As of this week, about 1,800 Americans a day are dying of Covid; the C.D.C. expects that number to rise above 2,600. Virtually all are adults. If 95 percent were unvaccinated and we assume that 75 percent of those were Trump supporters, that's 1,300 to 1,900 of his voters being subtracted from the rolls every single day. Donald Trump lost Arizona by a mere 10,000 votes. He lost Georgia by 12,000, He lost Wisconsin by 21,000. He lost Nevada by 33,000. Right now, about 60 Arizonans, 36 Georgians, 34 Wisconsinites and 14 Nevadans are dying of Covid each day. Seventy five percent of 95 percent of that would be minus 103 Trump voters per day " just in those four swing states. Week after week. That adds up.
I think the scenario we have to worry about is that there isn't a US at that point. The kind of conflict that begins January 20, 2025, isn't the kind of conflict that ends with one president being just unpopular, or even seen as illegitimate. It's a kind of conflict that ends with governors seeking some kind of safe haven for their states. It's a kind of conflict that ends with Americans moving from one part of the country to another to be with people with whom they feel safer. It's the kind of conflict that ends with some kind of basic political reconstruction, where the US as we know it doesn't have to exist. Read more
Donald Trump is running down Florida governor Ron DeSantis, describing him in private as having a "dull personality" and unable to beat him in a 2024 match, sources tell Axios. The site reports Trump is furious with DeSantis because of his unwillingness, so far, to rule out running against Trump in two years. Axios also states that Trump is irritated by DeSantis' growing popularity and lack of gratitude. "In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation," a source said, adding, "He says DeSantis has no personal charisma and has a dull personality." Axios also quotes The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, who reported recently: "Trump has been telling a range of aides a version of, he isn't getting the deference from DeSantis that he wants in the pre-2024 leadup. Read more
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed that white people are being discriminated against and sent to the "back of the line" when it comes to receiving COVID-19 vaccines and treatment. Speaking during a rally in Florence, Arizona, Trump alleged that coronavirus vaccines and treatments are being unfairly "rationed" and withheld from white Americans in some states. "The left is now rationing life-saving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating white people to determine who lives and who dies," Trump said during his speech. "You get it based on race. In fact, in New York state, if you're white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical help. If you're white, you go right to the back of the line."
A lawsuit against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers follows similar litigation that was successful against the organizers of a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, makes the case to embrace VR in his new book, Reality+. Renowned for articulating "the hard problem" of consciousness " which inspired Tom Stoppard's play of the same name " Chalmers sees technology reaching the point where virtual and physical are sensorily the same and people live good lives in VR.
The wealth of the 10 richest men in the world has grown so much during the coronavirus pandemic that even a one-time 99% tax on their gains would be able to pay for the production of all the COVID-19 vaccines the world needs and more, according to the charity Oxfam.
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is predicting the end of Donald Trump's hegemony in the GOP, saying the former president "is done."
On average, Americans' political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%). However, the general stability for the full-year average obscures a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a rare five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter. These results are based on aggregated data from all U.S. Gallup telephone surveys in 2021, which included interviews with more than 12,000 randomly sampled U.S. adults. Gallup asks all Americans it interviews whether they identify politically as a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. Independents are then asked whether they lean more toward the Republican or Democratic Party. The combined percentage of party identifiers and leaners gives a measure of the relative strength of the two parties politically. Read more
CHINA'S coronavirus death toll could actually be a staggering 17,000 per cent higher than admitted in a shocking cover-up, an analyst has claimed. It's feared the country's true Covid fatality figure is around the 1.7million mark opposed to the 4,636 reported by Chinese authorities - despite having the world's strictest lockdown. Read more
Now that Devin Nunes has slunk off to the Trump-a-verse, is there anyone in Washington who is as transparently cynical, cowardly and dishonest as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the Republican shape-shifter from Central California? Here is a man who blamed then-President Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection ... before changing his mind. A man who was for a bipartisan investigation of the horrible events of that day ... before he was against it. A man who said he was willing to testify before an investigative committee about his conversations with Trump on that terrible day ... before he decided not to.
Virginia's Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed 11 executive orders on his first day in office, including one lifting a mask mandate in public schools and another banning the teaching of critical race theory, both issues Youngkin campaigned on.
I'm guessing they mean the ADL HQ but I've got to wonder: Is it Jon Stewart's house?
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said one of his biggest regrets in office was not speaking out "much louder" in March 2020, when former President Donald Trump advised the nation to stay home to slow the fast-spreading coronavirus.
Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes about Trump suddenly publicly backing Covid booster shots: The math that says: "Uh, sir? Your voters are dying in droves." Read more
If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children. Today's Californians often hold up equity " the goal of a just society completely free from bias " as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom makes decisions through "an equity lens." Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity. My solution " making raising your own children illegal " is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: the rich and poor should trade kids, and homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors.
