leh-nerd skin-erd

@Buffalo_Gal are you, or have you in fact, ever been married to @WhoTom? Back in the late 80s I was in Nebraska for work and visited with a farmer and his family. As we walked around the side of his house, a wing-ed creature suddenly flapped it’s wing-ed wings as if in a fight /flight death match and scared the crap out of me. The man and his wife thought it quite funny, and in an attempt to salvage my pride I told them that I was from NY and that when something surprised you like that you had to be ready. I may have given the impression that I was from the South Bronx. I am not. Nice people. Congrats on your wife’s accomplishment!

Just because you keep saying it doesn’t mean you’re being bamboozled, or that you secretly hope for a return to a time when a vote for a democrat meant appearing to vote for equality as long as your neighborhood, schools and communities remained status quo. At this point though, the second option seems most likely.

It got even worse. He grouped Latino “diversity” by state. Apparently all the Latino voters in Florida view immigration one way, while all the Latino voters in Arizona feel differently. I truly believe that had the interviewer asked him what might happen if a citizen with family that emigrated from Cuba moved from Miami to Phoenix, his head would have exploded.

All I can say is that there is always someone after your guns.

It took a long time for me to come to the realization that a guy like John McCain was complicit in all this as well. This board helped me get there. The people victimized on both sides of the border is staggering, and that pos had the arrogance to crow about being a maverick. One step further, for all the talk about statutes and historical figures, McCain and Ted Kennedy represent the worst of our political system.

Lindsay Graham was on Hannity this afternoon talking about Sally Yates testimony today. As Hannity is wont to do, he was hyperfocused on Yate's dancing around the answers to questions, and Graham laughed and indicated it was like he was in a boxing match. The problem is that 4 years after it all started, it's not funny, and to smugly laugh like you accomplished anything is a joke. To your point, it sure feels like the setup is in place to be OUTRGRAGED publicly while doing nothing privately.

That is as colorful as you see on the internet. I feel bad for the lepers but very well done!

He most certainly lost the votes of the 10,000+ that died due to his apathy and proactive virus transmission strategy regarding nursing homes. Sure, the fixers will get them back on the voter rolls shortly, but it sure would be easier not to kill off the voting bloc in the first place.

He's killing me today. He knows he thinks he know what he wants to say, but he doesn't stop to think that what he knows he wants to say makes no sense.

It's like he lifted the language right out of "Shaft". Can ya dig it?

In this clip, he reminds me of the hitchhiker in "Something about Mary".

It seems futile to argue a point that we'll never agree on. You've got a bug up your a%% about a politician being political, and in that regard, join the crowd. As for the 'system', fundamental to understanding a 'system' is understanding what a system is: Funding for NIAID: From the organization on August 15, 2018: Congress appropriates our funds. Before that happens, NIAID prepares a budget justification that goes to NIH, HHS, and the Office of Management and Budget. It then becomes part of the Department's budget justification, which is part of the President's budget request to Congress for the next fiscal year. As NIH is part of the executive branch of the federal government, NIH defends the President's budget before Congress during the appropriations hearings in March or April. Congress then prepares and must pass its own appropriations legislation, which the president signs into law. The NIAID received $5,000,000,000+ from the federal government in 2020. It IS the system. As for Dr. Fauci's role, again, from the NIAID website, this one last updated in November, 2015, 4.5 years before Jordan got you all twisted around: NIAID Organization Office of the Director The Office of the Director (OD) provides scientific leadership, policy guidance, and overall operational and administrative coordination for the Institute. Even if Jim Jordan got out of his chair, walked over to Dr. Fauci and personally accused him of importing COVID from a wet market in the Guandong province, in a test tube secreted in his raincoat and sprinkled on bowls of Raisin Bran in nursing homes across the country, it does not change the fact that you. are. wrong.

@transplantbillsfan says 96% of the people surveyed think the media just had a bad day this last few decades, and the other 4% post here.

In fairness that's only 4 years in total.

I feel like this was a missed opportunity for BO to call out DJT for sending Billstimes mail to the shredder.

If you had told me prior to the pandemic, that more than one person would argue that the nation's preeminent infectious disease specialist, a man who serves as an advisor to multiple presidents and other world leaders overly 40 years, who would become the face of 'flattening the curve' to millions of Americans, who has been interviewed, quoted or mentioned by every major media outlet over a 6 month period, who speaks daily about personal accountability and shared responsibility---anyway, if you told me that there were people who didn't think he held a major leadership position in the fight against the pandemic, I'd have thought you mad. We agree on the politicians, 100% across the board. All the more reason for him to step up instead of throwing the hot potato back to those failing us. In closing, Bob Costas, what's up with that guy?

So, you bought a mouse from a chick at a flea market? Now I’ve heard everything.

Amazing how far we've come in moving backwards. Richard Nixon's 5:00 shadow helped to derail his early candidacy, now we have an 80 year old Edsel breaking apart in front of us and it's no big deal.

In honor of the later great Wilford Brimley---Horsepucky! You can bag on Jim Jordan and his scurrilous behavior all you like--and apparently you like, but it's irrelevant to me in a post about Dr. Fauci's testimony. The man is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and from his bio, an individual widely touted as having served 6 presidents since 1984. He's been a key player on the COVID Task Force, has spoken eloquently on the obligation (my word, not his) of ordinary citizens to help flatten the curve, to drastically modify our daily behavior and create new habits to reduce the impact of the virus. From his bio: Dr. Fauci was appointed Director of NIAID in 1984. He oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. He had the opportunity to scream what should be incredibly obvious to anyone watching: The decision of tens of thousands of people to congregate on city streets is surely, and definitively contributing to the explosion of cases across the country. From the perspective of the science guy charged with "preventing" the spread, the fact that medicine intersects with politics should be irrelevant. In fact, I'd say his decision to soft-step around the issue was, in and of itself, political and egregious. Then again, maybe we just have different views on what constitutes effective leadership. I consider not just what is said, how it is said, and the behavior that those saying it follow themselves.

Oh wait, you missed the point. Thanks for clarifying that a political forum, with questions being asked by politicians of a scientists who serves in a role to advise politicians, has a political bent to it. Let’s put aside for a second the obvious point that hearings like these are designed for experts to share thoughts with policy makers that theoretically leads to better policy. It was Jordan this time, next time it’s someone else. So? Hap made the point that the actions of the individual in the time of the virus have potentially adverse consequences for Hap and those she loves. We dance around this issue of mass gatherings where people don’t socially distance, while individual policy makers make individual policy decisions that groups of 12 sitting together without potato chips are a menace. On the other hand, we’re told that gatherings with 22,000 people from across the fruited plain is not. We have a President who exhibits no mask discipline, held a large gathering indoors with one high profile death in the weeks that followed. And, as citizens we try to make sense of it all from one extreme to another. Enter the science guy. Dr. Faucci, good, bad or other is the face of the world as it relates to COVID. To suggest he is suddenly but a humble scientist set upon by a rogue politician seems weak to me. Personally, I would have liked to see him lead. From what I can see, his response was tepid and impotent at a time when he could have been strong and decisive. It seems common sense that people out in massive groups contribute to the transmission and death count, likely significantly, and I’m not sure why a scientist would hesitate to state that emphatically with statistics to back up his statement. When 25,000 people gather, what might that look like two weeks hence? How many infections? Hospitalizations? Deaths? Or, if the science supported the notion that there is little impact of tens of thousands of people gathered closely together on city streets, he might expound on that. He’s the science guy. The politics in play here is that there is a massive disconnect between what is being said, the laws and regulation implemented to target certain activity while no rules or regulations apply to other activity. The end result is the same as it always is: people see politics in play, see the hypocrisy in implementation of regulation, and call BS on the regulation because it’s viewed as politics as usual. But sure, you can blame Jim Jordan for being a politician if you like.

This last part resonates with me, especially as it relates to Dr. Faucci’s testimony. This was a prime opportunity to send the message loud and clear: large gatherings result in increased transmissions and are exceptionally dangerous to us all. He treated it as a political issue, and it’s ultimately a health and safety issue.

This is bothering me for a reason I'm struggling to put my finger on. At this point, I'd just order a fruit salad and hash browns on the side.

Well, what are the bread options? Can I ask for lightly toasted ciabatta roll, or something with 7+ grains? Bagel? This can all be worked out.

You don't upset me. I'm a rational person and understand that you have the right to spread whatever version of The Message you choose to. There are always true believers spreading The Message. The only difference is the target. I didn't threaten you, I mocked you. My comments were not vitriolic in any way. There is a difference, and please spare me the Kardashian model of victimization. The three words I typed could not possibly have upset your personal apple cart, though it's telling that you have lumped me into a group of other posters who may have said hurtful things to you. I see a pattern.

Yeah, I was going for subtle. White Boi Rick Bucahnan goes on a tear about police officers as war criminals, mustard gassing citizens, etc. I just like to smooth into it. I read his comments and think how interesting it is that in 2020, it's perfectly acceptable to group large blocks of people together, characterize them negatively, make outrageous claims and how some bobble heads bobble. My sense in 1960, a person with that sort of mindset might not assault a person who fought for civil rights, but would probably lend his truck to those that did. That was a lot to write though. And, I was concerned about him as well. I'm thinking he was probably wrongfully detained for being massless whole feeding the ducks at a local park.