We Ain't Going Back to Normal
Those days are over.
Three Republican Senators, Tim Scott (SC), Lindsey (SC), and Ben Sasse (NE), announced yesterday they would block a $2 trillion bipartisan stimulus bill for the heinous crime of allowing laid off workers to collect $600 a week in extra benefits for the next four months (which is increasingly looking like the shortest timetable until we have any semblance of our lives back).
You would think these ghouls would want to enact widespread social policies that put cash in the pockets of their voters. That might be the case if the Republicans didn’t loathe poor people.
What these reptiles fail to mention — and I want to make this crystal fucking clear — is you can’t file for unemployment benefits if you quit your job.
You can’t “walk away” from your job and get a government check in your mailbox the next week. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Senate Democrats were, per their tradition, completely worthless in opposition. That was until one conservative socialist from Vermont had the courage to tell these reactionaries that he could play the game, too.
Republicans wanted to tell poor people to go fuck themselves. Bernie said if they did that, he would go after the corporate bail out money in the bill. Guess which plan spooked the markets more?
Tanking the stock market to draw a line in the sand for people who just lost their jobs making $12, $13, $14 an hour is absolute king shit.
Sanders didn’t stop there, the 78-year-old with a pre-existing condition strolled into the chamber that dipshit Rand Paul had infected with coronavirus only a few days prior and dismembered the bad-faith arguments from his Republican counterparts:
Some Democrats bash Bernie as “too angry.” Those people are losers who think America has been No. 1 in anything in the last 40 years other than imprisoning poor people in America and bombing them outside of America.
You’re not paying attention if you’re not outraged. It’s a bumper sticker; sure, it’s also true. If three Senators with a combined net worth north of $2 million standing in the way of $600 a week for laid-off workers doesn’t outrage you, then your moral compass is broken or maybe never existed.
Democrats could have nominated the FDR-like candidate whose entire platform is built to handle climate change, historic wealth inequality and a global pandemic.
Instead we’re going to elect Joe Biden, a man who can’t be out in public without looking senile. He’s also been credibly accused of rape.
I would rather suck my own dick to completion than vote for Joe Biden.
The Republicans, of course, tried some Machiavellian shit to try to slide a favor for their corporate sugar daddies past the Democrats, who I can’t believe didn’t fall for it:
This is the kind of heinous shit Republicans pull that never gets the traction with the public it should. Just absolute ghoul shit. And, going forward, it seems like something the Democrats should keep their eye on because clearly some people on the other side were desperate to get their hands on an unaccountable $500 billion.
Small banks, Boeing, for-profit colleges, retailers, cruise liners and possibly the Trump Organization all received their asks. This is how we do in America — our government’s default setting is giving money to rich people and hoping it “trickles down” to idiots like us who don’t make seven-figure bonuses every year.
Plebes like me will get a $1,200 check, which is good for like one month of rent and a car insurance and phone payment and literally nothing else. I would rather die than give the IRS my bank account information, so I could have to wait until August to receive my check in the mail.
Cool fucking system we have. If the Senate thinks they won’t have any business until April 20th, they got another thing coming.
This pandemic is going to run much longer than it should in this country — it’s assured we will have the worst outbreak in the industrial world — because morons like Mississippi governor Tate Reeves.
The good news for Democrats in Mississippi is they live in a red state, and President Business Deals is directly aiding red states while refusing to release disaster funds to blue states like Washington, New York and California.
Let’s check-in to see how our friends in New York City, the richest city in the richest country in the world, are doing.
From Michael Rothfeld, Somini Sengupta, Joseph Goldstein and Brian M. Rosenthal of nytimes.com:
In several hours on Tuesday, Dr. Ashley Bray performed chest compressions at Elmhurst Hospital Center on a woman in her 80s, a man in his 60s and a 38-year-old who reminded the doctor of her fiancé. All had tested positive for the coronavirus and had gone into cardiac arrest. All eventually died.
Elmhurst, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens, has begun transferring patients not suffering from coronavirus to other hospitals as it moves toward becoming dedicated entirely to the outbreak. Doctors and nurses have struggled to make do with a few dozen ventilators. Calls over a loudspeaker of “Team 700,” the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed.
A refrigerated truck has been stationed outside to hold the bodies of the dead. Over the past 24 hours, New York City’s public hospital system said in a statement, 13 people at Elmhurst had died.
“It’s apocalyptic,” said Dr. Bray, 27, a general medicine resident at the hospital.
And the death cultists on the right think our economy should be “re-opened” on Easter Sunday. They say that because they don’t care about you or any of your loved ones. They would gladly sacrifice any of them at the altar of a global plague. Why wouldn’t they? Their wealth insulates them from the karma of their cruelty.
FRANK LAROSE OFFICIALLY CUCKED
Larry Householder Republicans and Franklin County Democrats did their best two weeks ago to shove older voters into crowded polling places in the name of “democracy.”
Had they gotten their death wish, infected voters would have only begun feeling symptoms yesterday or today. Instead, Mike DeWine laughed at a court overruling his decision to delay the primary on March 17th before anointing Dr. Amy Acton, the junkyard dawg herself, to close all polling locations as a threat to public health.
This was the right call!
However, we need to finish the primary. For some reason that remains unclear to me, Secretary of State Frank LaRose immediately issued an edict which said the primary had been postponed until June 2, 2020, when the state could ensure in-person voting.
That was all well and good except LaRose had no constitutional authority to declare an election date. That responsibility falls to the Ohio General Assembly.
That didn’t stop LaRose from pretending otherwise for the last two weeks.
The Ohio Legislature returned for an emergency session this week (merely one week after our state economy collapsed!) and one of their first acts was to tell LaRose to get fucked.
The Ohio House passed a motion to move the date to April 28th. That would be all well and good if there weren’t other glaring issues with the bill.
From Tyler Buchanan of ohiocapitaljournal.com:
Rep. Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, said on the House floor he wished LaRose would be able to simply mail out absentee ballots to voters without them needing to go through the process of officially requesting them.
As LaRose later pointed out, the Ohio Revised Code prevents him from being able to do that. By law, LaRose cannot send out blank absentee ballots to Ohio voters. He is not even allowed to send out unsolicited absentee ballot applications, except for a general election, and that’s only if lawmakers provide the funding to do so.
In other words: during a primary election such as this one, LaRose cannot preemptively send out the first step (applications), much less the second step (ballots themselves).
…
As noted, though, only those eligible to vote on the original March 17 date are being allowed to cast an absentee through April 28. It is possible this may get challenged in court.
This is going to be an absolute clusterfuck. Numerous Board of Election websites still list June 2nd as the election date (as they’ve done since March 18th). The election is now supposed to happen on the 28th, but your ballot must be postmarked by the 27th for some reason.
Voters are going to have to print off their ballot and pay for postage. How many voters have a printer? Because it’s not like they can walk to the public library or go check out Staples during a pandemic.
They can call the local Board of Elections and request a ballot. But how many voters will know that? How many voters will be willing to deal with that hassle to cast one vote in a primary while our economy dies on a vine?
There also won’t be a chance for new voters to register before the 28th, which could be in violation of the Voter Rights Act! (Oh, you wanted to potentially weigh in on how an elected official responded to a global crisis? Too bad, sucker!)
The 2020 Ohio Primary will go down in the history books; that’s for sure. Unfortunately it will be for nothing good.
At least we didn’t butcher a bunch of senior citizens in the process.
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I’M HEARING ABOUT PORTSMOUTH?
Portsmouth, Ohio, has one of the best steakhouses in the state — the Scioto Ribber. Other than that, it seems like whenever Portsmouth breaches the humble pages of The Rooster, it’s always something involving a corrupt local official with a mix of sex trafficking.
A year ago this week, cincinnati.com published an exposé about a sex trafficking ring in Portsmouth that involved Michael Mearan, a former city councilman and prominent defense lawyer who engaged in pay-for-protection schemes with clients dealing with substance dependency. Even a former police chief was accused of being involved.
It would appear state authorities read the report.
From Liz Dufour, Bob Strickley and Kate Murphy of cincinnati.com:
PORTSMOUTH, Ohio – A former city councilman and practicing defense attorney rumored to be a key player in a sex trafficking ring was detained by police while officials searched his home Wednesday morning
The streets surrounding Michael Mearan's home near the Scioto County Courthouse were blocked by police vehicles and flooded with police personnel Wednesday morning.
Mearan was seen by an Enquirer reporter seated on his front porch while police searched his home. He was later seen driving from the scene. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost was seen with police.
Attempts to reach Mearan were unsuccessful.
Portsmouth Police detectives began looking into Mearan in late 2018, about the same time The Enquirer began reporting on rumors of sex trafficking in this southern Ohio city.
I hope they nail this predatory asshole to the wall.
I can’t help but be skeptical, though. That Attorney General Dave Yost is handling this investigation doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.
Mearan is likely a sex predator. That doesn’t make him an idiot. He clearly read that article a year ago like everybody else in his town. I’m supposed to believe a former criminal defense attorney had incriminating evidence laying around his house for over a year? Not good if that’s what we’re betting on.
BREAD LINES BOOM AS LAYOFFS CONTINUE
Rent and mortgage payments are due six days from today. Not that anybody in the upper-echelons of state or local government actually gives a fuck.
Perhaps there would be more urgency about their business if they existed in the real world and went and saw the new faces appearing at food pantries every day throughout Ohio.
From Bonnie Meibers of daytondailynews.com:
Lee Lauren Truesdale, chief development officer at the Foodbank, said the organization has been serving just shy of 400 households per day at the drive through.
“We’re seeing more new families, more new people as people continue to get laid off,” Truesdale said.
Truesdale said she, her team and 25 Ohio National Guard members are working to control the traffic as best they can. More than 100 cars had lined up before the Foodbank started serving food at 1 p.m.
The line was backed up to James H. McGee Boulevard on Wednesday.
I am one step closer to becoming The Joker.
I watch multimillionaire Senators attempt to lay their lives down to prevent regular people from getting $600 extra dollars a week for four months. As if that’s some golden ticket to the millionaire welfare class which they pretend is a thing that exists.
Meanwhile, people that actually have to work for a living are freaking out. They have no healthcare. And if they do, it’s only because they’re working a job that their boss has decided is essential despite the risk to them and their family’s health.
We need to build a new world after we dawg check the coronavirus. The good news is we can’t do much worse than the one we already have.
THOSE WMDs. America’s fastest ultrarunner and his race against depression… The untold origin story of the N95 mask… The mom who took on Purdue Pharmacy for its OxyContin marketing… Why a tiny Colorado county can offer COVID-19 tests to all residents… The dangerous myth of “taxpayer money”… Podcast: Is the Trump cult a death cult?