Wednesday Morning Links

by | Apr 8, 2020 | Daily Links | 705 comments

Day 2,727.  My daughters held a wedding for their giant Elsa doll.  It was beautiful event.  So many were in attendance including the cabbage patch dolls, the giant stuffed lion, and Mr. Fox.

 

 

Trump may put a hold on funding WHO.

 

Senate looking to spend even more money we don’t have.

 

And even more.

 

India allows limited export of hydroxychloroquine after Trump warns of retaliation.

 

Rand has recovered, tests negative, and is now volunteering at a local hospital.

 

Border wall construction still continues apace.

 

Smuggles disguised as border wall construction workers in shootout with border patrol.

 

Army halts bringing new recruits to basic training.

 

More than 1,000 newspapers facing cutbacks.

 

Court rules Texas can ban abortions during pandemic.

 

That’s all I got for today.  I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

705 Comments

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  1. Count Potato

    *throws rice*

    • Count Potato

      Oh fuck, that shit is like gold now.

      *picks up rice*

      • Swiss Servator

        *races over with shop vac to get at it*

      • Count Potato

        *waits for Swiss to finish*

        *steals shop vac*

      • JD is Unemployed

        This reminds me that I very much would benefit from a shop vac to replace the poor old household upright I’ve been using lately. I’m too cheap to buy new.

      • Count Potato

        Drive around on heavy garbage day, pick-up a shop vac someone threw out, replace the switch or motor, whichever broke.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I bought a little Stinger shop vac at Home Depot a few years ago for $10. Dare I say, one of the best purchases I have ever made.

        Although I see now that it is $36 on the HD website 🙁

      • Galt1138

        Who did Elsa marry? Leaving out a fairly important detail here!

  2. Nephilium

    Damn that Rand Paul. He’s just trying to spread the COVID!

    • Festus

      “It gets in your eyes, Man…”

    • AlexinCT

      I actually had a moron tell me that yesterday. Explaining to this idiot that once your body has created antibodies and stopped the growth of the virus makes you unable to transmit it, and if anything Rand Paul is now super valuable cause he can actually interact with the sickest of people with COVID19 without risk to himself AND (and this is the big one) his blood can now be used to harvest antibodies, went nowhere. This asshat kept telling me he wanted to kill people cause he was not a marxist dick sucking douche (no offense to those that like to suck dick but not the dick of Marx or any of the people that murdered and pillaged in his name)

      • Nephilium

        I’ve seen some reports come through my newsfeed that were saying some people who had already recovered had caught the COVID again. But with the current trust level of journalists, news writers, and editors…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s not impossible. Assume your immune system is taxed after recovery, you’d probably want to avoid exposure for at least a little while. And you’re not guaranteed full immunity.

        For example, I had chicken pox twice when I was a kid.

      • Spartacus

        Yeah. i had chicken pox as a kid, and shingles as a college student. Doc said I was the youngest shingles patient he’d ever seen.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Really? I had shingles when I was twelve.

      • AlexinCT

        I heard that the shingles fucked up your ability to make little Trigger Hippies….

      • Galt1138

        Hey! I had chicken pox twice as well. I’d went to visit a friend who had it, and my mom said it’s fine, “He’s already had chicken pox.” Not long after, my sister calls my mom from the roller rink and tells her she has to come pick me up, because I have chicken pox. “He can’t have that, he already did. He should be immune.”

        Sure enough, I was home for about a week recovering. Guess the first time wasn’t enough to get immunity.

      • Rhywun

        Saw one of those. Way at the bottom: “Or maybe it was faulty testing.”

      • Bobarian LMD

        And there’s the thing…

        Maybe Rand didn’t actually have the COVID, since the testing may be faulty?

  3. PieInTheSky

    Trump may put a hold on funding WHO. – nonsense. that would destroy America’s place as a word leader. Or something.

    • AlexinCT

      He should also defund the fucking UN and send them packing while he is at it. It would be a great move and set the right tone.

  4. Swiss Servator

    Were the paparazzi a bother at the ceremony?

    • Festus

      Only when they pursued Elsa into the tunnel. So much Tonka, very tears…

      • Fourscore

        I must admit I cried at my daughter’s wedding, I almost cried at my son’s wedding, not for him but for the bride. I was right on both occasions.

      • Festus

        I cried like a baby when youngest Step-daughter got married. She’s the one that stated that she would have rather have me walk her up the aisle than her real Dad. Mind you, I wasn’t awfully sober.

      • Fourscore

        That’s my boy!

    • Banjos

      Army bear worked security.

      • Festus

        You’re learning them well, Banjos! ‘Mornin!

      • Banjos

        Mornin’

      • Count Potato

        *notes Banjos is a Kremlin honeypot*

      • Nephilium

        So… something like this?

      • Tonio

        Oh, that’s just precious. Thanks for sharing that.

  5. PieInTheSky

    Court rules Texas can ban abortions during pandemic. – this is kind of silly imo. either you ban them outright or not at all. during a pandemic should not matter given it is not something that can really be postponed much, unlike other elective surgeries.,

    • Festus

      Christ-fag is asswhole, too!

    • Swiss Servator

      O’erweening state power can be wielded in both directions…

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

        This crisis is all about the authoritarians figuring out what they can fuck the rest of us over with..

    • invisible finger

      No biggie, the state will just kill them 20 years later.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Never let a crisis go to waste.

    • Slammer

      If Courts really had peoples interests in times like this they’d rule to ban pandemics

      • Certified Public Asshat

        At least we know the phrase my body, my choice is now completely meaningless.

    • R C Dean

      The decision was narrowly right. Once you allow the state to ban elective procedures, there is no reason to say “except abortion”. You have the exact same right to an abortion as you do to a knee replacement. No more, no less.

      • Festus

        Sure but the issue is so fraught. Everyone seems to have lost their Goddamned minds, lately. Even “social distancing” only happens in public. People stand on the icons but as soon as they get to work they forget or ignore. I’m one who “believes” that the sooner we all get it, the sooner we can move on. Mind you, I also proclaimed in 2016 that Donald Trump would never be the President. Feel free to ignore.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      IMO, It’s one of those “right result for the wrong reasons” things. I’m happy for all of the people who will get to avoid being killed in the womb because of this, but I hate the fact that they’re accomplishing it this way.

      • Festus

        It’s the Government fiat that bothers me.

    • PieInTheSky

      I am learning a lot of governor names I did not know before.

      • Drake

        NJ’s Govenor is a glorified financial advisor who made a couple hundred $ million at Goldman Sachs. Then bought the Ambassadorship to Germany with Obama campaign donations – over the protests of the German government.

      • Festus

        So business as usual?

    • topnotchtoledo

      I live near a river with a big walleye run. The city on one side closed all access so they will just force more people closer together at the other access points. This is all theater, counterproductive and fucking retarded.

      • Fourscore

        Are the walleyes in now? I tried locally a day or two ago and found nothing yet.

      • Nephilium

        At least on Lake Erie, people have been reporting record walleye catches all through the winter.

      • Translucent Chum

        Yeah! Going crazy on the Detroit river too!

      • topnotchtoledo

        Lots. I’m in NW Ohio so we are warmer here than you.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Um Fourscore, it isn’t legal to be fishing for walleyes yet.

        You have some secret Ojibwe blood that lets you go net them on Mille Lacs or something?

      • UnCivilServant

        it isn’t legal to be fishing for walleyes yet.

        Does not compute.

      • R C Dean

        Is it illegal to fish for them, or to catch them?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Fishing for them is verboten.

        If you are fishing for panfish (legal season now) and catch one, you can just throw it back and no one will hassle you. But if the friendly game warden comes by and you have a lindy rig tied on, you will probably get a fine.

        The weekend before the opener a bunch of buddies and I were carp fishing from the river bank and a couple game wardens came blasting in on a boat. They were sure they had busted a bunch of scofflaws on a remote section of the river. After we pulled in a couple lines and we all had corn and dough balls on, one of the wardens relaxed and started talking to us about carping. He basically told us to never throw any back. The other warden was a dick the whole time. He was visibly upset that there was no infraction that he could issue us a ticket for.

      • straffinrun

        I’ve seen wardens do that before. It’s the old “good carp, bad carp” routine.

      • AlexinCT

        That warden is one of the people that is pissed they have to work while you are having fun, and he gets his jollies by fucking people like you over. When you cock block that, it ruins that poor man’s day.

      • Fourscore

        I have a homeowner’s license. It’s a little known caveat that allows homeowners to hunt deer in any month with an “R” in them and fish in running water on your own property, if you’re over 65 and fish/hunt after dark.

      • Pope Jimbo

        NoDak has gratis deer licenses for landowners, so if you get caught just pretend you are an ex-NoDak.

        When we used to live on our old farm, my dad always declared special 1-day hunts for himself. Most of our neighbors did as well.

      • Festus

        I’m looking forward to ice-off this year which is already a month behind. Sure, Cops. Try to keep the fishermen off the lakes. I double-fucking dare you.

      • Spartacus

        Unauthorized use of the King’s Forest is a very serious offense.

    • Count Potato

      Again, that shit makes no sense. What’s the average social distance in a state forest?

      • Drake

        My wife and I took the dog for a hike yesterday. Passed a guy riding a bike and a woman – both times pulled off the trail and let them pass at “safe” distance. I don’t think anyone with a chest infection is hiking or mountain biking in those hills.

      • leon

        They would just say you could have it and not know it. The real point to hammer in is that being outside away from people is not going to magically transmit the disease. You are still socially distanced.

      • Drake

        I’ll be in a crowded grocery store this afternoon but can’t hike a trail in the hills. Clown World indeed.

      • Festus

        What really sparks me are the Karens hopping back three feet when you hold a door for them. Bitch, I’m holding the door. The skeevies are already on my hand. How much gentlemanly conduct do you need?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s better than the customer that hocked a big fat old loogie in front our door this morning.

      • Pope Jimbo

        How much can you get from a pawn broker for a big fat loogie?

      • Slammer

        STEVE SMITH SHOW YOU

      • AlexinCT

        That’s how you can tell the decisions are being made by idiots. Seriously, it must be some asshat that has never left the urban jungle they live in and assumes this is what everything is like that everyone is just as fucking stupid as the people he deals with (which might just be smarter than he is and he can’t register that)…

    • mrfamous

      I’m assuming if there starts to be legal challenges to these sorts of things, the ones termed “indefinitely” would be first on the block. I can’t imagine they have the “indefinite” power to do this, if they have it at all.

      • PieInTheSky

        This would not be so annoying if the press was not all there is nothing to worry about a month ago.

      • AlexinCT

        They are hoping you have already forgotten that up until mid February their single minded focus was on impeaching evil orange man and telling us that he should go because he was showing his racism by blocking flights from China as soon as he realized the WHO and China were lying about the disease. The usual paste eating lefties will not even bat an eye at that and accept the new talking points that the problem was Trump without batting an eye. When this “Trump stalled, people died” shit started I told one of these tools off, and they didn’t even lose a step telling me the actual facts I showed them of who was playing politics and stalling, were inaccurate. They are solipsists the lot of them.

    • Count Potato

      The Jews? WTF?

      • Drake

        You disagree?

    • Translucent Chum

      Ha. Jokes on you. Take a look at every story this morning that there are tons of deaths now going unreported for covid. Anything to keep the boot on for as long as possible.

      • PBRstreetgang

        Oh yeah I saw something like that. Nearly 200 uncounted deaths every day in NYC alone!

      • Not Adahn

        Yes, DeBlasio actually said that the “overwhelming majority” of people who die at home are coronafatalities.

      • invisible finger

        Wasn’t it just yesterday when we learned that death certificates are inflating COVID19 as the cause?

      • Translucent Chum

        Get with the narrative!

        Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, meanwhile, reiterated Monday she’s relying on University of Michigan data in her estimation the virus will hit its maximum impact in cases in late April or early May.

        Some statistical models rely on deaths, while others emphasize reported positive cases along with other data and assumptions to project out a peak. But experts say the cases and deaths are both under-reported.

        Mind you, Michigan has not run out of room in any hospitals and now that the peak date has been passed, they want to push the peak into May…

      • WTF

        Yup, they are inflating the numbers to conceal the fact that this is comparable to a bad flu season.

      • westernsloper

        Deaths is the one stat CO has been close to with the model. It didn’t make sense to me. I tried to find how many people die from what each month yesterday. I haven’t found that info yet. Did find in CO over 38000 people die a year. So, over 3200 a month. When it comes out that the death rates all went down for all other causes while WuFlu went up it is going to be hard to justify this shit.

      • WTF

        Exactly – excess deaths is what needs to be looked at, how many additional deaths were there over the expected 3,200 or whatever for each month, and is it statistically significant.

      • Festus

        ^^^ Banjos knows.

      • westernsloper

        Thanks Banjos.

      • invisible finger

        Trying to think like a bureaucrat: We first need to get rid of the present inventory (patients that were already in the hospital for something else and then caught the virus while in the hospital). Then we can finally get clean numbers.

      • AlexinCT

        OVER POPULATION!

        /new crisis mongers.

    • Pine_Tree

      They’ve figured out their own models are crap and are trying to slowly backtrack instead of just admitting it.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        They just have to string things out for another month, and then they can declare victory and roll back the long-term abuses.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        roll back the long-term abuses to the cheers of their fawning admirers, that is

      • Pine_Tree

        Just looked at the IHME one for this am. They kept the peak-shaving that they’d applied on 1-April (knocking 3 back to 31-March), and removed the fakery that was in there for Saturday and Sunday. Other than the peak-shaving, they’re again matching the DPH numbers showing last week’s peak and downtrend. Problem is that DPH suddenly changed something on Monday without explaining what, so on Monday they charted 43.7% new deaths all at once.

        So IHME for GA sucks less today than it did yesterday. Maybe the state noticed they’d issued their house-arrest order after their own numbers said it was useless, and were hoping nobody else noticed, so they pumped the numbers up to give them a fake peak from which to come down.

      • Pine_Tree

        Above critique is just about GA model.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I didn’t realize it broke down by state… Now I’m really pissed. VA is nowhere near needing a lockdown. Their expected peak is 33 deaths in a day. That’s noise.

      • Pine_Tree

        For GA, yesterday’s uncertainty band for just 3 days out was 16 – 228. At the max-death projected day, it was 11 – 557. The programmers know the model is junk. They tweaked it some this morning so it’s not so wild.

      • Chipwooder

        There was a major revision to the VA estimates yesterday, apparently. I looked at the numbers then and IMHE was predicting something like 58 deaths in a day peak and an ICU bed shortage of several hundred. Now there’s no ICU shortage, 33 a day peak, and the total deaths dropped by several hundred – 891 now.

      • Pine_Tree

        Well, a quick glance at both AL (next door) and CT (friends) says that somebody’s messing with 7-April. Don’t know if every state is that way, but for those 3 a flat-or-downtrend was ended suddenly with a strangely high number.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        891 out of ~70k Virginians who will die this year.

        Thats on par with prostate cancer, Parkinson’s, cirrhosis, or falls.

    • I. B. McGinty

      ATM?

    • WTF

      404

      • Count Potato

        Works for me.

      • WTF

        I guess I don’t have the right kind of magical computer.

      • AlexinCT

        Or your pr0n filters are acting up?

      • bacon-magic

        Another WTF moment brought to you by your Computor.

  6. Fourscore

    Looking at the picture of a drill sergeant all dressed up in his CV clothes made me laugh. Not the guy I remembered.

  7. Rebel Scum

    President Trump signaled Tuesday he may put a “very powerful hold” on funding to the World Health Organization as he lashed out at the United Nations specialized agency and accused it of “being very China-centric” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    The biggest, best hold. Big League. People tell me, they say Trump has the best stop payments. Nobody does stop payments like Trump. You will see.

  8. Count Potato

    “US journalists working across more than 1,000 local newspapers and other publications are facing cuts due to the economic hit their employers have taken on coronavirus.”

    Or maybe it’s due the internet and shitty journalism?

    • Grosspatzer

      Every cloud has a silver lining.

    • Rhywun

      I looked at NYC and it was all outposts of Bustle, Vice, and Gawker.

      ?

    • Tonio

      I understand that the NJ state government is now in desperate need of COBOL programmers.

      • AlexinCT

        Their DMV system must run on that shitz…

    • Festus

      Local rag is begging for donations, now. If this kills regular media I am going to laugh and laugh.

      • AlexinCT

        I hope that by the time these fuckers realize that in their scramble to help team blue wreck the economy so they can have a chance to get rid of orange man in November they killed their own ability to make a living, it is too late for them. They should all go learn to code as Tonio suggested. Fuck them. There might be some justice in the universe still.

    • gbob

      Contrarian take. I actually do think it’s a problem. Print journalism, at any rate.

      I come from a newspaper family. Both my parents were journalists. I did a year at J school, back in the day, and in the nineties I wrote freelance. My great grandmother was apparently a muckracker, way back when. I grew up with 4 or 5 newspapers in my house, every day.

      I agree that modern journalism is terrible. I’m also against bailouts for outdated technology.

      The problem I have is that there’s nothing that can replace the newspaper when it comes to local news…and that has some real danger for running a functional republic.

      In Buffalo, let me give you an idea of how bad it is. There were once two newspapers, with hundreds upon hundreds of reporters working for them. Public meetings, of any type, would have a a representative of one of the newspapers present. It was a great tool against corruption. Some town board member with ties to a developer would be called out if they gave a sweetheart deal. Every poor chump put into handcuffs would find themselves walking past a reporter on their way to the can. Today, the Buffalo police will not even release a daily report on arrests. For years, the News has been waging a fight to gain access but it’s the 21st century. They lack the clout.

      Corruption in city hall? State senate? Fuck it. You have a bunch of young kids, too dumb to get into an industry that will pay them money, tasked with covering the news….and they’re not even there. They can’t be.

      That being said, it’s a crisis without solution (at least one that would be acceptable to people like us).

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Apparently, it’s more profitable to scream about Trump and reprint random brain lint from Twitter.

      • Shirley Knott

        Local news? Neither of the two local papers cover it for shit. That ship sank long ago.
        The 4 local TV stations are as bad if not worse.
        Journalism isn’t even a rotting corpse at this point. It’s picked over bones, scattered across the landscape.

  9. Rebel Scum

    Senate will vote to pass more small business aid Thursday, McConnell says

    What you should be doing is pulling federal funding from states that maintain an unnecessary, constitutionally suspect, and economically detrimental “lockdown”.

    • Fourscore

      Schumer has become “Leader Schumer”. I’m waiting for the “First Hero Leader McConnell” to emerge. Everyone gets a participation award. Soon Trump will be awarding citations for the brave men and women that so gallantly fought the “Battle of the Deficit” and overpowered this disease that threatened to wipe out humanity.

      • Festus

        Participation trophies have apparently “trickled up”.

  10. Nephilium

    So in cheerful news, I still have a job. But the company just announced they were suspending all bonuses, raises, and 401k matching for the “foreseeable future”.

      • Nephilium

        I’m curious about the specifics about the 401k matching. They only dropped the matches into our accounts quarterly (and if you weren’t with the company at the quarter, no match for you). So if this doesn’t last until the next quarter match, will everything balance out, or will the quarter match be light.

      • Tonio

        Sorry about that. If the suspension continues for more than a couple of quarters (or even that) do make contributions to your plan. You’ll thank yourself later, trust me.

      • Nephilium

        Oh, I’m not stopping my contributions. The match wasn’t a great one anyway, just annoyed that they already have shitty rules about it, and they’re stopping it.

        At a previous job, I did hear people talking about stopping contributing to the 401k since the market was going down. And this was a company that did a full match up to 5% of your income (fully vested in 5 years).

      • WTF

        I did hear people talking about stopping contributing to the 401k since the market was going down

        Well sure, why would you want to buy stocks when they’re cheap?

      • Tonio

        I’m foregoing some toy purchases to invest while stocks are down.

      • AlexinCT

        I am with you Tonio. I explained to my lady friend just the other day that 401K investments are long term investments. You want to buy when the market is hurting as much as possible, and hit retirement when it is flying high if possible. She got it eventually, but a lot of people don’t get that the time to buy is when the market is actually in the tank, not when it is flying high and everything is more expensive.

      • Festus

        No worries, it’s the “New Normal”! Something something chocolate ration something. Lay-offs are starting at Wifey’s company. She’s a ton of seniority but for the last few days she’s gone in to work and been sent home as soon as she signs in. 24 years together. Who knew that we needed our own space?

      • Nephilium

        Oh and just to put me in a fouler mood. Today was when my vacation to Vegas was supposed to start for the annual Viva Las Vegas festival… which was cancelled.

        /puts on Viva Las Vegas shirt to mourn it. Like wearing Wahoo on Opening Day.

      • Fourscore

        Sorry Neph, an opportunity missed is an opportunity lost. You can’t make up those days either.

      • Festus

        Wear it on Friday, Compadre.

      • Nephilium

        I think one of the Sweet Pea Hooch and Smooch shirts would be more appropriate. It’s one of the kickoff parties for the event itself. I’ll need to see if I can hunt down the flyer that was posted for this year.

      • Nephilium

        And found it.

      • Festus

        Nice! Truth be told, I always feel a little silly after those sessions. “What the fuck did I say?”

    • westernsloper

      ?

    • robc

      Our CEO sent a letter last Friday saying “No layoffs, no benefit cuts, no 401K matching cuts, etc.”

      90% of the company is working from home and the other 10% are truly essential. Fortunately, we are a company that isnt hurt at all by the virus. The fact that our stock fell makes no sense. We arent getting a boost in business like grocery stores, but our revenue is chugging along just fine. I guess we probably aren’t growing it any right now, which could explain the stock hit – we aren’t really generating new business.

      • AlexinCT

        In the same boat as you robc. My company is not being impacted too negatively right now by this and most of us are able to do the work from home. I suspect that at some point things might change, but for now we are even hiring instead of laying off. Let’s see how long that lasts when everyone around you that buys your product is rolling over and dying…

  11. Rebel Scum

    Next round of coronavirus stimulus could add $1.5 trillion

    Good. The Kennedy Center needs money to layoff more people.

    • AlexinCT

      This time the money will go to a different team blue social club….

  12. topnotchtoledo

    best argument against all of this is that everyone is still going to the grocery store. In my town there are four so every single person in town is exposed to most of the town every single time they shop. Zero deaths in my county. Glad I lost my job over this.

    • Fourscore

      Eat More Walleyes!

      • Nephilium

        What’s wrong with perch man? Why do you always have to go rushing off to the walleye?

      • Fourscore

        We caught some really nice perch in Canada, they went in the frying pan. Here the perch are not so big but some Asian ladies I know keep them anyway.

      • AlexinCT

        Was that some kind of “rice dick” joke?

      • Fourscore

        True story. MN has an abundance of one time rural Hmong people. Initially they didn’t speak English but they did like fishing/hunting. Their idea was that all animals/birds/fish were legal prey and hunting was a scorched earth policy. Small birds/song birds/squirrels/woodchucks and more, you get the picture. Finally a younger Hmong person was able to convinced that there are rules, Man.

        They fished below the Ford dam on the Mississippi, south side of Mpls-SP. No one fished there (with a reason) and carp were plentiful. Signs warning of mercury contamination were posted but of course meaningless. They were in Hmong heaven until some spoilsport explained the signs.

      • Tundra

        I was down there one morning right where the Minnehaha dumps into the Mississippi. I was tossing back the fish I caught (smallies mainly). A bunch of Hmong kids were there, too, and were flipping out that I wasn’t keeping them.

        This was late ’90s, so the language barrier was still a thing. I tried to explain that we were fishing in a fucking toxic waste dump, but they weren’t having it.

        Like you say, though, things have been squared away (although I’m not convinced the oldsters stopped eating fish out of questionable waters).

      • AlexinCT

        Someone had to go ruin it for them, damn…

      • AlexinCT

        I think in Latin America there is a saying “Lo que no mata, engorda”, which loosely translates to “If it doesn’t kill you, it will fatten you up” meaning all is well and eat up….

        Would not be surprised that South East Asians had a similar belief.

    • Festus

      Ah shit. Sorry. I’m still Golden until they shut down the mail.

  13. Count Potato

    “The Texas Tribune reported Judge Kyle Duncan, a Donald Trump appointee, cited precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court in his decision, writing that “individual rights secured by the Constitution do not disappear during a public health crisis, but … Rights could be reasonably restricted during those times.””

    Abortion is not a right, and rights cannot be restricted because of “crisis”.

    “According to the Tribune, Duncan said Yeakel’s order “[bestowed] on abortion providers a blanket exemption from a generally-applicable emergency public health measure.” Duncan said Yeakel had represented Abbott’s order as a total ban on abortions. “Properly understood,” he wrote, the governor’s executive order is a “temporary postponement” of many procedures, such as colonoscopies.”

    Listen, I’m against abortion and colon cancer, but the places that generally do those things aren’t treating covid-19 patients.

    • commodious spittoon

      the places that generally do those things aren’t treating covid-19 patients

      They should be ransacked for supplies and their doctors shanghaied to treat Covid patients in New York.

      • Festus

        See? That’s how you Abbott!

    • Festus

      He can be good but when he gets bored he’s like a five year-old.

      • Drake

        #metoo

      • Festus

        He’s a drug warrior and given his haircut, I can see why.

      • Count Potato

        I remember him saying the WOD was illogical, but I guess opinions change.

      • commodious spittoon

        Would someone explain what’s the point of of an epidemic peak if nothing is contingent on it? Are we easing the lockdowns after the peak has passed? Won’t that just make for a new peak? If we’re not going back to work, then the peak is an arbitrary distinction. All it tells us is that we’ve curbed the rate of infection through unprecedented, and unsustainable, emergency measures. The only way it makes sense to me is if we’re really committed to waiting this out until a vaccine is rolled out in a year or so. Otherwise we’re just going to yo-yo back to a higher rate when the “quarantine” ends.

      • R C Dean

        Not necessarily, or even likely. The longer this goes ,the more people are immune and the lower any subsequent wave will peak, until we get to herd immunity (70%).

        Also, you have to assume social distancing works to think there will be an increase when social distancing is over.

        Finally, we are on the downslope of the flu season, which likely means the downslope of the Commie Cough season, as the weather warms.

        Just because Our Masters say their clampdown is the only thing saving millions of lives doesn’t mean it’s true.

      • invisible finger

        But lifelong bureaucrats like Fauci and Brix wouldn’t lie to me, they’re so pleasant! Any mistake they make is only because they care about me so much!

      • Spartacus

        Fuck you Hans Brix!

      • commodious spittoon

        I’m trying to understand it from their point of view. Is their goal herd immunity or is it maximum economic and political carnage waiting around for a vaccine?

        If the goal is herd immunity, wouldn’t a cyclical approach to locking down have been better? Workplaces are shuttered for a week every two weeks to allow for bad cases to be treated and not-bad cases to muddle through at home. (Or, workers must be furloughed for a week every two weeks.) You’ll get this eventually, but let’s not overwhelm the system all at once. Play around with the numbers, it would have to be better than the approach we’ve taken, especially if the goal is an orderly rate of infection and immunization.

      • commodious spittoon

        Oh, and a focused, expensive effort on actually quarantining the vulnerable, unlike the massively expensive, unfocused effort we’ve made to “quarantine” everyone.

      • AlexinCT

        Pray tell how not telling everyone “Obey, you fucking serfs” helps the narrative/agenda? They have been doing it to smaller groups for decades now, and are trying out their hands at fucking over everyone all at once…

      • Drake

        I assume all the blood has left their brains and is in their throbbing statist boners right now. Those kinds of intellectual exercises aren’t even considered.

      • Tejicano

        Granted, we’re not talking about a huge volume of blood…

      • Count Potato

        “Such measures would have made sense back in January but our authorities let the virus in through our airports and encouraged its spread in the name of fighting racism.”

        OFFS!

      • Translucent Chum

        How did the virus get past the vaunted TSA? Let the virus in. What a bunch of fucking lunatics.

      • UnCivilServant

        The virus wasn’t carrying any liquids in medium sized containers.

      • AlexinCT

        I heard it was cause they didn’t make the virus take off its shoes to sniff for explosives…

        Fucking foot fetish dickheads dropped the ball.

    • DrOtto

      My problem with Tucker is, I remember when he wore a bow tie. My father said, never trust a white man who wears a bow tie when he’s not wearing a tuxedo.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        I think they make sense for doctors and scientists.

      • AlexinCT

        What about assholes?

      • AlexinCT

        HEY NOW!

      • Agent Cooper

        Bill Nye. Check
        Senator Paul Simon. Check.
        Theodore Roosevelt. Check.
        Mark Russell. Check.
        Mo Rocca. Check.
        Pee Wee Herman. Maybe.

      • The Last American Hero

        George Will has a sad.

  14. westernsloper

    Well, who did Elsa marry?

    • Translucent Chum

      If it wasn’t her sister, I’m not watching any more of this movie.

    • Festus

      Sponge Bob.

      • Fourscore

        Oh you guys, you don’t take this seriously, do you?

      • Not Adahn

        The groom was spongeworthy?

    • Ted S.

      Charles Laughton?

    • Banjos

      My middle child pretended to be the groom.

  15. Rebel Scum

    Border wall construction still continues apace.

    Silly, racist, walls (like guns) won’t stop a virus, you redneck bigot. – Slate

  16. PieInTheSky

    One thing I have discovered in this stay at home period is the use of the oven.

    Sadly I gained 1.5 kg. I need to diet.

    • Nephilium

      I’ve gone back onto it after bouncing up over 5 pounds. Most of that is gone again thankfully. At ~36 miles this week for the virtual bike ride. 18 in one day on the road bike, and 18 on two days on the hated stationary. Today we’re supposed to get up into the 60’s, so hopefully another 18-25 on the road bike this afternoon.

      • AlexinCT

        Been hiking about 8 miles a day since my girl doesn’t like me to do my usual longer jaunts, but the fact she keeps making me oatmeal raisin cookies and I keep making these gourmet meals (that unfortunately have lots of calories) and we drink like mad (thus eat more) is killing me. I am gonna need to go on a diet now.

  17. Rebel Scum

    Migrant smugglers reportedly posed as border wall construction employees, and one of them shot at a Border Patrol agent following a high-speed chase.

    Thinking outside the box.

    • AlexinCT

      This guy is gonna be working for the dnc in no time…

  18. Animal

    Soliciting suggestions for future Profiles in Toxic Masculinity. Current possibilities include James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickock, George Patton and Marc Antony.

    • Translucent Chum

      Shackleton?

    • Drake

      John Basilone, Ethan Allen.

      • Count Potato

        Manly furniture?

      • Agent Cooper

        Educate yourself.

        My son is named Ethan after both Ethan Allen and John Wayne’s character in The Searchers, Ethan Edwards.

      • Agent Cooper

        “he spent most of his time either in Bennington or on the road, where he could avoid his wife’s nagging.”

        Sounds like a perfect example.

      • Animal

        Here I sit in my temporary lodgings in Raritan, NJ, and I hadn’t thought of John Baslione. Color me embarrassed.

      • dbleagle

        William O. Donovan. Stud soldier, ferocious attorney, back for a second round as stud soldier.

    • Chipwooder

      How about John Wesley Powell?

      • westernsloper

        He would be a good one. Anyone who has floated the Grand Canyon has thought about that crazy fucker making the first trip down it back when the river ran wild. There are some scary waves down there.

    • Tejicano

      Sir Richard Francis Burton

      • Tejicano

        While fighting off a group of Berbers in north Africa he took a spear through the face – in one cheek and out the other, loosing teeth on the way – but continued fighting until they were driven off. Explored every continent except for Antarctica in the mid-19th century. Wrote the British Army’s manual for the use of the bayonet. Did a Haj masquerading as an Afghan doctor (he would have been stoned to death n the spot had his identity been revealed).

    • Pope Jimbo

      Chauncy Stigand? He has a chapter in Death in Silent Places and it was pretty bad ass.

      Stigand was a keen big game hunter who took greater risks than most hunters and often came close to being fatally injured. Stigand was gored in the chest by a rhino, mauled by a wounded lion that he was following up in the dark, tusked through the leg by an elephant that he was trying to drive out of a garden (without a rifle) and was knocked to the ground by another wounded elephant which stood over him bleeding whilst he lay hidden. Stigand once crawled into a cave after another wounded lion which, luckily for him, had died by the time he reached it.

      • Viking1865

        “tusked through the leg by an elephant that he was trying to drive out of a garden (without a rifle)”

        I’m picturing a man in khaki shorts, knee socks, and a pith helmet, bopping an elephant on the trunk with a swagger stick, his morning tea in the other hand.

    • Tundra

      Fourscore

      • Pope Jimbo

        WARNING: When you meet Fourscore during your research be prepared to feel really bad about your lazy ass. This is normal for anyone meeting Fourscore. But yeah, he’d be a good subject for your articles.

      • Fourscore

        Only if the article is the subject that proctologists care the most about.

      • l0b0t

        Making their next boat payment?

    • Festus

      Alexander McKenzie, Simon Fraser, Saint Jean De Brebeuf. Fucking Jacques Cartier and Frontenac.

    • Slammer

      William Walker?

    • The Other Kevin

      Percy Fawcett.

    • pistoffnick

      Arctic explorer Peter Freuchen

      He was trapped for several days in an avalanche. A camp cook almost shot him, thinking he was a bear. He fell through a hole in fetid sea ice and had to have a team of sled dogs pull him out. He stabbed his own thigh with a harpoon as he climbed down a glacier using ropes made out of sealskin, and he got trapped in a snow cave because the warmth from his breath formed an impassable crust on the opening. In order to escape from the snow cave, he fashioned a chisel that he sometimes described as having been made from his own frozen feces. While he was stuck, whittling away at the ice, one of his feet froze so severely that he was forced to amputate several of his own toes. Later, he lost the foot entirely.

      Look at that picture: https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5c5349189922c254df56d625/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Syme-Irving-Penn.jpg

    • Tulip

      Merriweather Lewis

    • Spartacus

      Andrew Jackson?

    • bacon-magic

      Charlton Heston

    • Fourscore

      For a more contemporary figure, Will Steger. Ignore his more recent politics

    • Shpip

      CJP Ionides and Jim Sutherland come to mind. Selous, too, if he hasn’t been covered already.

    • Translucent Chum

      Christopher Lee?

    • B.P.

      Jim Acosta.

    • Ozymandias

      Evans Carlson, founder of Carlson’s Raiders, likely the first US “Special Forces.” Carlson marched all over China with Mao’s 8th Army (as an advisor) against the Japanese when the Japanese invaded in the 30s. He took what he learned from Mao and incorporated it into the Marine Corps. The modern Marine Corps is largely a reflection of Carlson’s innovations. He helped form the Marine Raiders for service against the Japanese in the Pacific and then led the famous patrol behind enemy lines on Guadalcanal for a month that killed 488 Japanese. His career as a Marine came second – he was in the Army originally and made it to first sergeant before joining the Corps. Three Navy Crosses – 2 as a Light Colonel – one while in Nicaragua in the 30s. Dude was a complete fucking badass and died at 51.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Thomas Cochrane

    • Rebel Scum

      William Riker

    • The Last American Hero

      President Donald J Trump.

      • dbleagle

        Joseph Walker or Jim Bridger

    • Shirley Knott

      Daniel Boone

  19. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Updates from Virginia Emergency Support Teams

    Hospitalized COVID Cases – 1183

    ICU COVID Cases – 408

    Ventilators In Use – 692 (283 are COVID)

    Ventilators on Hand – 2533

    Beds Available – 5461

    • Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. That is what I was storming around a couple days ago. The curve should be flattened only to the point where 650 or so ventilators and 5000 beds are being used. Any more flattening after that is a waste of everybody’s time and money.

      • leon

        we’ve flattened our curve to having a maximum of “5” projected deaths per day for about a week. so… Yeah… It seems like this was a little bit of an overreaction.

  20. Translucent Chum

    I hate hate hate the reflexive if Trump promotes it, it’s bad or won’t work. Check out this story. It’s bordering on evil.

    Trump allies put unproven virus drug to work in Texas

    Now in Texas, political connections and Trump allies are helping push the drug into the hands of more physicians.

    So, it probably won’t work, but if it does, it was because political connections or something.

    • Drake

      We’re way past this “anecdotal” and “unproven” bullshit. It works, I took statistics in school – we have a valid sample size.

      By the definitions they are using, it is absolutely impossible to have a “proven” drug available in any kind of new epidemic. So the solution is to just not treat people? Let them die because the FDA hasn’t reviewed a year-long drug trial?

      • Pope Jimbo

        If the NSA actually wanted to be useful, they could be making a list of everyone bemoaning the fact that this drug isn’t proven. Then when they show up sick, they would get the placebo, so that we could have a legitimate study done.

        Can you imagine the fuss these people would put up if they showed up at the hospital and were told that they were part of a clinical study and there was only a 50/50 chance that they’d get the actual drug?

      • commodious spittoon

        What about people who die from a reaction to the drug rather than dying from virus? Are their deaths on Trump’s head either way?

      • Drake

        Die from cloroquine or related drugs? Not unless you took a massive overdose.

      • commodious spittoon

        It’s his fault when someone murders her husband* with a different chemical compound meant to treat gill rot or whatever, so I’m sure overdoses will be his fault, too.

        *allegedly

      • Tonio

        It is also possible that they use data from the general population as a proxy for the “untreated” group. That introduces whole other types of problems.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Since you are already mad, might as well read this story about the outrage du jour.

      Everyone is mad that Trump won’t personally wear a mask. What a stupid head leader! As the story points out, none of the Dem leaders are wearing them either (except Schumer, sort of). But that is different.

      *Check out the story just to see the pic of Schumer trying to wear a mask

      • AlexinCT

        He wears his underwear on the inside of his pants, so we all should wear it on the outside!

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        You really think Trump wears underwear? I always saw him as a freeballing kind of guy, like Joe Exotic.

      • AlexinCT

        I as just spit-balling the proggie response man. I have to admit that I have never thought about if the guy went commando or not. I save that heavy use of brain power for what the ladies are wearing….

        Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with you using your gray matter thinking about these important issues this way….

    • DrOtto

      You can’t read an article about hydroxychloroquine without it stating it is unproven. They keep talking about this like we have no treatments available and are doomed, doomed I tells ya.

    • AlexinCT

      At least they didn’t use their power to ban the use of the drug, and then went in secret and hoarded it. either this was done with the intent to profiteer from it – which is evil -or it was done to deny people it’s use for fear when it works it would make the TDS look bad – which is even more evil – or something like that…

    • robc

      It wouldnt surprise me…how many little guys can handle 3 months without revenue?

      • Nephilium

        Oh, the numbers don’t surprise me at all. I’m just making sure I admit that there’s a probable bias in the reporting and the survey. Most of the breweries are also at least getting some revenue, but it’s an anemic amount with all tap sales essentially dead.

    • topnotchtoledo

      Stupidly I got on Facebook and suggested that killing US economy wasn’t worth it for something that kills fewer people than suicide. Suicides are devastating and preventable, something we could actually affect with maybe only 1 trillion dollars. You can guess the responses.

      • R C Dean

        “You can guess the responses.“

        You should kill yourself, h8er?

      • topnotchtoledo

        You don’t know how deadly this is!!! Do you want your parents to die?!?! Is the economy more important than your family?!?! Etc etc. I do feel like lead poisoning might be better than this, sheesh

  21. leon

    “Trump may put a hold on funding WHO.”

    Impeach the mother fucker!

  22. JD is Unemployed

    My neighbors from the big shitty have chosen to spend their house arrest here, at their weekend place, up ‘n the country, and they are slamming doors every time I get the tools out. I guess their idea of the country is just an idyllic retreat for bigshot TV producer city people like them, and my trying to actually do stuff which might still earn me a little is infringing on their right to enjoy their dacha in peace. I do sympathise if they are trying to work, but it’s not like I’m out there all the time or using a jackhammer or a chopsaw or something way noisy. I heard some shouting yesterday but couldn’t tell what it was. I just carried on until I was done, and caught the end of some conversation that sounded like an irate person being talked down from something. I can’t deal with passive-aggressive neighbor stuff so I’ll just do what I do until they can be straight with me. Their gardener is a local guy and he hates it when they’re around. In the before times they’d just show up at weekends with their crazy, poorly trained dog, who used to get into the yard all the time and bark at me non stop until I chased him off, but he’d always come back so I just ended up ignoring him. They eventually got someone to fix their fence after many times of asking. I’d have patched it but they needed a whole section doing and there’s no way I’m building them a fucking fence for free. If they’ve got a problem they can come and talk to me (from at least 6ft away, I suppose). They won’t. Maybe I’ll get a note through the door, or a visit from the local authority with the police (I think they always accompany inspectors for noise nuisance calls).

    • PieInTheSky

      I guess their idea of the country is just an idyllic retreat for bigshot TV producer city people like them – well there were plenty of TV shows about how the country is not idyllic, so they can’t claim to be surprised given their line of work

    • Drake

      Sure they aren’t just yelling at each other?

      • Tejicano

        Reading this, I was imagining it was the wife badgering the husband to do something about the noisy neighbor.

      • Drake

        I’m picturing two bored rich people who rarely see each other.

      • Slammer

        It starts out like a Penthouse Letter with real potential

    • Festus

      Fences. Fences and moats with alligators, Fuck them sideways.

    • The Last American Hero

      I would have put out a bunch of bacon for the dog. Spoil the thing and he will both stop barking and become an insufferable beggar at home.

  23. Rufus the Monocled

    Re WHO: I love Trump.

    Starve that little shit.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Hey Rufus, which Muppet are you?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Is this rhetorical?

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        No, earnest. I just can’t ID him, is all.

      • Charles Easterly

        Rufus is using the image of Roosevelt Franklin from Sesame Street.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Thank you!

  24. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Culus Vult

    As socially cognizant black people in the US, it is a known fact that we are often torn between people that we have love for. I imagine that the majority of successful black people live a reality where they constantly have to put up with close-quarters racism, ranging from microaggressions to blatant bigotry.

    In my quest to distance myself from this dual-identity and become one, I can picture how one would suggest that my actions are petty or arrogant.

    After profound thought in the subject, I realized that this isn’t an issue of arrogance or maliciousness; it’s an issue of self-care.

    I have to address racism from those who are close to me because it’s that close proximity that makes things more damaging.

    For those who are my friends, I don’t want to destroy them or start trouble – I just want them to be better people. I want my friends to give a damn about me as much as I give a damn about them.

    Ultimately, I want them to give a damn for others as well. You know, have basic human empathy for people of color other than me.

    For those who continue to bullshit in regards to racism, think everything is merely “a matter of different opinion,” or wonder why I don’t “just leave the US…”

    I’m totally okay with losing these “friends” of mine. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

    So to those who continue to be bigots in my wake, just know that it’s only a matter of time before you lose.

    • topnotchtoledo

      As a straight white guy I had a profound thought, you can pound sand.

    • WTF

      “Either agree with every idiotic and illogical thought and opinion I hold regardless of actual facts or you’re a racist and I can’t be around you.”

      • AlexinCT

        It was nice knowing ya bub. Hasta la fucking vista!

    • R C Dean

      “I imagine that the majority of successful black people live a reality where they constantly have to put up with close-quarters racism, ranging from microaggressions to blatant bigotry.“

      You realize that things you imagine aren’t actual things, right?

      • Nephilium

        But reality is perception!

    • Slammer

      Socially cognizant.

      Population shoelace.

      Lettuce backpack.

      Racially meditative.

      Geographically emotional.

      Tootsie roll scientific

    • Tonio

      I would consider it a win to be free of a “friend” like that.

      • Rhywun

        Yeap. I’m picturing him walking into a room and everyone thinking “Oh not this asshole”.

    • Q Continuum

      “I’m totally okay with losing these “friends” of mine.”

      The feeling is mutual bucko.

  25. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: In Case You Were Wondering How Things Work In Utopia

    How Would a Socialist System Deal with a Pandemic?

    Capitalist governments around the world are taking unprecedented measures. Yet these remain fettered by the anarchy of the market. A socialist society could simply send everyone on stay-at-home, paid vacation for a month or two.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      And when all these draconian measures don’t work we shoot people and burn down villages.

    • UnCivilServant

      And weld closed their doors so they can’t come out, checking back to see if they’ve become corpses or not.

      • Tejicano

        There’s no reason to “check” on them per se. When the bowl of rice and bowl of veggies/meat are still outside the door from lunch they know it’s time to bring the crew in PPE and a gurney.

      • UnCivilServant

        The same door that was welded shut? 😛

      • Tejicano

        Disc grinder

    • UnCivilServant

      Or just skip the quarantines and just shoot anyone who gets sick, the North Korean way.

    • WTF

      You mean like China? How did that work out?

    • Count Potato

      Does this idiot not realize it started in China?

      • UnCivilServant

        “Not True Socializmlism!”

      • Tejicano

        Fighting fire with fire?

      • Tonio

        I think that’s really what’s behind the left going ballistic about identifying the origins of the virus — the alleged racism was just a pretext, the actual purpose was to keep people from asking inconvenient questions about observed socialist response and outcomes.

    • leon

      I want to believe this is a one of those troll articles that gets published by a leftist paper/website.

      I want to believe that no one is this brain dead.

      If you were to grant a socialist economy of our size (it wouldn’t be as big as ours is) that economy generates over 1 Trillion in output every month. More than just “where are you gonna get the money”, which they would say they could just print, Where are you going to pull two months of stuff out for people to consume while there is no production going on for 2 months.

      Magic hat economics indeed.

      • UnCivilServant

        Ah, comrade, but the great surpluses of socialism mean the stockpiles will be stuffed to overflowing.

        /lies commies tell themselves.

      • leon

        Thank you, i needed that hearty Guffaw that gave me.

      • Nephilium

        send everyone on stay-at-home, paid vacation

        And the farms, electric grid, water treatment, food processors, truckers, grocery stores, internet, cell service, sewage, hospitals, warehouses, security, and at least a dozen more would just keep working with no workers.

      • UnCivilServant

        What are you talking about? Is socialist country, we have none of that.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah my conversations with people have been really illuminating. Like, I get not everyone is gonna go deep into Austrian economics. Fine.

        But the amount of people who just don’t understand, in any way, shape or form, that printing 2 trillion dollars is not the same thing as generating 2 trillion dollars in real wealth is staggering. I tried to talk it out with one of them, with the old “Well why not print 30 trillion dollars then we could give everyone in the country 9000 bucks right now. If printing money doesn’t matter, why not print more?”

        Especially the fucking Office Progs. The same people who have been ORANGE MAN BADing for four fucking years are now all SAVE ME DADDY SAVE ME.

    • R C Dean

      How Would a Socialist System Deal with a Pandemic?

      This is not a mystery. They put a bullet in the back of the head of the doctor who made unapproved announcements of it, and harvested his organs.

    • Slammer

      Fettered by anarchy. Gold

      • AlexinCT

        The worst thing for the people that called it wrong is having to admit they succumbed to panic and bad info. They are supposed to be the elite experts….

        Saying you are wrong would undermine that shit. So what can you do? Well, you double down!

    • PieInTheSky

      That sounds like State Capitalism to me not TRU Socializum. Tankie alert!

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      A socialist society could simply send everyone on stay-at-home, paid vacation for a month or two.

      But not at home, maybe at a scenic destination. And they can do some work because idle hands are the devil’s playground.

      We can call it the General Unemployment Lifeline And Generosity program.

    • commodious spittoon

      A socialist society could simply send everyone on stay-at-home, paid vacation for a month or two.

      You can’t buy anything and you weren’t being paid anyway, so what difference, at this point, does it make?

    • Spartacus

      A socialist society could simply send everyone on stay-at-home, paid vacation for a month or two. is already on the point of collapse, so the difference is barely noticeable.

  26. Rufus the Monocled

    All this energy wasted on hating Trump should be shifted towards the real culprits: China and the WHO.

    • PieInTheSky

      The energy is wasted according to the 4 year plan. You cannot change the plan willy nilly

    • Translucent Chum

      She’s got some fun pictures out on that internet.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      we like each other we realized

      Marry first, worry about compatibility later.

  27. Pope Jimbo

    Fucking NoDaks.

    People traveling from Minnesota into North Dakota are now required to quarantine for 14 days, or potentially face a fine or jail time.

    It’s part of a larger travel quarantine policy which North Dakota put into place in late March, which has been updated to include nearly three dozen states.

    According to the North Dakota Health Department’s website, “all individuals traveling back to North Dakota from international locations and states in the U.S. that have been classified as having widespread disease by the CDC … must quarantine immediately upon reentry to the state of North Dakota and for a period of 14 days.”

    Minnesoda has 34 deaths so far (median age 86). This is going to be great for river cities like Fargo and Grand Forks. My biggest question is how many of the NoDaks will turn out to be Jr Stasi and rat out neighbors for going to Moorhead or East Grand Forks. If this lasts into summer, my guess is that a lot of jealous types will rat out neighbors who have lake cabins in Minnesoda.

    • UnCivilServant

      Is North Dakota going to pay for the cost of my quarantine and provide the food?

    • PieInTheSky

      I say invade the fuckers and rename the state to Lesser Minnesota

      • Pope Jimbo

        Before Minnesoda got its act together, there were plans to split the territory in two. The top half of Minnesoda and what is now NoDak would be a state named Superior and Sodak and south Minnesoda would have been a state named Dakota.

        The problem is invading Nodak is like invading Afghanistan. There is no civilization there. You can’t bomb them back to the stone age because they are already there (they call it the Sod Age locally).

      • AlexinCT

        Sister fuckers….

      • UnCivilServant

        Oh come on, Nuns need love too.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Yeah, but don’t make a habit out of it.

      • AlexinCT

        Someone’s gotta carry that cross…

      • Gustave Lytton

        Make Mondak great again!

    • PieInTheSky

      save the hot chicks first. will be needed to repopulate

      • AlexinCT

        Why do I then see so many “Save the whales” stickers instead? Are there this many “we need to repopulate using fat chick aficionados” that I am unaware of?

  28. Not Adahn

    We must make the pandemic theater more spectacular!

    New work protocol:

    1. Apply sanitizer to hands
    2. Advance to masking station, put on mask. The mask is to be kept on all day, except for lunch.
    3. Advance to temperature station, have temperature checked etc…

    • UnCivilServant

      So when do you get to wash that horrible sanitizer residue off your hands and actually get them clean?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Ah yes, the film that inspired me to issue a fatwa against the movie editors.

      • Not Adahn

        Someday I want to watch it while tripping balls.

    • R C Dean

      Umm, sanitizer doesn’t really do much to viruses like this. Not nearly as good as hand washing.

  29. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: And Yet You Continue To Eat

    I just CAN’T FUCKING WAIT FOR THIS FUCKING SPECI3S TO FUCKING END!!!!

    Clean, beautiful, pure nothingness, except for the twitches of life remaining in things with much less potential for conscious suffering.

    Such a beautiful dream to dream of, before relinquishing the world to beautiful entropy again.

    • Gender Traitor

      Take the initiative – be a trend setter!

    • PieInTheSky

      I support vhemt from my whole brain and heart. I am childfree , antinatalist, nihilist, atheist, efilist. -jesus they need a lot of words

      Search Results
      Featured snippet from the web
      EFILism (LIFE spelled backwards) is like secular atheism, but against DNA dogma. It’s enhanced Antinatalism and realizing God is dead of course. Yet even atheists are still dancing with his corpse

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Self-loathing is hard.

      • Rhywun

        /Death Cult Barbie

      • Q Continuum

        Xe sounds like a blast at parties.

  30. leon

    As seen on facebook:

    “If you are willing to snitch on someone outside during the Coronoavirus, you would have snitched on Anne Frank and Harriet Tubman”

    So true. So many of the Karens out there that are out snitching, are the same basic retards who argue that they totally would have helped those poor slaves during the antebellum. You idiot you would have been just like the rest of the populace that said “Hey! they are breaking the rules!”

  31. Rufus the Monocled

    Yup.

    Snitches are the worst kind of humans.

    • PieInTheSky

      sadly stitches are rationed in these times of pressure upon the medical system. SO superglue?

  32. Q Continuum

    “The Texas Tribune reported Judge Kyle Duncan, a Donald Trump appointee, cited precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court in his decision, writing that ‘individual rights secured by the Constitution do not disappear during a public health crisis, but … Rights could be reasonably restricted during those times.'”

    Fuck. You.

    • UnCivilServant

      A “Right” has no “Reasonable” restrictions.

    • R C Dean

      He’s wrong on the big issue, but right on the narrow issue that abortion isn’t the most sacred right that alone cannot be limited when other rights are limited.

      • Q Continuum

        The debate to be having is whether abortion should be Constitutionally protected at all. For the moment, however, it is and I don’t want shitty statist logic applied any which way.

      • UnCivilServant

        It is not protected.

        Even after torturing the language, they still ended up having to invent a protection from whole cloth.

      • Nephilium

        So the places that shut down church services and abortions need to allow both to happen?

      • Translucent Chum

        He should have ordered all elective surgeries could go forward.

    • Tejicano

      I’m almost proud to hear the Japanese politicians going on TV stating clearly that the law forbids them from forcing citizens to practice social distancing or shelter in place – but that they implore us to do so for the good of each other and for the people they care for.

      • Festus

        The World has turned topsy-turvy! They used to be the Kamikaze race and now they’re the sedate ones.

      • Q Continuum

        Who knew Nippon would turn out to be Libertopia.

  33. Not Adahn

    NPR continues into self-parody.

    Today they had a segment on Millennials and virtual happy hours.

    Yesterday they had a reporter suddenly decide that his pop-culture reference wouldn’t fly mid-sentence. Referring to queen Elizabeth saying “we’ll meet again” he said that “She was referencing a popular song from WWII that most people know from… WWII.” I can only assume he was planning on saying “Fallout” and not “Dr. Strangelove.”

    • UnCivilServant

      I don’t know the song, and I’ve both played fallout and seen strangelove.

      • Not Adahn

        I find that so impossible to believe that I assume I’m missing the joke.

      • UnCivilServant

        Nope.

        But I also turn off the music in fallout, and saw strangelove back in the 90s.

    • Gustave Lytton

      The Wall.. which might as well be from WWII as far as the kids are concerned,

      https://youtu.be/bCawgpFg_Bg

    • commodious spittoon

      I can only assume he was planning on saying “Fallout” and not “Dr. Strangelove.”

      Not Pink Floyd?

    • Pope Jimbo

      I got mixed up and thought you were talking about Sheryl “Lean In” Sandberg. Wondered what the hell was going on.

      But yeah, Attkisson is the real deal. Given that she was one of the journalos spied on by Obama you’d think she’d have all sorts of street cred.

      • Rebel Scum

        Plus she’s hawt.

    • bacon-magic

      One of the few good journalists left.

  34. Festus

    Hey Creech! If you’re out there no hard feelings, eh? I had sore feet.

  35. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos and thank for all the lynx!

    Man, the hate that Rand gets is spectacular. He must be doing something right.

    I’m really ready for this to end. It’s depressing how many people in my world just shrug their shoulders and say we have to do it.

    Fun musical selection. His wedding looks like fun.

    Have a great day, y’all!

    • Festus

      Amazing how this has changed nothing for most of the people that I interact with. Just shrugged shoulders and and you do what you gotta do… Start cutting their pay by half and see what happens.

      • Translucent Chum

        That’s part of what I talked about with the Mrs. yesterday. If auto workers and teachers were not getting paid to stay home, this would all be done already.

      • Viking1865

        Yeah the issue here is that none of the people who make the decisions are suffering from this. All the government workers are getting paid their full checks. The mayor of Chicago still had her hair appointment.

        If the teacher were on 80% pay, they’d be marching on the state capitols in a nationwide coordinated response, with disciplined message and printed signs and tshirts.

      • Agent Cooper

        It hasn’t really hit most of the well-to-do who can afford to work at home hard yet. When it does, everything will change on a dime.

      • Tundra

        I forward FEE articles to my kids all the time. Outstanding people.

    • Festus

      Looking forward but I’ll get cold feet as usual. Six beers in and I’m a lock.

    • PieInTheSky

      I will try at 1AM EST to see if anyone is still around 🙂

      • Festus

        That’s 10. I’ll be there. Maybe.

      • commodious spittoon

        Ten beers in?

    • The Last American Hero

      Should we play songs from WWII?

    • AlexinCT

      I am gonna have to jump on that again. It was a ball…

  36. PieInTheSky

    today I learned that apparently the Spanish constitution contains this article.

    All the wealth of the country in its distinct forms and whatever may be its ownership is subordinated to the general interest. (Article 128 of the Constitution).

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yikes.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Ghosts of Franco.

      My cousin has been living in Galicia for six years now with his Gal girlfriend.

      After 11 years living in Europe (five in the UK/Scotland), he’s a tad unnerved at what he perceives for the government to take things over and people rolling over.

      Time to come back and his girlfriend is ready to leave.

      • PieInTheSky

        Gal girlfriend meaning looks a lot like Gal Gadot?

      • commodious spittoon

        Identifies as a gal, which is getting rarer and rarer.

      • Festus

        Heh. To Canada. Frying pan meet fire.

  37. Rebel Scum

    More/better bj’s?

    First, ladies, it’s time to get out of those pajamas you’ve been in for three days. And hair in sloppy buns is not going to work. Also, no walking around with garbage bags (I think this is what this sign is saying). And makeup. Don’t forget you have that. It’s for putting on your face, not for sitting in a drawer. …

    Then there are the helpful hints about housework. If your husband isn’t helping you, stop nagging him and do it yourself. There will be more peace and harmony that way. (Why this is a revelation to anyone is beyond me. It goes for kids too. Tired of nagging them to clean their rooms? Do it for them. Even the cleaning experts recommend reducing the amount of stress around housework where children are concerned so they don’t grow to hate it.) Nagging someone to do something rarely works. The poster also suggests not being sarcastic when your husband doesn’t want to help with the chores.

    • Q Continuum

      SEXISSSSSS!!!! MUH PAYTREEARKEE!!!!

      • Tulip

        Seriously? You don’t consider that bullshit to be sexist?

      • Q Continuum

        I think advice to not nag isn’t sexist. It’s not effective (whichever way it goes) and builds resentment.

        If after a calm, rational conversation with your spouse about helping out more, he still isn’t helping, he’s just an asshole. If it’s part of a larger pattern of disrespect, then it might be time to consider life without him. Nagging is counterproductive across the board.

      • Festus

        No offence intended but that “sloppy-bun” look is just terrible and screams “Single Mom with issues”! The rest was basically some rando saying “Make me a sammitch!’

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Sloppy bun look works for me. Wait, *narrows gaze at Festus* you are the bangs guy aren’t you?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Unless there was similar advice to men on how not to be a disgusting slob during lock-down, I am also voting for sexist.

      • Rhywun

        This.

        Also, Malaysia. Of course it’s fucking sexist.

      • Not Adahn

        Unfortunately, the camera in my laptop seems to not be working properly.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      *Audible gasp*

      In the comments, there is a familiar face.

      • UnCivilServant

        Comments? On a site other than Glibertarians? Does not compute.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Gasp indeed

      • mock-star

        I wonder if thats really him.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It wouldn’t have been a statistical blip without these measures but once they catch up on available meds and equipment they need to ease these restrictions. A ruined economy and the resulting downturn will have health effects too.

      • Q Continuum

        wHyCoMe U wAnT pEePle To DiE?

      • Festus

        *steeples fingers*

      • Gustave Lytton

        Assuming you mean the branch covidians, with blood on their hands up to the elbows.

      • R C Dean

        “It wouldn’t have been a statistical blip without these measures”

        I doubt that, it it will be very hard to prove either way.

      • Translucent Chum

        The projected deaths are now at 60k. So we’re even out of the bad flu season rate. What a shitshow.

      • R C Dean

        To expand: these measures only save lives to the extent they prevented hospitals from being overwhelmed (and perhaps also to the extent they allow new treatments to be widely available). They won’t prevent anyone from catching it in the long run, but only delay (to some unknown extent) when people catch it.

        The moment the Commie Cough curve is flattened enough that hospitals won’t be overwhelmed (or treatments won’t be widely available), these measures produce zero benefit. None.

        The extent of the benefits is highly speculative, at best – it depends on unknowables, namely, how this would have played out without the lockdown. But whatever they are, they are less than people believe. And if you believe the models used to justify the lockdown, there are zero additional benefits to the lockdown as of now. If you don’t believe the models, then there was never any justification for the lockdown.

        Meanwhile, the costs continue to mount.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yep. Let’s think about this for a minute. Companies were already having people work at home, on their own. Restaurants and retailers were taking actions to help prevent the spread, and many people were already avoiding them or using more takeout, anyway. People at risk were self quarantining. Hospitals were already preparing for a cutback on services if and when an influx of new corona cases happened, All kinds of things were already happening to “bend the curve,” and it didn’t take government orders to make it happen.

        The one government action that probably made a significant difference was shutting down the public schools. Which *had* to come from the government, because they’re the ones running them.

    • PieInTheSky

      I mean it would be expect ted to have fewer workplace death is there are no workplaces, fewer traffic deaths with less traffic etc… I wonder how such numbers compare

      • robc

        Deaths always go down during a recession, usually due to decreased traffic deaths. The short term effects are always this way, and for most recessions, there isn’t really a long term effect.

        Bu the long term effects from being poorer are what can be horrible.

      • Festus

        More thievery, more murder, more despair and a huge up-tick in suicide. Congrats Dem-op media! You’ve stalled the economy and now have the blood of thousands on your collective hands.

      • Don Escaped Muhlenberg County

        @janewells Hey @USAA ! How about a 15% credit/discount/rebate for your auto insurance customers? #Allstate #GEICO #LibertyMutual #Safeco

      • robc

        Allstate has already done it.

    • Festus

      How you fairing, Brother Spud?

      • Count Potato

        I would say yesterday was the first day I didn’t feel sick at all.

      • Tulip

        Glad to hear you’re feeling better. Did you get your results yet?

      • Not Adahn

        This morning NPR said that people who get better while corona’d suddenly get worse and die! So start panicking mister!

      • UnCivilServant

        “We will keep stabbing Corona survivors until you take us seriously!”

    • Rebel Scum

      “We ended up having one of the best nights we’ve ever had in the bedroom,” says Denise, who declined to share her last name for privacy reasons. “And we’ve rebuilt our marriage to a whole other level because of the quarantine.”

      We finally had nothing better/more important to do.”

      • Festus

        “I’m bored! Let’s fuck!” Run away!

      • AlexinCT

        I bet for every one of these stories where people rediscovered the sex thing, there will be a few hundred where the couple actually decided they hated each other…

        Once this all ends, our economy will get back on track because of all the divorces making lawyers rich (and them spending money on luxury items) and all the tax dollars needed to pay for the LEO force to punish those that abused their wives/husbands/kids/animals/pekcers.

      • R C Dean

        “I’m bored! Let’s fuck!” Run away!

        In that order?

  38. bacon-magic

    LOL at “Smuggles”.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Because they’re healthcare workers. Duh.

    • Translucent Chum

      SMOD, why have you forsaken us? The stupid hurts.

    • PieInTheSky

      it all depends on what stop means. It is not 100% but it is probably more than 0. So it will not guarantee you don’t get it, just give you a better shot. But then again few things in this world work 100%

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s all about cutting your risk which is true of every preventative safety measure out there. 100% prevention is an impossible standard.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Isn’t Trump considering cutting our funds to them because that really needs to happen. How stupid do these motherfuckers think we are?

      • AlexinCT

        I think the way they covered for the Chinese when this started up and they should have been warning everyone about it, continue to cover for them now that the thing has turned into a global economy killer, and still act as if they are anything but a beholden globalist entity totally in the pocket of some of the worst fuckers on the planet, despite the fact they are mostly financed by our tax payer money, should answer your question…

      • Naptown Bill

        The bitch of it is that the media and the Dems will cudgel him with that despite the fact that the WHO is utterly worthless.

    • Tonio

      Nor does it keep shitbag state governors for recommending them for everyone out in public.

      • Count Potato

        That’s actually a good recommendation, but it shouldn’t be the law.

    • Tejicano

      Oh I know! I know! They have electrolytes!

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Western liberal media: SEE?! China is not asshole!

      • AlexinCT

        Orange man does not like them, so we do!

    • Rufus the Monocled

      VW’s deferral program offer is a joke.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Rapoza opines that other nations in southeast Asia and Mexico may become primary target spots for American companies.

      Coming back to the US is still off the table though.

      • Viking1865

        I still say the biggest hidden subsidy is the American War Machine. If the US Navy didn’t exercise total control of all the world’s oceans, how many companies would be comfortable putting a factory offshore where any two bit commie could nationalize it? Would you put a factory in SE Asia if the US Navy wasn’t capable of smacking the living shit out of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (yes, its actually called that)?

      • creech

        Cuba got away with it. So have tinpot African shithole countries.

      • The Last American Hero

        Iran, Venezuela….

      • Drake

        How can you come back to an economy that is shut down?

  39. Rebel Scum

    A slight overreaction…

    The bodies of a man and a woman were found inside their suburban Chicago home in what authorities say was a murder-suicide that was apparently prompted by the man’s concern that the two of them had the coronavirus, authorities said.

    Deputies who were dispatched to a home in Lockport Township to conduct a welfare check Thursday discovered the bodies of Patrick Jesernik, 54, and Cheryl Schriefer, 59, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The two, whose bodies were found in separate rooms in the residence, had each been shot once and a gun was near Jesernik’s body. …

    The relatives told investigators that Schriefer had been tested earlier in the week but they did not believe she’d received the results. An autopsy determined that Jesernik and Schriefer tested negative for the virus, the release said.

    • ruodberht

      Roll it into the statistics, it’s a CV death. /assholestatist

    • Translucent Chum

      Code that as two more Covid deaths. Close the parks!

      • AlexinCT

        COVID AND gun violence deaths!

    • hayeksplosives

      The cure is worse than the disease.

      “Great news on curing your prognosis. Unfortunately it involves that guillotine in the courtyard over there…”

      • topnotchtoledo

        The ultimate quarantine

  40. The Other Kevin

    John Prine has died from the Commie flu. Can Lou Reed be far behind?

    • Q Continuum

      Lou Reed is indestructible. Nothing will get him.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      What a shame, he was one of the greats no doubt.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    The president’s main gripe with WHO saying in late January that “travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation” of coronavirus cases and instead could have a “have a significant economic and social impact.”

    This is a joke, right?

    Right?

  42. Tres Cool

    Slammer’s comment up thread reminded me of a Letterman Top 10 List from ages ago:

    Top 10 Least-used Hyphenated Words

    10. Lick-proof
    9. Owl-flavored
    8. Hat-resistant
    7. Trunk-ripened
    6. Gumbel-scented
    5. Post-moistened
    4. Hitler-riffic
    3. Casket-tested
    2. Pants-happy
    1. Mookie-proofed

    • robc

      My favorite of his top 10 lists, especially #8 and #1:

      Top 10 Punch Lines to Scottish Dirty Jokes

      10. It took me a fortnight to get out of the thistles
      9. I didn’t know you could also get wool from them!
      8. It’s not a bagpipe, but don’t stop playing
      7. What made you think I was talking about golf?
      6. I’ve heard of comin’ through the rye – but this is ridiculous!
      5. Of course she’s served millions – she’s a McDonald
      4. Oh, so YOU’RE Wade Boggs
      3. Care to shake hands with the Loch Ness monster?
      2. Who’s burning argyles?
      1. She’s in the distillery making Johnnie Walker Red

      • Rufus the Monocled

        #1 and #5. Lol.

        But shouldn’t it be MacDonald?

        What’s the Mc/Mac difference?

      • Tonio

        Hilariously correct. It really comes down to how it was spelled when it first got written down in parish records or whatever.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        As opposed to the First Nations Mi’kmaq tribe.

      • Naptown Bill

        Irish/Scottish. That’s it as far as I know.

      • Nephilium

        I’ve always had it explained as the difference between Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    I just watched two mooses wandering around in my “yard”. No squirrels, though.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That’s code for overweight lesbians, right?

      • AlexinCT

        Lipstic lesbians are rarer than Moose.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I will never forget a particular company Christmas party back in 96 or so. There was one female lab tech who was as butch as they come, right down to the crewcut, tattoos, and a body built like a brick shithouse. Everybody knew, nobody cared.

        Anyway, she shows up to the party with a super-high dollar escort dressed in the mini-est of party dresses. Guys were drooling, dates were pissed, and Linda made sure to show her off at every table. It was the talk of the company for a few weeks.

      • Nephilium

        One third shift worker at a previous job was shocked that people thought she was a lesbian. She just wore a flannel, jeans, and boots, had a mullet, and played softball. Why would anyone think she was a lesbian?

        Several of the other third shift workers explained the stereotypes to her.

      • R C Dean

        The women hitting on her wasn’t a clue?

        “Why do all these lesbians keep . . . “

      • bacon-magic

        “Hey Bob, how’s it feel to get less pussy than Linda?” -Scruffy

      • Count Potato

        I can’t imagine what that reason could be.

      • leon

        The reason why that i can come up with is that the first time i heard the word “Casbah” it was a teacher explaining that it was like a Brick Walled Building….

    • pistoffnick

      “…two mooses…”

      Meese?

      Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti…

    • PieInTheSky

      it is not yours you don’t have sovereignty.

    • Rhywun

      Was it NBC that tried to pass off an Italian hospital as a NYC hospital?

      • AlexinCT

        If this was the only time any of these 3 letter agencies got caught passing off fake shit (when they were not setting it up themselves so they could report the conclusion they wanted) one might be inclined to say it was an accident, but at the rate these entities have these “accidents”, a cat would need some 9 billion lives to still be alive.

      • Chipwooder

        Actually, I think that one was CBS as well

  44. The Late P Brooks

    We destroyed our economy and the lives of millions of people for something that isn’t even a statistical blip.

    Lives were saved. Rejoice, damn you!

    Think of all the people not killed in on-the-job accidents. We should have prevented people from working a long time ago.

    • AlexinCT

      If this results in orange man not winning in November, then it was worth it!

      /team blue

    • creech

      I’ll bet the traffic accident deaths are way down too. We can’t allow anyone to drive until all the speed limit signs are changed to 15mph.

  45. commodious spittoon

    We’re out of cat food and the stray I feed won’t eat a boiled egg. Bum.

    • Festus

      Well on that up-ticked note I’m outta here. Gonna have some eggs, sausage and hash browns. If I can’t be positive, Imma grow my belly. Night all!

      • Count Potato

        GN 🙂

    • Tonio

      Chicken scraps and trimmings. Simmer in plain water to kill bacteria.

      • l0b0t

        When we make a big batch of breaded cutlets for the freezer, we poach the trimmings/schmaltz for the cats. They go crazy for it.

    • creech

      The cats probably have the ChiCom virus anyway.

    • l0b0t

      Mash it up with a wee bit of mayonnaise? All of mine have loved that treat.

  46. The Late P Brooks

    The cure is worse than the disease.

    “Great news on curing your prognosis. Unfortunately it involves that guillotine in the courtyard over there…”

    “Well, you won’t have any more trouble with that pesky athlete’s foot. We amputated both your legs.”

    • The Other Kevin

      * Launches sled hockey recruitment speech *

  47. RAHeinlein

    St. Cuomo better watch out – DeBlasio’s presser is focused-on “Disparities” and calling for “Healthcare Justice” and focus on impacted “zip codes”

    Cuomo dodged the question about disproportionate impact at yesterday’s briefing – his staff claimed they didn’t have the data. Trump went right after the issue and called it out during the WH briefing and called-on Fauci to speak.

    • Rhywun

      DeBlasio’s presser

      Yes, there is big push now to break it out by race.

      Also… you’re watching that crap? What the hell is wrong with you?? 😉

  48. Rebel Scum

    We must keep the hysteria and economic catastrophe going.

    “We cannot return to normal until there’s a vaccine. Conferences, concerts, sporting events, religious services, dinner in a restaurant, none of that will resume until we find a vaccine, a treatment, or a cure….

    “We cannot relieve the oppression of this pandemic until we are realistic. We need to prepare ourselves for this to last 18 months or so and for the toll that it will take. We need to develop a long-term solution based on those facts. It has to account for what we are losing while this fight goes on, things like schooling and income and contact with our friends and extended family.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That came up last night. The only conclusion that I can make is that Emanuel is pushing to collapse the economy, which will lead to worse outcomes than letting the virus run rampant. It’s immoral and frankly, evil.

      Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.

      • leon

        What he is pushing for is evil. Their is no morally defensible or rational reason to argue for what he is arguing. The fact that he’s an advisor to Biden should be red meat to Trump.

      • Trials and Trippelations

        Dr Emmanual wrote some ethics paper that the hospital systems are citing for the reason to make Covid patients mandatory DNARs

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        In other words, he’s a ghoul.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He also opposes physician-assisted suicide.

        I’m trying to figure out how he reconciles these positions.

      • Count Potato

        Lead paint?

      • Naptown Bill

        If this goes on into June the L.A. riots will look like an Easter parade. Domestic violence calls are up 50% already in my town. People are keeping it together more or less in public, but I give it a couple weeks before you start seeing looting and home invasions. Not this house, mind you, but some of the local yuppies might be in trouble.

      • Nephilium

        I bet anyone with a “This is a gun-free home” sign has taken them down…

      • Mojeaux

        Ha! HAhahahahahahahahahaha!!!

      • Chipwooder

        Tensions are getting high in my own house, which has zero history of domestic violence. I can very easily imagine that a house that HAS had some kind of troubles in the past could be a powder keg right now.

  49. Mojeaux

    Good morning, Banjos!!!

  50. Rebel Scum

    Kelly O’Donnell✔
    @KellyO

    NEW LANGUAGE FROM TRUMP:

    “I will protect you if your governor fails”

    BUT he has insisted the federal government is the “BACKUP”

    Um…that’s what that word means…

  51. The Late P Brooks

    What’s the news on that election in Wisconsin? Have they bulldozed all the dead bodies away from the polling places, yet?

    • leon

      I heard the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ordered the Heads of every dead poll worker to be placed outside their chambers.

    • CPRM

      I survived, I’m guessing everyone else I saw at the polling station has died.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      Voting was so awesome last night. The wife and I went together. Walked in, double checked my ward and strolled in to no lines what-so-ever. The lady behind the makeshift sneeze guard was as we know all the librarians poll workers *snicker*. We were two tables deep apart so she slid a piece of paper over to me to put my ID on and pulled the paper back to verify that I was who I said I was.

      I voted for Tulsi for funzies.

    • Drake

      I’ll just keep working on my Isaac Asimov sideburns.

      • UnCivilServant

        I ordered clippers so I can buzz down this annoying mop.

        Of course, I’ll miss spots, since I can’t see properly for a cut.

      • Rhywun

        Nah. They are very easy to use (if you got a good one). Also helps if you have a hand-mirror.

      • Nephilium

        If you’re going down to a 1 or a 1/2 guard, you can also just feel around for anything that doesn’t feel correct.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I razor shave my head every other day. It saves a small fortune on haircuts but you spend a smaller fortune on razors.

    • Rebel Scum

      Don’t they only need a straight razor?

    • Slammer

      The more time they spend in the barbers chair is less time they’re out fucking with people

  52. The Late P Brooks

    “We cannot relieve the oppression of this pandemic until we are realistic. We need to prepare ourselves for this to last 18 months or so and for the toll that it will take. We need to develop a long-term solution based on those facts. It has to account for what we are losing while this fight goes on, things like schooling and income and contact with our friends and extended family.”

    Or we could just put you in the padded cell where you belong, Zeke.

    • Naptown Bill

      LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS, TRUMPTARD! WHY DO YOU HATE SCIENCE!?

    • Naptown Bill

      On a more serious note, I think it’s telling how some people–mainly Progressives and non-denominational leftists but not just them–see the economy as some compartmentalized problem to solve when the serious work of stopping the ‘rona is done. Trying to manage the economy is like trying to control the weather. The main difference is that you can’t make the weather worse by trying, as far as I can tell.

      • Viking1865

        It’s because they’re not affected. If every single public sector work was furloughed for the duration of the emergency, they’d do a complete 180. My job is cutting pay 20% and hoping we can reopen before the Coonman’s June 10th date.

        The never to be sufficiently damned Becky The Teacher all over the neighborhood social media talking about Better Safe Than Sorry while she collects her paycheck for a 3 hour “virtual lesson” is fine with this. Cut her down to 50% pay since shes only working 3 hours a day, she’d be screaming the same shit we are.

    • R C Dean

      There is no “oppression” from the pandemic. There is only oppression from the government response to the pandemic. So naturally, this brain-damaged sociopath prescribes continuing the oppression to relieve the oppression.

  53. Rebel Scum

    Bug Feature

    “The concern I have if we’re trying to mandate national mail-in elections — which by the way was part of the language that Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats inserted in the first version of the most recent stimulus package — would be that we have such massive problems with voter rolls in this country,” Eggers said. “So, now are we going to be mailing ballots to people that authentically don’t exist and or are ineligible voters?”

    A 2012 study by Pew Research Center revealed that there are 24 million ineligible or inaccurate voter registrations on state voter rolls. This means 1-in-8 voter registrations are either no longer valid or invalid.

    Eggers said mail-in voting ensures voters associated with those flawed voter registrations would get the chance to vote in the 2020 presidential election.

    “If you have national mail-in ballots where the supervisor of elections are mailing ballots to everybody on the voter rolls and we know per Pew [Research] Center statistics that we’ve got at least 24 million flawed or inaccurate voter registrations in this country,” Eggers said. “That’s 24 million ballots that are potentially going to people with the wrong address or to people that are dead or to people that have double registered.”

    • leon

      This means 1-in-8 voter registrations are either no longer valid or invalid.

      I would be curious where the distribution is though. I Wonder if this is just an issue accross all states, or if there are some states that have much higher ratios and others that do a better job keeping their rolls clean.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Fine, lets do mail-in voting. However, we’re turning the census into an audit of those votes, and anybody who is found to have defrauded the system, aided somebody else in defrauding the system, or otherwise broken the electoral law has their citizenship stripped and gets a mandatory 30 year prison sentence.

      /emotional reaction

      • R C Dean

        The big problem with mail-in ballots isn’t so much a lot of ballots going to ineligible people, as it is ballot harvesting, either by just flat stealing ballots while they are in the mail, or “helping” people fill in their ballots.

        Mail voting is the least secure way to vote. Period. Full stop.

      • robc

        Mail voting, with some sort of verification, would be secure if we just allowed vote buying.

        have to stop the stealing of the mail, hence the need for verification, but if you could sell your proxy, it solves the problem.

  54. Rebel Scum

    They aren’t even hiding their disdain for election integrity anymore.

    Warren outlined her series of proposals in a Medium post on Tuesday, which include requiring states to mail ballots to every registered voter with pre-paid postage. She is also mandating that they “waive absentee ballot requirements that undermine social distancing guidelines, such as requirements that absentee voters submit copies of their IDs or include a notary or witness signature with their mail-in ballot.”

    Additionally, the former presidential hopeful is calling for a ban on cleaning voter rolls, stating, “Congress should ban states from purging their voter rolls unless an individual affirmatively requests to be removed or there is objective documentary evidence, such as an official record of death or affirmative change of address. ”

    While she is demanding mail-in voting nationwide, Warren also believes in-person voting should be an option, albeit with key changes. For instance, Warren wants to forgo providing proper identification and instead allow eligible individuals to vote “with a sworn statement of identity instead of a voter ID.”

    • leon

      I really wonder how much traction this gets beyond the avowed democrats who are intent on demolishing election integrity “for the sake of democracy”.

      • leon

        And in b4 Reason “No such thing as Voter Fraud”, the perception that elections can be rigged is important, and you can’t just hand waive it away. The Idea that you shouldn’t have to be able to prove who you are with a simple ID to vote is ridiculous.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Especially since they won’t let your ass into a Federal building without a proper RealID.

        If it is racist to expect minorities to get some sort of ID card, why isn’t racist to not allow them into a government building without RealID cards?

        Maybe that is something Rand should bring up. Sponsor a bill that ties voter id requirements to federal building access requirements. If you don’t have any voter ID requirements, you can’t have any for government buildings either.

      • AlexinCT

        I remember reading that the realID requirement by November this year has now been postponed till next year because of this panic? I just had mine issues a month before the shit hit the fan because I needed to renew my license. Am I a trend setter or on the short list for the first people that they need to cull?

      • Chipwooder

        Won’t let you on a plane, either.

        I’ve also wondered why it isn’t considered racist and demeaning to assume that minorities are too fucking stupid to figure out how to get a government ID card, which is usually free in states that require voter ID.

      • Nephilium

        I just renewed my passport this year (for the next trip that probably isn’t going to happen), so I’m covered there at least.

    • Rhywun

      I can’t wait to submit ballots for the last 3 or 4 people who occupied my apartment before me and whose mail I still receive.

      • CPRM

        My aunt and uncle had been getting the mail in ballot sent to them for years. Last fall after my uncle died he received his ballot same as usual…sent out by the town (pop less than 1,000). If I had been some with no scruples…

  55. The Late P Brooks

    “So, now are we going to be mailing ballots to people that authentically don’t exist and or are ineligible voters?”

    Those ballots should be mailed directly to Democratic Party officials, to be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

    • Pope Jimbo

      You think they won’t be?

      Where are you Al Franken? A desperate nation turns its eyes toward you. Woo woo woo

    • Rebel Scum

      The comments aren’t kind.

      Good.

    • Translucent Chum

      He’s totally lost it. It’s like watching a replay of the Little Green Footballs dude.

    • leon

      Fear is powerful, i’d venture to say that there is something we all fear that would make even the staunchest of AnCaps amongst us question our commitment to liberty (though maybe not abandon it). It’s not surprising that during a crisis, some former defenders of liberty abandon it. Freedom is dangerous and scary in normal times. Throw a crisis into the mix and some will abandon it.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Yeah, it has been strange. He’s been pretty pro-panic for a while.

    • Chipwooder

      The amusing thing is watching his panicky posts be completely at odds with all his co-bloggers, who are much more measured and rational.

      I’ve been a regular reader of Instapundit forever, but this has not been his finest hour.

      • Defiant YDAK of the Desert

        He didn’t lose it, so much as gave it away to idiots Like Green and Driscoll,

      • Chipwooder

        Not a Driscoll fan, but Steve Green is usually OK.

    • grrizzly

      That’s the problem. There are few prominent public figures willing to stand athwart the hysteria and yell Stop.

    • Q Continuum

      From the comments:

      “Then let those people stay the f*** at home.

      I’m sick and tired of you demanding I lose my liberty because something, somewhere, maybe dangerous to some hypothetical person. Honestly, after more than ten years of dedicated, loyal support, it’s like you are determined to make sure I stop coming to this website.

      Not a single doomsday prediction about the virus is coming true. Not one.

      What is certainly true is that what you are demanding is destroying our civil liberties and our economy.”

    • R C Dean

      I’ve been very disappointed. I think he posted today that we shouldn’t be taken in by the sudden improvement in the models, because, hey, models are just models.

      When the models showed catasatrophe, I don’t recall him counseling such skepticism. And I don’t think he has said that policy, like the lockdown, which was driven solely by models, shouldn’t change when the models change.

      Nothing like somebody counseling you against confirmation bias while in the grip of it themselves.

      • Viking1865

        Even the best of the Front Row Kids are still Front Row Kids. They know that all the Front Row Kids are the smartest people, the best people, and if all the Front Row Kids agree on something, it must be true.

        Like, take climate change. Every Front Row Kid accepts the premise of AGW: that human beings are causing climate change, and that climate change has negative affects. The skeptical Front Row Kids are the ones arguing with other Front Row Kids that “Ackshually, there’s going to be more arable land, less spent on heating, etc etc and it will be a net positive.”

      • R C Dean

        I’ve never gone into his comments section. I just checked on his post on increased deaths at home in New York. I’m pleased to say he is getting slapped silly in the comments.

    • leon

      Like i posted above. These people would have gladly turned Dredd Scott over to the slave catchers, and called the gestapo on Anne Frank.

  56. Charles Easterly

    Did you ever attend a wedding where someone made comments that made the attendees uncomfortable?

    • Charles Easterly

      Here is another wedding video from the same comedy troupe.

    • R C Dean

      You mean, someone else?

    • AlexinCT

      DA FUQ?

      This cure sounds like it is worse than the disease they are trying to prevent…

      • R C Dean

        Only if you think the disease they are trying to prevent is the Commie Cough.

        I think they are treating another disorder altogether – the delusion that the subjects of the Almighty State are anything other than its property.

    • Grosspatzer

      Jealous of NJ? Ho Lee Fuk.

      • Grosspatzer

        Hit post too soon. I shudder to think how Murphy will try to top this.

  57. The Late P Brooks

    You can’t shake hands if you’re wearing a straitjacket

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, said Americans should never shake hands again, in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus and other diseases.

    The leading infectious disease expert on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force told the Wall Street Journal that an end to handshaking would be good for reducing future transmissions of the novel coronavirus and would also cut the number of influenza cases.

    Holy fuck. Who will rid us of these loony megalomaniacs?

    • leon

      Would someone rid me of this meddlesome doctor?

    • Q Continuum

      This guy will never give up the limelight voluntarily; he’s drunk on fame.

      • Tres Cool

        Reminds me of Avenatti

      • AlexinCT

        You telling me we will soon see em jail bound and with a ton of CNN people saying that they really, really never liked him after spending months sucking him off on Teevee?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Yep. He now even wants people bowing to him instead of getting a handshake.

    • Chipwooder

      Everyone should just wear full MOPP gear at all times from now on.

    • Pope Jimbo

      loony megalomaniacs

      You say that, but I just see another Trump White Nationalist trying to destroy the grand African-American tradition of the dap.

      He’s just mad because he’s not cool enough to have a rad dap routine (or anyone to do it with).

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Bowing like the Japanese do wouldn’t be the end of the world.

      • UnCivilServant

        I bow to no one.

        And I am not going to be told to just bend over.

      • AlexinCT

        Now you have challenged their AH-THO-RAY-TEH!

      • UnCivilServant

        And they are free to appologise to me whenever they want. It requires a full kowtow in the mud followed by their seppuku. Nothing less will be accepted for their insult.

      • R C Dean

        Of course, neither will continuing to shake hands.

        Bowing is (often) a sign of submission. Even in Japan, I think, there is a status thing going on as to how deep one person bows to another, and in any given exchange of bows, who bows deepest.* I’ll pass on that as a cultural norm, thanks.

        *I would be very interested to hear from our NipGlibs on this.

    • robc

      Fauci claimed in the 80s that AIDS could be contacted thru the air.

      • R C Dean

        Fauci is the kind of limited thinker who can’t see outside his own narrow area of expertise.

        His expertise is preventing mortality from infectious disease. I doubt he would see anything wrong with killing a thousand people to prevent one hundred people from dying from an infectious disease.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      We can start giving each other finger guns.

  58. The Late P Brooks

    He also opposes physician-assisted suicide.

    I’m trying to figure out how he reconciles these positions.

    Oh, he just wants you do die in pain and anguish, as he looks on.

  59. Rebel Scum

    Big money in politics is fine if it is ours.

    BradyPAC is the latest gun safety group to turn its attention to Texas, planning to spend more than half a million on elections there — more than it’s spending anywhere in the nation by far — as the state remains the top target in 2020 for groups pushing for new gun laws.

    “If you can get Texas passing strong gun laws, I think that sends a really strong message to the rest of the country,” said Brian Lemek, executive director of the political action committee affiliated with Brady, a nonprofit formed in 1974 that advocates for assault weapons bans, red flag laws and stricter gun storage requirements, among other things.

    • Chipwooder

      Good – let them waste their money

    • leon

      “If you can get Texas passing strong gun laws, I think that sends a really strong message to the rest of the country,”

      Texas Gun Laws are bullshit already anyway. It’s all a Mythos. You want good Gun Laws look at Arizona. And for slightly less Good Gun Laws Utah.

      • Gustave Lytton

        -30-06 law

      • Count Potato

        30-06 law?

      • R C Dean

        The section of the Texas statutes where concealed carry lives.

        Open carry was illegal in Texas until very recently. Any state that prohibits its residents from bearing arms outside the home in any fashion without a state permission slip cannot be said to have good gun laws.

      • robc

        Open carry is protected in the KY constitution.

      • Count Potato

        Oh, I thought it meant the rifle cartridge.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Specifically the 30-06 sign that nullifies your right to carry if posted. I agree that property owners (but not necessarily public entities) can limit whomever they wish. The penalty for that is, if someone refuses to leave, is trespass not an automatic criminal act of unlawfully carrying.

      • Q Continuum

        Wyoming and Alaska too.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t know the specifics of Texas gun laws but they are better than most of the country.

  60. Nephilium

    You silly drones. Why won’t you just obey!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “ Some of the people charged were shooting victims.”

      Absolutely ridiculous, the cops and/or prosecutors should be fucking ashamed.

      • UnCivilServant

        Impossible. If they knew shame, they wouldn’t be cops or prosecutors.

    • B.P.

      “Rashaan Davis, 26, of Clifton Heights is accused of inciting an illegal gathering in Over-the-Rhine on April 4. Video of the incident showed dozens of people outside near Liberty Street. Davis is also charged with inciting violence, a felony. He is being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center on a $350,000 bond.”

      $350K bond for hosting a party? Also:

      “Dustin Miller, 24, of Delhi Township was shot April 3 while out walking at night in the 600-block of Delhi Avenue in Sedamsville. He was conducting non-essential business at an address more than three miles from his home, according to court records.”

      • Agent Cooper

        “He was conducting non-essential business at an address more than three miles from his home, according to court records.””

        Repeat this line and think about whether or not as a American you would have ever thought to see such a thing in print.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    GM gets a $500 million contract to produce 30k ventilators.

    That’s ~17k per each? My vestigial math skills are pretty shaky. Is that a bargain?

    • Q Continuum

      I have no idea what the going rate for a ventilator is.

      • leon

        Not Adahn usually has a goo pulse on Gun Prices.

        /yes i know the joke has been done before….

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s about 10K to have someone ventilated…

      • LJW

        So Joe Exotic was a cheap asshole? No wonder the guy bailed on the job.

      • Chipwooder

        Heh….reminds me of a Dutch Schultz scene in Hoodlum, which wasn’t a great movie but did have a great Tim Roth performance.

        Dutch: Three grand? I remember the days when you could get a guy clipped for, what, 40 bucks?
        Hit man: We live in inflationary times.
        Dutch: Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth!

      • Drake

        What’s the going rate for retooling your factory because the government ordered you too?

    • Chipwooder

      Well, you have to account for UAW labor rates

      • UnCivilServant

        So, mass layoffs and the company shuts down before the first, defective, device is finished. Got it.

    • LJW

      From what I could find they range from $25k to $50k. I’d be willing to bet those prices are inflated due to FDA meddling and bullshit patent regulations.

    • robc

      Just as states are sending back the excess ventilators they arent going to need.

      • LJW

        Killed our economy for a blip on the radar.

  62. Count Potato

    I just got my covid-19 test results back. Negative. Although, my doctor says I should still self-quarantine, and talked about an anti-body test when they become available. I was definitely sick — sore thoat, runny nose, fever Wednesday & Thursday, still felt very weak on Friday, didn’t feel well until yesterday. It could be by the time I took the test on Monday there wasn’t enough virus up my nose to detect. Also, reportedly the tests have a significant false negative (15 – 30%?). So who knows?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Definitely syphilis

      • leon

        Lupis

    • mexican sharpshooter

      *checks WebMD*

      Definitely cancer. They recommend elderberry tea.

      • LJW

        Is there an elderberry tea essential oil flavor? That should do the trick.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      You also don’t want to catch it while you have something else as that would be problematic. Having covid and the flu at the same time wouldn’t be good at all.

      • LJW

        And stay away from 5G signals.

    • RAHeinlein

      The false negative issues are real – my MIL initially tested negative, fever continued in-addition to other health issues necessitating hospitalization, second test positive.

      • R C Dean

        Yeah, you need to be carrying a decent viral load to test positive. Our CMO tells people with symptoms to self-quarantine, but not to bother getting tested until they have been symptomatic for a few days.

      • Count Potato

        I was symptomatic for a few days. Still tested negative. Which doesn’t mean I had it, but it also doesn’t mean I didn’t have it.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Is that because of the test, or because the supposed viral load of this virus was wildly overstated?

      • Count Potato

        I don’t think anyone knows shit for sure.

      • R C Dean

        I think its because of the test. Although I gather these tests throw false negatives regardless. Not sure about false positives.

  63. Agent Cooper

    Damnit, Smuggles. Some bears never learn.

  64. PieInTheSky

    this marketing meeting is boring the fuck out of me. I don’t care about this shit.

    net area ratio to HDBs improves scaling or something like that . Bla Bla Bla

    • PieInTheSky

      Goddamnit is everyone using machine learning these days?

  65. AlexinCT

    Does this count as reverse cultural appropriation?

    • Rhywun

      I dunno but folks are calling for the end of “factory farming” in the US, too, on the theory that we are no more immune to outbreaks than China. ?‍♂️

      • AlexinCT

        Lets kill off all animals! And while we are at it, all the people too!

        Does that mean the virus wins, or that we win, because the virus is now forced to be vegan or canibalistic?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Damn ChiComs and their bat soup factories…

  66. LJW

    One thing I’m glad that is being exposed from this CV crisis. Data is overrated. I say this while working a job in data analysis.

  67. Slammer

    Bernie’s out

    • R C Dean

      Damn. That will do a lot to calm down the DNC convention. I bet the DNC had to buy him a new dacha to get him to drop out.

    • PieInTheSky

      The way things are going, Trump will bring all bernies policies.

    • AlexinCT

      Yeah, it’s not like we are discussing state secrets. If you have plans to travel to PRC in the future however, be careful of what you say of the new masters….

      • UnCivilServant

        I will never go to territory held by the Maoist rebellion against the legitimate government of China.

  68. The Late P Brooks

    Shithole

    Meanwhile, experts also point to initial research showing a high prevalence of Covid-19 among those suffering from obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes – risk factors more common among black Americans. The virus is known to take a harsher toll on those with underlying health issues, and many hospitals are only testing those admitted for critical care.

    Critics note that those risks are significantly exacerbated by racial inequities in healthcare, including facility closures and caps on public health insurance plans like Medicaid and Medicare. African Americans are twice as likely to lack health insurance compared with their white counterparts, and more likely to live in medically underserved areas, where primary care is sparse or expensive.

    Unconscious racial bias can also contribute to unequal health outcomes, especially when health professionals are inexperienced with the culture of the community they serve, according to the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The Century Foundation found that healthcare providers located within majority African American or Latinx neighborhoods tend to provide lower-quality care.

    It’s a slaughterhouse.

    • R C Dean

      majority African American or Latinx neighborhoods

      I seriously doubt there is a single neighborhood anywhere that has a population that is majority of trans “Latinos”.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Something like 98% of Hispanics hate that term, but it’s very popular with white girls and NPR, but I repeat myself.

      • Count Potato

        I thought is was too include women. Which it already did. (No one who understands Spanish would say “latinx”.)

    • Naptown Bill

      What a load of SJW nonsense. Those conditions track socioeconomics, not ethnicity. The idea that there’s some kind of white supremacist conspiracy to give PoCs the ‘rona is laughable at best. Maybe the Grauniad should focus more on race relations in Britain, where they might have at least some familiarity with the topic.

  69. Slammer

    “especially when health professionals are inexperienced with the culture of the community they serve,”

    Jus hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on the rebound on da med side

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      What it is, big mama? My mama din’t raise no dummies. I dug her rap!

    • Rhywun

      Clearly, we have a racist doctor problem.

  70. R C Dean

    African Americans are twice as likely to lack health insurance compared with their white counterparts

    But, muh ObamaCare!

    racial inequities in healthcare, including facility closures and caps on public health insurance plans like Medicaid and Medicare

    Umm, those aren’t racial inequities, unless you think facilities are closed and government insurance is capped in order to harm black people.

    • leon

      I Order you that you should really think about mining the moon!

      • Fourscore

        Mooning the mime.? What’s up with that?

    • Drake

      So it is okay to leave the house?

      • UnCivilServant

        Nope.

        If you feel you have to ask for permission, the answer is no.

      • Drake

        What if I’m going out to do some moon mining?

      • Not Adahn

        Dammit Moon-Moon!

    • AlexinCT

      That’s how many apocalyptic stories start!

      We mine the moon and find that ship with the hidden virus/alien entity that eats human heads/asses, and presto, they bring it back and it kills everyone!

      /derp

    • Naptown Bill

      Crypto for me, not for thee?

    • PieInTheSky

      Given I don’t really get laid, everything’s coming up Pie.

      • Agent Cooper

        “everything’s coming up Pie.”

        Not of a certain variety.

    • Translucent Chum

      Village officials say since the virus is a respiratory condition, having things blown into the air could create a hazmat situation.

      Those people are insane, dangerous idiots. And they love science!

    • Rhywun

      OFFS.

      Also, that website crashed my browser.

    • Naptown Bill

      And people wonder how it’s possible that South Koreans believe “fan death” is a real thing…

  71. PieInTheSky

    The “dip” people are talking about in pneumonia cases is caused by the lag in reporting of deaths through the CDC.

    Here is a chart of every CDC pneumonia report over time.

    There is always a dip.

    https://twitter.com/TylerMorganMe/status/1247706877145776129

    • R C Dean

      Mrs. Dean was right, then, that it is a reporting artifact.

      Excellent graphic, too.

      Still an open question, though, as to what it will look like when the season is over. I wonder if it won’t still be lower than expected as people who were going to die of pneumonia anyway are coded as Commie Cough victims.

      Calculating the excess deaths from this thing is going to be complicated, since we have now thrown the variable of a major recession into the mix.

  72. R C Dean

    Update from the front lines:

    Our volume has ticked up a bit. We are still flatlined at single digits of confirmed Commie Coughers, although we have an uptick in “rule-out” Commie Coughers (test results pending).

    I have been put on a furlough program (one day a week), even though my workload is up. I have also been handed a 10% pay cut for the duration of the furlough. If they think I’m going to keep working the same number of hours even though I am on a 20% furlough and a 10% pay cut, well, they will be disappointed. My usual workday is 8 am – 6 pm five days a week, with a short lunch break at my desk, and Saturday mornings. I’ll be damned if I am going to come in Saturdays, or work 7 am – 7 or 8 pm four days a week, until the furlough is over.

    • RAHeinlein

      Sorry to hear that. On the plus side, perhaps more Casa Dean photos on Glibs?

      • R C Dean

        No prob. Just need something scenic to happen.

    • PieInTheSky

      See in civilized Europe you would not only you now have cactus near you house, you would work 8 am ti 4 pm with twice the vacation, free healthcare, triple the salary and a lower cost of living.

      • R C Dean

        Make that:

        two more weeks vacation that I wouldn’t take, healthcare that I pay for with taxes, lower take-home pay, and a lower standard of living.

      • UnCivilServant

        “You have failed to take your mandated leave. You will be locked out of the office until your leave is used up.”

      • PieInTheSky

        i have until 30th june

    • Fatty Bolger

      Well, lookie here, RC Dean, right-wing conspiracy theorist. Don’t you know the empty hospital claim has been debunked? DEBUNKED!!!!

    • creech

      Ve haf vays of making you arbeit.

  73. The Late P Brooks

    Trump signs order encouraging US to mine the moon

    It’s about time.

  74. The Late P Brooks

    I’ll be damned if I am going to come in Saturdays, or work 7 am – 7 or 8 pm four days a week, until the furlough is over.

    Shirker! Saboteur!

    • Not Adahn

      But, if Bernie drops out, how do they force a second ballot to get Caesar Andy the nom?

  75. The Late P Brooks

    Sure, why not? It ain’t my money.

    Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats are proposing to give doctors, nurses and other essential workers, such as grocery store clerks, up to $25,000 in hazard pay as part of the phase four coronavirus relief bill.

    The bonus pay, which would amount to a $13-per-hour raise, would also go to truck drivers and janitors, who Democrats say are also essential to keeping the health care system and economy running during the crisis.

    It would stretch from the start of the public health emergency to the end of the year.

    “As the COVID pandemic has reached alarming new levels, our health care system is strained to the max, our economy is strained to the max. Doctors and nurses, medical personnel of all types are putting their lives on the line every single day to fight this disease and save others,” Schumer said on a conference call introducing the proposal.

    “And so are people not in the medical profession but in essential services: grocery store workers, truck drivers, drug store workers and pharmacists,” Schumer said. “For these Americans, working from home is not an option. Social distancing is not an option.”

    “We’re calling it a ‘Heroes Fund’ because that’s who it’s for, our heroes,” he added.

    I did not know “hero” was a synonym for “slush”.

    I just cannot wait for the final version of this one.

    • Chipwooder

      What about accounts receivable for a major trucking company? My wife DESERVES more money from Uncle Sugar, dammit!

    • AlexinCT

      How likely is something like this to “incentivise” some shlub in said professions to go out and create a new pandemic to get the hazard pay?

  76. The Late P Brooks

    this marketing meeting is boring the fuck out of me. I don’t care about this shit.

    And the Americanization of Pie continues, apace.

    Soon you will be so tainted your own people will deport you.

    • Naptown Bill

      Just wait, he’ll start expecting ice and lemon in his water at restaurants. He’ll put ketchup on everything.

  77. The Late P Brooks

    With all that extra time on your hands, you can work on your open carry quickdraw, R C.

    • R C Dean

      Still need to order my OC holster for the high-cap hogleg.

  78. The Late P Brooks

    Going for the low slung special ops gunslinger style, I hope.

  79. Tundra

    This week’s winner:

    “Sarah, Donald, Sarah. Big girl, meaty,” the hat said. “Had kind of a fucked up face.” The hat twisted his bill and front panels grotesquely, striving to replicate her disturbing asymmetry.

    • Tundra

      Whoops.

  80. robc

    That cov19.heathdata.org site doesn’t look like they have been updating their shaded range curves since April 1 or so. Because it is showing today as peak day in NY, with 20000 beds needed, which is abour right, but still showing range for today being up to 40k. Ummm…as you move into reality, the projected curves need to adjust.

    They dont want to adjust, I think, because it would show just how bad their original model was.