SoylentNews

Whatever happens this election--and, being blunt, as of 1600 EST on 3 November I am expecting a Trump win--one thing is for certain: this election and the previous 4 years have brought out the absolute worst in this country.

Even as cynical as I am, I had no idea that something on the order of 40% of the nation's grown-ass adults are some combination of ignorant, willfully stupid, and/or outright *evil* enough to back the GOP. My very worst-case estimate would have been one in four or about 25%. To know it's almost half the nation is almost beyond comprehension. Have we always been this horrible and it took social media and the Internet to make it widely-known, or has something happened during the last couple of decades to turn people into this?

I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B. Certainly without Twitter and Facebook reducing the cost, latency, and effort of real-time communication to huge masses of people to near-zero, things wouldn't have gotten this polarized this fast. But some part of me also knew, even from childhood, that a lot of people are just awful deep down. No redeeming qualities, or at least none they wouldn't happily toss into the compactor and pull the switch if they thought it benefited them somehow.

At this point, *whatever* your politics are, there is no sane, rational excuse for supporting Trump and the GOP. None. Leave aside what you fear the Democrats will do if elected: Trump and company are systematically gutting the nation's institutions, driving up the deficit to insane levels (funny how that only matters when it's a D in the White House, huh?), alienating every ally we have, corroding worldwide health and defense initiatives, and dragging the US's reputation at home and abroad through something that *wishes* it could be called "mud." This is not merely unsustainable, as is the corporate Democrats' constant sucking up to big business: this is self-destructive, and rapidly so.

The reasons some of our frothier members give for supporting Hair Furor are as convoluted and bizarre as they are disgusting. Mostly I see a whole lot of people lying to themselves about what it is they're supporting, hiding behind euphemisms like "making common cause" in the course of trying to convince themselves that they aren't becoming what they ally with, that they can give it up any time they like, that they haven't irrevocably sold their souls off as noetic scrap. I see people parading around high-sounding ideals of freedom and liberty they do not even half understand, much less truly support.

I see incredible, Schwarzchild-radius selfishness, with the accompanying event horizon of permanent solipsistic shortsightedness such an attitude inevitably brings. I see people insisting that they're just forming temporary alliances of a sort, that they are more or less *using* the actual crazies instead of the other way around, that "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, and I can ride this tiger as long as I feel like and it will never, ever turn around, buck me, and eat me alive."

Fools. Complete and utter fools, every last one of them. And the worst possible thing is happening: *they're going to get what they think they want!*

A perfect example of this is as follows: Runaway makes a big deal about "originalism" with regards to the appointment of Barret to the Supreme Court. It is clear he 1) has no earthly idea of what "originalism" means (and to be fair, no one on the SCOTUS does either; it's another of those "truth, justice, and the American Way" feelz-words) and 2) has really, *really* not thought this through. At all. Why? Because he's just about retirement age, not in the best of health, and is cheering on the permanent capture of an entire branch of the Federal government by the party that wants to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and all the other programs that are going to prevent his shriveled stupid Fox-News-jihadi ass from dying homeless under a bridge at 68 of malnutrition and untreated sickness! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I really can't comprehend the seething, teeth-grinding, spleen-wringing, malevolent mediocrity that would happily consign itself to this fate, completely needlessly, just to "own the libs." This makes him, and all who think like him, exactly as much of a suicide-bombing nihilist as any terrorist in a dynamite vest who pops off in the subway station...just far, far more cowardly. I cannot understand the kind of hate, *actual fucking hate,* that would make someone willfully condemn themselves and others like them to a slow, miserable, and above all unnecessary death just to hurt other people.

THAT is hate, not abusive language on the internet. That is stone-cold spiteful soulless nihilism.

And as the title says, "let him who is filthy, be filthy still." We've long since crossed the point of no return, and there is no redemption, NONE, for the people who voted for this, who caused this, who not only let this happen but cheered it on. The next few weeks are going to be incredibly ugly, and the next few decades even uglier. I really do not know if I'll survive to make it to Canada, but the fact is I saw all this coming all the way back on 9/11 in 8th grade, the day the towers came down so close I could see the smoke rising in real time. I've been planning for an escape over a decade, hoping and praying it would never come to this, even as I knew it inevitably would. The border is less than 30 minutes' walk away and so help me Goddess I will go there on foot and claim asylum if things get as bad as they look like they will.

I hope all of you frothing nutjobs are proud of yourselves. You are about to get the government you deserve, and get it good and hard. You have sold your souls for it, and will find out in short order that you really did not get a good deal at all...

Portland Rioters Give Trump One Last Free Campaign Ad Before Election Day By Trying To Burn Down An Apartment Building, Smash Up University

The *PEACEFUL* protesters of Portland couldn’t resist another night of reckoning in their own city. This time they targeted the college that many of them went to: Portland State University. The antifa and BLM terrorists smashed up a Starbucks and attempted to douse the place in kerosene, with 300 apartments above the establishment.

This was after they took their anger out on one of the many symbols of oppression and systemic racism, Portland State University, which has been run by crazed leftists for years and basically serves as an indoctrination center. The terrorists smashed out the windows of Cramer Hall and targeted the campus public safety office.

The chief of Portland State University’s campus “police”, Willie Halliburton, who also moonlights as a comedian (@ComedyCopPDX on Twitter), said he was “disappointed” in the PEACEFUL rioting.

Meanwhile, anticipating a YUGE Trump victory, downtown businesses look even more boarded up than ever before.

Must I point out the keywords here?

with 300 apartments above the establishment.

This is an utter disregard for human life. Someone needs to get these dogs leashed - or shoot them down in their tracks.

I'm curious how the story would be spun, if the arsonists had succeeded? 10, 30, or 90 charred bodies eventually recovered from the debris - how would MSM and the left have spun the story? Undoubtedly, it would have been Trump's fault.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/portland-rioters-give-trump-one-last-free-campaign-ad-election-day-trying-burn-apartment-building-smash-university/

Trump admin funds plasma company based in owner's condo

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company’s “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina. Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo.

Zurlo’s company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.
...

It’s also another in a series of contracts awarded to people with close political ties to key officials despite concerns voiced by government scientists. Among the others: an ill-conceived $21 million study of Pepcid as a COVID therapy and more than a half billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices.

In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.

At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Zurlo’s company.
...
Top government officials began to take notice of Plasma Technologies after Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate, became part-owner, according to the records and AP interviews.

After Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for the company’s method of turning human plasma into a therapeutic product — a process the company has described as a game changer. In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.

Santorum, who’s held no elective office since 2007, remains influential among social conservatives, a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base.
...
Zurlo has deep ties to the Republican Party. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum’s campaigns and to other GOP campaigns and political action committees. He entertained Santorum and his family at the mansion Zurlo used to own on Kiawah Island, an exclusive golf resort in South Carolina.
...
Zurlo brought Santorum aboard after the agreement with Abeona fell through. “We’ve got an FDA problem. Can you help me?” Santorum recalled Zurlo telling him.

Righto, drain the swap by pissing billions into it.

Musings about the post election fall-out.

**Trump wins:

According to the Constitution (unless Trump is able to get an amendment, which I'm gathering would be supremely difficult), Trump has only 4 more years if elected again.

You have a state like Texas that seems to be pro-Trump. Trump pushes and with the help of Republican governors, there is SUBTLE intimidation at the polls in Texas and other states where Trump has 'friends' (read R. Governors and 'proud boys' support).
Trump uses the proud boys as Brown Shirts, intimidates Dem voters...subtly, mind you. Republican state for the foreseeable future.
Trump puts Melania/Ivana/Kushner up front in the Republican party as his successor: if you vote Trump, you will of course get The Trump, even though he can no longer run...nudge nudge, wink wink.

Dems call for support from the Governor against the intimidation, but of course are turned down. Dems call for support from the President, but of course are turned down. Texas (and any others) become Fascist States. Antifa to the rescue...and the Governor brings in 'support' to quell the uprisings.

With certain states locked down, a Trump dynasty begins: a Fascist dynasty.

**Trump loses:
Same thing.

Be afraid...be VERY afraid.

Trump’s campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places.

As President Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake.

The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069.
...

Although there’s no way to determine definitively if cases originated at Trump’s rallies, public health experts say the gatherings fly in the face of all recommendations to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

True, correlation is not automatically causation, but don't dismiss correlation as irelevant.

Now, about entertainment part of it 'He's a salesman': why rallies are Trump's last best hope of clinging to presidency

For Donald Trump, surviving coronavirus has become just another punchline on the campaign trail.

“I had so many doctors and each one of them studied different parts of the body,” the president told supporters in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last weekend.

A roar of laughter.

“And I had a moment where almost every one of them was touching me simultaneously.” More laughter. “I didn’t like it!”

More laughter.

“I said, ‘Doc, I wanna to get out of here, I’ve gotta campaign, I’m in the midst of a campaign against ‘Sleepy Joe’. Can you imagine losing to this guy!?”

Cries of “No!” followed by Trump parodying the voice of a doctor, comparing himself to Superman and referencing “Barack Hussein Obama” – cue a chorus of boos.
...
Yet on the trail he continues to project the image of a happy warrior cruising to re-election, regaling big crowds with selective poll numbers, bogus conspiracy theories and his own brand of humor. And his base remains loyal to the end with cheers, merriment and chants of “Four more years!”, “Lock him up!” and “Build that wall!”

Can I be picky and ask for, I don't know, maybe Ozzy Osbourne for POTUS instead? I mean, look, he managed his entertainer career way better than Trump, he's also both a better iron man and paranoid than Trump (or Kanye West) was or will ever be.

Some consequences for being a fan don't limit only to the risk of being infected with Covid. One may end in hospital because of cold or hot weather.

Regardless on consequences the show must go on

The White House science office has confirmed that:

"ending the COVID-19 pandemic" as the top accomplishment of President Trump's first term

Thank sweet Jesus of Nazareth that it's finally over!

It's so good to know that the the invisible enemy has been defeated once and for all.

I was a little skeptical about the Trump Administration's efforts, but now it's clear that everything is fine and the virus has gone away, just as the President said it would.

Now that this is finally behind us, I'm going out to the bar and getting me *two* hookers.

How are other Soylentils going to celebrate the end of COVID?

Donald Trump Jr. dismisses Covid deaths as ‘almost nothing’ even as U.S. averages 800 deaths per day

* Donald Trump Jr. downplayed the coronavirus outbreak Thursday night, saying that the number of new Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is “almost nothing.”

* The U.S. reported 971 new Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

* "But I was like, ‘Well, why aren’t they talking about deaths?’ Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing," Trump Jr. said.

At 800 deaths per day that's only 29 million 292,000 per year -- assuming the rate doesn't increase. It was only 971 deaths yesterday (Thursday). A mere trifle.

UPDATE: (as an Anonymous Coward helpfully pointed out below, the yearly deaths at that rate would only be 292,000. I punched something into a calculator, too quickly, and counted the zeros. I apologize for the error.)

In a bit of "good" news, it's not as bad as it was in the spring.

That’s a much lower number of daily deaths than the country saw in the spring, when the U.S. reported more than 2,600 deaths in a single day. While daily new deaths have remained relatively flat in recent weeks, the number is trending upward. Average daily new deaths in the U.S. have not fallen consistently below 700 per day since July, Hopkins data shows.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its forecast of Covid-19 deaths earlier this week. It now projects “an uncertain trend in new COVID-19 deaths reported over the next four weeks and predicts that 3,900 to 10,000 new deaths will likely be reported during the week ending November 21, 2020.”

[...] Trump Jr. also downplayed the rising number of new cases, saying that cases are up “because they’re testing more.” That’s a claim repeated by President Donald Trump, who tweeted Friday morning that “more Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN.”

If we stopped pregnancy testing, we would be having fewer babies.

If we stopped testing Republicans for hypothermia, we would have fewer cases of frostbite.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept

Reality check, folks: news has long since been replaced by narratives. Journalism has been replaced by cheerleading.

F(x)tec Pro1 X smartphone runs LineageOS or Ubuntu, features a sliding keyboard (Crowdfunding)

Pro1-X: XDA Developers collaborates to create the world's first Lineage OS and Ubuntu Touch smartphone