Linky Friday: Last Day of July, or the 153th Day of March, Depending

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast.

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18 Responses

  1. LeeEsq says:

    LF1, LF6, and LF9 are related. The Republicans really believe that using government money or powers to solve a crisis like this is bad. Pandemics do not fit into their cosmology at all, so they have to pretend that it Covid-19 isn’t happening or isn’t bad. If the Republican Party was just a purely venal party, we would get a much better response from the Republicans because they would know their offices are on line if they mess it up. Instead we are finding a near total economic collapse and a reduction in American power and respect because the Republicans can’t change course. The American passport used to be the most powerful in the world. There were a hundred countries you could just show up with an American passport and be allowed in temporarily without a visa. Now this doesn’t happen anymore.Report

    • Phi;ip H in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Republican politicians believe using the government to solve anything is bad, not just crises. They also don’t care about the passport issues because they travel on government/diplomatic passports and the rules are different.

      Lets also not forget hat Mr. Trump’s presidency is the outcome of over 4 decades of a singular story repeated over and over. As we saw yesterday with his tweeted “question” about moving the election, they do have some realization that their story is slipping and their power is threatened. They are still boxed in however, because they also believe that admitting error is a literal sin. I take their response to that tweet as them beginning to see through the bubble, but I agree their lock step ideology will likely end their power.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to LeeEsq says:

      The Republicans tried to pass a relief bill in April, but the Democrats refused to approve it.

      So, y’know. You want to say “well that wasn’t enough“, sure, we can argue about that, but that’s not what you’re saying, you’re saying “they refuse to give them anything“, and that’s simply not true. Not true.Report

  2. Brandon Berg says:

    LF1: as Thursday’s report of a 33% drop in second-quarter gross domestic product confirmed – it came after “a very big downdraft.

    No, this is not correct. 32.9% is the annualized quarterly growth rate, which means that Q2 GDP was 9.5% less than Q1 GDP. If there were four consecutive quarters (one year) of -9.5% GDP growth, that would total to a 32.9% decline for the whole year. That’s what’s meant by annualized growth—it’s what the growth would be if it the rate of growth in the last quarter were sustained over a full year.

    So the actual decline was 9.5%, not 33%. This isn’t good, but it was more or less expected. The government literally paid people not to work, and paid businesses not to operate. The unemployment rate jumped over 10 percentage points, and many of the people who kept their jobs were (and some still are) operating at reduced capacity. We knew back in March that something like this was going to happen, which is why the stock market crashed then and not now.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    The Canadian story is wilder than you imagine. It seems like there is a network of far-right Germans trying to build a new racial colony in Cape Breton: https://nationalpost.com/news/nazi-sympathizer-network-buying-up-cape-breton-properties-with-colony-in-mind-german-report

    The fact that purchases come with Nazi propaganda gives some credence to the allegation.Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    Comment in moderation.Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    “Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.”

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-airReport

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Another example where modern conservatives are an insurgency that views the opposition as hostile aliens instead of fellow citizens.

      This wasn’t political strategy designed to change behavior or win votes.
      There isn’t any behavior that people in blue states can change in order to be considered equal citizens. They themselves are illegitimate.Report

  6. Michael Cain says:

    LF9: The Colorado Dept of Labor estimates that it would take them until sometime in October to code and test the necessary verification of data and individualized 70% cap on benefits into the state’s UI system.Report

  7. Oscar Gordon says:

    LF7: So a ‘Karen’ decided to make that thing her own?Report

  8. DavidTC says:

    So no comments on Herman Cain essentially conspiracy-theorying himself to death?

    Normally, when someone on an opposing political side dies, I try to be respectful.

    I’m not going to be respectful for the ones that die of Covid if they’ve urged people not to wear masks, considering that their behavior probably killed at least one other people.Report

    • veronica d in reply to DavidTC says:

      My general policy is that enough other people will mock his death that I don’t need to add to the chorus.Report

      • DavidTC in reply to veronica d says:

        Fair enough. I haven’t actually been disrespectful either. I’m just not going to say ‘Oh, no, that’s horrible, we might have been on opposite dies, but I still respected blah blah.’.

        Herman Cain almost certainly got other people killed passing along the same partisan political nonsense that caused his own death. He doesn’t get other people to be nice.

        Honestly, I’m all out of nice with regard to this. This isn’t even a political fight…this is morons demanding the right to operate a spotlight at night while the Germans are bombing England and there’s a blackout. And one of them just got hit by a bomb.

        Hey, fun fact. You know all those ‘essential workers’ who are making the _tipped_ minimum wage of fricking $2.13 an hour? Having to risk their lives for $2.13 an hour?

        It’s because of Herman Cain.

        Herman Cain just got smote by God for his sins.Report