leh-nerd skin-erd

I’ve said this before on a variety of topics. The government leaks like a sieve, the major news outlets trip over themselves to push the latest anonymous leak like its gospel, only to see it fizzle out and die. That said...there were no hero’s of the medical community spilling secrets about the wave of death about to come? 60 minutes....CNN......The WaPo all were on the wrong side of this issue? There were no sources screaming out to the American people or requesting admittance to a congressional committee? No brave whistleblower to defeat the empirical tyrant who cares not for the people? China, the WORLD Health Organization and the connected mainstream media conspired to &$#@ the American people. I’m not even certain the MSM did so intentionally, I think generally speaking unfettered ideology leaves them blind to many issues they might otherwise see. This much is obvious: Trump is the imperfect and stunningly unlikely hero of the American people yet again. I always laugh when he says “People are saying they never thought it could be done...they’ve never seen anything like it!”. All true.

"dog whistle" is simply a made up phrase that means something only to a person who has a particular point of view. Imo, dog whistle is a dog whistle for making %$## up and trying to make others feel bad.

I don't know about that. You think that it's unreasonable to speculate that the initial transmission came from China, from Wuhan, and that the Chinese government was less than forthcoming about the who/what/when/where/why? Meanwhile, it's 100% appropriate to rip apart/mock/lecture/second guess everything done/said/imagined here in our own country? What about the potential impact on Trump supporters, say like a Nicholas Sandman? As for the family nearby, "Organized crime" typically implies Italian syndicate, no? If the triad from China killed the people, why on earth do we have to dance around it? And why would we want some people jumping to the conclusion that the Italian syndicate s knocking off families near Albany? I think if I follow your line of thinking, to avoid any one getting their feelings hurt, reporters and the police should just report "some people did some bad things to some other people". I feel like I heard this lately, and it made me uncomfortable given the subject matter. As for Trump, Wuhan and China-- an inflammatory comment is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Did it incite you to go make fun of Asian-American children? It didn't and has not struck me like that at all. Were you out throwing stones at the little Santa Barbarba who children were rolling bones on the street corner during the Gotti trial? I'd bet not. I've listened to many of the press conferences and while I would acknowledge that there is always someone looking to get upset with someone, that's simply the way it is. Look at you--you were taking shots at poor old Jared Kushner just for being some guy's son-in -aw. I can actually say with a fair degree of confidence that by and large, the vast majority of Americans are not out harrassing children for their heritage over DJT referring to the virus as having started in China We don't learn and grow by pretending something that is, is not.

I agree--I saw this as very complicated and something that would be difficult to prepare for at the state and federal level. However, from what I have seen, heard and read, it seems that FEMA worked with the admin to rip up the old playbook and design on the fly. Looking back from where we are right now, plenty of blame to go around if thats what someone is looking for, but by and large they adapted and got &^%$ done.

Interesting. I can understand the Kung Flu version, though I personally think it's pretty humorous, but I think transparency is both reasonable and necessary. A few years ago, a family was murdered not far from where I live. Family of 4, Mom and Dad with two middle-school aged children. The murder remains unsolved, but the scene was by all accounts horrific, with a message being sent based on the order of the murders and the brutality of it all. It seems the conventional wisdom was that the father was involved in illegal activity with the Chinese triads, and there have been reports of same in the media. The general consensus is that there was no threat to other members of the community for that reason. Would you consider that to be unreasonable reporting..given that the possibility of mistrust in the community? I don't really see an alternative, with this particular virus... especially given the international coverage of the "Wuhan Flu" and "Chinese Virus" as initially reported just about everywhere.

It's one of the foundations of our democracy. Separate note--are you comfortable with others calling Covid-19 the Wuhan Virus, or Chinese Virus? with Presdent Trump referencing China in his press briefings?

I think President Trump took the threat seriously, I think FEMA was prepared, I think it was an excellent decision to invoke the DPA, I think the emergency stockpile was appropriately utilized and Jaren Kushner did a good job of explaining it to the American people, I think President Trump has shown the exceptional leadership skills often very difficult to develop after a lifetime/career in what amounts to the climate-controlled cubicle farm of public employment, and he's done an exceptional job of hi-lighting the problems our government (federal and state) has in communicating and working together during a crisis. I think he's done an excellent job pointing out the flaws in planning on the state level, the challenges with knee jerk reactions on requests to FEMA from the states, and in bringing the story directly to the American people via daily pressers and twitter.

Good stuff DR. I'm less convinced that anyone falls any day, it just seems that the corruption is simply part of life in Washington. A friend of mine is a well-connected attorney from Long Island, at one point very well-connected at the NYS lottery. He told me that with few exceptions, corruption and graft are just a way of life in NY politics. I don't think surprises anyone, but it's damn disheartening when you hear it from someone in the know. With all the supposed 'journalists' doing the Lord's work on keeping us safe, and it's one big cesspool that they live, swim in and get rich along the way. In Washington, it's like that on steroids. I like Barr, I think he's a warrior in the great war, I just don't feel it. Then again, does it really matter? After all...the honorable Michael Cohen is Tibsy's deep throat...his Sammy the Bull aka Rat...and he's going to take down Trump in 2058.. Actually, if I follow Tibsy's line of thought, Trump will be indicted on new charges after he gets done serving time for sexual assault, for bribery with respect to strippers, after he serves a life sentence for being a Russian operative, and certainly after his removal from office earlier this year after impeachment. Thanks for the recap!

In a perfect world, the perpetrators are indicted and media coverage begins just prior to the election. I have no issue whatsoever with this hitting at that time. In fact, given a choice between outing liars/cheats/thieves like Biden, Rice, Obama, Brennan, Clapper et al mid-term, or 3-4 months before the election, I'm all for maximum political effect. @Tiberius "rush" to judgement is hysterical though.

He has a lot of nerve. I see you as a drunkard and a skirt-chaser, and a man with a hook on his foot. You're good people.

I would love to have a talk of coffee about policy issues. Her Medicare sweater isn’t defecit spending and just for once her hair probably smells great. Holy crap I’ve been Bidenized!

Classic. ?

Not 100% accurate. The article reports the county apologized for erroneously sending out a flier that detailed the concerns raised in the original article. Is your suggestion that there should be a cooling off period before newsworthy news becomes worthy of dissemination? It seems to me the county was clarifying their intent, be it due to a legitimate misunderstanding or public outcry.

Nothing is off limits beyond what hurts a candidate at the ballot box. Those rules haven’t applied for as long as I can recall. Tax cheat. Bigot,. Racist. Want grandma to die. High school rapist and head conductor on a g-d rape train. Angry people clinging to guns and religions. Hell, according to one recent candidate for the highest office in the land, there are tens of millions of people that are so depraved they are beyond all hope of enlightenment, societally speaking. While that’s frightening in a Pol Pot sort of way—-tens, of millions of Americans agreed with her, and elected her Prom Queen. Where does that lead? John McCain himself referred to Trump supporters as “crazies”. I took that personally, especially in light of his cozy relationship with Ted Kennedy, the lion of the senate with oodles of figurative skeletons in his closet, and one real one in an Olds 88. Amazing what people can live with when money and limitless power are in play. I thank God for the gift of reason and opposable thumbs.

I always thought that was a horrible thing to say, in spite of the political bombs they tossed back and forth. McCain’s record was that of a political insider for several decades. At the same time, I thought McCains’s failure to engage in any meaningful resolution on border security with his associates across the aisle directly lead to the victimization of an untold number of people on both sides of the border. On balance, I thought McCain’s actions were far more reprehensible, and that’s simply one of the issues that I considered with respect to that sad debacle, both before and after the comment.

Last one, Spicolli, and we can move on. I follow a simple formula, and that’s the person I trash on a message board is the person who might have grown up down the street from me, might be dealing with $&#@ I am not, and might hold the door open for me at the food store next time I go. With few exceptions I try not to be too big a dbag. i didn’t single you out, at least not to take shots at you for being a teacher. I remembered you sharing your occupation, and was busting your chops a little after our unresolved straw man conversation last week. i started a youth sports team with a good friend who is a middle school math teacher, I volunteered as president on the hs booster club for the same sport for one year that stretched into 9, working with and at the direction of many teachers/coaches I respect. I have quite a few friends who work as school teachers, quite a few more who work in NYS govt and nothing we’ve discussed here would be foreign to them, or be something they disagreed with. Like you, they are appreciative of the choices they’ve made and would defend their profession as you have here. My parents were both union workers, my brother is a teamster and we speak regularly on a variety of issues. Finally, my daughter works for the SUNY system, has an excellent job and we’ve discussed how fortunate she is many times, and frequently over the last 30 days while she sheltered with us. She gets me, she’d likely roll her eyes at my characterization, but she would likely acknowledge right now she’s a “have”. As for your union, it’s definitely the job of a union to fight for benefits of its members. I would suggest, humbly, that the needs of the members can often be in direct conflict with the needs of the tax paying public, as suggested in my property/school tax analogy. Anyway, thanks for the good thoughts sent my way. I’ll take any I can get—but my ace in the hole is I’ve worked hard to save my own rainy day fund, and as you’ve said, it’s raining cats and dogs right now. With a little luck, we’ll get through this with our team intact. Don’t wait for an apology on my Spicolli reference. I’m sticking with that one Consider that pay back for your uncalled for LS song commentary. Peace out.

These are stressful times, and I’m sorry to have caused PTSD regarding Furlough Fridays, but you missed the point. I appreciate the feedback on the impact to you personally, your thoughts on reductions in pay and impact on benefits. One of the reasons I like this message board is that sometimes I learn things I did not know before. That allows me to consider things I hadn’t considered previously, and in some small way helps me grow. My point was that in these difficult times, there are those who can be considered as having more/better than others. There are those with connections and resources that others do not have. I don’t see where you disagree pd with that, in fact, it seems to be your perspective as well. For context, you’re anticipating a reduction in salary of 10%. I won’t assume there will not be an impact on your other benefits, you’ve already taken me to the woodshed on the reduced income. No one wants that, no one is happy about that, and I certainly don’t wish it upon you. That said, when considering haves and have nots, I’d think we would both agree that someone who lost their job, someone in hospitality, a waiter, a hair dresser, construction worker might, pound for pound, be worse off than you or me. I don’t see how that’s controversial, a knock on teachers or something that requires extended debate. I think you’re projecting. I read what I wrote, see nothing close to whining about teachers and their deals, and have no beef with teachers, government employees or the like. None, zero, zip. That said, I stand by my commentary that when property and school tax bills come out, the contribution will not be reduced by 16-20% to offset a reduction in services and the fact that my income may/may not have dropped or gone away. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, since the governor of NY and our president have encouraged, cajoled and twisted corporate arms to do more to help the people in need. You’ve been quite vocal about Joe 2020. A substantial platform of his campaign deals with economic injustice, taxing the rich, and...haves v have nots. The usual identity politics. Why get all bent out of shape when I simply pointed out the truth? You’re a have, you just don’t know it.

Your friends can pick you up, or drag you down. When he isn't sure which side you're on, you may want to consider him a down-dragger.

See, that's my point exactly Doc. To converse with a spastic leftist, when you try to apply context broadly, they shut down, get aggravated and mumble to themselves like Ben Affleck in The Accountant. Or Joe Biden generally.

I'm sick to death of "________ be like ______", so I thought the meme was weak. It also was overloaded with text, showing the author worked too hard to make a point. Personally, I loved the Bloomberg "I'm on team Joe" in the Joe Biden thread, the beauty lies in the simplicity. I did laugh at the "Ok Boomer" reply though, my 23 year old daughter drops that on me at the funniest of times.

Get back in your room and get your social studies homework done, boy-o. Chapter 9, Trump elected 45th President is going to be very enlightening.

Again, why are we dancing around this? If you think Nancy Pelosi had to read the San Francisco Chronicle to be dialed in to the current status of the Wuhan virus, I may have overestimated you. Good news, I do not think I did. I think the real challenge to acknowledging same is that it forces one to confront what is painfully obvious to many: like most crisises in life, it's exceptionally complicated, with perhaps millions of moving parts, with conflicting ideologies screaming to be heard, with judgements made in the moment that can be questioned upon reflection, and plenty of blame to go around after the fact. President Trump has made mistakes on the handling of the Wuhan Virus, and has made other mistakes as president. So? What's the point? Show me the president who has not, or the future president who will grace us with his or her perfection. The exercise of someone suggesting I'm unreasonable in my support of Trump, or that someone holds the moral high ground because they do not, is a waste of time. The first rule of the game, from your perspective anyway, is typically "Nothing that happened before matters." Or, put another, more strident way "I don't want to talk about Obama...Bush...Clinton" or whatever. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything matters. I know what Trump said about the 'hoax', and more importantly, I understand why he said it. Perhaps if people demanded more accountability from the perpetrators of said hoaxes, we could get to a point where we could have a reasoned discussion on how, and why it all matters. Until then, we get what we get. Now, normally, the liberal argument would be "I don't want to talk about Harry Truman!", but since you brought him up: Harry Truman...turns out he was an imperfect human being despite the nostalgic retrospective of all that Buck Stopping. I do appreciate you at least time traveling back to 1945 for examples of president's accepting full and transparent accounting of their missteps. Here are a few examples of complaints/thoughts of Give Em Hell Harry where he may not have practiced social buck stopping: https://www.businessinsider.com/harry-truman-letter-daughter-trump-2017-2 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-17-na-truman17-story.html https://millercenter.org/president/truman/impact-and-legacy

Interesting. Lots of words to dig through there, but I do agree that bias plays a factor in perception. I just thought it would be much more clear based on your presentation, where you said "...when I look at clips of TRUMP'S OWN WORDS". With the emphasis added, it appeared you were indicating it was a slam dunk, no need for context, the words proved the case. In fact, I'd argue that most reasonable people who concur that Trump did not say the Covid-19 issue was a hoax, if for no other reason than a person with your point of view concedes he did not. That leads me to my point, which is---with all the reasons to dislike Trump, to rage at his presidency, etc, why bother including something that requires bias, multiple paragraphs to explain, and phrases like 'semantical gymnastics' to hammer home the point?

You wanna git with Nancy, fine, everyone is into something. She's part of the machine my friend, she doesn't get her China updates a HuffPo.com.

Tibs, don't be disingenuous, or maybe more disingenuous(er). She's in the top 5 power players in the world. She's got extensive ties to China, she has access to virtually every piece of information at the governmental level, and for that which she is shut out of, she has people on the inside. Trash Trump all you want, but you don't improve performance by taking a stand like this.