Please Tell Democrats To Vote Early, Because Soon New COVID-19 Infections Could Be Worse Than Ever

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 23, 2020 · 1:29 PM PDT

2020/10/23 · 13:29

Image from todays's New York Times: www.nytimes.com

Please take a look at the illustration at the top of this article. It is from today’s New York Times. Please notice that the spike of new COVID-19 infections on the right is now almost as high as the spike in the middle of the illustration which is from last summer. Assuming things continue as they have been, soon new infections in America will be as high as they have ever been. Soon, hospitals in many places will be overrun, and more Americans will be infected at one time than ever before. Soon, you might really be wanting to stay home as much as possible, and soon things like the United States Postal Service might slow to a crawl because so many people might be out sick.

Please, let it be the Republicans who did not plan ahead. Please, let it be the Republicans who decided not to show up at the polls at the last minute because COVID-19 was running so rampant that they no longer felt safe going to the polls. Please, let it be the Democrats who all voted early so that they could safely hunker down at home when COVID-19 got so out of control. Please vote early, and please, stay safe.

Thank you very much.

What The Best U.S. Presidents Have In Common

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 12, 2020 · 8:48 PM PDT

2020/10/12 · 20:48

Abraham Lincoln from Wikipedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Abraham_Lincoln_O-77_matte_collodion_print.jpg

Today, I was reading an article by Ellen Fried about an interview that she had with Doris Kearns Goodwin, the writer that authored Team of Rivals, a book about how President Abraham Lincoln appointed three of his rivals, the three people that he had beaten out for the Republican nomination, to Cabinet positions in his Administration:

In 1860, prairie lawyer and former one-term congressman Abraham Lincoln stunned the country by prevailing over three prominent rivals—William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates—to win the Republican nomination for President. Perhaps equally surprising was what Lincoln did after being elected President: He appointed all three rivals to his cabinet—Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Bates as attorney general.

In Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin explores the extraordinary array of personal qualities that allowed Lincoln first to appoint, then to win over, men who had previously opposed him, and reveals how Lincoln's bold and brilliant actions helped him steer the country through its darkest days.

I hope to read this book someday. It sounds fascinating. My favorite part of the article was this:

How did Lincoln win the respect of his rivals?

A set of emotional strengths was the foundation of Lincoln's political genius. He understood that human relations are at the core of politics and that if you deal with people in the right manner, you are going to be able to work effectively with them. The qualities we associate with human greatness—such as sensitivity, empathy, compassion, kindness, honesty—are also keys to political success.

When something went well, Lincoln always shared the credit. When something went wrong, he shouldered his share of the blame. When he himself made a mistake, he acknowledged it immediately. He made time for each of his cabinet members, so that they all felt they had access to him. He treated them all respectfully and fairly.

And he kept their spirits up. We think of Lincoln as being melancholy, but he actually had a remarkable sense of humor and was a terrific storyteller. He relaxed his colleagues and cheered them up.

In the end, these people came not only to respect Lincoln, but also to love him. Seward, who started as Lincoln's biggest rival, ultimately wrote to his wife, "The President is the best of us." It's a wonderful arc of the story, that Lincoln and Seward became such good friends. The development of their relationship was very emotional for me to watch.

Lincoln believed that human relations were at the core of politics. He believed in sharing the credit and shouldering the blame. This reminded me of some of our better Presidents, such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. They all loved people. They loved talking to them, they loved laughing with them, and they genuinely cared about how people were doing and what they thought.

Joe Biden is this same type of guy. He has never forgotten that the work he does can impact millions of people. He has made mistakes, like all of us have, but at least he has always tried to do the right thing, and it always mattered to him more how his actions affected others than how those actions affected himself. In addition, if Kamala Harris were to follow Joe Biden into the Presidency, she would be the same way.

Isn’t it about time for us to get back to a President like that—someone who cares more about others than they do themselves? Doesn’t everyone in America deserve a President like that?

After Five Democratic Mayors Listened To Science Instead of Trump, AZ COVID-19 Cases Dropped 75%

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 08, 2020 · 5:16 AM PDT

2020/10/08 · 05:16

mm6940e3_MitigationAZCOVID19_IMAGE_06Oct20_1200x675-medium.jpg — Image from CDC Report: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6940e3.htm?s_cid=mm6940e3_w

Last summer, the number of new Arizona COVID-19 infections were rising like crazy. Then, suddenly, Arizona turned it around because five Democratic Mayors repeatedly pleaded with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to allow them to implement new COVID-19 mitigation measures, such as requiring people to wear masks in public places. I wrote about that here:

How Five Democratic Mayors Helped AZ Flatten COVID-19, Donald Trump, And Martha McSally

Apparently, the CDC noticed the big drop in new Arizona COVID-19 infections and did a study on it. Interested parties can read about the study here. Here is the CDC's summary:

Summary

What is already known about this topic?
Community mitigation measures can help slow the spread of COVID-19.

What is added by this report?

The number of COVID-19 cases in Arizona stabilized and then decreased after sustained implementation and enforcement of statewide and locally enhanced mitigation measures, beginning approximately 2 weeks after implementation and enforcement of mask mandates and enhanced sanitations practices began on June 17; further decreases were observed during July 13–August 7, after statewide limitations and closures of certain services and businesses.

What are the implications for public health practice?
Widespread implementation and enforcement of sustained community mitigation measures, including mask wearing, informed by state and local officials’ continual data monitoring and collaboration can help prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and decrease the numbers of COVID-19 cases.

What is the quick version of this? When Arizona’s cities started doing what the scientists at the CDC recommended, such as requiring people to wear masks in public places, the rate of COVID-19 infections dropped dramatically. You go that, Donald Trump and Mike Pence?

Let's Cut To The Chase About COVID-19, Sickness, Death, And The Trump Administration

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 05, 2020 · 9:29 AM PDT

2020/10/05 · 09:29

From Wikipedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Novel_Coronavirus_SARS-CoV-2.jpg

If the Bubonic Plague had killed more than 200,000 people in America, everyone would be wearing a mask. If Ebola had killed more than 200,000 people in America, everyone would be wearing a mask. Why is that? Because everyone thinks that both the Bubonic Plague and Ebola are big freaking deals.

So, when it comes to COVID-19, who wears masks, and who does not? The people who think that COVID-19 is a big freaking deal wear masks, and the people who do not think it is a big freaking deal—those who think that COVID-19 is like the flu or a cold, or that it is a hoax—do not consistently wear masks. The non-mask wearers believe this because the Trump Administration consistently underplayed the dangers of COVID-19 in the beginning, and then Fox News, the Right-Wing websites, and the Right-Wing talk radio all played along with the idea that it was no big deal. Then Trump, who watches Fox News all of the time, kept hearing that it was no big deal, so he kept believing it was no big deal. In other words, Trump believed his own BS as his own BS was being fed to him from Fox News.

The irony is that if the Trump Administration had acted like COVID-19 was a big deal in the beginning and had warned people all the time to wear masks, to social distance, and to wash their hands and if the Trump administration had worked hard to make sure everyone had the medical equipment and the PPE gear that they needed from the beginning, if we had had the large scale testing and contract tracing that we needed in the beginning, then COVID-19 would be a much smaller deal right now.

Downplaying the virus was completely wrong because now millions of Americans have locked into their brains the idea that COVID-19 is no big deal. This situation will make it so much harder over the next few months to bring this nightmare to an end.

Oh, and testing may let people know that they have COVID-19, but it doesn’t stop it from spreading like wearing a mask does. Yeah, I am talking to you, Trump Administration. What a bunch of freaking morons.

A Couple More Debates Like That & Biden Will Win In A Landslide

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 30, 2020 · 1:40 PM PDT

2020/09/30 · 13:40

This diary is in four parts, and is designed to give a good overall view of how people both in America and around the world viewed last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden:

Part I. What did the international betting pools say about the debate?

Part II. What did the polls say about the debate?

Part III. What did Trump’s own advisors say about the debate?

Part IV: A sampling articles from DailyKos.com, both during the debate and after the debate:

Part I. What did the international betting pools say about the debate?

Yes, last night’s “debate” between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was incredibly painful to watch because of Donald Trump repeatedly acting like a bully, an idiot, and a racist, but for Donald Trump, that wasn’t the worst of it. At a debate that an estimated 74% of voters would watch, and at a debate that Donald Trump desperately needed to add voters to his totals, Donald Trump managed to move things in the wrong direction for him. Let us look first at how the Presidential betting sites moved after last night’s debate. At the betting website oddschecker.com, from an article entitled, “2020 US Presidential Election Odds: Significant Odds Movements Following First Debate”. we learn the following:

It was clear that Donald Trump wanted to unsettle Joe Biden in the early exchanges, and online bookmakers believe that tactic may have backfired on the current President. Since the start of the US Election, online bookmakers have cut Joe Biden's 2020 election odds, making him an even stronger favorite in the betting market.

Latest 2020 US Presidential Election Odds

	UK Odds (US Odds)	% Implied Chance
Joe Biden	5/7 (-140)	58.34%
Donald Trump	11/8 (+138)	42.10%

Regarding Joe Biden’s Odds, we learn:

Before the first Presidential election debate, Joe Biden was the 4/5 (-125) favorite to win the 2020 US election, which implied he had a 55.6% chance of winning. A few bookmakers offered even shorter odds, the lowest price odds on the market was 4/6 (-150), which implied a 60% chance.

If you take the best odds on the US election, Joe Biden's chances of winning the 2020 US election have increased from 55.6% to 58.34%.

Regarding Donald Trump’s Odds, we learn:

Donald Trump's 2020 US election odds pre-debate were 6/5 (+120), which implied he had a 45.5% chance of winning the 2020 US election. A few sports betting sites had lower odds on Donald Trump though, the shortest odds available were 1/1 (+100), which implied a 50% chance of winning the election.

Donald Trump's chances of winning the 2020 US election have dropped from 45.5% to 42.10% chance tonight.

In Conclusion:

Since the start of the debate, 73% of bookmakers on our UK site have cut odds on Joe Biden winning the 2020 US election.

This combined shift of 5.63% is the biggest swing in the market in six months, since the odds stabilised after Biden became the presumptive Democrat nominee back in April.

Part II. What did the polls say about the debate?

OK, so that is what the betting market thought. What did the polling say?:

According to CNN.com, Trump got destroyed. The following nine graphics tell the story, and they were shown last night during the 11:00 PM to 1:00 A.M post-debate analysis on the CNN TV network. One can view a video discussing these numbers here.

Graphic 1:

Graphic 2:

Graphic 3:

Graphic 4:

Graphic 5:

Graphic 6:

Graphic 7:

Graphic 8:

Graphic 9:

CNN had a group of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans from which they took these polls before and after the debate. Joe Biden clearly won, and Donald Trump clearly lost.

Part III. What did Trump’s own advisors say about the debate?

From the CNN.com article entitled, “Trump's allies offer public praise but privately worry after debate”, we read the following:

The morning after a rancorous debate punctuated by President Donald Trump's refusal to condemn white supremacy, his advisers offered effusive public praise even as some privately worried his performance would alienate voters and others -- including the Senate's lone Black Republican -- called on him explicitly to denounce groups who interpreted his comments as tacit approval.

…

A number of the President's advisers voiced concern he appeared overly aggressive and said the debating style he demonstrated Tuesday was not the tactic discussed among advisers during preparatory sessions beforehand. Some of the President's allies said Wednesday they believe he crashed and burned on a night that mattered to his reelection.

In conversations with several people who work for Trump, advise him or support him, all acknowledged Trump was too aggressive, touted few of his accomplishments and likely turned off the moderate voters he desperately needs to improve his standing.

In private conversations, Trump's performance was described as obnoxious, unprepared and lacking a cogent line of attack on Joe Biden, like he did with Hillary Clinton in 2016.

"A disaster," one adviser called it.

The performance left aides struggling to consider ways to improve in the final stretch of the campaign as time runs short.

In other words, in public, Trump's allies said he did great, in private, many acknowledged how truly awful he was.

Part IV: A sampling articles from DailyKos.com, during the debate and after the debate.

From the Front Page:

Live coverage: Donald Trump and Joe Biden debate for the first time, #1

Live coverage: Donald Trump and Joe Biden debate for the first time, #2

Live coverage: Donald Trump and Joe Biden debate for the first time, #3

Live coverage: Donald Trump and Joe Biden debate for the first time, #4

'Will you shut up, man?': Biden cuts through Trump's bananas interrupting

Trump in debate touts Europe-style forest management to stop California's wildfires

Van Jones blasts the president's blatant racism: 'Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacy'

Trump steamrolls moderator Chris Wallace in horrifying mess of a debate

Your blow-by-blow recap of a nightmarish first presidential debate, with a little help from Twitter

Biden levels Trump on race: 'This man cares at all? This man's done virtually nothing!'

That 'debate' was bad for America. But it was even worse for Trump

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Trump's assault on democracy likely to anger voters

White supremacists are celebrating after Trump tells them to 'stand by' to attack

Debate fact-checks show Trump lied and lied. But one group of lies is by far the most damaging

At the debate, Trump made it clear he's already decided the election doesn't count

'I heard what we all heard,' Kamala Harris says after Trump's message to white supremacists

Finally, someone tells Donald Trump to 'shut up.' America exhales

The best moment of a horrible 'debate' was hearing Joe Biden talk about his son Hunter

Trump's about to get drummed out by the system he bitterly assaulted at the debate

Proud Boys jubilant as Trump endorses their proto-fascist violence during presidential debate

From Community Members:

Last Night's Debate: What Joe Biden Has Gotten Nearly No Credit For…

U.S. intelligence agencies see Trump's debate tactics as a clear signal to Putin: NYTimes

David Frum: "Trump yelled, threatened, interrupted--and changed nothing. He's Losing."

Trump Won The 2016 Election In Part By Making A Whole Lot Of Promises That He Never Intended To Keep

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday September 26, 2020 · 6:41 AM PDT

2020/09/26 · 06:41

Diogenes Looking For An Honest Man, From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#/media/File:Diogenes_looking_for_a_man_-_attributed_to_JHW_Tischbein.jpg

Like the most infamous con men in history, Donald Trump has spent his life making big promises that he never intends to keep.

His cries of

"Invest in my Atlantic City hotels and you'll get rich!"

"Invest in my Trump University and you can make money like I do!"

before he ran for President became

"Vote for me, and I'll give you better healthcare than Obamacare!"

and

"Vote for me, and I'll build a border wall that Mexico will pay for!"

while he was running for president.

Donald Trump's specialty his entire life has been to get people to believe that if they trusted in him, they would be better off. In 2016, he got tens of millions of people to believe that lie, and he was able to do that because he has spent his whole life getting good at grifting people. Donald Trump has one thing that he is truly good at--getting people to believe that he is not lying to their face. He is the little boy telling you that he did not steal a cookie when you can see the crumbs around his mouth.

Trump is great at creating the illusion of fake sincerity. People like him are really good at tricking people out of their money or getting women to climb into bed with them, but they are terrible at creating businesses that are successful in the long term, and they are terrible at creating loving marriages and families that work really well in the long run and that create decent people. Trump has always been about the quick buck and the quick grift, but in the long run, he will always let you down because he has no conscience. Trump has no guilt when he does not do what he promised, and when he does not deliver, he will lie about it to everyone, including himself.

Donald Trump is the very definition of unreliable. He is the last person you can depend on because he is lazy as hell, and his laziness does not bother him at all. This is why Donald Trump fit in so well with the Republican Party, because every Republican President from Nixon on has spent countless hours making promises of how great things will be once they have been elected, only to decide the moment that they are elected that the job of the Federal Government is to do as little as possible for regular working Americans.

This is why Republicans do not bother to put forward a realistic national healthcare plan of their own, and why no recent Republican President has ever improved the rights of organized labor in order to make sure that Americans get a decent wage. The specialty of modern Republican Presidents is to pretend that they care about working Americans before they get elected, and then to throw them under the bus after they get elected. This is Trump's way, and this is the Republican way.

Trump's COVID Response Has Long Been About The Stock Market. It Has Never Been About Saving Lives.

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 10, 2020 · 6:00 AM PDT

2020/09/10 · 06:00

CNBC.com article from February 25, 2020 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/trump-is-reportedly-furious-with-the-plunging-stock-market-due-to-coronavirus-fears.html

Donald Trump has always wanted very much never to go to jail. However, if he is not re-elected, there is a very good chance that he will go to jail, just like Michael Cohen did. Trump has long believed that the key to his winning re-election has been a rising stock market because with a rising stock market he can sell the idea that he is good for the economy. When COVID-19 first appeared, people like Jared Kushner advised Trump that if he raised too much alarm about COVID, then the stock market might plunge—thus endangering his chances for re-election. Near the end of February, the relationship between COVID-19 fears and the U.S. Stock Market solidified in Donald Trump’s mind.

Perhaps some readers remember this article from February 25, 2020:

Trump is reportedly furious that the stock market is plunging on coronavirus fears

President Donald Trump is reportedly furious that stocks are plunging, believing that health officials’ warnings have spooked investors, The Washington Post reported Tuesday night, citing two people familiar with the president’s thinking.

The president has reportedly cautioned aides against forecasting the impact of the virus over fears that stocks could fall further, The Washington Post said.

Stocks plunged on Tuesday, with losses accelerating after health officials warned that the coronavirus is “likely” to continue to spread throughout the United States, warning that the American public should “prepare for the expectation that this is going to be bad.”

The words “believing that health officials’ warnings have spooked investors” shows us what has been the core of Donald Trump’s thinking from February on when it comes to COVID-19. Notice that Trump wasn’t upset with worry at all of the people that might die. No, that is what a normal person would have been worried about. And we can be sure that Trump knew at the time the stock market crashed in late February just how dangerous COVID-19 was because of the Bob Woodward tapes just released.

Instead of being filled with worry about what might happen to the American public if COVID-19 ran rampant across America, Trump was upset that the stock market had plunged when people started to take COVID-19 seriously. Donald Trump has never worried about all of the people who might die from COVID-19. Trump has only worried that COVID-19 fears might make the American public panic in such a way that it might hurt the stock market, which in turn he believed would hurt his reelection chances.

Trump has had no problem trying to scare people with the lie that brown-skinned rapists are crossing America’s Southern border in droves. He has no problem telling America that if Biden is elected, poor, dangerous people of color will flood the suburbs. Trump is only worried about scaring people if he thinks that this scare will hurt his re-election chances. This is why he has been downplaying the COVID-19 threat from the very beginning, and this is why he has done so little to combat the coronavirus threat. Donald Trump thought that the more he did to fight COVID-19, the bigger problem the coronavirus threat would seem to be, and thus, the bigger would be the negative reaction from the stock market. The problem with this ridiculous thinking is that, by not working hard to combat the virus, the stock market plunged anyway.

Right now, the stock market is being held aloft primarily by the Federal Reserve pumping so much money into the economy that the U.S. economy does not collapse—and by enough people going back to work and going to school that things seem somewhat normal.

In Trump’s mind, keeping the stock market up requires both The Fed pumping tens of billions of dollars each month into the economy as quietly as possible--through what most normal people would call Quantitative Easing--and by the U.S. appearing as close to normal as possible--by people going to school and working. Trump simply has never cared how many people have had to die along the way. All he has worried about has been that there was enough appearance of normality that the stock market has stayed aloft.

This is why Donald Trump has made fun of people who wear masks. It is why the White House deliberately pushed the chairs together at a White House press briefing until reporters screamed about it. It is why Trump held a fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore with people packed together and hardly anyone wearing a mask. In short, it is why Trump has “played down” the COVID-19 threat. For Trump, ever since that stock market plunge near the end of February, it has always been about keeping the stock market up, and keeping it up has always been about creating the appearance of normality—regardless of the facts—and regardless of how many people die. If 200,000 people have to die so that Trump can get re-elected, so be it.

Currently, the U.S. Stock market is running on borrowed time, as well as borrowed money from the Federal Government via The Fed. Trump figures he only has to keep the illusion of a healthy stock market going until the election. If Biden wins, Trump could let the stock market collapse and then blame it all on “the market’s reaction to Biden winning”. The truth would be that Trump had simply stopped the Quantitative Easing that the fed has been doing to keep the stock market up, and then the stock market plunged.

How Five Democratic Mayors Helped AZ Flatten COVID-19, Donald Trump, And Martha McSally

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday September 07, 2020 · 10:20 AM PDT

2020/09/07 · 10:20

Democratic Tucson Mayor and COVID-19 Hero Regina Romero

The Problem: Back in June 2020, Arizona was on a desperate course with regard to COVID-19 infections. A few months earlier, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey had created an edict saying that no city or county could enact new COVID-19 restrictions without approval from his state health department—and his state health department had no interest in approving any new restrictions at all. Ducey had also been slow to shut down Arizona to protect Arizona citizens from COVID, and he reopened Arizona back up early to please Donald Trump when he came for a visit. By the middle of June, the rate of increase in cases in Arizona was exploding, and the graph of new cases was almost going straight up. I wrote about this here, and here is the graph I posted at the time:

As all of this was happening, there was Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, emulating Donald Trump by doing—next to nothing.

The Solution: For five Democratic mayors (4 women and 1 Black man—diversity rocks!) in Arizona, this was unacceptable. The mayors, such as Tucson’s Regina Romero, called Governor Ducey day-after-day, begging him to allow their cities to craft their own policies to combat the rising cases of COVID. They also sent him a joint letter asking him for changes. Eventually, around June 17, 2020, Ducey relented, and changed his policy, allowing cities and counties to create their own policies regarding COVID. Instantly, the five Democratic mayors in Arizona created policies designed to stem the fast-rising tide of COVID cases. Most important of all was the requirement of people to wear masks in public places such as stores.

Within about two to four weeks of the change in policies by the five Democratic mayors, people paying close attention to the rates of COVID infections and deaths started to notice an important change. The number of new infections was very slowly starting to drop. I wrote about this here, and here is a graph from that article showing the infections starting to drop:

Chart from Google.com on search “Arizona COVID-19 infections”. Link: www.google.com/...

As has been happening for approaching two months now, Arizona’s rate of new infections continues to drop. I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I currently see people wearing masks everywhere. The change from a few months ago has been dramatic, and the five Democratic mayors who pushed for change deserve a ton of credit, along with the Arizona citizens who actually followed their orders. Oh, there have been resistors to the new rules, but those people have been greatly outnumbered by the number of Arizonans pitching in and doing their part. Here is a graph showing where Arizona is now with regard to new COVID-19 infections:

So, what have the voters in Arizona seen for the past few months? Well, they saw Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey and Republican Donald Trump basically do little to nothing to protect the people of Arizona from COVID-19 while also pushing to reopen the state early. This led to a flood of new COVID-19 cases. Then, Arizona voters saw five Arizona Democratic mayors spring into action to actually take care of the problem. Is it any wonder that a recent Fox News poll had Biden beating Trump by 9 points in Arizona, and Republican Senator Martha McSally down by 17 points to Democratic challenger Mark Kelly? The Republicans failed Arizona big-time, and five Arizona Democratic mayors helped to save Arizona from COVID-19. Also, after the Democrats and Republicans were done with their national conventions recently, which state bounced the most for Joe Biden? Yep, that would be Arizona:

Arizona Stands Out From a Mostly Static Presidential Race in Battleground States

State-level polling trends reveal little recent change in 2020 contest, but Biden now leads by 10 in Arizona

Soon after the mighty five mayors had saved Arizona, Donald Trump called Governor Ducey to Washington D.C. to praise him in front of reporters for turning things around in Arizona with regard to COVID-19, as if it was Ducey who had solved things instead of Arizona’s Fabulous Five Democratic Mayors. Yet, many people in Arizona seem to know who to give credit to for the drop in new COVID infections, just as many seem to know that Martha McSally voted to kill Obamacare and could not wait to do it. They seem to know that if she had succeeded, it would have ended protections for pre-existing conditions, no matter how much she lies about that in her television commercials.

Many in Arizona know that it was the Democrats who succeeded where the Republicans failed. Just like with FDR, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, America once again needs the Democrats to clean up yet another Republican mess, and Arizona’s Democratic mayors are helping to lead the way. The five Arizona mayors who pushed Doug Ducey into letting them solve Arizona’s COVID-19 crisis are:

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego

Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans

Tolleson Mayor Anna Tovar

Tempe Mayor Corey Woods

Thank you, Arizona Mayors!

Trump Attacks Vote-By-Mail, But The GOP Has A Website That Shows Voters How To Vote-By-Mail

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday August 17, 2020 · 6:29 PM PDT

2020/08/17 · 18:29

I saw this little ad while visiting RealClearPolitics.com today.

So, Donald Trump keeps saying that Vote-By-Mail is terrible. This video from CNN.com goes over some of Trump’s claims about and debunks them.

Today, I was at this Real Clear Politics page checking out how Biden was doing against Trump when I saw an advertisement from someplace called “VOTE.GOP”.

One can see the advertisement below just to the left of CBS News’ John Dickerson’s really big head:

Let’s zoom in on that ad, shall we?:

So, I looked at this ad, and I figured, “Hmm, I live in Arizona, and I guess that they must want me, who lives in Arizona, to visit ‘VOTE.GOP’. Sounds fun!”

I wondered what those GOP folks were up to, so, I clicked on the link, and it took me to this page which looked like this:

They wanted my first and last name, so I typed in a fake first and last name. Then, they wanted me to type in other data such as my full name, complete address, birth date, and email address. I made entered fake versions of all that too. The form then looked something like this:

Yes, “Mickey Mouse” is not my real name.

After I finished entering my fake data, I clicked on the arrow at the bottom of the page. That took me to a second page, which looked like this:

Hmm, what’s that in the middle white section there? The center part got a little fuzzy on the way over here to DK. Let me show a clearer version of that center part of the picture for everyone:

Well, there seem to be three choices in blue. What does that middle one say? Let’s zoom in some more:

Wowie, Zowie! It seems like the middle option says, “Request a Ballot-By-Mail.” The GOP actually went to the trouble of creating a website where they make it easy for people to request an absentee ballot so that they can Vote-By-Mail! Hahahaha!

( However, I would not recommend using this site to get an Absentee Ballot, however, unless you want your email address filled up with emails from Donald Trump begging you for money and telling you just how “sleepy” Joe Biden is.)

If one clicks on the “Request A Ballot By Mail” link, the GOP nicely takes all of the data that one has already entered into the previous form and copies it over to a brand new “Absentee Ballot Request” form that looks like this:

Here’s a zoom of that and a lot of the text really is that faint:

Then, at the bottom of that form, under the section “Ballot Delivery Method”, the web page just has two questions for you before you hit the “SUBMIT” button in order to order a Vote-By-Mail Absentee Ballot. Here’s a zoom-in of the bottom of the page (yes, the web designer challenged GOP’s website has a lot of text that is way too faint).

I will tell you what the two questions are because they are so amazingly faint:

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT MAILED?
DO YOU WANT TO PERMANENTLY VOTE BY MAIL?

They even give you the chance to be on the Vote By Mail list PERMANENTLY! My oh my! What would Donald Trump say?

So, while Donald Trump is telling everyone who will listen what a supposed fraud using “Ballot-By-Mail” is, the GOP’s own VOTE.GOP website is doing all it can to make sure that ordering a Ballot-By Mail is as easy as possible. They apparently went to the trouble of hooking this system up to the balloting process of all 50 U.S. states. Perhaps the GOP figured that only Republicans would click on a VOTE.GOP link, so perhaps they want to make sure that *those* people can Vote-By-Mail.

So, who should we believe? Should we believe Donald Trump when he basically says that Vote-By-Mail is a fraud? Instead, I am choosing not to believe the man who The Washington Post has documented telling over 20,000 lies and misleading statements. Instead, I am choosing to believe what both the Democrats, and apparently also the GOP, are telling people—that there is nothing wrong with Vote-By-Mail. The only things wrong are all of the lies Trump is telling about it, and all of the screwing up Trump’s new Postmaster General has done.

Donald Trump's Campaign Is Being Run By At Least One Moron

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 12, 2020 · 8:14 AM PDT

2020/08/12 · 08:14

Around 11:00 P.M. last night, Donald Trump posted a video on Twitter that basically said that Joe Biden is a racist. This was posted on the very same day that Joe Biden chose a Black Woman, Senator Kamala Harris, as his Vice Presidential running mate. Who exactly does Trump think he is going to convince that Joe Biden is a racist after his pick for VP? Trump is a moron, and apparently, no one on his campaign has the guts to tell him just how stupid this line of attack is:

pic.twitter.com/IlYgFXtpPq
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2020

This just shows even more how great a VP pick Senator Kamala Harris was. It completely blows up Trump’s “Biden is a racist” argument—as if Biden working his butt off for Obama for eight years, and his lifetime of work helping Black Americans wasn’t already enough.

Hey Trump, keep wasting time and money on this worthless line of attack. We Democrats will be laughing about it all the way until November. :)

Joe Biden Oversaw the 2009 Economic Recovery. He Is The Person We Need Now.

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday July 30, 2020 · 9:37 AM PDT

2020/07/30 · 09:37

Official portrait of Vice President Joe Biden in his West Wing Office at the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)..This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House. — Photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Joe_Biden_official_portrait_2013.jpg

Surprising almost no one, the U.S. had a massive drop in GDP in the last quarter. America had the biggest drop in Gross Domestic Product ever recorded since they started keeping records in 1947. Smart people know that Donald Trump, the guy who got us into both the pandemic and corresponding economic mess, is not the guy we should have trying to fix things. Fortunately, we have the perfect alternative.

Joe Biden oversaw the 2009 recovery from The Great Recession. The White House statement of how Joe Biden would oversee the recovery is listed in the archives here:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 23, 2009

Vice President Biden to Oversee the Administration’s Implementation of the Recovery Act’s Provisions 

President Obama Appoints Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board

President Barack Obama announced Vice President Joe Biden will oversee the Administration’s implementation of the Recovery Act’s provisions and the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board in a meeting with the Nation’s Governors this morning. The Vice President will meet regularly with key members of the Cabinet, Governors and Mayors to make sure their efforts are speedy and effective. He will also make regular, public reports to the President on implementation and those will be posted on Recovery.gov. The Chair of the Transparency and Accountability Board Earl Devaney will report to the Vice President.

...

So, what did Joe Biden learn from managing the recovery the last time? From an April 2020 article in The Atlantic:

“What I found was you have to manage it every single day,” Biden said during a recent CNN town hall, after he was asked what his experience handling the recovery had taught him about the qualities needed in a president in times of crisis. “And so it’s about management. It’s about day to day to day. And I give you my word that for the better part of that 18 months, I was literally on the phone at least three to four hours a day with my team, talking about the detailed implementation. How do we get the money? What do we do? Who do we go to? Who do we ask for?”

Once again, we need Joe Biden to help America recover from yet another blundering Republican President. He will be President this time, so he will have to delegate a lot of the work, but he knows what needs to be done as well as anyone in the country, so he will see that it gets done. America has a choice. It can re-elect the same bumbling idiot who got us into this mess, or it can elect the guy who helped us recover from the last economic mess Republicans got us into.

In addition, Joe Biden warned the whole country back in January just how seriously we should take COVID-19, and he also warned us that Donald Trump would fail to take it seriously. There simply is no better person to both fully take on COVID-19 and to help the U.S. economy recover than former Vice President Joe Biden. Some choices are hard. In this case, the choice is crystal clear. This may go down in history as the easiest choice America ever had to make.

So, America, which choice will it be—the experienced fixer on the Left—or the world-class screwup on the Right? Take your time now. You have a few weeks to figure it out.

Poll

31 votes Show Results

Who Will You Choose To Get Us Out Of This Mess?

31 votes Vote Now!

Who Will You Choose To Get Us Out Of This Mess?

Former Vice President Joe Biden

27 votes

Economic & Pandemic Screwup Donald Trump

2 votes

Someone Else

1 vote

Pie

1 vote

Why Arizona Is Starting To Turn The Tide Against COVID-19

StevenJoseph

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday July 20, 2020 · 11:06 AM PDT

2020/07/20 · 11:06

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero fought for weeks to get AZ. Gov. Ducey to let cities clamp down on COVID-19. Picture from Wikipedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Regina_Romero_-_2020_01.jpg

Do not get me wrong. Arizona still has way too many new COVID-19 cases per day. Our COVID-19 testing is still very inadequate, and Arizona citizens still have to wait way too long to get tested and to get those test results back. Our hospitals are still very crowded, and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey still has not issued a statewide facemask order.

Governor Doug Ducey actually ended the Arizona COVID-19 shutdown way too early. Back in May, Ducey also mandated that cities could not place additional COVID-19 restrictions on citizens unless the health department, which he controls, approved any city of county changes in COVID-19 policy. The results were that Arizona infections shot up like a rocket.

However, after the Arizona infection rate went crazy, and after weeks of petitioning by various mayors of Arizona cities, around June 17, Governor Ducey actually managed to do two things right. Ducey reversed one of his positions and allowed localities to make more restrictive COVID-19 rules. He also began recommending the wearing of facemasks. A number of Arizona cities, including Tucson, home of Mayor Regina Romero, immediately jumped on this and issued mandatory facemask edicts for their areas.

As one can see from the Google.com chart below, Arizona is starting to bend the curve.

The city facemask mandates seem to be making a difference. I live in Tucson, Arizona, where most of the people in Pima County, Arizona live. From the various charts that I have looked at recently, the Pima county new infection rate seemed to stabilize around July 5 and actually started to go down around July 11, based on the seven-day average of the number of new infections in Pima County. So, about 18 days after Tucson Mayor Romero began mandating the wearing of masks, the new infection rate stabilized, and about 24 days after the city facemask mandates the new infection curve began heading downward.

COVID-19 new infections 7 day average in Pima County. From the Facebook group that I belong to, Tucson coronavirus Updates Link: www.facebook.com/...

This is why I support the Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms in her mandatory facemask fight against that idiot Republican Governor Brian Kemp, and why all of us must keep pushing the importance of wearing masks. The countries around the world that have done the best in the fight against COVID-19 have been the countries that pushed wearing masks the hardest. Without a nationwide shutdown, it is important that people wear facemasks when they leave the house and will be around other people. This is really our only hope to greatly reduce the number of COVID-19 infections.

On Friday, July 17, I went to three Tucson, Arizona stores. I went to Fry’s and Spouts, both grocery/food stores, and we went to Costco. All three stores have their own mandatory mask-wearing policies posted at the front door. Among all three stores, I saw dozens upon dozens of people wearing facemasks, and only one person, a middle-aged guy, who was not wearing a mask. Arizona is starting to flatten the curve because we have begun taking the wearing of facemasks seriously. We still have a long way to go, but we are starting to make progress. The CDC says that if we all wore masks, we could get COVID-19 under control in two months. I believe it.

Good luck, everyone! Stay safe and stay alive for yourself, for your family, and for November! :)

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