DL Open Thread Thursday, July 22, 2021: Return of the Masks
I hope you haven’t stowed your face coverings too deep in the closet, because the smart money says we’re building toward a third-wave pandemic peak, probably in September.
You can tell it’s gonna be bad because as of yesterday, both Fox News and some of America’s dumbest, most recalcitrant GOP pols — people like Mitch McConnell and Tommy Tuberville — are suddenly encouraging their slack-jawed constituents to get vaccinated, and nobody is sure why. (I’d think we woke up in Bizarro World, except Rand Paul continues to demonstrate that the guy who finishes last in his med school class is still called “Dr.”)
Some people think it must have dawned on Team Fascism that owning the libs is going to require a very large pile of dead yokels. Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project says the flip-flop “smells strongly of new polling.” The best explanation I heard came from a friend who keeps an eye on Wall Street, who noticed that this all started when the Dow went tits-up on Monday.
Lots of reports out of Dumbfuckistan about hospitals being overwhelmed by unvaccinated hayseeds, including several of the “I thought it was a hoax!” variety, but the one that stands out is the social media post by an Alabama doctor about her dying unvaccinated Covid patients begging for the vaccine. It’s gone viral because it can break the hardest heart — it did mine, anyway.
A lot of people think Covid is just something we’re going to have to learn to live with. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos explains why that’s not a feasible plan.
Remember how the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was talking about denying communion to abortion-rights-supporting politicians like Joe Biden? Turns out one of the point men on that effort, general secretary Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, had a Grindr habit, according to a Catholic newsletter called The Pillar. Grindr claims its publicly available data couldn’t be used that way, and whined that the article was “homophobic,” but Burrill resigned immediately. Also, @Grindr: A high-tech pimp is still a pimp.
Over at the Capitol Hill Meat Co., the sausage making continues. Vox has the update on how the Republicans gummed up the grinder yesterday, meaning the Spicy Infrastructure links won’t be ready for breakfast. On the other hand, Nancy Pelosi put the kibosh on the cooks Kevin McCarthy hired to piss in the Jan. 6 Blood Sausage.
As much as we slag Chris Coons for protecting the filibuster, there’s a bigger obstacle to 86ing it: Joe Biden himself, who claims that nothing will get done if Democrats try it because Republicans will spend all the Senate’s time debating it. Normally I’d be skeptical, but he’s spent a lot more time with these hemorrhoidal assholes than I have, so he probably has a better idea of how they’ll react to Preparation H.
I’ve been saying this for a long time, but California Rep. Eric Swalwell gave a revealing interview to a podcast about how, once the little red light goes out, his GOP colleagues openly admit it’s an act — in pro wrestling they call it kayfabe, and Swalwell said some of them would be better suited to the WWE than Congress.
The floor is yours.
Sorry. I don’t get the connection between the markets and GOPers getting onboard the vax bandwagon.
They realized that the markets are going to tank all over again. They don’t mind dead Republicans, but they do mind losing money.
w.r.t. “Monsignor” Burrill. it’s like you always say, they most rabid reactionary lunatics are the ones who secretly hate themselves.
I’m confused why you’re calling Grindr a “pimp”
Me too. My thought was that he had some insights that some savvy ‘business men’ moved their inventory to apps like Grindr. I think Craig’s List dropped their Personals section for what was becoming similar reasons. But that’s all conjecture as it’s all past me. I had to suffer with the newspaper personal section and voice mail back in the day. Not too sure I’d know how to function in this day and age if i were back in the scene.
They hook people up for money. All the connotations that go along with it about exploiting their workers don’t affect that basic definition. A madame, if you prefer to assign such behavior to that gender.
I don’t care that they do it. I do care that they’re trying to mount a high horse. Forcing a hypocrite out of the closet is not homophobia.
Wouldn’t that make bar owners pimps? Anyone who hosts a party for singles?
I will grant that it is not ideal that a company makes a profit off of this but that’s an issue with capitalism rather than with Grindr specifically.
Plus, using terms generally used for sex workers for an app for LGBTQ+ community seems to be meant to be demeaning in some direction, just not sure which.
Sure. Whatever.
Y’all can think whatever you want about it. I’ve made my opinion clear, but just to delineate: Dating apps are not the same as hookup apps, and hooking up with strangers is just masturbation into a human receptacle. And gay/straight doesn’t enter into it.
Eric Clapton: Still A Dick. Refuses to play venues that require proof of vaccination:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/22/eric-clapton-refuses-to-play-venues-require-proof-of-vaccination-covid
The exact sentiment from an old Claymonster.
https://twitter.com/Wolfiesmom/status/1417958546688208896
Writing from the hicks in the sticks prospective other then producing assorted death threats to the Republicans nothing much will change for the anti vaxxers in rural areas. Stubborn is an understatement, they still “don’t know” about the vaccine or consider it to be a “hoax”. I gave up trying to change what passes for their minds. Got my mask out in the car, as noted a third wave is coming and can assure you in medical offices it’s still mask time.
I think the same. All the elected officials can tell them to get vaccinated but their adored talking heads told them not to.
Once you unleash the forces of ignorance it’s impossible to get them back under control, as Republicans are being shown quite often these days.
For what it’s worth, yes, I work in a doctor’s office and we’ve worn masks every minute of every day since April of last year. That’s not ending any time soon. I don’t mind mine. It hides my ugly face.
Grindr is just a hook-up /dating app for LGBTQ. Basically specialized Tinder. That’s it.
And frankly the world would be much better if priests were simply permitted to fuck other consenting adults. You know like human beings.
It’s a for-profit app, yes? And I would describe Tinder the same way.
The world would be much better if there were no priests.
Base service is free with subscription add ons. I mean you could use the phone to make dates, but you pay a phone bill. Big stretch here.
Really? Your phone company hooks you up with willing strangers? You must be paying for a higher level of service than I do.
As I said, it’s no high horse. I don’t care about it any further than that.
Can person with full human agency be their own pimp?
Love the shout outs in this article from everyone’s favorite. Bipartisanship takes time….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/22/fbis-investigation-kavanaugh-is-laughable/