term relationships like he needs with voters and Congress. It's easier to fool somebody once in their life and never see them again. A lot tougher to keep fooling them for years using the same schtick.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[Mike]

These people are insane.

She’s a Justice for now, but we can impeach Amy Coney Barrett — if the Democrats are brave

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-b1351458.html

[lineygoblue]

I wouldn't put it past them to try that when they have all the power come January.

[iam416]

This is what's coming our way for the next 4-8 years. The purges shall commence immediately.