Lurker > Antifar

All city flags should apsire to the standard set by this one

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CableZL posted...

https://i.imgur.com/12egGLp.png

How did you have that ready to go so quickly?

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The officers involved have been suspended with pay.

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A good friend of mine is a teacher who got covid at work, so my sympathies are with the teachers who recognize the ways in-person teaching is unsafe for them.

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Every electoral race needs a Reddit candidate to keep the cranks away from more harmful ones.

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This article gives some insight into Amazon's failures
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-29/amazon-game-studios-struggles-to-find-a-hit

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E32005 posted...

Cuomo turning Trump?

There's no turn. He's always been just as petty and vindictive and obsessed with media feuds as Trump.

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Not surprisingly, GOP leaders took note. Stuart Stevens, a longtime Republican strategist, told the New Yorker last week that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in particular, was "scared to death" of corporate America's response to the attack. Stevens added, "Supporting the overthrow of the U.S. government isn't good for business."

This is a succinct explanation for why McConnell has been more eager for a clean break with Trump than most Republicans. His role is in part ensuring his fellow senators' campaigns are well funded.

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https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1356321186494492673


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Prismsblade posted...

AOCs cult will last however long her looks do. Then they will either drop her like a rock and or move on to whatever hip young politician comes around the corner next.

That's what happened with Bernie. The moment he stopped being sexy, people forgot about him

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shockthemonkey posted...

Jesus fucking Christ, why is it so hard for the media to just put Republicans are trying to undermine the Biden administrations goals in the headline

You're not wrong, but also this is what happens when you explicitly make unity a goal.

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It's a bad take, imo

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Antifar's official Top 10 games of 2020
10. Othercide
9. Crash Bandicoot 4
8. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2
7. Super Mega Baseball 3
6. Gears Tactics
5. Watch Dogs Legion
4. Kentucky Route Zero
3. 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
2. Yakuza: Like a Dragon
1. Desperados III

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The head of the police union (who at one point in his career was under federal investigation for corruption) responds
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1356250218451394561


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See if you can spot the issues with this framing!
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1356220775255183362


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He's a Democrat through and through, he just shares some of Trump's... Personality quirks

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Mr. Cuomo said his approach had delivered results in New York, including a positivity rate that has been declining after a peak in early January and better vaccination rates. New York saw the worst of the pandemic in the spring, and roughly 43,000 have died, more than in any other state.

The scale changes everything, Mr. Cuomo said. My job is to get the vaccinations done as soon as possible.

In the fall, Mr. Cuomo shelved vaccine distribution plans that top state health officials had been drawing up, one person with knowledge of the decision said. The plans had relied in part on years of preparations at the local level an outgrowth of bioterrorism fears following Sept. 11 and on experience dispensing vaccine through county health departments during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009.

As a result, local officials across the state complained that their efforts to vaccinate were undercut by the Cuomo plan.

Wait a minute, why are we not doing this? Anthony J. Picente Jr., a Republican who is county executive in upstate Oneida County, said he remembered thinking.

At the New York City Health Department, officials had hoped to significantly expand a system used for childhood vaccinations, in which the city is able to order doses directly from the federal government, one city official said.

But the Cuomo administration, in an October letter to the Trump administration, told federal officials to work only with the state when it came to doling out doses. That made it difficult for the city to create its own vaccination sites, the official said.

State officials said the approach made sense for what was a statewide vaccination effort, and that the states plan incorporated guidance from the C.D.C. and lessons learned from previous health emergencies.

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The deputy commissioner for public health at the New York State Health Department resigned in late summer. Soon after, the director of its bureau of communicable disease control also stepped down. So did the medical director for epidemiology. Last month, the state epidemiologist said she, too, would be leaving.

The drumbeat of high-level departures in the middle of the pandemic came as morale plunged in the Health Department and senior health officials expressed alarm to one another over being sidelined and treated disrespectfully, according to five people with direct experience inside the department.

Their concern had an almost singular focus: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Even as the pandemic continues to rage and New York struggles to vaccinate a large and anxious population, Mr. Cuomo has all but declared war on his own public health bureaucracy. The departures have underscored the extent to which pandemic policy has been set by the governor, who with his aides crafted a vaccination program beset by early delays.

The troubled rollout came after Mr. Cuomo declined to use the longstanding vaccination plans that the State Department of Health had developed in recent years in coordination with local health departments. Mr. Cuomo instead adopted an approach that relied on large hospital systems to coordinate vaccinations not only of their own staffs, but also of much of the population.

In recent weeks, the governor has repeatedly made it clear that he believed he had no choice but to seize more control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials, who he said had no understanding of how to conduct a real-world, large-scale operation like vaccinations. After early problems, in which relatively few doses were being administered, the pace of vaccinations has picked up and New York is now roughly 20th in the nation in percentage of residents who have received at least one vaccine dose.

When I say experts in air quotes, it sounds like Im saying I dont really trust the experts, Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Friday, referring to scientific expertise at all levels of government during the pandemic. Because I dont. Because I dont.

His comments reflected a rift between the states top elected official and its career health experts of the sort that has occurred across different levels of government during the pandemic. Former President Donald J. Trump warred publicly with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, as well as officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mayor Bill de Blasio forced out the head of New York Citys respected health department over the summer. Around the country, frustrated and overwhelmed public health officials have resigned in large numbers.

In Albany, tensions worsened in recent months as state health officials said they often found out about major changes in pandemic policy only after Mr. Cuomo announced them at news conferences and then asked them to match their health guidance to the announcements.

That was what happened with the vaccine plan, when state health officials were blindsided by the news that the rollout would be coordinated locally by hospitals.

But it also occurred earlier with revisions in a host of state rules from the fate of indoor dining and businesses like gyms to capacity limits on social gatherings, according to a person with direct experience inside the department.

Earlier in the pandemic, the health officials were often informed about criteria for who was eligible to be tested for the virus for example, an expansion to include essential workers like transit workers, police and firefighters from Cuomo news conferences, the person said.

Dr. Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, has remained in his post, and appears with Mr. Cuomo at news conferences.

But at least nine senior state health officials have left the department, resigned or retired in recent months. They include Elizabeth Dufort, the medical director in the division of epidemiology; Dr. Jill Taylor, the head of the renowned Wadsworth laboratory which has been central to the states efforts to detect virus variants and the executive in charge of health data, according to state records.

Additionally, the Health Departments No. 2 official left for another job in state government, and another official, who helped oversee contact tracing, is expected to leave the department, also for another state government job.
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The departures came as the state prepared for and then stumbled through the early weeks of its vaccine campaign, in which experts said speed was paramount because of the threat posed by more contagious variants of the coronavirus.

Vaccination policy was the latest one shaped largely by the governors office. Before that, officials said the State Health Department was not deeply involved in final decisions that have included allowing public events and mandating business closures based on color-coded microclusters.

Mr. Cuomo said in an interview that the scale of the pandemic had overwhelmed the states public health planning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/nyregion/cuomo-health-department-officials-quit.html

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https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1356032136034267138

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Getting ballot access as a third party is a lot of work, and no one in Trump's orbit really likes doing it. It seems to me that the likely outcome of this is a spate of Republican primary challengers, much like the Tea Party.

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COVxy posted...
COVxy posted...

There's a fundamental issue here in that legislation is so important because it is likely to produce stable changes. This is at least in part because it's hard to get legislation passed,

It wasn't this hard until like 20 years ago. The 60-vote requirement everyone now accepts as set in stone basically didn't exist for the first two hundred years of this government. It was never intended to be this hard!

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I think there are much greater risks, long term, in preserving an anti-democratic (small d) rule invented by segregationists even as it prevents the passage of aid Democrats promised during a crisis. A de facto 60 vote requirement makes the senate unworkable as an institution, and inflates the already inflated power it affords to small, rural states.

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COVxy posted...

Yes, can't say this is a great sign for legislative successes in the near future lol.

Democrats can either get rid of the filibuster and ram through legislation with 50+1 votes, or pass nothing and hope voters will reward them for it in two years.

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COVxy posted...

The only reason this bill is not being passed through reconciliation immediately is to try to set the precedent for future bipartisan action, as far as I can tell.

The precedent being set here is Republicans would rather implode the budgets of state and local governments than cooperate with the Biden administration.

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Note: The Borowitz Report is satire

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The FEC would have issues with that. I think Kickstarter might too

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shockthemonkey posted...

And they dont expect Dems to take it because they want to claim Biden isnt living up to his bipartisan commitments.

Right. The move here is make an offer Democrats have to reject, then criticize them for not living up to Biden's claims about unity.

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I never properly dug into the DLC missions from 2 when they came out. New York still feels small to me, but Haven Island is good.

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People really don't get what bias means.

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A friend of mine described it as "an extremely boring show constantly hinting at eventually turning into a good one."

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AldousIsDead posted...

Brilliant idea, free of charge: don't give the knob clicks.

That's correct.

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I took up chewing gum in order to quit biting my nails

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I spent all January playing Yakuza and Hitman, both of which I beat.

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MonkeyBones23 posted...

So they want to have a bipartisan deal but come to the table with a third of the asking price?

That is the story they are going with.

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Republicans who want a bipartisan deal on coronavirus relief are making a last-ditch effort to turn President Joe Biden away from a party-line approach that would avoid the Senate's supermajority requirement.

A group of Senate Republicans is requesting a meeting with Biden to begin bipartisan negotiations on the next coronavirus relief bill, even as Democratic leaders are prepared this week to go down a path that could pass a new $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package with all Democratic votes. The new package would be roughly a third the size of Biden's proposal, one GOP senator said Sunday.

In a letter to Biden sent on Sunday, 10 Senate Republicans informed the president that they are working on a counterproposal focusing on spending $160 billion on vaccines, testing, treatment and personal protective equipment. Led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the senators said that if Biden signs off on their framework, we believe that this plan could be approved quickly by Congress with bipartisan support.

In the spirit of bipartisanship and unity, we have developed a COVID-19 relief framework that builds on prior COVID assistance laws, all of which passed with bipartisan support, the senators wrote to Biden. We request the opportunity to meet with you to discuss our proposal in greater detail and how we can work together to meet the needs of the American people during this persistent pandemic.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a member of the group, estimated the legislation would cost roughly $600 billion. Senate Republicans contend there are hundreds of billions of dollars left over from previous bills, undercutting the need for the amount proposed by Biden.

"If you want unity, you want bipartisanship, you ought to start with the group that's willing to work together," Cassidy said on "Fox News Sunday." "They did not."

The letter is a clear attempt to head off Democratic efforts to pursue budget reconciliation as the pathway to the next round of coronavirus aid. This week, Democrats in both chambers are planning to pass budget resolutions allowing the party to approve Bidens $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan without GOP votes. That tactic, called budget reconciliation, would allow Democrats and Biden to move more quickly than trying to cut a deal with Republicans that can get 60 votes.

Noting the failings of the government response to the last economic crisis in 2009 and the GOP reluctance to spend money, White House officials and Democratic senators contend that the biggest risk at the moment is not going big enough.

Biden "is absolutely willing to negotiate," said Jared Bernstein, a top Biden economic adviser, on "Fox News Sunday." But, he added: "The cost of inaction is extremely high."

Still, that path has little room for error: All 50 Senate Democrats would need to be on board, and House leaders could afford few defections. And Republicans in a bipartisan negotiating group have urged Biden to squash the effort to move forward without them, though Democrats are skeptical they will ever come on board with the large spending plan they say is needed to revive the economy.

The Biden administration said it would see what the Senate Republicans had to offer. Weve received the letter and we certainly will be reviewing it over the course of the day, Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Deese spoke to the Senate Democratic Caucus last week and has been engaged directly with members of both parties. He said on NBC's "Meet the Press" he would continue doing that and that the president's open to compromise: "What he's uncompromising about is the need to move with speed on a comprehensive approach here."

The Republican senators will release more details of their plan Monday, according to a Republican aide.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/31/biden-senate-republicans-covid-relief-464057
https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1355937422157213703

This is what you offer when you're angling to get rejected.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

So ummm....what will they do when that doesn't happen?

Believe it harder

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https://youtu.be/7nXidviEZJo


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The world's greatest assassin uses a variety of disguises to get close to his high-profile targets


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CruelBuffalo posted...

Also who is that guy?

An editor for Quillette.

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refmon posted...

What the hell happened to America?

This guy's Canadian, so

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/politics/john-weaver-lincoln-project-harassment.html?

John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist and co-founder of the prominent anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, has for years sent unsolicited and sexually provocative messages online to young men, often while suggesting he could help them get work in politics, according to interviews with 21 men who received them.

His solicitations included sending messages to a 14-year-old, asking questions about his body while he was still in high school and then more pointed ones after he turned 18.

These messages from Mr. Weaver, 61, who helped run John McCains presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008 and John Kasichs in 2016, did not lead to physical encounters except in one consensual case, and none of the men accused Mr. Weaver of unlawful conduct. Rather, many of them described feeling preyed upon by an influential older man in the field in which they wanted to work, and believing they had to engage with his repeated messaging or lose a professional opportunity.

Mr. Weaver sent overt sexual solicitations to at least 10 of the men and, in the most explicit messages, offered professional and personal assistance in exchange for sex. He told one man he would spoil you when we see each other, according to a message reviewed by The New York Times. Help you other times. Give advice, counsel, help with bills. You help me sensually.

Lincoln Project leaders, in their first extended comments about Mr. Weaver, said they had not been aware of such allegations until this month, when a magazine article and an open letter on Twitter from a data analyst named Garrett Herrin accused Mr. Weaver of grooming young men online.

Steve Schmidt, a co-founder of the group, said its leaders had learned last summer from social media posts that Mr. Weaver, who has a wife and two children, might be involved in relationships with men, but emphasized, There was no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior when we became aware of the chatter at the time. Mr. Weaver denied the claims, Mr. Schmidt said.

In mid-January, after the allegations gained public attention, Mr. Weaver issued a statement acknowledging he had sent inappropriate messages and apologizing to the men I made uncomfortable, while saying he had believed all of his interactions to be consensual. He said he would not return to the Lincoln Project from a medical leave that began in the summer.

Interviews with the 21 young men, as well as a review of screenshots of dozens of messages he sent them over the last five years, show that his online behavior was in many cases aggressive and unwanted.

Cole Trickle Miele was 14 when he followed Mr. Weaver on Twitter in 2015 and quickly received a direct message from him. At first, he did not think anything was amiss.

I remember being a 14-year-old kid interested in politics and being semi-starstruck by John Weaver engaging in a conversation with me, said Mr. Trickle Miele, now 19. At the time, he supported the Republican Party and was a fan of Mr. Kasich, the Ohio governor whom Mr. Weaver was helping prepare to join the presidential race.

But as the messages kept coming, he became uncomfortable.

In June 2018, Mr. Weaver asked, Are you in HS still? referring to high school and Mr. Trickle Miele said that he was, and that he would be 18 the next spring. You look older, Mr. Weaver replied. Youve gotten taller.

In March 2020, when Mr. Trickle Miele was 18, Mr. Weaver wrote, I want to come to Vegas and take you to dinner and drinks and spoil you!!, and in a follow-up message used a term that in sexual banter refers to ones body: Hey my boy! resend me your stats! or I can guess! if that is easier or more fun!

Mr. Weaver, in response to questions about specific allegations, reiterated his statement from earlier this month and said: I am so disheartened and sad that I may have brought discomfort to anyone in what I thought at the time were mutually consensual discussions. In living a deeply closeted life, I allowed my pain to cause pain for others. For that I am truly sorry to these men and everyone and for letting so many people down.

Mr. Weaver was one of a handful of veteran Republican operatives who formed the Lincoln Project because, they said, they considered Mr. Trump a danger to the country. With mocking ads that often went viral, the group became a highly visible opponent to the Trump presidency.

Mr. Schmidt said in an interview that the Lincoln Project did not have an office when Mr. Weaver was involved, so the founders and staff were not together. He said the group was outraged and horrified to learn of Mr. Weavers behavior.

Last year, when Cody Bralts was a recent college graduate looking for a job in politics, he replied to one of Mr. Weavers tweets and, to his surprise, received a direct message from him. After Mr. Weaver said he traveled to Chicago sometimes, they discussed meeting to talk politics; at one point Mr. Weaver asked what Mr. Bralts did in his free time.

When Mr. Bralts said he ran marathons, Mr. Weaver replied, At least I know that whatever we end up doing, you could do it multiple times in a row, with a winking emoticon.

It just seemed like he was exploiting his power, Mr. Bralts said. He was someone very important and high up in a field I want to go into.

Kyle Allen, 23, said that from 2016 to 2018, Mr. Weaver asked about his height, weight, what he was wearing and whether he was circumcised. He also pushed repeatedly for an invitation to speak at the University of Ottawa, where Mr. Allen was studying, using sexually explicit language to express his eagerness to visit.

I would try to veer the conversations toward politics, and he would always find a way to bring it back to sexual stuff, Mr. Allen said.

In at least two cases, Mr. Weaver offered young men work with the Lincoln Project while sending suggestive messages.

One of those men, Anthony Covell, 22, said Mr. Weaver had begun messaging him in July 2019. That exchange petered out, but on Dec. 3, 2019 two weeks before the Lincoln Project was publicly announced Mr. Weaver invited him to join the new initiative.

He said he was looking for young people who were creative and invested in this upcoming election, Mr. Covell said, adding, I was obviously interested.

Mr. Weaver suggested that Mr. Covell post a thirst trap or send me a pic, then asked him to call for more details on the project.

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https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1355906705918455808


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Bodycam footage has been released.
https://twitter.com/DandC/status/1355938912019992579


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To Balrog's point:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing-idUSKCN1P41EQ

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Lord_Shadow_19 posted...

Only because the direction of that bias.

Well yeah, it'd be bad if they were biased towards some stupid shit.

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After spending 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, a gang member gets shot by his former boss, leading him to uncover a web of corruption that extends all the way up to the governor of Tokyo.

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Atralis posted...

I work with the assumption that the homeless I see begging for $ are all drug addicts with a black hole in their hearts minds and souls that will eat 1,000 just as quick as $100 and the more cash I give them the quicker they will kill themselves.

Someone here has a black hole in their heart, sure

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I think it's good that the mods are biased

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Do you think eggs come from a chicken's ass?

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