OrangeBills

These are literally the dumbest people in the world, these American Leftists (from a Bloomberg article today): Progressive Democrats are urging the Biden administration to shape Fed leadership so that the central bank uses its tools to better promote job gains across racial groups, keep Wall Street banks in check and combat climate change. Exactly what tools do these idiots think the Fed has to accomplish these things? Honestly, this is the closest part of the "Collapse of Roman Civilization" that we've seen from these clowns. This country is in deep trouble. Dumb, dumb people are in charge. Scary

"Checks in Hands" Boy does that say it all. This nation is toast, absolute toast.

No different than any of the long-term effects we've ever seen from any of the other typical Respiratory viruses we've dealt with for hundreds of years.

I don't believe that's accurate at all. You're likely going with the agenda-driven Atlantic article which served as a platform for that nut-job to spread his view that lock-downs had no impact. Covid: Suicide attempts among young girls surged by more than 50% during pandemic, CDC says (cnbc.com) Suicide attempts increased among adolescents aged 12 to 17, especially young girls, during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to CDC data. Among the young girls, average weekly visits to the emergency department for suspected suicide attempts from February 2021 to March 2021 was 50.6% higher than the same period a year prior. The study likely underrepresents the real number of suspected suicide attempts because Americans were hesitant to go to hospitals during the pandemic, in fear of contracting Covid-19. Suicide attempts surged among 12- to 17-year-olds, especially adolescent girls, during the Covid-19 pandemic and got worse the longer social distancing orders and government lockdowns persisted, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They have successfully ruined people's minds. The worst. I'm sorry but I can't stand these people. I don't know a single person affected by this virus directly, lucky me I guess....but I know two HS juniors who've committed suicide. Just stop talking

Straight from CNN, it's the Flu: More than 80% of Americans 16 and older have some level of immunity against the coronavirus -- mostly through vaccination, a new survey shows. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted the survey of blood donations. The results also indicated that about twice as many people have been infected with the virus as have been officially counted. More than 39 million Americans have been diagnosed with coronavirus since the pandemic started last year. With the latest Covid-19 surge upending American life, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the rollout of booster doses could begin within weeks pending FDA authorization. That acknowledgement, that the incidence rate is 2x what we know (it's actually prob 5-10x) tells you all you need to know. They are finally getting around to the guesstimates and extrapolations they go through to create incidence and mortality rates for normal respiratory diseases. They are ruining lives over the flu. The mortality rate is likely right on top of the normal Flu, perhaps a bit worse, but nowhere near the level of hysteria being created by the World's Leftists. There is conspicuously no data on unfortunate souls dying here & now from "Delta" or whatever, and in all likelihood that's because they fit in the "old people and sick people die" categories, with the occasional Instagram post of some Talk Radio guys that died or unfortunate soul who died too young, which happens every other year but isn't sensationalized. All to implement a Globalist idea structure onto us all. And they've done it. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center recently released a report saying that 61% of U.S. households hadpaid no federal income tax in 2020, up from 44% in 2019, as the pandemic led to high unemployment and loss of income. Although the number will likely revert to the mid-40% range over time, now is probably a good time to have a discussion about what the right percentage of people paying taxes should be. We are there. It's over. I admit defeat. I jump on bandwagon, wave the flag, and try not to be jailed. Please don't come for me...

There's nothing to say. It's just more of the despicable "Means to an End" Party in action. They feel like their Leftist agenda is so worthwhile they will lie, cheat and steal to implement it. They are too stupid to realize THAT is actually Totalitarianism, which as I've described before, has ALWAYS, through History, erupted via Socialism and the Left.

I have seen a whole heck of a lot of dumb things said on the Interwebs, but you sir....

You mean the tens of thousands of kids, versus the 500 or so "orphans" the media went into an Election frenzy over? I guess its the power of large numbers, persons get lost in the shuffle. If you're going to eff up, eff up REALLY BIG (not trying to be a doosh here)

yeah, the Left is such a discerning voting Bloc The biggest problem we have as a nation is these Leftist-infested voting areas that elect anyone with a pulse who has Socialist tendencies and then they keep foisting them up the Leftist political apparatus and they have the power to ruin our lives.

Well, I'll try to provide an answer here, even though I know our Leftist friends won't play fair....BTW, I have been critical of this disastrous Administration's decisions virtually across the board, but you are right, what's done is done and at the moment we are all on the same side, no question. In response to your question about what could have gone better: To me, it made no sense to close the MILITARY AIRBASE that we had solidified over TWENTY YEARS for no reason before our people were out, no sensible reason at all. The reason we were given, by our idiotic Head of Joint Chiefs, who was more focused on Woke issues in the Military instead of doing his job, was that they couldn't defend both the base AND the Embassy, so they closed the Airport. The issue I have, is they were supposedly receiving credible intelligence that Taliban were advancing more quickly than normal and that Kabul could fall within months or even weeks/days of withdrawal...thus the need for an Embassy to remain was not sensible. They probably did not want to "tip" their deal with the Taliban in terms of closing the Embassy before, but you know what, life is full of difficult decisions, and they mucked this up so bad it's going to resonate for a long, long time. Now, they are probably going to strand tens of thousands of people who will be arrested, tortured and killed once the lights go out. ALSO, the withdrawal of our last Troop elements is colossally more difficult from that Urban airport than it would have been from Bagram, where air support could have facilitated the last departure of our TWO last planes, now we'll have to rely on Taliban to protect the last plane that lifts off out of that urban airport. That is just not a credible plan. So, I'm afraid this Administration has demonstrated just how incompetent they are with these actions.

Surrendering Baghram Air Base made no sense at the time, and even less so now.

Geezus Chr!st I've asked before but how do you ignore someone here? Disgusting And I will not pile on to what is a tragedy affecting people's lives with the politics, but this is just disgusting

This is me saying that I'm really glad you're/this is just one person, cause whoa if this was a movement. Scary

I would imagine we ARE but it's not the kind of thing you'd broadcast...I'm an expert at this, I've watched Homeland Seasons 1-10 AND sat through Argo

this is called an anecdote...it does not represent a system or set of rules You don't rule by anecdote, instead you set up a system of rules and OBLIGATIONS based on reality. You and your types despise US market-oriented capitalism despite the reality that it's by far the best system ever devised on this planet for such a purpose...that it's lifted more people out of poverty than any other...that OTHER systems, many that which abide by the types of rules and obligations you desire, end up faltering and collapsing and leading to ruin & despair, as has been witnessed throughout history. No, your anecdote does not mean anything. You have no fundamental clue, apparently, of what inflation means for the economy, the nation, its people, or yourself for that matter. The fact that this thinking is taking over America is the clearest evidence that we are in deep trouble. And no, you have no evidence to counter these claims, becuase they don't exist on the planet.

The COVID economy (market-oriented) has been the greatest gift of my professional life, really feel guilty about it. But I'm not stupid enough to think these are sustainable scenarios, that if the Gov't keeps borrowing like this (even starting with this ABSURD $3.5T meaningless bill) that the US won't collapse sometime beyond that. Lefists have no clue how an economy works

My personal opinion is that this is just what happens when life is pacified too far...societies forget what got them there, etc What will probably reverse this "I have everything I need & want at the simple tip of my fingers" will be three well-placed EMPs over the Continental US

Literally, so dumb The State cannot borrow TRILLIONS and pay you to exist forever. In fact, the US has probably gone too far already on this front, we just don't know it yet. Just dumb Leftist thinking: "Yah, those low-wage folks just won't go back to those low-paying jobs while the gov't is paying them a lot more not to (irrespective of where those gov't funds are coming from)...they don't want to, they've learned to like having more money" This is exactly the disastrous thinking behind the Liberal/Democrat cabal currently pulling the Pinocchio strings above Biden that will sink this whole place. My goodness I can't believe how dumb.

Noone is saying there isn't a virus out there. Nor that people don't die from it. The argument is that the virus and its effect are being sensationalized to create Social change/constraints that people really should be pushing back against. Your data above is really NOT divergent from my argument, which is this: 1) COVID-19 is form of Flu virus that is both slightly more transmissable and deadly than established Flu; that's too bad; it's a problem 2) The Globe/US suffered a tough flu season 3 years ago; BUT had very mild Flu seasons for 2 years after that and prior to the COVID-19 hit in 2020, THUS there was a certain population of susceptible people that were still there to be affected by a transmissable disease. In effect the cohort of risky population saw extended life expectancy due to the benign flu seasons for two years. 3) Powers that be, terrified of a Pandemic, used and are using "false" hard data on COVID, relative to "soft" historical Flu data, to push an agenda that is stopping life when it really shouldn't -- shifting goalposts if you will. First 2 weeks shutdown (fine, let's make sure). But it was clear what this was early on, a slightly worse Flu and our hospitals were not overrun -- in fact the BIGGEST issue is they mistreated this disease by misinterpreting temporary low-oxygen counts as diabolical and over-using Ventilators (remember that period? That was wrong). Children should not be wearing masks in school or elsewhere, it's actually causing OTHER viruses that DO harm children to become more prevalent themselves, so that's wrong. People who are at risk should take care to protect themselves. For heavens sake Duke University has a "breakout" of Covid where 50 students tested positive, 1/2 who are asympomatic and 1/2 who, prob when pressed, declared they have light cold-like symptoms. It's a joke.

Stop taking umbrage and making false narratives, noone is demeaning the unfortunate demise of anyone, nor suggesting Healthcare workers don't deserve respect. My industry has all kinds of rules & regulations also, guess what, they get broken all the time. That's why every industry has an enforcement arm attendant to it. I have a specific experience, where instead of amputating his father's 2nd leg due to late-stage diabetes, a friend made the difficult decision, along with his brother, to remove life support and enter Hospice. I remember vividly because he was on the phone with his brother, and when they hung up we shared a hug, because it was a very difficult moment for him. 9-10 days later or so his father died, as expected. Cause of Death? COVID. In the Obit, and according to my friend, on the Certificate. Now this will be brushed aside as just an anecdote, but that's no different than all the anecdotes we've heard from the other direction on this topic. If you don't think Hospitals were chasing the Fed govt's money for COVID to plug budgetary holes, I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, Liberals and Democrats are just stupid. Simple as that. Sociologists and Demographologists... How about this...the Town of Lake Placid cut its Ironman competition by 40% and moved half his Lacrosse tournament to Albany, forgoing tons of important revenue for the town...big hit economically. Why? Afraid of the virus? NO, the municipality, the hotels, the restaurants, nobody could hire more than 40% capacity. Real-world evidence, not some BS "professorial writing". Country is in big trouble.

I'm afraid you're misunderstanding this. After 100 years, there is no hard Flu data...the Flu deaths are an evolving estimate that comes in a range, it's not "80,000", it's 65k-90k or some such thing. And they formulate it 18 months after, and it pertains to the 4 month "flu season", not some 20 month time-frame. To grapple with an incidence rate they take test data and guess and extrapolate and assume to come up with the denominator...so a 0.1% mortality rate on 80,000 Flu deaths implies that 80m people "had the flu", when in reality they have tested like 12m-24m people positive in a given year and used population meta-data to determine the incident rate. Here is the link that describes how your JHU 600,000 number was derived, don't take it from me: How the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker was built -- and what it tells us - The Washington Post The JHU tracker was created overnight using some web-scraping and assumptions. There was no hard-definition of a "Covid-death", BUT in a period of evaporating Hospital revenues & profits due to the suspension of other treatments, there were guaranteed payments for treating COVID victims and deaths. COVID-19 is an unfortunate disease that results from novel virus that is not that much different from all the others we've seen. But it's irresponsible to act like this data hasn't been massaged, over 20 months, to fit a narrative. The article above on the JHU COVID Tracker's formation literally describes how it was created to tell a story about inequity So the net of these numbers is, the annual Flu deaths would be under-counted relative to a COVID number, because they aren't actively seeking Flu deaths (nobody dies "from the Flu" just like nobody dies "from COVID"), the COVID deaths are certainly exacerbated (I only know 3 people who died "from COVID", not one of which did, two of them had feeding tubes removed already in hospice for cryin' out loud), and the incidence rate of the Flu is an extrapolated guess while they're using hard, testing data on COVID to determine its' incidence rate...at the moment anyway, they'll eventually declare that 280m people had COVID since it was so transmissable.

Absolutely not 10x deadlier. The flu mortality rates are actually estimates based on assumptions using extrapolations and guesses. They don't test for the Flu like they do COVID so the data sets are completely incomparable. 1) that 600,000 death count is horrifically wrong, and comes over a 19 month period at this point; 2) your denominator for who's had COVID is way too finite to compare with Flu

Societal control requires shifting definitions and expectations around these things. Truth would mean freedom and "things happen", but Democrats/Liberals/Socialists despise people doing things independently and becoming successful or having fun. Therefore they constantly move goalposts through a willing, subservient Media apparatus