Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Drain the Swamp (TM) exposed as an empty slogan again

Matt Schlapp has been, by any objective definition, a Swamp Creature (TM) for decades. He owns a powerful lobbying firm, he heads CPAC, and he was even on Trump's legendary election fraud team. But he was able to successful transition into a Swamp-bashing asshole suckling at Trump's teat.

So I love this story...this asshole who talks big about Real America (TM) and globalist elites and blah blah blah got paid $750,000 to get a pardon for some guy heading to prison for securities fraud. And the best part is he didn't even get it, lol. Sorry, bud, no refunds.

He was just doing the will of Middle America, the forgotten Americans, the Dispossessed, the Great Unheard, the Silent Majority. He did it....for YOU

https://www.axios.com/trump-ally-matt-schlapp-got-750k-in-unsuccessful-pardon-push-0f3d0d1a-8342-42b7-9325-479df84aabf1.html

[CGVT]

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[Ghengis Jon]

I want one of those!

[Jeff Buchanan]

I've read this ..... most of it. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/National-Strategy-for-the-COVID-19-Response-and-Pandemic-Preparedness.pdf

It's comprehensive, There are several themes in the strategy for the pandemic response. One of them that Biden has made very clear: the response is data driven (there's use of the word science too but science drives data production that then informs policy). The CDC has had a COVID Data Tracker for some time. Early in the pandemic there were way better sources. Those good ones are still out there but it looks like, on my return, the CDC's Tracker is decent. It's easy to use and includes vaccine data. I compared it with the FL Dashboard and the numbers are close. I feel like I could use the CDC data knowing that it is reliable. That was not the case a couple of months ago.

Another is that there will be a national strategy. What this means is made pretty clear in the pdf. document. IOW, it's very detailed. Highlights include:

A plan to:

• issue uniform testing and reporting guidelines and protocols to the states
• address testing materials shortages and bottlenecks, expand testing
• address vaccine manufacturing to optimize production, national distribution and delivery to designated distribution centers and then to existing and new inoculation centers
• use Defense Production Act where appropriate to insure on-shore manufactured resources to protect (PPE), test, vaccinate
• open schools with guidelines and protocols being issued to the states on how to do this - expanded testing and the resources to do it is key
• help states increase the number of testers, trackers and vaccinators
• provide money to the states to off-set costs of deploying NG resources for pandemic response related operations

There's a lot more but these are the ones I'm interested in and will be watching the metrics to see if talk actually turns into meaningful action and results. Here's what I'll be watching

• an uptick in testing with % positivity remaining neutral or declining
• a noticeable, hopefully large increase in daily vaccines administered
• a decrease in ED presentations for ILI, SLI and subsequent admissions as vaccines are put into arms
• with increasing testing comes increasing new case numbers; but deaths should decline as vaccines are put into arms

I'm going to try to not become distracted by the politics that is already surfacing. If Biden is the president he claims to be, he won't be overcome by it and we're going to see meaningful progress in stopping the spread of SARS-2. The rest? Not interested. I'll start thinking about that as a reflection of who Joe Biden is when the virus is brought to heal and some normalcy returns.

[WingsFan]

Now that Biden is POTUS its ok not to wear a mask? And be coughing into his hands- on tv ? WTF Jesus, how many times did CNN tell him? They're all the same as soon as their elected. President Biden now says "there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in next several months."


What happened to his plan?

[THE_WIZARD_]

He's being told to speed up his death. Cumalot Harris is waiting...

[WingsFan]

Our Governor 'Big Gretch' is now opening restaurants and bars at 25% A day after Biden is POTUS after feuding with Trump for a year - coincidence?

[THE_WIZARD_]

Hmmm...it really was the Infection Election...whodathunk it...

[lineygoblue]

So every time the Democrats lose, I no longer have a voice. Is that right?

No, that's not right.

Your party has impeached a sitting president twice in the last 12 months.

Your voice is being heard quite clearly.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Markets took a step back today after Anthony Fauci, in his first WH Press Briefing in his newly assigned duties, produced this headline in multiple MSM outlets:

"New Covid-19 Strains May Make Vaccines Less Effective, Fauci Warns"

This is what Fauci actually said:

“Right now, from the reports we have—literally, as of today—it appears that the vaccines will still be effective against [the new strains], with the caveat in mind you want to pay close attention to it,”

WTF

We may have the intent of a fact based, transparent WH but count on the press to fuck this up by twisting the words to fit the dire consequences narrative. We thought this was going to end with a D President, right? WRONG. The MSM is what it is, a completely unreliable source of information and that most people just suck this up without questioning it is down right scary.

Here's the straight skinny: I talked about this earlier in the week. There are two mutant strains that scientists are watching among 200 or so that have piqued interest for other reasons. They are SARS-2, B1.1.7 and SARS-2, B1.1.35. Both of these variants are believed to be more transmissible and could be behind recent hot spots and surges. It is the later currently in S. Africa that was the subject of the small study that said that variant could effect the efficacy of current vaccines, caveat, more study is necessary. The study is pre-print and has not yet been peer reviewed. It has little value in terms of informing policy at this point. Most of the big name vaccine manufacturers do their jobs by the same mechanism of action - via the Spike Protein - and it is genetic mutations in this protein that, as most viruses do, make it more survivable...... and by extension more transmissible (the math and exponential growth).

Side note: the trick in keeping this nasty fucker - B1.1.35 - from doing damage is to identify people infected by this variant and isolate them. You do this with genetic sequencing of sampled fluids. Its not hard and we have the technical means to do it. What we don't have in the US are collection, and transport protocols to get this done at the right labs with the right people doing it. Nor are there enough labs and people.

I'd like to be able to tell you that this specific concern was addressed in the 200 page document I highlighted stuff from up thread. There's no mention of it specifically but that isn't terribly surprising. Its technical. I want to believe there are enough infectious disease folks that understand the importance of genomic sequencing as a means of identifying "super spreaders" harboring these two mutations and isolate them. I don't know. I'm positive Fauci knows about this. It's not likely we're going to hear about labs doing this on an improved scale. I'll be looking for it.

Along with getting more shots into arms, it's really, really important.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Impeachment trial won't start till Feb. 8

Like i said, Trump has like one lawyer on his team right now and is nowhere near being ready. This also gives Biden a lot more time to get nominees confirmed.

[Dr. Strangelove]

After William Barr resigned, Jeffrey Rosen became acting Attorney General. Trump was plotting with a lower-level attorney at DOJ named Jeffrey Clark, head of the civil rights division, to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark, who then promised to bring enormous pressure on Republicans and the US Attorneys in Georgia to overturn the election results. The plan failed when other top officials at DOJ got wind of it and agreed to resign en masse if it happened.

The very next day after Barr resigned, Trump called Rosen to the White House and demanded he file briefs in support of his personal attorneys' claims that massive fraud occurred. Rosen refused point blank and repeated what Barr had already told him: there was no evidence of mass fraud. He also refused to appoint a special counsel to investigate Dominion Voting Systems, saying there was no evidence that any of Sydney Powell and Giuliani's claims were true.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-trump-justice-department-election-20210123-35ghnfsorva55pjnrec5dzu27a-story.html

[lineygoblue]

You know all these restrictions, the masking, the closings of businesses, the distancing, kids out of school, people losing their jobs?

Those things?

Well, Joe Xiden says you can forget about it. "There's nothing we can do" to stop Covid from taking as many as 600,000 lives by June. The number passed 400,000 earlier this week.

Vaccines and distributions?

Nope.

So why not just open everything up, remove all the restrictions, and let this thing run its course? If there's "nothing we can do", why are we even trying?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-nothing-we-can-do-to-change-coronavirus-pandemic-trajectory-in-coming-months

[Jeff Buchanan]

"There's nothing we can do" to stop Covid from taking as many as 600,000 lives by June.

That is an accurate statement but there is plenty that can be done to keep that number below 800K and that's what could happen if the US collectively throws up it's hands.

The problem is fairly easy to understand. While death rates are highest in the over 75 cohort, most in this group are too frail to be placed in an ICU and ventilated. In GB for example, upwards of 90% of all ICU beds are occupied by people that are 40-60 years old. These folks do well when ICUs aren't pressured by rising need due to rising infections to hospitalize people at ICU levels of care. When that happens, staff allocations go from a one patient to one nurse to two patients to one nurse. Deaths rise by 25% to 30% under this circumstance. Increasing deaths in CA's LA Co. are due to this reason as well.

You have to keep people out of ICUs and to do that you have to keep them from getting infected in the first place. Most here have taken the position that masks and distancing work. The facts support this despite misinformation floating around that they don't make any difference. Of course, along with impinge upon my personal freedoms argument, there are lots of people in the US who refuse to wear them when inside public places, cram into bars and contribute to the risk of viral spread. That SARS-2, B1.1.7 is out there creating the likelihood that people infected with that variant will turn an otherwise relatively safe venue into a super spreader event where one person infects dozens instead of the usual one or two and each of those people infect dozens more - see Great Britain.

Masking, distancing and appropriate mobility restrictions work. Not everything needs to be locked down. In fact it is proven that wide spread lock downs don't confer sufficient benefit to off-set the social and economic costs. There's middle ground but to find it, the folks need to mask and distance when inside venues where people gather and that is going to be true for a while.

[iam416]

We have yet to hit the hospital/icu crisis. Despite repeated predictions of people dying in waiting rooms. And, at least in the “B10 States”, we’re coming down from the holiday spike.

It remains an elderly disease.

Although, saying 600,000 is inevitable and only targeting 1M shots per day are pretty inconsistent with Biden’s campaign promises. Talk about lowering expectations.