DL Open Thread: Monday, August 10, 2020

Filed in Featured by on August 10, 2020

The Clusterbleep Caused By Trump’s ‘Executive Orders’.  Unworkable, confusing, and, as usual, not even thought-out.  I’m sure that seniors will catch on quickly when they understand that the plan could hurt Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention, his ‘orders’ are ‘absurdly unconstitutional’.

Bill Gates: America Has Worst Covid Testing In The World.   Why?:

“You can’t get the federal government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is,” the Microsoft co-founder-turned-philanthropist said.

Outbreaks Inevitable At Reopened Schools.  Even Trump officials know it, but don’t want to cross the boss.  The children? They don’t matter, apparently.

Local Sheriffs: A Law Unto Themselves.  An absolute must-read. An excerpt:

The American sheriff holds a peculiar office. Most of the country’s more than 3,000 sheriffs are elected and often not accountable to a county executive and thus have no real oversight beyond voters who typically keep reelecting them. (As of 2014, one-third of the sheriffs who had overseen the nation’s 200 largest jails had held office for 15 years or more.) In some jurisdictions, deputies make arrests. But their main job is running local jails and they have overseen vast expansions of the pretrial detention system. They often operate jails with near impunity; reports of abuse, negligence, and unchecked violence abound. Some big-city sheriffs oversee budgets of more than $1 billion. Amid calls for systemic shifts in policing and incarceration, sheriffs are now facing long-overdue scrutiny.

Sheriffs are bastions of racism and xenophobia.  They are accountable to nobody.

The Blue Shift: An Election Trend.  Not what you think. We’re talking about what happens between Election Night and when all the votes are counted:

It is not unreasonable to expect Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2020 to gain on Trump by over 20,000 votes in Pennsylvania during the period between Election Night and the final, official certification of the canvass. The key question is whether this kind of gain simply extends a lead that the Democratic candidate already has, comparable to what occurred in two statewide races in 2018. Or whether, instead, it cuts into a lead that Trump starts with on Election Night—and, if so, whether it is enough of a gain for Trump’s Democratic opponent to overcome Trump’s Election Night lead.

The explosion of mail-in voting could enormously magnify the blue shift. In the past, there’s been little correlation between mail-in ballots and the post–Election Day Democratic gain. But there is growing evidence, and concern among GOP strategists, that the president’s crusade against mail-in voting is discouraging Republicans from casting their ballots that way. If mailed ballots are disproportionately Democratic, and Republicans disproportionately vote on Election Day, then the blue shift could be huge—especially in states where officials are restricted from counting mailed ballots until Election Day, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.

Is This The Week That They Pull The Plug On College Football?  I think so.  Pretty much everybody but the P-5 conferences have already done so.  Only reason they haven’t already pulled the plug? Money. Lots of it.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. Alby says:

    The schools fiasco will be the final nail in Trump’s coffin, because it will hit in about mid-September. That’s when all the schools that foolishly opened — including Delaware’s, which are going to use the “hybrid” system that experts have declared the worst of both worlds — will be forced to close again, putting all those suburban women in a particularly foul mood six weeks before election day.

    • mhomewood says:

      Alby, for some school districts (almost all of the ones in Arizona) who didn’t really make a plan until last week (August 17th is the date Arizona HS are supposed to open) the eventual switch to ONLINE only will even make it worse.
      Although Online instruction may not work well for everyone, if you plan it with enough time and resources, you can mitigate some of the issues. For instance, for my Intro to Computers class, I’ve pre-recorded my lessons (in 8- 10 minute clips) for all of my topics that I cover. I may not be able to have you put memory in the computer, but I can show you a close-up video of me doing it. Pretty much the same with most of the topics. But if you were to ask me to switch from in person to online in a week and I’ve not done any of the legwork, outcomes will suck even more than if I had time to put a decent effort into this.

      It seems that most districts just hoped the virus would be over by now 🙂

    • Ben says:

      ooo keep saying things will “finally” do him in.

      even IF the election happens… and even IF the vote and EV reflect a biden win.. and even IF power transitions without mass death…
      Trump will still be around, he’ll still be the leader of the magats. Laura Loomer and other newly elected magats will say he is the REAL president and we’ll still have to watch him as all media trips over each other to put a mic in front of him.

      sweet summer child, he’s never going away.

      • Alby says:

        I didn’t say he’d go away. I’m saying this is why he’ll lose the election. And it won’t be close enough to steal.

        You’re like a chalk bettor. You just always take the down side, knowing you’ll be right a majority of the time.

        I’ll let you judge how worthwhile that is by the quality of your depression.

        • Ben says:

          yes, Id MUCH rather hold out hope only to have it repeatedly dashed on the rocks of end-stage national collapse.

          it’s quite bold of you to even assume people will remember this FINAL OUTRAGE in 2 weeks.

  2. bamboozer says:

    Trump has ably shown how bad American government really is, how numerous the flaws and how easy they are to exploit. Also shown is the abject failure of the corporate media which has devolved to an ambulance chasing collection of clowns. There will be hell to pay and I wonder if Biden and the current crop of Dems are up to it. I’m retired and in good shape to stand back and watch the destruction, that does not make it right.

  3. AQC says:

    I’m not sure about all Delaware districts, but my kids are doing virtual until mid October and then starting the hybrid model.

    • Ben says:

      ah yes “goin back more” in October.
      If kids are back in school by sept 2021, i’ll eat my hat.
      We just need to realize it’s time to move on from the old ways.

  4. Jim C says:

    Today I saw a post on my FB feed that stated that facebook had flagged a post that said, “tRump had removed Obama’s pandemic task force after he came into office”. facebook flagged that as , “False”. I looked on Snopes.com and they said the claim is 100% TRUE. Who ya gonna believe? Ya gonna believe Zuckerburg’s right wing nut job flunkies? Or, are you going to believe Snopes who have been debunking this crap for years?
    Of course, after I clapped back at the post, it’s disappeared from my feed..