jdub27

The Federalist Society has put forth the nominations, not Trump. McConnell is the definition of the establishment and he's been pulling the strings all along. Trump is just a figurehead for electing judges. This isn't close to accurate. "Losing money" can mean multiple things and in this instance, it is being done on paper. Good luck determining the full story without all the proper information. There's plenty about a person's financial condition that can be learned from tax returns but they are just snippets in time and to your point, only tell part of the story. And with how much I'm guessing Trump pays his accountants (and forces them to push the envelope), good luck trying to decipher those snippets in time. Doesn't mean he isn't leveraged and might have some strained cash flow, but the generalizations are just guesses without the full package.

You mean the one that everyone thought represented the LA Chargers because the horn looks like a C? The logo was skewered pretty good when it was released to the point that the COO had to publicly come out and say they weren't changing it despite the blowback. Ram legend Eric Dickerson (who works for the team) even unsucessfully lobbied for a change. https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/04/06/rams-logo-color-not-changing-criticism-kevin-demoff That being said, I was a big fan of the jerseys they wore yesterday.

And it happened under a local government controlled by Republicans! Just wait until the Democrats start in with their meddling!!

So are you bad at math or comprehension?

Bulletproof sourcing. You have changed my mind. Well done. Also, things have been far from grinded to a halt in ND (because we're doing pretty well in deaths and hospital capcity), but carry on.

Do you have any sources that show 30% of ND deaths categorized as associated with CoVid actually had absolutely nothing to do with the person contracting the virus and they would have died the exact same day regardless?

You are right, we know the consequences of what damage a typical (and even non-typical) flu season brings and we have made peace with it (though it's admittedly overstated based on how it is estimated). We also know more about influenza, especially that it is less contagious and it is less deadly, so that's part of the equation. What we don't know what the damages would be if we did the same for this virus other than it would be a multiple of what a bad flu would be (as it has already proven to be even with unprecendented measures in place). I'm not pretending to have the answers or pick one side or another. I'm strictly pointing out what type of decision those in power have to live with. I don't envy it for a second. It is easy to sit here and say "open it up and whatever happens, happens" while not have to be the one responsible for the unknown of what might happen. It is equally as easy to say "shut it all down until <pick your goalpost to move later> while not to be responsible for things like people's livlihoods and the economy. Some of the responses have been over the top. Some of the restrictions are ridiculous. There are a ton of unintended consequences because of them. Hindsight makes things incredibly easy to criticize the decisions made. Those pretending to know the answers can think that because they aren't the ones who actually have to deal with consequences of decisions made.

For the most part, you are exactly right, excluding the unknown of any long-term effects for those that don't get sick enough for hospitalization but still show symptoms. What it boils down to: If you are in favor with doing our best to protect the vulnerable (which we are already doing) while letting everyone go back to normal life (which will speed how fast the virus transmits to everyone, including the protected vulnerable because they will still end up exposed), then just admit you are fine with the virus taking the elderly and infirm at a multiple that it is currently happening while work towards reaching some sort of end goal (likely vaccine/herd immunity).

He's already sent them into cities without state/local approval, no? And it was beyond the scope of "protecting federal property".

I agree on the D's plan is to do the opposite of Trump, but that's no different than Trump's literal agenda being the exact opposite of whatever Obama did, regardless of whether it was the right decision or not (some were, some weren't). Do you think the government's initial reaction is different if someone other than the Obama administration had put together the pandemic playbook that was completely disregarded? No agrument that too many people have too much information they don't understand, but considering how people refuse to believe the actual experts who have a better understanding than the average person, what is your solution on who should have and be able to interpret that info? The fact that death totals have been well above the "excess death" threhold for almost 6 months (despite unprecendented steps taken) disagrees with this take.

Here are the CDC numbers, which gives a buffer before saying a weekly total is at "excess". https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

I mostly agree with you which is why I roll my eyes every time I hear people acting like its so easy to protect the vulnerable and everyone else can live their normal life and we'll be back to a near normal. But I'm not going to fault those making decisions for scaling back and making decisions on some of the things you deem as being "not the answer" because they are the ones who those that are responsible for trying to find that happy medium of people dying and people being able to live their "normal" lives.

He just saw a link and couldn't help but post it. Nothing of actual concern there. Honest question. Where/how do you think the people in LTC facilities are getting exposed despite having very strict, if any, visitation policies? And considering they are already pretty much isolated from outside visitors, what is the solution to further protect them?

They give up at least one additional run in the 4th if the infield wasn't in.

Treatments of it are also getting significantly better which has also improved survival rates. Point being, to say it is "acting like other viruses" when there has been significant uptick deaths above and beyond what is typical for almost 6 montsh running now is downplaying it a bit much. And that is with unprecendented steps that have been taken to slow the spread.

EPIC Management/EPIC Holding purchased it. Not sure what the mix will be but will be both commercial and apartments.

I agree with most of this, but the continued "excess deaths" disputes that this is just like every other virus. Since the week ending March 28, the death toll in the US has been above the threshold for excessive deaths for 22 weeks and counting. Will be interesting to see at some point if there is a large swing the other way. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm They are also looking at imposing more restrictions in Stockholm: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-22/sweden-could-introduce-restrictions-in-stockholm-after-uptick They continue to be an interesting case study. Their economy ended up being impacted about the same as everyone else's and while their death toll is low as a comparison worldwide, it is still quite a bit higher than its neighboring countries. I'd also say that while they didn't have has as much for government mandated restrictions, the people there took the recommendations (social distancing/social gatherings/mask wearing) much more serious than we see around here.

Crazy that the whole world is in on it. Extra props to Israel for really going deep, instituting their second lockdown over the weekend.

It's almost like the revision from a few weeks ago came from somewhere outside the CDC and was put in place despite some controversy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/09/17/report-controversial-cdc-guidelines-discouraging-covid-19-testing-were-imposed-on-agency-by-hhs-and-white-house/

Tough to get ready for a game when half your team can't practice, including large portions of individual position groups. UND maybe would have had a chance if they would have taken the lackadaisical approach other programs have been using to keep players on the field but they followed the guidelines laid out and it made it almost impossible.

No decisions have been made and there are multiple plans being devised. However all parties involved want to put as many fans as allowed/recommended in the stands as they can. I'd guess the front-runner right now is ~50%/5,000 but that could very easily shift.

I agree with that, testing should be better than it is. Not sure what the solution there is other than proceed with what we have and hope we keep learning at an exponential rate. One of the things that they will go back and look at is excess deaths vs. expectations, which has exceeded the expected threshold every single week since March 28th. Absolutely no argument that there is a portion related to the fallout from the response to CoVid and without seeing cause of deaths, it is tough to tell how that breaks out. But 5 months straight of higher than expected deaths is a clear indication something is going on. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

What unique nature of counting deaths are you referring to? Here's a fairly balance explanation of the misinformation about that "clarification" Influenza deaths are counted by a mathematical model. The model takes into account everything you're claiming it doesn't, including not having influenza as the sole cause of death or listed on the death certificate at all. Regardless of your stance on the virus or the reaction (either way), how things like this becoming political is a huge part of the problem. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

If you think UND wants to shut down campus, you're absolutely out of touch. Like, legitimately zero clue at all. They are doing everything they can to keep it open, which is why they are doing so much testing to help slow down/prevent excess spread, not so that they can throw in the towel. Students taking a bit more responsibility would be a step in the right direction, but after being locked down and the chances of it being serious to them, I can absolutely see their point of view. Armacost is exactly right though, UND shutting down would have a significant impact to the Grand Forks economy, specifically many businesses who have been struggling significantly the last 5 months. He didn't ask for a mask mandate, and I'm not sure that is the answer, but to think the policies city-wide not lining up with UND's and it being irrelevant isn't accurate either. I'm also not sure that closing the bars at 11pm is much more than window dressing, but those businesses have been taking the brunt of things and shutting them down completely doesn't seem fair to them. It's almost like a really complicated answer where the information isn't strictly black and white.

It hasn't, but that's because a large amount of the most recent positives are in the 15-29 range. The increased testing (and exponentially increasing positive rate) is showing who needs to quarantine to prevent them from spreading to those outside that range. More information is not a bad thing and my general opinion is Grand Forks/UND is currently handling the information they have well. That being said, based on last nights city council meeting, it is teetering on more restrictions if things don't start leveling out.