Category: Beating Back the St00pid

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Oh, SNAP!

Bette, we love you.

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Think Ya Reopened a Little Too Soon, Douchebag?

"Teh St00pid, it BURNS!"

From The Independent:

Arizona lockdown: State shuts down again for 30 days amid spike in coronavirus cases

Arizona governor Doug Ducey announced that the state has closed bars, gyms and movie theaters for 30 days, amid a rise in coronavirus cases.

The state has also shut down water parks that reopened in May, and Mr Ducey has imposed a limit of 50 people at gatherings both indoors and outdoors.

Arizona announced a record daily total of coronavirus cases on Sunday, with 3,800 people testing positive for Covid-19.

The daily total has been steadily rising in the state, since non-essential business reopened in mid May, and Sunday was the seventh time in 10 days that cases have totalled more than 3,000, according to NPR.

"Our numbers continue to increase," the governor said at a press conference in Phoenix on Monday. "Our expectation is that our numbers next week will be worse," he added.

The reopening of schools has been delayed until 17 August, and the governor has asked residents of the state to wear face masks when they go outside, but has not made it mandatory.

Mr Ducey also asked residents to get any urgent tasks done before the order began on Monday evening and stressed: "Remember you are safer at home. If you do not need to go out, do not go out."

There has been a rise in coronavirus cases across the US in the past month, since most states reopened non-essential businesses.

Florida, California and Texas have also been forced into implementing stricter social distancing measures, after they recorded record daily totals in the last few weeks.

Mr Ducey told reporters that the planned expiry date of 27 July for the new order is "aspirational" and depends on the number of cases and hospitalizations, as he is keen to keep cases under control and safely move the state out of lockdown.

"In Arizona, they're going in the wrong direction and we're going to take some additional action today to contain this virus and get back on track," Mr Ducey said.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 2.6 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 129,544.

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PSA

Remember, wearing a mask is not to protect you. It's to protect everyone.

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Well?

Trump says that more testing leads to more COVID cases and if we just stopped, there would be fewer cases. By that logic, if we stopped asking for people's immigration status, we'd have fewer undocumented people in the US, right?

That's how stupid Republicans are.

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Lying, Ignorant, Or Delusional?

From gregfallis.com:

So, what do you think? Is he lying? Ignorant? Or delusional? Me, I'm inclined to go with lying, with ignorant coming in a close second — but it's impossible to completely rule out delusional. I could be talking about any number of Comrade Trump's recent comments, but I'm focusing on this one particular Tweet for now.


He's not entirely wrong about that whole 'scandal of our times' business. But the scandal is we have a president who is either lying about the coming election, ignorant of how mail-in balloting is done, or suffering from paranoid delusions. It's got to be one of those.

I've voted by mail. It's dead easy, and its secure. Here's how it worked for me:

After you fill out the ballot, you put it in an envelope labeled 'Secrecy Envelope', and seal the envelope. The Secrecy Envelope is then placed in an 'Affidavit Envelope', which you have to sign and date and seal that as well. The Affidavit Envelope is then placed in the 'Return Envelope', which also has to be sealed. All of these envelopes are the old-fashioned lick-and-seal type, not the fancy new remove-a-strip-and-press type. If you want to vote Absentee, you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot of saliva.

What I didn't say — and didn't know at the time — is that the Return Envelope had a unique barcode for each ballot to insure the individual ballot corresponded with the envelope. Nor was I aware that my signature on the Affidavit Envelope could be quickly compared to my signature which is kept on file by the local election office (you'll recall you had to sign up to vote the very first time; you also signed in to register for every earlier in-person election).

That level of voting security — signature verification, ballot barcode verification — is only the beginning. The ballot itself has been tested to insure the ballot scanners will read ONLY authentic ballots, and only authentic ballots for that particular election cycle. The scanners aren't able to read ballots from previous election cycles, even if those ballots were created to use the same scanning system.

But wait, there's more. There are 3,007 counties in the United States. There are another 236 first-order administrative divisions, which are basically counties by other names (for example, Louisiana has parishes instead of counties, Alaska has boroughs, and the District of Columbia has…well, the District of Columbia). Why is that important? Because there is NO national ballot.

That's right. Every voting jurisdiction designs and creates its own unique ballot. We're talking the typeface, the weight of the paper used for the ballot, the size of the ballot, the phrasing of the text instructing the voter on how to vote by mail, the envelope in which the ballot is mailed to the voter, the security envelope containing the marked ballot to be returned, and the actual return envelope. These designs are deliberately changed from election to election.

So in order for Comrade Trump's claim that "millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others" to be true, those foreign countries (and 'others' — I have no idea WTF he could possibly mean by 'others') would have to exactly duplicate thousands of distinctly different ballot packets unique to every voting jurisdiction in the United States for the 2020 election cycle PLUS be able to match the signatures on file of the individual voters they were attempting to impersonate.

To believe that could happen, Trump would have to be delusional. Which, let's face it, isn't out of the realm of possibility. Ignorance, on the other hand, is not just a possibility but almost a certainty; he's profoundly ignorant of how government works. But I'm opting for lying, simply because that's Trump's natural response to almost everything.

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A Mask is a Stupid Hill to Die On, America

From John Pavlovitz:

Yesterday, I stumbled into a war zone.

A friend of mine was being besieged on social media by a furious crossfire of rapid-fire vitriol from a disparate army of toddler moms and dudebros, in full-throated outrage because she'd had the stratospheric gall to post an article about the merits of wearing masks to prevent the exponential spread of a virus that has already ravaged the planet.

This apparently was a salvo so offensive that it could not go unpunished—so they began a brutal and coordinated keyboard frenzy.

It was a familiar sight, as this kind of virtual civil war is playing out thousands of times a day, and the responses to my friend were the fairly typical mix of anti-Science religious speak, 'roided-up tough guy posturing—and lots and lots of flag-waving, chest pounding, Don't Tread On Me nationalism. (Not wearing a mask, apparently makes America great—somehow.)

A mask?

This is where we are, America?

That's what it's come down to?

Half of you still won't do this?

Despite how many people have died, despite how decimated our economy is, despite the near complete shutdown of life (that you've been moaning like a dirty-diapered infant for months about)—this minuscule task is too much to ask?

A mask is the small, selfish, ignorant hill you're choosing to die (and kill) on?

The multitudinous non-maskers aren't a monolith, of course, but most can be loosely organized into two groups:

1) Self-centered narcissists, who simply refuse to make the smallest sacrifice for the health and well-being of others, because they've been so weaned on individualism and have so little appreciation for interdependent community—that anything less than completely unfettered freedom feels restrictive.

2) People with such a cultic adoration of this President that they refuse to wear a mask, because to do so would mean that he was wrong all along and that they were lied to and that we are in grave danger—so in an oxymoronic attempt at self-preservation, they swallow a toxic cocktail of tearful nationalism, Fox News fakery, macho flexing, and willful ignorance—and kill people to own the Libs.

Non-maskers, this isn't about your personal freedom.

It is not akin to choosing whether or not to wear a seatbelt—it's choosing whether or not to drive blindly into a crowd. It is deciding to place other people in danger along with yourself. Saying, "If you want to wear a mask, fine, but don't force me to," is an explicit declaration of an ignorance that can't or won't tell the difference between a choice that affects only you and one that affect everyone.

This isn't about physical toughness, either.

One of the oddest phenomenons is people flexing in the face of a pandemic, as if not wearing a mask proves toughness. It doesn't. It proves you don't pay attention, that you don't respect science, that you reject critical thinking, and that you lack working empathy. It's nothing to boast about.

One of my friend's maskless assailants came in late to the battle, with the kind of rhetorical, passive-aggressive query that feigns curiosity but really doesn't want an answer.

He wrote:

"So, what's the plan, here? What do you want to see happen? Are we going to wear masks for the rest of our lives? Are we going to live in fear forever? Help me understand your long-term plan?"

The "long-term plan," oh maskless ones, is to be a decent human being, to distance, to use restraint, and to wear a mask because 120,000 people have died in four months, because there is no treatment and there is no vaccine—and until there is, people fortunate enough not to be planning funerals right now, shouldn't act like a piece of cloth over their mouths is oppression or hardship.

Stop pretending you're suffering when you're just being asked to be a decent human being.
Berating someone for asking you to be considerate is as low as it gets. It shows an immaturity that cannot feel compassion for others in pain and doesn't understand adult accountability.
Shooting side eyes or mocking people at the store who have more consideration for humanity than you do, is only a projection of an insecurity that suspects this is a really stupid cause to push against.

We have these casualty numbers (which you claim are negligible) precisely with and because of months of shutdowns and safeguards—not in spite of them. If we hadn't adhered to these practices and restrictions, the numbers would be exponentially higher; the same way we'll see continued spiking because of people like you are strident in your steadfast refusal to care. If everyone wore masks, we could have a relatively normal existence without massive infections, but because half of us won't, we'll be in this another 8 months, and many more people will get sick and die.

If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you're not making America great.

You're abusing your freedom, you're intentionally placing fellow citizens in harm's way, you're damaging the economy, and you're dooming us to far longer restrictions than if you simply put a piece of cloth over your mouth.

If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you're also not pro-life.

You are showing a reckless disregard for yourself and for loved ones and for strangers; the supposedly sacred lives you preach to treasure in the womb, but in practice really aren't all that concerned with outside of it.

And if you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic—you're just not a very good person.

We're in an unprecedented health crisis that has literally shut down the world, and you won't do literally the simplest thing you're being asked to, in order to prevent other people from getting sick and dying.

Congratulations. You're failing the "human" test.

Enjoy your hill.

It will look great with a headstone.

Note: Obviously, people with health conditions and PTSD which make wearing a mask difficult or impossible are exempt from this piece. (The rest of you know who you are.)

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Quote of the Day

White privilege doesn't mean that you haven't had a difficult life. It means that you haven't had extra difficulties because of your skin color.

Black Lives Matter doesn't mean that other lives don't matter. It means that the conversation right now is about this message as it is an important and overdue topic. When someone is talking about Breast Cancer Awareness, you don't yell at them, "All Cancer Awareness."

Defund the Police doesn't mean that there will be no police or laws. It doesn't mean that communities are self-policed or that crime will run rampant. It means reallocating some funds for services that are better responded to by departments more in touch with a community. Actual crimes requiring a police presence or investigation would still be handles by law enforcement." ~ JD Scott (the other Scott brother)

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Asked and Answered

Via I Should Be Laughing:

AN ANGUISHED QUESTION FROM A Trump SUPPORTER: 'Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?'

THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here's what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine." USA Today

That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay." The Daily Beast

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem." ABC News

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue." Washington Post

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me." USA Today

That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: "'Oh my God, that's disgusting,' and I turned away. I couldn't—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn't want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red." You said, "That's cool!" GQ

That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. NBC News

That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?" The Atlantic

That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense." USA Today

That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!" LA Times

That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!" The Independent

That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!" The Atlantic

That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be." Huffington Post

That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!" Politico

That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, "That's smart!" US News

That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, "That makes sense." Washington Post

That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!" CNN

That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas – he explains that they're just "animals" – and you say, "Well, OK then." NBC news

That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. American Progress

What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also…hear me…charitable.

Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.

(To all who agree with its content, I ask that you PLEASE SHARE IT on your own post, and ENCOURAGE OTHERS to do the same.)

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Sure, Jan

As you all well know, I'm no fan of Twitter, but…

It's a national embarrassment that this imbecile is the President but it is a national shame that he has NO UNDERSTANDING of the Constitution

The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It is freedom, generally speaking, from the government interfering with you saying anything you want, whenever and wherever you want to say it but there is no First Amendment right to use Twitter or have a Facebook page.

Social media companies are private enterprises and therefore free to adopt policies relating to user content and to remove users who violate such policies without implicating the First Amendment.

The moron in chief keeps declaring that he is directing his administration to "explore all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free speech rights of all Americans" & that they will "strongly regulate or close them down" by which he only means people that agree with him or encourage him.

Any regulatory or legislative action taken by the government, which obviously includes the current corrupt AF administration, would constitute a threat to the free speech rights of all Americans.

It's upside down world in the Cheetohinchief's head but it's a reminder to the rest of us never to give so much power to someone so ill informed on the Constitution.

Source.

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Oh Sah-NAP!

From The Palmer Report:

There is still no one who has any idea what Donald Trump's "Obamagate" scandal is about – least of all Trump himself. But that hasn't stopped Trump's most embarrassing sycophants from trying to prop up the imaginary scandal. That includes Ted Cruz, who never misses an opportunity to humiliate himself.

It all started when Trump incoherently tweeted "OBAMAGATE MAKES WATERGATE LOOK LIKE SMALL POTATOES!" This prompted pundit John Heilemann to ask, "Could you explain again exactly what it is? We'll wait." That's when Ted Cruz decided to get involved, much to his own detriment.

Cruz thought he was being clever when he fired back at Heilemann with "I thought that was a reporter's job?" At that point Heilemann finished him off: "Sorry, I'm still busy reporting out Trump's accusation that your father was involved in the killing of JFK."

Ouch.