Politics 2021

[Buster's Uncle]

Rep. @AOC to ABC News: "The process of healing is separate and in fact requires accountability. And so if we allow insurrection against the United States with impunity, with no accountability, we are inviting it to happen again ... Without it, it will happen again."

[Elok]

I assume all the idiots who can be captured will be, and will go to jail for a substantial period of time.  Whether it will happen again has little to do with whether they punish the likes of Cruz and Hawley; with Parler et al shut down the movement is likely to go dark and metamorphose into something more like a militia--an actual militia, not silly fight-clubbers like the Proud Boys.  Which is why I'd rather have [Sleezebag]'s dead weight holding it back.  With somebody serious in charge they could have killed a significant fraction of Congress.

[Buster's Uncle]

His dead weight invented the lies that riled up the kkkrowd and told them to walk to the Capitol and kill a cop.

E_T's point about Pence pardoning him 15 seconds after being sworn in has weight, given some reflection on Pence's likely state of mind - wanting to be a live coward for a few decades.  Repeating, yet again, that the Traitor is too stupid to do much harm was discredited in March, roughly 400,000 Americans, Mary Ann and a couple cops ago, and is the Hindenburg by comparison.

[Elok]

I can't be bothered to dig it up (sleeping tot on arm) but Reuters did a poll.  57% say impeach immediately, though they're mostly Dems.  Maybe 70% despise the rioters as fools or criminals.  12% approved of what they did.  I believe that is mostly accurate.  Why does anyone care about [Sleezebag], old incompetent [Sleezebag], when one in eight Americans thinks bum-rushing Congress is a job well done?  That's too few to dominate us democratically, but far too many to control or silence or monitor.  They will not go away if you spank bad politicians or throw them in jail.

[Elok]

You persistently misstate my point.  I don't think [Sleezebag] is harmless; I think the harm he does is mostly due to ineptitude, selfishness, and sloth (which is also Douthat's opinion, AFAICT).  He is not Hitler, or even Mussolini, and he's wasted four years pooping on Twitter.  COVID was lethal because he failed to take it seriously--but if Hillary had won, I don't believe the results would be much better, because the culture [Sleezebag] feeds off did not form overnight.  You've noted as much yourself.  If Hillary had been in charge we would have seen different riots, different noncompliance, and a different kind of escalation.  You're ignoring a broad cultural problem to fixate on one dumb loudmouth riding the crest of the wave.  If [Sleezebag] had been Trotsky, the legislative branch would be hamburger right now.  Instead he got an accidental insurrection that wandered away from the group and killed one cop along with four of its own.

[Buster's Uncle]

It wasn't an accident, and I've been watching that Nazi movement form since ten years before you were born.

-I started typing that latter phrase twice since my last, and it just felt too aggressive - but you brought it up.

You're assuming it's over, and - I'm too angry to go on, and it's past bedtime.  This isn't going to be over on the 20th, I don't think it'll be over in my lifetime, not letting the instigators and the leaders off the hook, and we've got to DO something.  We can't prosecute the soldiers and let the officers go.  There are NAZIS RUNNING MY COUNTRY.  It's out in the open.  You can't pretend

-Maybe when I get good awake tomorrow...

[bvanevery]

and will go to jail for a substantial period of time.

Why are you assuming that?  It is already commented upon in the media, that they're all probably going to be tried in their home states, in various Federal courts.  As opposed to being tried in Washington D.C.  To the extent that there are any juries in the trials, they will have more sympathetic juries in their home states.  I wouldn't be so sure about people getting lots and lots of jail time, although I do imagine that some of the most blatant, will be made examples of.

[bvanevery]

They will not go away if you spank bad politicians or throw them in jail.

Disempowering bad political leadership is useful.

But, it's only useful if the politicians are removed from office or some such.  That's probably too high a legal bar to be met.  I wonder how effective Censure is at ending people's political careers?

[bvanevery]

If Hillary had been in charge we would have seen different riots, different noncompliance, and a different kind of escalation.

Which Republican leader would have run around having maskless rallies, openly defying epidemiology and turning it into a tribal badge?  If [Sleezebag] had been defeated, I don't think it would have been [Sleezebag].  Unless he was trying to run again in 2020.

Let's say [Sleezebag] didn't stay in the politics game.  Got bored from 2016 to 2019, didn't have any movement behind him.  Which Republican would have gotten up to the "No mask for me!" antics?  Which one would have led in disease?

Also, without White House access to early covid treatments, would that Republican have died?

[Buster's Uncle]

Outgoing Capitol Police chief: House, Senate security officials hamstrung efforts to call in National Guard
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sund-riot-national-guard/2021/01/10/fc2ce7d4-5384-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

-Somewhat detailed account of Sund having a bad day.  Doesn't trigger my bullcrap detector.

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't know why I haven't already been vaccinated.  I bring this up in this here politics thread because the problem's mostly political, I think.  This "prioritizing" is the worst sort of [nonsense]; fear that somebody who don't deserve it might get it before someone who does, noting that healthy young Marco Rubio has got it and I, a 56 year-old smoker with type two diabetes and strong allergies, don't even see it on the spring horizon.  [nonsense].

Republicans administering like Democrats is what it is.


Just truck them vaccines en mass wherever flu shots with finicky refrigeration needs would go, and vaccinate first come like flu every year, and you'll get most everyone who's gonna by March.  The blood of 10s of thousands is on the hands of who-all came up with this stupid distribution model.

[Elok]

We can agree on that, at least.  Reason had these infuriating articles about New York throwing away good vaccine to avoid being punished for vaccinating out of turn.

(We'll just leave the other matter be)

[Buster's Uncle]

(No we won't.)

I've seen some of the same articles, though I'd reached the conclusion while it was still last year, based purely on the ridiculous timeline projections I was hearing.

[Unorthodox]

I think you're vastly overestimating how much vaccine is out there available. 

Here in Utah, we're barely getting the front line on dose 2. (hEt gets dose 2 next week)  Teachers and over 70 are in the next batch that start up next Monday.  I've got no disillusions that mine's coming any time soon, and for the most part agree with how they are rolling it out. 

[bvanevery]

Mortality gets much worse with age, I've seen charts of that.  Using age as one of the prioritizing factors, makes sense.

As does front line exposure, hospital workers etc. first.  People are quitting that profession, leading to a shortage of people who can treat the cases that come in.  That leads to more people dying in hospitals, so I really don't see how there can be an argument on that point.

Nursing homes get priority because they're a captive audience of people in close proximity to each other, where we've actually seen them get wiped out in substantial numbers in the real world.  So that's not a debating item either.

I thought I've seen stuff in the news cycles, over time, about preexisting diseases creating higher mortality.  That definitely seemed true before.  I don't know about now, if covid treatments have advanced in any way.  Prioritizing based on people's likelihood to die, is rational.  For instance, that would imply that young children are the last to be vaccinated.

Any administration that actually took covid seriously, instead of making it into a tribal badge, would have done a way better job showing rollout leadership and helping States with their part of the distribution.  We would have had things deployed sooner better, although there would still be problems.  For instance, phone call queues for making appointments.  That's been all over the local news.  Same story as getting stuff done for your driver's license.  I still haven't tried again, just no appetite for making appointments a month in advance.