[GT] US election - It's 2020, what could possibly go wrong?

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by driveway

Where are you getting your numbers from? This site has total US Civilian & Military deaths as 418,500.

280,000 is 67% of that number.

The numbers at worldometer.com are slightly worse: 290,443 deaths in the US. If worldometer is correct, based on the current (rising) 7-day average (2,262/day) deaths, the US will surpass the number of WWII deaths on Wednesday, February 3rd.

If you look at the cdc's expected death by week chart, that is normally very stable, the US crossed 300,000 more deaths than expected around Sept 19th. Worldometers had the death toll at 203,000 on that date. It seems that the real death toll of the COVID is about 50% higher than reported in the US, so, we're realistically above 430,000 right now.

Also, when you think about it, you come to a very sober realization that due to COVID, 500,000 more people have died this year than would have been expected. So any narrative about most of those people might have died of something else this year is way out of touch with reality.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...-True-Scotsman

I'll tell you one thing... no true Scotsman would force anyone to click on a thread to figure out what point your trying to make. That's how you start a blood feud for life, Longshanks.

[bob-loblaw]

Trump's Wild Innauguration Day Exit

https://www.axios.com/trump-biden-in...9cd5c7be1.html

What a POS.

[calculoso]

No, Trump, you don’t get your PR moment

Pfizer, Moderna decline White House's 'vaccine summit' invitation

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...tion-1.5220736

Vaccine developers Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc on Monday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's invitation to attend a White House "Vaccine Summit."

The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, comes ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) review of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine candidates. It will be attended by Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and private-sector executives.

....

Invitees at the meeting include drug distributors, pharmacies and logistics companies such as McKesson Corp, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, CVS Health Corp, United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp.

[#-3]

I know this thread goes down the religion road, because of the way politicians use religion in bad faith as a way to manipulate their constituents. And I was an instigator derailing things in this direction.

But I think we should clarify, I spoke up because I thought it's unfair to paint atheists as people who believe an absence of evidence qualifies and evidence of absence. I was trying to state that we in fact believe there is ample evidence to believe that religion is a cultural construct to rationalize the world, and there is very good right thinking reasons to believe that all religions are necessarily wrong, that their are explainable, natural, physical causes for everything we have been able to measure, and that their will be explainable causes for anything that we are ever able to measure. This isn't a faith argument it is acceptance of a well established trend.

I do not bemoan religious people, and I can fully empathize the reasons they would come to the conclusions that they do. But they should understand that atheism and anti-theism are different things, our world does not circulate around them being wrong, we have just come to an honest interpretation of the evidence that leads us to believe nobody would adopt any of these religious worldviews absent the broader cultural context that breads them. As a person who is not an anti-theist, I'm fine with people who disagree and always happy to listen, but I would prefer that they at least listen to the strongest arguments of my world view before strawmanning me away, or a least refrain from telling me what my beliefs are/aren't.

I think it's particularly visible in the US that these rifts in understanding are used to radicalize people, that you have one of the worst people ever put forward publicly offend every moral and value that religious people proport to hold, and yet they support him in overwhelming numbers, because they have been lead to believe there is a group of people who have defined themselves in opposition to the truth they hold dearest, and they cannot be seen to be anywhere near the same side as those people.



So to draw this thread back to politics, I guess the real question is; Why are there so many religious people who are so afraid of atheists or socialists or science that disproves portions of their texts, why are they so willing to accept actions that so blatantly violate the morals the proport to have so long as they don't have to side with boggy man on the other side?

[bob-loblaw]

This is interesting...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1336174349653569539

[direwolf]

What a f'n joke these people are. Just absolutely pathetic.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/polit...den/index.html

President Donald Trump's staunchest defenders on Capitol Hill are urging him not to concede even after President-elect Joe Biden wins the Electoral College vote next week, calling on their party's leader to battle it out all the way to the House floor in January as he makes unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.

The view of Trump's defenders is at odds with that of many top congressional Republicans, including leaders of the Senate, who believe the election will be over next Monday when electors cast their votes and make Biden's win official -- even though the Democrat's victory in the presidential race has been clear for weeks.

But conservative House Republicans argue that next week doesn't mark the end of Trump's desperate efforts to overturn the election results, which he has failed to do through scores of fruitless lawsuits and brazen efforts to pressure state and local leaders to subvert the will of voters and appoint new slates of electors to the Electoral College. They said that Congress should engage in a full-throated debate over the results in key states because of their allegations of fraud, which have yet to be borne out in court.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...-True-Scotsman

I have questions for clarification, but I don't want to derail further so I started a new thread: https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=181504

[Fuzz]

U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to ensure that priority access for COVID-19 vaccines procured by the U.S. government is given to the American people before assisting other nations, senior administration officials said on Monday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vaccin...832293?cmp=rss


Looks like Trump realized he done ####ed up. Can an executive order overrule signed contracts? Does this leave us screwed? I hate this man so much.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vaccin...832293?cmp=rss


Looks like Trump realized he done ####ed up. Can an executive order overrule signed contracts? Does this leave us screwed? I hate this man so much.

This explains why he invited the heads of the two pharmaceutical companies to the Whitehouse. Hopefully their refusal to come means that Trump can't insist that the government had anything at all to do with the production of those vaccines.

[ah123]

Another day, another coup attempt

The state of Texas, aiming to help President Donald Trump upend the results of the U.S. election, said on Tuesday it has filed suit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the Supreme Court, calling changes they made to election procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic unlawful.

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-...-idUSKBN28I27M

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vaccin...832293?cmp=rss


Looks like Trump realized he done ####ed up. Can an executive order overrule signed contracts? Does this leave us screwed? I hate this man so much.

As soon as I saw the news yesterday that the US had failed to secure priority for these vaccines, I was sure this - some executive action by Trump to bypass those contracts - was on the way.



I'm not sure whether he can force compliance by executive order, but I would think this would fall within his emergency powers. I would expect any nation - in a war or other emergency - to be able to nationalize critical equipment/technology production, and that's how he'd justify this. Hopefully there's something preventing him from diverting our vaccines in this case.

[direwolf]

This also might have something to do with the fact that the UK beat him to the punch on rolling out the vaccine, which I assume is driving him absolutely nuts. Typical childish rage move by Emperor Cheeto.

I've honestly never hated a human being more. What a despicable piece of s***.

Also, I assume Biden can simply reverse this executive order on Jan. 21st?

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Jenna Ellis has Covid, shocking news.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1336352348097015808

[devo22]

a big Christmas party with all the families sounds like a really smart idea these days. Derps.

[direwolf]

Totally normal. If this guy wasn't the prez, my guess is he'd already be in jail for obvious election tampering.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/polit...nia/index.html

President Donald Trump spoke on multiple occasions over the past week with the speaker of the House in Pennsylvania about the Keystone State's election results, inquiring about their electoral process, a spokesman for the lawmaker said.

Trump "never directly pressured Cutler to overturn the results or seat rival electors -- the conversations were briefings on the changes our state Supreme Court made to our state's election law, the impact of those interventions, and what steps are being taken now to challenge those changes," Straub said.

The Washington Post was first to report on Trump's calls with Cutler.

The President has made similar inquiries with Republican officials in Michigan and Georgia as he has sought to overturn his election loss. Even as most states have certified their results, Trump has refused to accept the outcome -- instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen and launching a legal effort to overturn results.

"We will still win it," the President said in Georgia Saturday evening, even though there are no means for him to do so.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vaccin...832293?cmp=rss

Looks like Trump realized he done ####ed up. Can an executive order overrule signed contracts? Does this leave us screwed? I hate this man so much.

It probably won't have much of an effect given that the US is going to be a net importer of vaccines for the foreseeable future. 60% of Moderna's doses are being produced in Switzerland. So even if the US commandeers 100% of US production, that's only 200M Moderna doses by the end of 2021, which they could just buy anyway (they've already bought 100M doses).

For Pfizer, they're an independent multinational company, so it's not really clear how that'd even work legally. And much like Moderna, they can't satisfy the US order from US production alone, so it could end up being counterproductive if it just ends up causing problems with the relationship between the government and the company.

In terms of Canada, I believe our doses are being sourced from Europe, at least to start, so it shouldn't have a short term effect.

[Kidder]

Who knew his “America first” policy was so far reaching.

First in Covid cases and deaths. By a country mile.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Seeing as America now is all about living in an alternate reality, I'm gonna go ahead and assume Jenna Ellis got COVID from inhaling Rudy's fart.

[sureLoss]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1336426171236560901

https://apnews.com/article/election-...f8bc3368549879

The Supreme Court has rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground.

The court without comment Tuesday refused to call into question the the certification process in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden’s victory and the state’s 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for Biden.
.