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- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
The government has an interest in protecting the population and keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed, so I’m all for a carrot. A $500 tax rebate seems like a fair measure. But how do you validate any of this? We have 3x5 card stock where some nurse scribbled the vial batch and date on. I certainly don’t want government systems getting a hold of my electronic health record.
My cousin was adamantly against the vaccine. Can’t give you specifics for his rationale, but I can say it was deeply rooted in a sense of self-determination and autonomy. Then in September, he finally realized he was wrong, and he and his wife got their first shot. She unfortunately tested positive a few days later and it put her on her ass. She’s a completely healthy mid-30s woman, and she was out of it for a solid week. They’d already opened their eyes, but it was too late. Point being there are people out there willing to change their minds, just maybe not as fast as the rest of us.
Demonizing them won’t win many converts. At this point I just look at it from the macro level. We know a large subset of the population isn’t going to get the vaccine. The ven diagrams of what ideologies and groups encompass this statistic is so diverse, trying to persuade them with a coherent message isn’t going to get a return on your investment. So we see numbers fall and rise, and hope that having 3 shots makes us individually much less likely to contract it.
I saw one chart that said 25% of new cases are breakthrough. They say Pfizer and J&J are useless against the omicron variant. I read two separate articles citing studies out of the UK, both saying omnicron is more virulent, but in disagreement on impact with one saying it’s on par with delta and the other saying significantly weaker. Somehow the US has gone from 3% of omicron infections in the COVID population to 73% in just a couple weeks. All if that is saying the media and the people they’re quoting really don’t have a clue.
From that macro view, I know that more people died from COVID in 2021 with the vaccine than died in 2020 without the vaccine and mandated lockdowns for half the year.
If someone asks me their opinion on the vaccine, I’ll tell them to get it. But since that has never come up organically in conversation, I’ll continue to shake hands with strangers and friends and go on living knowing I have a 1/9000 shot of being killed when I drive my car.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
I agree, Flagg.
https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1473109092302471168
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The damage the White House and surrogates for those committed to BBB in Congress that would stutter and stammer if you asked them to explain the legislation are doing to future negotiations by raking Manchin through the mud and leaking discussions isn't very smart. What incentive does Manchin have to support reconciliation if he knows he'll be insulted every step of the way. I agree with Manchin's opposition to the Child Tax Credit and paid sick leave - we have no oversight into these measures and they will be abused. Funding this massive program for only a year or two to mislead the American people into its true price is truly off putting.
It'll never happen, but if Manchin switched parties early in the new year, I think he'd be the front runner in the 2024 election. As he put it, AOC couldn't win a single county in WV. That's true over the majority of the country.
Re: Current Events Thread
From what I'm reading on progressive twitter is that there are separate bills that addresses the CTC that can pass, one is by Romney. Basically, any dem or progressive that isn't connected to the squad or WH is saying they should take Manchin's compromise, which is huge on its own, then go after anything else later. Even if you can't get those things you already got a lot anyway.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
What do you think the odds are Manchin cuts a deal with the GOP? He declares independent, caucuses with the GOP and HE becomes majority leader?
I’ve been pondering how this social spending bill will play out in 22. Let’s assume each person means what they’re saying right now, and that they’re also interested in furthering their own power. I think that is a fair assumption when talking about Senators.
Schumer has said he’ll hold a vote in the new year and keep working to pass it. Manchin has said the personal attacks from his party and Biden’s staff are what led to him voting No. The AOC wing of the party is calling him a racist right this moment all over National TV. I don’t know if Joe Manchin can negotiate with his own party, if Schumer and Pelosi don’t get the progressives to stop calling the man a bigot. And I don’t think they can do that - progressive politicians are solely dependent on calling dissenters racist - you can’t find a single national issue where this isn’t true.
If Manchin isn’t willing to lick Schumer’s boot, why would he lick McConnell’s? Becoming a Republican and making McConnell majority leader helps Manchin how? So Manchin makes a play if McConnell realizes this would all but assure a GOP landslide in the midterms, making him Majority leader. Manchin gets to try to build the moderate, bipartisan talks he’s been advocating for the past 6 months.
Maybe I’m really stoned, but I think that’s a real possibility in a few months.
Re: Current Events Thread
We know a large subset of the population isn’t going to get the vaccine. The ven diagrams of what ideologies and groups encompass this statistic is so diverse, trying to persuade them with a coherent message isn’t going to get a return on your investment.
I'm not demonizing them or whatever but some of these anti-vaxxers are stridently against this and no amount of money/incentive may move them to get vaccinated. Which is why I think it's a waste of time (along with the verification stuff you mentioned earlier). It's not all anti-Trump either. They had this one young person mid late 20s on the local news who got covid and was anti vax because she didn't trust the medical industry and vaccines in general. I just don't know how you "break through" and explain the pros of vaccination when they seem dead set against it.
The only way these people will get the vaccine (or spread the word) is if they catch covid/go into the hospital and get it. That is their come to Jesus to moment. And at that point it's almost too late.
Tl;dr I agree with you on this but think the $500 is a waste of time.
Re: Current Events Thread
I don't really see it as wishing it on them - i see it as telling them what is going to happen. Not because anyone wants it to - and despite a lot of effort to stop it.
I agree it's direct, it's blunt.
It probably represents the frustration people feel and some sort of last ditch effort that if the message isn't sugar coated someone might notice.
Speaking of my own life it becomes frustrating, one of my best mates believes it's all a conspiracy. He's already in poor health. Odds are if he remains unvaccinated he will die. We're on the cusp on another major outbreak here in my city with the new mutation starting to spread. Not only that but he purposely thwarts any efforts to keep safe. He never even finished highschool but he's saying people with Phds in medicine don't know what they are talking about. I try and show him the global consensus - the clear and obvious facts - but then he thinks the media is controlled by witches , and the pope is an alien or whatever this weeks flavour of nonsense is.
Most of the time I engage to try and help him, to not lose him to this, but i'm called a sheep, a half wit, and all kinds of other names. At some point it becomes frustrating. You're trying to save his life, but he's just determined to die horribly. What can you do? The last step is you start laying it out brutally honestly, so at least you don't have to worry that he made the choices through ignorance. You did what you could.
The problem with that statement is that there is nothing in the real world that supports it. Deaths are not up. Not this year, not the last.
That tells you nothing is going on. Your friend has about the same chance to die as he did last year and the one before. Meanwhile your government is acting like the super ebola is ripping through communities with a soaring death rate. Who are the "nuts" here?
- FlashFlood
- Rep: 55
Re: Current Events Thread
monkeychow wrote:I don't really see it as wishing it on them - i see it as telling them what is going to happen. Not because anyone wants it to - and despite a lot of effort to stop it.
I agree it's direct, it's blunt.
It probably represents the frustration people feel and some sort of last ditch effort that if the message isn't sugar coated someone might notice.
Speaking of my own life it becomes frustrating, one of my best mates believes it's all a conspiracy. He's already in poor health. Odds are if he remains unvaccinated he will die. We're on the cusp on another major outbreak here in my city with the new mutation starting to spread. Not only that but he purposely thwarts any efforts to keep safe. He never even finished highschool but he's saying people with Phds in medicine don't know what they are talking about. I try and show him the global consensus - the clear and obvious facts - but then he thinks the media is controlled by witches , and the pope is an alien or whatever this weeks flavour of nonsense is.
Most of the time I engage to try and help him, to not lose him to this, but i'm called a sheep, a half wit, and all kinds of other names. At some point it becomes frustrating. You're trying to save his life, but he's just determined to die horribly. What can you do? The last step is you start laying it out brutally honestly, so at least you don't have to worry that he made the choices through ignorance. You did what you could.
The problem with that statement is that there is nothing in the real world that supports it. Deaths are not up. Not this year, not the last.
https://i.ibb.co/dWpqPBt/australia20.png
https://i.ibb.co/dLSMvmW/australia21.png
That tells you nothing is going on. Your friend has about the same chance to die as he did last year and the one before. Meanwhile your government is acting like the super ebola is ripping through communities with a soaring death rate. Who are the "nuts" here?
Who’s filling the hospital beds and ventilators? Crisis actors?
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/crimina … rvice.html
100 Billion stolen under the loose COVID assistance. Should be enough evidence to give anyone pause until we turn faucets on in a rush without any oversight and scrutiny in place.
Re: Current Events Thread
What do you think the odds are Manchin cuts a deal with the GOP? He declares independent, caucuses with the GOP and HE becomes majority leader?
I’ve been pondering how this social spending bill will play out in 22. Let’s assume each person means what they’re saying right now, and that they’re also interested in furthering their own power. I think that is a fair assumption when talking about Senators.
Schumer has said he’ll hold a vote in the new year and keep working to pass it. Manchin has said the personal attacks from his party and Biden’s staff are what led to him voting No. The AOC wing of the party is calling him a racist right this moment all over National TV. I don’t know if Joe Manchin can negotiate with his own party, if Schumer and Pelosi don’t get the progressives to stop calling the man a bigot. And I don’t think they can do that - progressive politicians are solely dependent on calling dissenters racist - you can’t find a single national issue where this isn’t true.
If Manchin isn’t willing to lick Schumer’s boot, why would he lick McConnell’s? Becoming a Republican and making McConnell majority leader helps Manchin how? So Manchin makes a play if McConnell realizes this would all but assure a GOP landslide in the midterms, making him Majority leader. Manchin gets to try to build the moderate, bipartisan talks he’s been advocating for the past 6 months.
Maybe I’m really stoned, but I think that’s a real possibility in a few months.
I think he's pretty safe in WV, but if the attacks continue, and they push a big primary challenge against him that goes ugly, or they try taking him off committees, then he'd join the republicans. I just don't see Pelosi or Schumer ever letting it get that far... Then again, you just never know.
