it's not like McConnell has to travel very far to suck his dick and keep him in the fold anyway.

You are an idiot if you think Bubba Redneck in Bibb County is going to change his mind on vaccinations because of a youtube or instagram influencer. I hear commercials on the radio sometimes, but you'd be better taking that money you would spend on advertisements and just offer it tax free to the bubbas.

Yep. I said something similar early on, but it needed to happen before it became too deeply rooted in politics. It should have been one of the first things the Biden administration did. Fox News would have had a hell of a time convincing people they don't need a stimulus check.

I dunno, when places offered $100 to get the vaccine, the right wing media went ape shit, saying they are trying to buy you off and if it actually worked they wouldn't have to bribe you get it.

I read somewhere that the incentives really didn't work. Maybe there's a high enough number that they would, but what was tried didn't move the needle.

This is where Trump being Trump really hurt in the transition between administrations (beyond the coup attempt, of course). In a normal situation, the incoming administration would have likely been better about continuing the Trump administration's messaging about the vaccine (which, remember, they were highly touting Trump's success in getting a vaccine near approval in the run-up to the election and month afterward). But given the way the aftermath of the election unfolded and the deep political divide, Biden pretty much went on his own messaging, pulled Fauci out of his cave, etc., and basically appealed to everyone as Americans, hoping that would work on its own. In an alternate reality, a President would have been more willing to credit the outgoing President and work hand-in-hand in trying to get all of their supporters on either side to take the vaccine.

But of course, that didn't happen here.

On a related note, I keep hearing what I believe to be a phony argument about most people not rejecting the vaccine, but the mandates. And I'm trying to piece together a timeline but it's been more difficult than I thought it would be when I googled it. My recollection is that vaccines were doing well with the public until around the J&J debacle and that for a couple of months after that, things leveled off. It wasn't until several months of slow vaccine numbers and the summer surge that Biden began with the mandate talk and eventual action. But, I may be remembering it all incorrectly. Does anyone have a general timeline? My initial gut response is that the "mandate" thing is BS - most people who wouldn't take it, objected months before a mandate was put in place. The "I'm not against the vaccine per se, but I'll be damned if the government is going to force me to take it" line of reasoning seems to ignore the reality of how it all unfolded. In my mind...

Yeah, but the people unvaccinated now weren't part of the public it was doing well with back then. Or else they'd be vaccinated ;)

I really don't think J&J played a big part as it always was going to be a marginally used vaccine in the US. Of course such things got scandalized, but i really doubt it had much effect. Over here we had similar Arguments re: Astrazeneca, yet polls/surveys show pretty clearly the effect didn't go beyond mild annoyance. From Folks that wanted to get vaccinated. Those who didn't get vaccinated name a host of other things before any specific issues like this.

I think specific things and even the mandates had the result of a similar group simply getting louder, not actually bigger. That groundwork was laid very early.

Of course there was/is a large contingent NOT acting out a political/ideological determination but simply not being well targeted/informed (again, there simply are social 'determinators' to who uses which avenues of information and how likely they end up at which type of information or disinformation) and genuinely unsure. Others are simply indifferent. Those are the one you 'get' with measures built on practicality. This can range from getting info from family, family doctors etc to, yes, getting something out of it to rebalance the pro and con scales.

Of course some of this is more less prevalent in this or that region.

Imo the one best thing though would have been uniform messaging ranging across the political spectrum. It simply is very clear in the US but als in Germany. Only difference is scale, due to us being a multi-party system. When i look at Scandinavia, Neth/Bel, Italy, New Zealand i see staunch opposition parties (including ones far on the right) at least to some degree get on board when it came to this one issue.

Possible. I just remember seeing some charts that showed the percentage of people getting the vaccine and where it slowed up was right when the J&J thing hit. Could be a coincidence that we reached the point where all of the definite YES on the vaccine people had gotten theirs around the same time as the J&J pause. But I think the argument would be that it caused skepticism of all the vaccines, not just J&J.

It felt like it was all just a part of the goalpost moving where you have a "politically agreeable" answer whenever someone wanted to challenge your beliefs. You can probably scan through the COVID thread (of course it's going to take days to do that) if you want the whole rundown.

But I believe the timeline was something like this:

Generic bundle of excuses: My immune system is strong, I don't know what's in it, every conspiracy from big pharma to 5G, et al - those have always been popular and, in my experience, have mostly boiled down to some combo of "I hate needles", "petulant teen I don't wanna", and "eff the libs/spite the libs".

(Winter 2021) I can't get one! (legit issue)

(Spring 2021) It's too new - I'm going to wait until everyone else gets it
(Spring 2021, also) See?!? I told you the vaccine was dangerous (post J&J)

(Summer 2021, pre-Delta) It's not FDA approved - I'm going to wait until that (like they cared about an FDA they don't trust)

(Fall 2021, Delta) The FDA rushed it and it's an inside job

The grumbling about mandates has been around for as long as I can remember. My coworkers said that a lot. I think some genuinely believe it while others, it's just code for "Hell yes, I took the shot because I don't want to die and it's a rationally selfish things to do. But I need something to signal to my red brethren that I'm not ok with it, especially since it's Sleepy Joe saying to do it".

For people who haven't had their shot, of course they hate the idea of mandates. I know I've talked a bunch about our backwards incentive system here, but I mean it boils down to this: God forbid those who won't even do the bare minimum for themselves, much less society, actually be restricted from participating in said society.

SI

GOP legislature in GA takes over the Lincoln County elections board.

New election board proposes closing 6 of 7 polling locations.

I'm sure it's entirely unconnected that Lincoln County is 1/3 black.

As an aside: The 'sceptics' talking point in Germany of "not wanting mRNA vaccine" (and agitators focussing on attacking that aspect of it) is getting put to the test in Europe with Novavax being approved. First impression ? Almost every crazy person i checked or know of immediately went and put out stark warnings about how that vaccine is also gene therapy (and yes, it is not actually a classic inactivated vaccine) and just as bad anyway. Plus more crazy shit, much along the same lines of Pfizer.

Last 'obstacle' ? The Valneva vaccine, which is as close to 'classic' as any in the pipeline. Of course, it's CEO has been publicly stating people should not wait but take any of the available vaccines with himself having taken 3 mRNA doses. So you just know how that is going to play in crazytown ;)

Interestingly, 69-30 (3100-1400) for Trump in 2020. Could be a trial balloon. Could also be that you take out all the polling locations except where it's the whitest and that margin goes from 1700 to 2500, say, 3000-500.

SI

Everyone has a price.

In a tight election, every vote suppressed counts.

They only need to suppress what, 11000 votes? Seems like you might pull a couple thousand here and there in small districts and that's that.

Wonder how people are going to react when they realize that the child tax credit payments they have been getting since ~July are pre-payments on the upcoming tax return. I suspect that is going to hurt Biden approval ratings as well, even though it was well known by anyone that reads.

I made this comment not knowing what Biden was going to say either this day or the next. But Biden gave the Trump administration credit and all of a sudden, Trump is out there saying how he can't really be too hard on Biden now and he really appreciates him saying that and how surprised he was, and now he's out there openly encouraging people to get the vaccine and booster.

And I wish to God someone would have done this in January or February. Use his personality traits for good, for once! If you credit or flatter him, he's a different person. We could have used this 10 months ago. Instead, you get a Twitter thread like this. The comments in here are just ridiculous. 99.9% of those who are anti-vaxx are too far gone to save - to the point where they are turning on the original Mr. Covid Ain't Nothing But the China Flu. Sad!

Donald Trump: 'The Vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind' 'All three vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J) are very good' 'The vaccines work - If you take the vaccine you are protected' 'People aren't dying when they take the vaccine' pic.twitter.com/fU8q1sdMda

— Popper (@Kukicat7) December 22, 2021

This, of course, being the same tax system where, about every other month in pre-pandemic time, I had to explain to seemingly intelligent people that "being in another tax bracket" doesn't mean that all of your income is taxed at a higher rate - just the income above a certain level. So getting more a higher wage was always good. There's not some random number you want to avoid where suddenly you're taxed more and actually make less than before. There's a fairly simple chart if you just Google "tax brackets" that will explain this. However, it's also kept somewhat intentionally vague because the H&R Blocks and GOPs of the world want you to think it's a lot more complicated and not a simple progressive tax system.

SI

It happening earlier would almost certainly have made no difference unfortunately. Trump has made a number of pro-vaccine statements in recent months, and been booed on at least a couple occasions for doing so. The people who are anti-vaccine aren't largely anti-vaccine because of Trump; they're anti-vaccine in spite of Trump.

I guess that's my point. If those people didn't have 6-8+ months to harden their positions, maybe it would have made a difference. Many comments in there are calling him a traitor, feeling betrayed, etc. They clearly felt like he was on the anti-vaxx side. He was quiet about it and certainly didn't push back in interviews to the extent he just did. It's no coincidence that it happened the day after Biden gave him some credit.

I disagree.

Most Qidiots probably think the deep state has gotten to Trump.

The most amazing thing is that if Trump had done this in the first place, he'd still be president.

Hell, his true believers would probably be clamoring for a third term.

His biggest fuck-up was dealing with COVID, it was beyond his capability because he couldn't bully it, he could only try to subvert it's impact and of course that failed.

I feel nothing for anti-vaxxers.

And also, he downplayed it so early and often that he couldn't allow himself to reverse course. He put all of his eggs in the "keep the economy open and get the vaccine done ASAP" basket.

I appreciate that clip in a couple of ways. Like you said: it's amazing to see people using Trump's narcissism for good. There's also a bit of schadenfreude of watching, a media member (nominally), get frustrated talking to him, only this time it's someone on the far right. She keeps trying to get red meat on vaccines and mandates, only he totally throws her for a curve by talking about how great he is and how awesome his vaccine is. Then, whenever she keeps trying to pivot to mandates, he keeps slithering back to his vaccine as the super awesomest achievement in the history of mankind ever. For those of us who watch normal media, this is all too familiar.

SI

That's completely unknowable, but IMO unlikely.


Right, but they've thought that on other issues and would have thought so anyway. Even while he was President there were people in that realm saying he was just saying X or Y to mollify certain people and he'd come out with the real truth in a few months once he had full control of the deep state etc. Ofc it never happened, but the point is Qidiots as you put them are going to find whatever rationalization they need to and it has nothing to do with actual facts or what Trump says when.

Trump was never really a conservative until he ran for president and successfully created this character. After he won, I naively/desperately hoped that he would basically just be the celebrity Trump again instead of the far-right icon Trump. But he went all in. But he obviously understands the concept of vaccines, and that fact seeps through every once in a while, though it always seems like an accident when it does, before he gets back on script.

He desperately wants credit for what he knows was a significant achievement for his administration, but he also needs the cheers and applause his script gets from his base. It will be interesting to see how willing he is to push back against the boos and negative attention from that base. It seems like knows vaccines is a winning issue with the majority of Americans and he's trying to ease his base into acceptance. I don't see it working and I think he gives up fairly quickly if it doesn't start getting positive results.

trump is the pilot who made a very bad landing and wants credit for saving everyone's life.

His denial and subsequent attacks on the science community, efforts to bully people into making him look good and eventually, eventually deciding the vaccine was the only real alternative don't make him a hero.

Any good person would've done the latter, without the former. He's 100% a fucking loser, terrible leader and intolerable human.

He may give it up and stop talking about it, but he was lauding the vaccine effort when Warp Speed was going on and he was still President, and he's said positive things about it afterwards - it's not like this is new.

Nobody has to like Trump or think he's a hero to say he's right about the vaccine and deserves a measure of credit for it. Low-hanging fruit that any President probably would have done? Absolutely, but many Presidents esp. him have screwed up so much of the easy things. We can say that and still say he should be in jail, should have been impeached, is one of the worst presidents the US has ever had, a danger to democracy ... all of those things are simultaneously true.

Yup, keep at it Biden. Don't give up yet and (maybe also) start talking with some moderate GOP.

Democrats look to scale back Biden bill to get it passed | TheHill

Biden should be criticized for lack of testing kits and scalability. I appreciate his candor and acceptance of responsibility. But its really how well (or not) we respond to the uptick of omi that require hospitalization that he will be judged on.

I don't think he said this in his speech last week but would be reassuring to hear that they are prepared to get the hospital ship; field hospitals; have all these great therapeutics, ventilators etc. ready to deploy at moments notice.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/28/polit...ure/index.html

Absolutely. Biden owns this completely. How after almost two years of this can they be so unprepared?

I mean, if a bunch of Brandons refuse to vaccinate, refuse to mask, and feel like it is their civic duty to torpedo the country, how does he own it?

Because there are plenty of non-Brandon's blacks and hispanics are adversely impacted.

The lack of testing doesn't just affect unvaxed people. When other countries have been sending rapid test to their citizens for months, but I can't find a rapid test within 30 miles of me, that is how he owns it.

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Agreed. Fully vaxxed daughter woke up with symptoms on Christmas Eve and couldn't get a test. Had to tell in-laws to turn around and not come for the holidays. Luckily, on Sunday a doctor's office was open and she was negative.

We are hitting highest numbers of positives ever, and I guarantee is largely underreported number. People taking home tests aren't able to get confirmations. There are also many that have no way of getting test whatsoever. The only local public testing site for two large counties here were sending people away, with a gigantic parklot pouring over out into the street. Again, this has been going on for nearly two years and we have one public testing site for two counties.

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Testing is on him. Same with the patent stuff. My guess is they didn't foresee so many people actively fighting against the vaccine when it came out.

I've been critical of Biden on a lot of things, but I don't think the Covid response is high on the list. You have 30% of the country actively trying to sabotage the response and spread the virus as much as they can. There is only so much you can do from the executive side to fight that.

Son is back in his apt. Said he woke up feeling bad and with fever. Tried to get tested and he said the car lines were really long so he gave up. Luckily work is all remote this week.

The rapid anti-gen tests are about <$20 and the more accurate PCR tests are about $80+. I read if you get positive on rapid anti-gen tests, then you should take the PCR to confirm.

We did buy some N95 masks a couple months ago to stock up. In hindsight, we probably should have bought some test kits to have handy. We are all vaccinated and boosted, so we aren't panicked about it but knowing we are positive would stop us from going out for X days.

Putin asked to speak to Biden. Unsure how unusual that is but assume that is a good sign. From what I've read, Putin wants guarantees that Ukraine won't join NATO.

All things considered, I think that is a small price to pay to defer this "crisis". Maybe say okay without saying okay, tell Putin there is an informal agreement among NATO members not to pursue/grant it anytime soon. There may come a time (e.g. with Putin leaves office) to pursue that.

Love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/29/polit...all/index.html

Basically not much of anything happened other than reiteration of positions and setting the "tenor for upcoming" talks.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/30/polit...all/index.html

I'm a solid liberal, but I can see how the tenor of my fellow liberals can be exhausting and off-putting.

We had some bad weather last night in NC--worse thunderstorms than we are used to. And several people are reveling in the fact that "last night changed everything" and that "climate change is here" and "I don't think that things will ever go back. Get used to last night, because it is the new normal."

The thing is, I agree with them with the fundamental idea that climate change is real and is human caused, and is a huge threat to humanity. And I still want to yell at them for reacting this way to a bad storm. I can't even imagine how they come off to conservatives or climate skeptics.

Especially when we’ve been telling climate change deniers that weather is not climate on -30 degree days when they scream something about Al Gore and global warming.

Yes, exactly. My parents visited us in KY for the week leading up to Christmas and you don't know how many times I had to hear my dad mock global warming because it was 50-70 degrees most of their visit.

Devin Nunes is no longer a Congressman as of today. :)

Progress!

And Don Jr, and Ivanka subpoened by NY AG James today too, Happy New Year!

Glad I don't read tweets or facebook posts from people in those circles, and I do hope there isn't much damage in other parts of the state and those without power get it back quickly, but we had unseasonably warm and pretty amazing weather for the last few weeks (until a couple really humid last couple days preceding this storm), one bad thunderstorm essentially, and now it's looking like high 40's & sunny for the rest of the week & I'm about to go for a run outside. That definitely sounded really aggressive last night for a winter thunderstorm and I made sure to do food shopping yesterday in case the roads stayed icy all day today, but it's North Carolina we get thunderstorms 50x/year.

Kind of a weird story.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-fired-missile

Fortunately, the Dems are going to fix votin- hahahaha... now I'm sad

SI