jdub27

It's been done before.

Mostly my thoughts as well, but are they going to have a designated "CoVid" staff so that those infected can stay away from their healthy co-workers? I know that the plan is to only have them work with already infected patients but it sure goes against the message of "if you're positive, stay home" and knowingly bringing the virus into a healthcare setting doesn't exactly scream "protect the vulnerable". Locally, close contacts and quarantined teachers is what is going to shut down the schools. Staff is being stretched way too thin despite kids being better off in classrooms. Tough to keep them there when they can't find enough bodies to even supervise. Teachers trying to teach multiple classes with aids/paras/other staff trying to fill in the gaps isn't great. My prediction is schools shutdown after Thanksgiving and don't reopen until after New Years.

What are your thoughts on Burgum allowing infected healthcare workers to continue working? I understand part of the logic due to the extereme shortage we're seeing in healthcare workers which is putting further stress on hospital capacity, but on the other hand, the optics of continuing to allow people knowingly infected into healthcare facilities becuase that's the only way to keep up points to there being just a little bit of a problem.

It's almost like both sides are the same, the roles just reverse every 2-4 years and they hope everyone forgets:

How did you forget about Space Force?? I highly doubt what he does or doesn't know has any bearing on the messages he's sending out. Reality isn't always in line with the messages. Which is also something the Pelosi is trying to deal with within her party. The fracturing by their lack of gains through down-party voting is going to cause some issues on how they move forward. I would aslo guess if Trump actually had something, Rudy would have brought it up over the weekend at his news conference at the Four Seasons (Total Landscaping) which was about as much high comedy as one could ask for. The humor in that mess can not be understated. Pretty thin line there. Trump (and Obama before him, and Bush before him, etc) have had absolutely zero issue claiming victory before Electors cast their official ballots. Biden's proclamation is at least based in something as he has multiple news agencies giving him the nod. The AP has been doing it this since 1848 with minimal problems.

Yes, they took on the full, unsubsidized risk and can now reap the full rewards. Not saying the turned down the money out of goodwill, they did it to protect their process and profits (assuming they were/are successful). It is only relevant to those pointing to the government's subsidization of the R&D for CoVid research and claiming that's how this supposed vaccine came about. The purchase agreement only comes into play if they were successful. In that event, I doubt there would have been an actual concern to find a market for a quality vaccine.

Because no one actually believes the hyperbole that he was going to put them out of the business except for the hyper-partisan fringe on both sides.

Same reason travel and entertainment related entities are up huge: If Pfizer's news is accurate, these industries will see a huge boost. Same reason "stay-at-home" companies like Zoom, Paypal and Peloton are down big: If Pfizer's news is accurate, these industries will take a hit.

Correct, the government contracted to purchase the vaccine if they were able to development something. But Pfizer did not take federal funding to back R&D or manufacturing like every other drug company. This was intentionally done by the company to stay away from any political influence or strings attached.

Curious if you actually have any source about Biden and his response to a vaccine (100% efficiency or kicking it down the road)? Or just partisan complaining? Probably also fair to point out that Pfizer's breakthrough was not part of Operation Warp Speed and they took no federal funding. They did sign a distribution agreement, however that didn't influence how quickly Pfizer was able to do this. Regardless, good news, particularly looking at the markets today.

Can't we keep the Boomer memes on Facebook?

D's managed to find a pretty average candidate at best and still win, while losing seats in the House and not picking up much, if anything, in the Senate. That kind of stuff doesn't happen unless people crossing the voting line which is contrary to your point about R's not saying "boo" about it. But I don't disagree that if Trump handled himself better, he would have won re-election. First off, Jason Whitlock is nothing but a grifter. Just wanted to point that out even if his point isn't necessarily wrong on this. But it is no different than how Trump won 4 years ago due to the hatred of Hillary.

I mean, they do still keep trotting Tucker Carlson (among other out). They are still well right of center, though not as fringe as MSNBC. I actually continously flipped through coverage on all 3 channels Tuesday night to get different viewpoints. Other than a few talking head bozos on MSNBC that I'm not sure how they are employed, overall it was pretty good. Fox News definitely still had their bias, which I have no objection to and I thought their coverage was easily the best of the 3. The point I tried making a while back. If the R's need a way to "reset" who they are, this is the way to do it. Hoping Biden stays in office leads to an extended stalemate. Him leaving in the next 18 months leads to a lot of seats switching red in the mid-terms. And he's a one-term president, the R's have an excellent shot at taking the White House back in 2024 assuming they can put forward a decent candidate (which I think a large amount of people would agree that both parties are 0-2 in the last two elections).

Yet FoxNews is reporting the exact same things as the other networks (and were even the first to call AZ for Biden). So how exactly does that theory pencil out? It happened when they uploaded the data, which since they were votes that couldn't start being counted until the polls closed, happened to be at 3am. Remember all the people complaining we don't have results yet? It would take 2-3x longer if they didn't work through the night. No one can actually be dumb enough to think that if people were going to try to cheat in that blatant of a fashion, that they would do it that way. On top of that, it has been known for weeks that there would be legal challenges and recounts. If you're smart enough to try to manipulate a national election, you don't blatantly make a six figure drop of ballots when you know all of that info is traceable. Texas has only counted 94% of their ballots and Florida is at 98%, not much off from the states that are under the microscope.

Maag and Zavalney at 6'4" with 36" verticals. Throw those jump balls up there.

No arguments there, but there are plenty of states who are way behind the ones that are being closely watched: NJ - 66% MD - 70% MS - 77% AK - 56% UT - 80% CA - 74% MA - 79% Source - https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ELECTIONS/STATUS/yzdpxazolvx/index.html None of this is a new phenomenon. It just so happens that certain swing states are shining more light on it. On top of that, mail-in and absentee ballots were multiple times higher than in the past and many state legislatures did not do anything to adapt to what would be a much more labor intensive process.

4 years of him accomplishing nothing and using the Republican controlled Senate as a cover for it? Works for me.

Hopefully they weren't in Wood County and lying to you: https://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/04/wisconsin-elections-wood-county-did-not-run-out-ballots-clerk-says/6164541002/

So why is it OK to count ballots ahead of time in other states, like say, Florida? The obvious is each state has their own set of rules and people by and large have no clue what the rules are in other states (or even in their own). The differences make it easy to cast doubt. It's almost like we knew 7 months ago there was a possibility at a change in how the election was going to be done, yet very few states (or the federal government) took steps to help lessen possible issues. Both sides are to blame for it.

So people aren't complaining about how long an unprecendented number of mail-in ballots take to count? They expected roughly 10x the amount the recieved in 2016 and the counties asked for a change in the rules to allow them to be counted ahead of time so there wasn't a delay in reporting. Changing the law on how they can be processed is the only way to do that. They chose not to. Hence, we are where we are.

You realize the reason for this is the Republican legislature decided to leave the old rules in place and not allow counting prior to Election Day and also, this is nothing new? https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/elections/2020/10/pa-republicans-have-no-plans-to-act-so-counties-can-start-counting-mail-in-ballots-before-election-day.html

The bipartisian groups counting the ballots must be in cahoots! And getting it all done overnight. That's some next level stuff. Biden acts as the moderate he is and claims he can't get anything done for the next 4 years because the R's kept the Senate (which is accurate). He sticks around for 1 term and the R's take the WH back in 2024 because Harris won't win a general election and she has to be the presumptive nominee. Midterms in 2022 become something interesting to watch.

What exactly does something from 5 syears ago have to do with the comparison of deaths from this year vs. last year? Nothing, but regardless, the number of beds available also does not help determine what occupancy was last year compared to this year, which is what I specifically stated needed to be known to show if there was any correlation. My point wasn't specifically to blame or not blame the schools (for the record, I'm in favor of doing everything necessary to keep them open). But people having less contact with others will absolutely slow the number of cases. I don't understand you could argue any different. The question becomes whether the difference is meaningful enough to make it worth while. Also the "masks saves lives" argument is pretty tired. No one said they were going to eradicate the virus but they will help lower the R value. Kind of like seatbelts don't guarantee you won't die in a car crash, nor do airbags, but yet we continue to think those are a good idea. Most cars even have both now!

So the numbers are only through August and the deaths between April and August were lower than last year, wouldn't that show that shutting down the schools helped lower the death rate, since you know, schools were shut down and the death rate was lower during that time frame? Regardless, they are stating the number of deaths is lower due to lower occupancy. It is tough to compare year over year without having the occupancy numbers to calculate an actual death rate.

The Intercept's Editor in Chief's response: