Based on polls, he is not doing so hot.

Gallup Poll
Biden Day 10 Approval Rating: 57%; Trump Day 10 Approval Rating: 44%
Biden Day 360 Approval Rating: 40%; Trump Day 360 Approval Rating: 36%

Poll result (43 votes) A (3 votes) Vote B (5 votes) Vote C (6 votes) Vote D (14 votes) Vote F (15 votes) Vote

------------------------------

17x NBA Champions

-------------------
I wanna go to where the martyrs went
the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...

no matter what party
so he gets a D+

______________________________________

Navem nu, cuando sol
Tutu nu, vondo nos nu
Vita em, no continous non
Nos nu ekta nos sepe ta, amen

When the sun shades the ship
We sweat and life is not safe
To swim or to touch not
When we unite we hedge amen

Someone asked who was the greatest President ever. And after anyone would name someone, someone else would come in and name some atrocious thing that they did. Washington owned slaves. FDR interned Japanese, and so on. The fact is, all Presidents have done terrible things. So if you are going to disqualify them for doing terrible things, then they are all disqualified. But also, "greatest" is a relative description. So if you disqualify them all, you aren't answering the question the right way.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>Someone asked who was the greatest President ever. And after
>anyone would name someone, someone else would come in and name
>some atrocious thing that they did. Washington owned slaves.
>FDR interned Japanese, and so on. The fact is, all Presidents
>have done terrible things. So if you are going to disqualify
>them for doing terrible things, then they are all
>disqualified. But also, "greatest" is a relative
>description. So if you disqualify them all, you aren't
>answering the question the right way.

So you're choosing between 46 people, all of whom have done awful things. So greatest is relative to that 46.

You nailed it.

----------------------------------------

"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

Not because his record is great but because I just don't see how any person in the job would do any better*. I think the same who gave us Trump, have to frame Biden as doing a terrible job. The media craves conflict, soundbites, bothside-ism and politics as sports. Like they frame Republican obstructionism as a Dem problem and not a republican/country problem.

But you can only blame the media so much. The fact is Biden is old as F and really lacks the vitality to rev the American people up and congress people. I think they have been too cautious and respectful of institutions to realize a lot of shit needs to be blown up.

I think they should have led the legislative agenda with HR1 but the truth is, I am not sure that would have made a major difference as to where they are today and the midterms.

I think they delivered on the child tax credit and the handling of COVID.








Maybe there is a transformational president waiting out there who can take on this system and structural problems, but I don't see them on the horizon anywhere.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

and being able to go days without thinking about who the president is

unfortunately these aren't boring times, and he was handed a shit sandwich.

i'm not paying close enough attention to offer a huge critique on exactly what he should be doing differently, or how he failed to get enough votes for X. Whatever they are doing right, they're certainly not selling it. I mean he signed a 1T infrastructure law that barely moved anyone.

the pandemic.. again, i don't know exactly what this admin *should* be doing differently, but they don't seem to know either, and that's a huge problem.
Kamala's recent interview clip where her answer to how do we find tests was 'just google it' was pretty cringe. I watched the extended interview to be fair but she didn't do much better.

overall this admin at least *feels* toothless. and the media is running with that narrative because they want Trump back

C

usually they are up when a Dem wins but Biden has been so boring I think its a struggle.

I have no interest in hearing Biden talk.

Until he passes something serious its meh for me..

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

i'm sure they wish kamala was president.
i assume there's a lot of stuff about biden being senile and the rest is about crt/blm/wokeness. don't know if they're up or down though

cnn and the rest are feinding for 45 to come back

I'm unhappy overall with where our country is, but I wouldn't lay the blame on Biden.

The American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill, the almost unreported unprecedented reduction of drone usage, pulling out of Afghanistan (even with the hiccups), backing Putin from the Ukraine border, the work done on school loan forgiveness (I know it's in the billions but I forgot the amount); I could go on. I know the conservative/far left mindset is that he's doing a terrible job, but he's not and he has greatly surprised me thus far.

Obviously there are areas of opportunity , but so far I'm happy.

__________________________________________

I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

For example, on one of my more progressive groups, someone shares this:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CY2-4I7pHu6/?utm_medium=copy_link

and they tried to make the point that Biden said Floyd is bigger, or more important, than MLK.

the clip was for sure made by right wingers. I think it started here:

https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1483172309682819084


But if you look at more than 10 seconds of what he was talking about, its clear he is commenting on technology and how it works with civil rights movements.

And then the media starts talking about a Biden Controversy:

https://www.newsweek.com/biden-faces-renewed-ridicule-after-comparing-mlks-assassination-george-floyds-death-1670142

and the cycle continues.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

not sure exactly when this happened. not saying they're fox or anything but...
https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1919279/fe-cover-vaccinating-kids-banner.webp?w=1280&f=f0180e1062c35d319b349895dc037924

-->

and they should be called out. But Biden also deserves critique in a number of areas. And just because somebody of a different ideology points that out doesn't mean it's automatically wrong. Biden should be judged on the merits alone - regardless of what team is praising (or deriding) him.

-->

Probably more than anything, those confirmations will have a long lasting effect. The most diverse group of judges confirmed by *any* president.

__________________________________________

I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

anytime soon.


But Democrats love their moral/comfort victories.


The BIG tings that absolutely needed to be addressed in his first year...shit his first 100 days....were not.

-------------------
I wanna go to where the martyrs went
the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...

He hasn't been perfect but it's also been only a year.

He's been able to get a big (and diverse) group of federal judges through the door.

I think he's trying to make moves but it's a damn shame that he has to fight against a legislature in which he was supposed to have the upper hand.

If Trump or any other GOP Prez handled COVID this way they'd be getting straight Fs.


Focusing only on vaccines.

Telling vaxxed to unmask before the data supported it.

Not doing everything possible to improve vaccination rates.

Not doing a "warp speed" type focus on treatments.

Not vaxxing the world to decrease variants.

No paid leave so sick people can stay home.

Obsessively focusing on getting kids back in school so their parents can get their asses back to work.

No defense production act.

No masks/tests for a year...and now its half assed.

Mixed messaging in general.

No learned lessons from Delta...and its likely no learned lessons from Omnicron.



Just on COVID alone, anyone rating him higher than a C gets a side eye from me because that is some hypocrite shit.

A GOP admin does everything I listed and it would be pitchforks around here.



There are other issues too, but the COVID shit is like Katrina, 9-11, "Missoion Accomplished" etc all wrapped into one terrible package.


They have not meant the moment. 1/6 and the pandemic could have lead to bigger things had they come out the gate.

Court reform. Voting rights. BBB.


Biden had a honeymoon phase + a short period where the GOP were turning on each other and the whole country had pictures of a gotdamn siege on the capital.

How Dems didn't turn that sentiment + multiple crises (pandemic, economic) into more is beyond fucking me.



In general, this admin is struggling because they have no sales person. So the good stuff they have done gets lost in the sauce because Joe is too old, Kamala is horrible off the cuff, etc.


Its okay to not grade your preferred team on a curve. Just cuz Trump was a fucking F----- or whatever, doesn't mean our guy is automatically a B.

>In general, this admin is struggling because they have no
>sales person. So the good stuff they have done gets lost in
>the sauce because Joe is too old, Kamala is horrible off the
>cuff, etc.

yeah, Trump basically had Trump, which was mostly twitter. pre-covid When he wasn't involved in petty beefs he'd just repeat the same stats over and over about the economy, the stock market, 'lowest black unemployment...', etc. it doesen't matter these things had been trending that way back into obama's term. since it didn't fall off under him, he could just say the economy was coasting due to his tax cuts, as if he turned things around.
fox and his followers were lock step. i don't know how many fb 'debates' i saw where people would repeat verbatim stats that he tweeted.

while i think Biden's feebleness is greatly exaggerated, he's def slowed down from a few years ago, and whenever he speaks the reporting and chatter is mostly about his tone or his energy rather than the substance of what he's saying

and Kamala. i don't necessarily buy into that they are sidelining or hiding her, but if it's the case, i kinda of understand why whenever i see her field even remotely tough questions. even with taking into account that she's over scrutinized or treated unfairly, shes still not very good at this.

The bar is exceptionally low post-Trump - I get it. But c'mon - Joe hasn't aced his first year by any stretch of the imagination.

But I also agree that there are a lot of unreasonable critiques (largely propagandized by Fox, of course).

You've even got Mitt Romney out there implying Biden is trying to "transform" America with radical policies lol - as if Biden is the lost member of the Squad.

Also - the disingenuous criticism of the Afghan pull-out is rich, particularly coming from conservatives who would be heaping praise on Trump if he did it. Incidentally, I actually think his decision to pull-out of Afghanistan after a long, drawn-out (and failure) of an occupation showed tremendous courage and leadership.

But Biden has also largely yielded to oligarchical power, presided over wild inflation (with little remedy/solutions for working people), botched his Covid response, increasing the surveillance state and creating civil liberties concerns left and right, and he hasn't been persuasive enough to get BBB over the finish line. He's also been dragging his feet a bit on important foreign policy decisions - signaling perhaps some ambivalence on what the Biden Doctrine will actually be.

Also, this year is critical for him - as it looks like the 2022 mid-terms could be a red wave. So if he doesn't get some big stuff done this year, it's looking like a really rough 4-years for Biden/Harris - amid abysmal favorability ratings.

-->

Let me ask you this? Is there a country or government that you think is doing a good job?


Listen, I would give a lot of leeway for a government dealing with a once in a life time/century pandemic. Its something we never dealt with before and its rapidly changing so I can understand the government changing directions, adapting, trying things that turn out not to work.

When the pandemic first hit one thing I thought was going to happen is that Trump was going to secure his second term just by making sound, reasonable decisions based on science. They didn't have to get right, Trump had to just be presidential and unify the people. It shocked me that he was so incompetent and couldn't stay on script and the lengths he went to undermine his own governments response.

So I go back to my original question, is there a country nailing it because I wonder what is the yardstick people are holding Biden up to when they are saying he is botching his COVID response?








>The bar is exceptionally low post-Trump - I get it. But
>c'mon - Joe hasn't aced his first year by any stretch of the
>imagination.
>
>But I also agree that there are a lot of unreasonable
>critiques (largely propagandized by Fox, of course).
>
>You've even got Mitt Romney out there implying Biden is trying
>to "transform" America with radical policies lol - as if Biden
>is the lost member of the Squad.
>
>Also - the disingenuous criticism of the Afghan pull-out is
>rich, particularly coming from conservatives who would be
>heaping praise on Trump if he did it. Incidentally, I
>actually think his decision to pull-out of Afghanistan after a
>long, drawn-out (and failure) of an occupation showed
>tremendous courage and leadership.
>
>But Biden has also largely yielded to oligarchical power,
>presided over wild inflation (with little remedy/solutions for
>working people), botched his Covid response, increasing the
>surveillance state and creating civil liberties concerns left
>and right, and he hasn't been persuasive enough to get BBB
>over the finish line. He's also been dragging his feet a bit
>on important foreign policy decisions - signaling perhaps some
>ambivalence on what the Biden Doctrine will actually be.
>
>Also, this year is critical for him - as it looks like the
>2022 mid-terms could be a red wave. So if he doesn't get some
>big stuff done this year, it's looking like a really rough
>4-years for Biden/Harris - amid abysmal favorability ratings.
>
>-->


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

The US is the richest country the world has ever seen.


With the the largest fucking military.



Even putting the capacity to produce them aside...the patents could be waived. But you know, Wall Street.



When COVID keeps creating variants that continue to KILL PEOPLE, MAKE PEOPLE CHRONICALLY ILL, etc etc....


Why cant we ask a Democratic President to waive patents, take the lead on vaccinated the world? IF, for no other reason, than to protect Americans through decreasing variants.

America can go war but not take on a pandemic?


This is something many experts have called for and have warned that if we don't do it, the last 2 years will be our new reality- potentially with worse variants.


It sure beats the hell out of "get vaxxed and unmask Jack!"


What the fuck is our government trying?!?? What are you even talking about? All they have is vax vax vax.


You sound like a fucking MAGA in here. Just making shit up to defend your guy. Weird.


Blaming the media. Blaming progressives. Trying to deflect.


We should give leeway to a government dealing with a pandemic? LOL I'm crying.


Did you give leeway to Trump? Would have you have given leeway to President Pence? Romney?


Or just your guy?


Bottom line is Biden absolutely botched shit by telling vaxxed to take off masks and get back to normal. He wanted to hang that mission accomplished banner so bad that the admin couldn't look at it any other way.

2 years into a pandemic the richest country in the world is just getting around to sending 4 (lol lol lol) tests to each house if they request it.


The "yardstick" is that the Biden administration has not gone all out to beat this thing. To reduce mass death. To protect people.

Thats the point. Is they haven't tried other things. They are hanging all their hopes on the vaccine and thats it.

Its okay to look at 800k+ people dead and say "the richest country could have done better" no matter who is in the Oval office.


But you're in here saying fake news and shit.

then you going to be disappointed with Biden.

Can't argue if that's your standard (despite most people recognizing that's an unreasonable standard).

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

with the most effective and widely used vaccine formulas against covid-19 are US companies??

The patent issue is grotesquely opportunistic and basically amounts to preclusive purchasing.

If other entities/regions could manufacture and distribute their own versions it would help rein in this pandemic sooner for sure, by not only facilitating vaccine access for LMICs/undervacc'd populations but mitigating some of the dysfunction occurring in the global supply chains and economy. There are both left-leaning and right-leaning arguments for such an approach.

The US has instead chosen to hoard its vaccine tech, squeeze every last penny it can from it, and bicker with half its citizens about the high school biology justifying its use - all while inking vaccine deals bts with select high income allies and 'donating' paltry numbers to LMICs through the COVAX facility, essentially weaponizing this IP as the ultimate foreign policy instrument.

All of the above is problematic even without contemplating why the US military was funding EcoHealth Alliance's study and manipulation of this virus to begin with via DTRA, DARPA, etc (eg. https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=82e239a6ca8d934177480354087591c4 , https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/pentagon-gave-millions-to-ecohealth-alliance-for-wuhan-lab/ ) under the guise of "biodefense". Going off what the functions of agencies like DTRA (which btw evolved out of the fucking Manhattan Project) and DARPA even are... if this virus is in fact some sort of dual-use bioweapon gone rogue, then the US' reluctance to pursue an altruistic foreign policy it's best-positioned to is even more concerning.

Shit is clearly a mess and on track to drag on much longer than the 2002-2004 SARS pandemic (Note: And I'm NOT saying these concerns started with JB... if one digs deep in the publicly available data some of that defense funding, as well as Fauci's ascension/canonization as the USG's top "biodefense" official, began during the Bush-Cheney/post-9-11 years (eg. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/10/20/dr-anthony-faucis-little-known-biodefense-work--its-how-he-became-the-highest-paid-federal-employee/). But my point is if folks are side-eyeing the interests this admin is choosing to protect over others, given the circumstances they are certainly well within reason).



>
>Can't argue if that's your standard (despite most people
>recognizing that's an unreasonable standard).

yet so many of us are out here playing full-court defense for Big Pharma with Fauci t-shirts on begging for authoritarian polices that do nothing to halt this pandemic across the world, wholly ignoring the carefully laid out facts above.

-->

Did I get all the stupid shit that's repeated round these parts?

1. There's plenty of vacc-hesitant and/or covid-denying people who aren't maga lol (and I personally blame poor government messaging/education/communications for the disconnect than anything else);

2. Preventable deaths are a tragedy, period, no matter who's dying. And even without factoring in the increased risk unvaccinated people pose to others due to the higher viral loads they carry when infected (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.10.22269010v1.full.pdf#page=7), unvaccinated people themselves face a much higher risk of dying from covid/covid-after-effects than they do from receiving the vaccine/boosters. So to want, encourage, or yes even mandate unvaccinated people to get vaccinated is ultimately about wanting people to live not die;

3. Based on what you've said here, especially calling into question blindly trusting the science, the best possible consensus we can all arrive at from what I said above is how important it is that we vaccinate ourselves against whatever gain-of-function the military was paying EcoHealth Alliance to enhance in this virus. Imho the VIRUS is what we should fear/view suspiciously, not the mRNA vaccines.


I mean, look at their ingredient lists below. They're essentially sugar water solutions, with a dash of salts, vinegar, and fats; and a nano-quantity of lifesaving RNA (whose short half-life causes it to dissolve and disappear soon after our cells translate the message it carries about how to regognize and fight the virus). There's more junk in Botox, fillers, energy drinks, slurpees etc:



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Pfizer-BioNTech.html#ingredients
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people ages 12 years and older contains the following ingredients:

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) - (Provides instructions the body uses to build a harmless replica of a protein from the virus that causes COVID-19. This protein replica causes an immune response that helps protect the body from getting sick with COVID-19 in the future):

* Nucleoside-modified mRNA encoding the viral spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2

Lipids (fats) - (Work together to help the mRNA enter cells):

* 2-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide
* 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine
* Cholesterol (plant derived)
* ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate)

Salts and sugar - (Work together to help keep the vaccine molecules stable while the vaccine is manufactured, frozen, shipped, and stored until it is ready to be given to a vaccine recipient)

* Dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate
* Monobasic potassium phosphate
* Potassium chloride (common food salt)
* Sodium chloride (basic table salt)
* Sucrose (basic table sugar)



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html
The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine contains the following ingredients:

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) - (Provides instructions the body uses to build a harmless replica of a protein from the virus that causes COVID-19. This protein replica causes an immune response that helps protect the body from getting sick with COVID-19 in the future)

* Nucleoside-modified mRNA encoding the viral spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2

Lipids (fats) - (Work together to help the mRNA enter cells)

* PEG2000-DMG: 1,2-dimyristoyl-rac-glycerol, methoxypolyethylene glycol
* 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine
* BotaniChol® (non-animal origin cholesterol)
* SM-102: heptadecane-9-yl 8-((2-hydroxyethyl) (6-oxo-6-(undecyloxy) hexyl) amino) octanoate

Salt, sugar, acid stabilizers, and acid - (Work together to help keep the vaccine molecules stable while the vaccine is manufactured, frozen, shipped, and stored until it is ready to be given to a vaccine recipient.)

* Sodium acetate
* Sucrose (basic table sugar)
* Tromethamine
* Tromethamine hydrochloride
* Acetic acid (the main ingredient in white household vinegar)

edit: replaced the word "piece" from the cdc mrna description with "replica" for clarity

I don't believe any of that shit, but that is generally the goofy shit given in response to any critique of the US' COVID response round here.

I will say, though, that the idea that the vaccine is the only - or most efficient - way to deal with COVID is nonsense.

Constantly going on about a Pfizer product when there is absolutely no way to ensure 100% adoption in the populace every 6 - 8 months (which is roughly how long it takes for the treatment to wear off) is just silly.

The disease is endemic...everyone will likely get it, vaxxed or not.

Since this is just true, the US and it's citizens need to get serious about the idea of health care/treatment protocols/preventative measures beyond a shot and a mask. The government has abdicated it's responsibility to care for it's citizens in the US, and it's pretty glaring

Even if you believe the narrative that the pfizer product is perfectly fine...it's insufficient for the task at hand.

Unfortunately it does appear vacc'ing/boosting is the only and most efficient way to expedite some form of manageable, endemic, new-normal tho. Imho anyway.

Otherwise our health systems will continue to be overwhelmed, since unvaccinated/unboosted people continue to account for the majority of hospitalizations, serious illness, and death due to covid (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm). All a let-it-rip approach does is hoard beds, equipment, and clinicians/human resources away from the rest of the population who continue to need primary care, specialist care, surgeries, etc too.

But this isn't the first disease outbreak to occur in modern history, even for us in the West, and we've vaccinated our way to elimination (or in some cases, eg. polio, eradication) for those too. We're afforded the luxury to take our time learning, researching, or even not thinking about diseases like measles, polio, etc precisely bc a ridiculously high percentage of people were vaccinated against them as kids.

So everyone just needs to work together towards the same goal, that's all. But that requires true leadership, consistency, transparency etc.. and I do agree with you that govs as a whole (not just the US, and not just federal govs) have struggled with their strategies and messaging on this. That eroded trust.

At this point, I'm starting to wish someone like Dr. Jim Yong Kim (former WHO, World Bank, etc) would run for office (somewhere lol...anywhere), bc it's looking increasingly like the only (global) leader who can dig us out of this mess MAYBE by 2025 is somebody with all the skillsets... medical, diplomatic, progressive, on the ground experience in developing regions fighting shit like TB, HIV/AIDS etc. We need a superhero lol

than the vaccines.

There isn't enough attention (or intellectual curiosity) directed at the EcoHealth grant and lineage of gain-of-function studies under Fauci & Collins. To *not* want to investigate gain-of-function, the CDC/NIH connection to the studies and the Wuhan Institute of Virology to determine if this was leaked out of a lab is journalistic malpractice.

My view is that there's nothing "natural" - per se - about catching Covid - because it's not a naturally occurring virus that developed out of a lineal herd of animals or zoonotic transmission like many other viruses circulating. It's becoming more obvious with each passing day that this was lab-leaked and there was some questionable (at best) practices that led to this pandemic. As such, taking a vaccine that staves off the severity of this virus is likely a good idea (and they are quite amazing at mitigating death/severity even if they are leaky at preventing transmission) -- but the vaccine manufacturers haven't exactly met their burden to be wholly transparent about the safety & efficacy trial data - which understandably leads people to distrust - particularly when we're talking about serial felons (like Pfizer).

So while I'm fully vaccinated (and have also had Delta) - I will not be getting a booster at this time. My shot should be diverted to the Global South where it's needed. It will offer me little (if any) benefit - particularly against Omicron. This is where we need to re-think our approach. Why are we boosting people who really don't need it when so much of the world is without any protection?

>Otherwise our health systems will continue to be overwhelmed,
>since unvaccinated/unboosted people continue to account for
>the majority of hospitalizations, serious illness, and death
>due to covid
>(https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm). All a
>let-it-rip approach does is hoard beds, equipment, and
>clinicians/human resources away from the rest of the
>population who continue to need primary care, specialist care,
>surgeries, etc too.

I hear people refer to "let it rip" policies - but I've yet to actually see anyone recommending this approach. What many in the scientific community are saying (who differ with the CDC's approach) is that we should have focused protection to divert resources/hospital capacity/vaccines/treatment to the most vulnerable populations - and not waste resources on boosting younger, healthy populations who are already vaccinated and thus extraordinarily well-protected from hospitalization.

What's missing in this discussion is the acknowledgement that -- for younger and healthy people -- the risk of hospitalization and death even when unvaccinated is already tiny.

When you have polls of partisan dems who - when queried - are saying that the risk of hospitalization from Covid (if unvaccinated) is somewhere around 40-50% - you have to scrutinize the public health messaging. On top of that you have Supreme Court Justices who are grossly misstating facts (as Sotomayor did when inexplicably mis-stating the risk Covid poses to children).

Yes - there are also partisan red-hats who cite similarly bogus statistics about the vaccines - but we all know about that. What's less accepted is how badly informed the supposed "fact checkers" are as well. We have a crisis in transparency and integrity when it comes to the data surrounding this pandemic.

As such - we need to ask the question: Why are we as a society so poorly informed?



-->

>I hear people refer to "let it rip" policies - but I've yet to
>actually see anyone recommending this approach. What many in
>the scientific community are saying (who differ with the CDC's
>approach) is that we should have focused protection to divert
>resources/hospital capacity/vaccines/treatment to the most
>vulnerable populations - and not waste resources on boosting
>younger, healthy populations who are already vaccinated and
>thus extraordinarily well-protected from hospitalization.
>
>What's missing in this discussion is the acknowledgement that
>-- for younger and healthy people -- the risk of
>hospitalization and death even when unvaccinated is already
>tiny.
>
>When you have polls of partisan dems who - when queried - are
>saying that the risk of hospitalization from Covid (if
>unvaccinated) is somewhere around 40-50% - you have to
>scrutinize the public health messaging. On top of that you
>have Supreme Court Justices who are grossly misstating facts
>(as Sotomayor did when inexplicably mis-stating the risk Covid
>poses to children).
>
>Yes - there are also partisan red-hats who cite similarly
>bogus statistics about the vaccines - but we all know about
>that. What's less accepted is how badly informed the supposed
>"fact checkers" are as well. We have a crisis in transparency
>and integrity when it comes to the data surrounding this
>pandemic.
>
>As such - we need to ask the question: Why are we as a society
>so poorly informed?


Americans are being lied to, daily, by their media, who are banking on the fact that our citizenry isn't that curious about policy.
The idea that it's VAXX OR DIE!!!! when there's an entire planet filled with countries with wildly different approaches to the pandemic is bananas.

There's no discussion about managing co-morbidities (which is a crime, given what we know about comorbidities and negative outcomes from COVID)

No discussion about treatment protocols, for a virus that everyone will inevitably catch, is insane

No discussion about how we should expand our healthcare system that was already shown to be inadequate BEFORE COVID.

It's just get the vaxx ur good person, no vaxx bad person.

America is about to come out of a global pandemic with a healthcare system that is MORE privatized than it was going in, and all we can do is blame people for not taking pfizers product.

-->

>So I go back to my original question, is there a country
>nailing it because I wonder what is the yardstick people are
>holding Biden up to when they are saying he is botching his
>COVID response?

So there are 136 countries doing better in deaths per million.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

why it doesn't make sense to use this stat to make the case that Biden is botching the COVID response.

Just think about it for one second, and it will come to you.



>>So I go back to my original question, is there a country
>>nailing it because I wonder what is the yardstick people are
>>holding Biden up to when they are saying he is botching his
>>COVID response?
>
>So there are 136 countries doing better in deaths per
>million.
>
>https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

If you want to look at deaths per capita in the last seven days scroll to the right and USA is even worse at 18th highest.

Now look at the top countries using your 7 day death stats. Maybe Ireland, Japan or the Netherlands is doing a better job, maybe. But do you think any of the other countries listed are doing a better job for real?


Ireland
Netherlands¹
Mauritius
Cambodia
Timor-Leste
Somalia
Cameroon
Haiti
Liberia
Nicaragua
Sierra Leone
Benin
Tajikistan
South Sudan
Chad
New Zealand
China
Burundi
Tanzania
Papua New Guinea
Indonesia
Nigeria
Yemen
Afghanistan
Congo (Brazzaville)
Pakistan
Japan
Niger
Saudi Arabia
Bangladesh
Togo
Guinea
Thailand
Uzbekistan
Central African Republic
Venezuela
Ghana
Lesotho
Oman
Bahrain
Congo (Kinshasa)
Senegal
Kenya
Burkina Faso
Singapore

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

There are 137 countries doing better than the US which includes almost every major country in the world. If you're satisfied being 18th worst out of 155 have at it. I don't want to know where those kind of low expectations lead to in the future but it's nothing to be proud of and should be cause for reflection.

this better because I want to know what other countries are handling this better.

But if you think Haiti is handling it better relying solely on this stat despite the issues I am pointing out to you with the stat, then you not making the case for me.



>There are 137 countries doing better than the US which
>includes almost every major country in the world. If you're
>satisfied being 18th worst out of 155 have at it. I don't
>want to know where those kind of low expectations lead to in
>the future but it's nothing to be proud of and should be cause
>for reflection.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

It seems American exceptionalism is simply having exceptionally low expectations. Things can be better and they are in most of the world, especially in regards to the Covid response. I don't understand how you can say places like Japan and the Netherlands are maybe doing a better job. It's not maybe, it's definitively yes. Japan has a population of 125 million, they have had 18,000 deaths from Covid ever. The US has a population of 330 million which is 2.6 times bigger than Japan. So if you multiply Japanese deaths by 2.6 there would be 46,800 deaths, America has had 858,000, so 18X the deaths, 18 times! Maybe they are doing better? For the Netherlands the US would have over 2x the number of deaths than them with the same math. Remember the majority of US deaths from Covid have been under Biden and again the stats for the last 7 days are even worse than the total stats as we discussed.

I'm in Canada and our response to Covid has been abysmal in my mind but in relative terms it has still been so much better than the US. The US has had more than 3 times the deaths per capita than here. Three times, so if 100 people died here 300 died there. There's no maybe we're doing better, we are.

And this isn't even discussing some of the best countries responses like New Zealand, South Korea, Norway, Finland, Thailand, Denmark and Cuba. There is no way of putting the US anywhere near the top. Stadiq outlines a lot of what Biden could have done that other countries have done. Not to mention this is the same guy Biden who said he would veto Medicare for All if it ever hit his desk. He has been a failure on this, I guess it's just tough to admit for way too many people.

>I'm in Canada and our response to Covid has been abysmal in my
>mind but in relative terms it has still been so much better
>than the US. The US has had more than 3 times the deaths per
>capita than here. Three times, so if 100 people died here 300
>died there. There's no maybe we're doing better, we are.

I was in Quebec in December and the restrictions were heavy. In your estimation, where has the Canadian response gone south?


-->

There is a lot. Trudeau had to be forced to do CERB to help workers. We were slow to ramp up vaccines. He didn't restrict flights from a lot of hotspots. A lot is made of the fact that many countries who dealt well with Covid were literal islands which is true but a country can also make themself an island if they need to temporarily. Some of our provinces restricted movement and they all did much better.

I'm in Ontario where Doug Ford is proudly in the line of Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro so we are lucky things weren't even worse here. He dithered many times on any lockdowns, then disappeared for awhile etc. He's been terrible. Last year when outbreaks were at Amazon facilities and big companies we were only really restricting mom and pop stores. So many needless deaths have occured on his watch but he'll probably get back in. My faith in people is near an all time low.

-->

It's hard to attribute these rankings to anything they did considering the fact that they can barely afford to do anything. Almost all vaccines are in rich countries. Health infrastructure in these countries is poor.

These low numbers are likely due to poor measurement of COVID stats. Or natural immunity for some populations. Not their public health strategies.

1. Burundi (184)
2. China (79)
3. New Zealand (32)
4. Chad (169)
5. South Sudan (137)
6. Niger (182)
7. Tanzania (156)
8. Tajikistan (155)
9. Benin (163)
10. Congo (135)
11. Nigeria (131)
12. Sierra Leone (178)
13. Burkina Faso (172)

_______________________________________

Why is it so hard to admit that the US Covid response has been terrible? You can delete all those countries if you want (except New Zealand which may have had the most successful Covid response in the world). Here is the list of countries worse than the US in deaths per capita.

Peru
Bulgaria
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hungary
Moldova
North Macedonia
Georgia
Czechia
Croatia
Slovakia
Romania
Brazil
Lithuania
Slovenia
Armenia
Poland
Argentina
Colombia

That's it. And if you want to take out tiny, poor countries then it makes the list even smaller. If the US is 13th in GDP per capita https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/ then the closest country that did worse than America is Czechia at 37 and Slovenia at 38. You did better than them, what is the prize?

How about we state it this way, of the Top 37 richest countries in the world (GDP per capita) the US is the last, the worst, the bottom of the pile when it comes to Covid deaths per capita?

I'm not saying anything about the US doing a good job

_______________________________________

and other small white rich countries with homogenous populations like New Zealand, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

I mean when you sort your stats by population to compare the US with other 100M populations, we are still doing bad, but at least the comparison make a lot more sense.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_Zealand#Ethnicity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

And if you do by other countries over 100M the US only beats Brazil. So of the richest countries the US is last, of the big population countries it's second last, what other metric are we going to go with, for the country with the most stars in it's flag it has the world's best covid response, there you go.

Biden ran on criticizing the Trump Covid response, guaranteeing that he would defeat Covid and make significant policy changes to alter the course of our pandemic response. Poll after poll showed that a majority of voters voted for him precisely because of his campaign promises to fix our Covid problem.

He simply hasn't delivered. No big changes outside of pushing a one-size-fits all vax policy (and a mandate that got predictably struck down by the Courts). Covid is worse than ever in the US. Nothing wrong with holding him accountable for his campaign promises.

It's been a whole year and we are just now expanding access to testing and talking about giving Americans access to high-quality masks. This should have been done immediately - not just when the pandemic is raging out of control a year later. Messaging from public health leaders has been wildly inconsistent (and in some instance flat out inaccurate). We are experiencing record-level cases and hospitalizations - it's ravaging more Americans than ever. If Trump was still in office you'd be killing him for this. Why haven't we expanded access to proven treatments like monoclonal antibodies when the science has demonstrated just how effective they are, particularly for the vulnerable? It's been a one-size fits all "get the vax" message despite the fact that we haven't (and will never) boost our way out of this pandemic - particularly when so much of the world hasn't even had a first dose.

Most disappointing to me is Biden's inability to challenge Wall Street, big pharma and corporate power. If we really wanted to make inroads against Covid, he'd call for the immediate waiver of the patents from vaccine manufacturers to get these vaccines disbursed all around the world, particularly in the Global South where they barely have access to efficacious vaccines. It's crystal clear that just because we have a higher-than-average vaccinated population in the US doesn't mean much if the world still suffers from obscene inequity in distribution. So hoarding vaccines/boosters and preaching "get vaxxed get vaxxed" to Americans (many of whom don't even want it) is doing nothing to move the needle.

There has been a grotesque transfer of wealth to the top during this pandemic, and vaccine manufacturers have experienced out of this world profits -- partially because they've developed vaccines using the people's tax money. Waive the patents - they'll be aight with the billions of profit they've had over the past two years.

>Let me ask you this? Is there a country or government that
>you think is doing a good job?

Objectively, there are a myriad of countries who have achieved a lower death rate (per capita) than the U.S. What other metric should we be using?

The irony of Biden's administration is that - despite having a majority in the House and a slight majority in the Senate - Biden hasn't been able to get much of anything done. He was elected because he was supposed to be the guy who can reach across the aisle - as the consummate moderate - and achieve bi-partisan success.

As it turns out - he can't even get his *own* party on board with his proposals. This is the result of a multi-decade effort by Clinton Democrats to constantly cater to moderates and court the center-right, while chastising its progressive base.

To think, after all that posturing and courting -- the ones who have ultimately put a halt to the Biden agenda are those center-right conservative democrats themselves (Manchin & Sinema) - whom the party leaders swore were going to be the magic sauce to ensuring Democratic success.

like wtf

>

-------------------
I wanna go to where the martyrs went
the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...

It’s kind of wild seeing Biden crew piss away easy wins left and right

<--- Big Baller World Order

Bonus points for trying to clean up an absolute train wreck, and being undermined on everything he’s trying to do.

He’s being blamed for things that aren’t his fault, and that he has little to nothing to do with fixing them.

Good:

Rolling out the vaccine
Getting out of Afghanistan
Infrastructure bill
Expanded child tax credit
American recovery act
Not trump

Bad:

Letting his guard down with Covid in terms of testing and masks
Not taking the Romney child tax credit, which would have lasted longer than the current one that is now expired
Not taking the potential bipartisan federal minimum wage increase to $12 an hour
Not getting BBB passed within his first year
Not getting any voting rights act passed within his first year

TBD:

Getting some form of BBB passed
Getting some form of voting rights passed

>Good:
>
>Rolling out the vaccine
>Getting out of Afghanistan
>Infrastructure bill
>Expanded child tax credit
>American recovery act
>Not trump
>
>Bad:
>
>Letting his guard down with Covid in terms of testing and
>masks
>Not taking the Romney child tax credit, which would have
>lasted longer than the current one that is now expired
>Not taking the potential bipartisan federal minimum wage
>increase to $12 an hour
>Not getting BBB passed within his first year
>Not getting any voting rights act passed within his first year
>
>
>TBD:
>
>Getting some form of BBB passed
>Getting some form of voting rights passed

I would have raised his grade to B+.

I didn’t want to give him too much credit for infrastructure and I don’t think he deserves all the blame for the Covid issues/omicron since he took office.

The reason no President before him pulled out is because it was always going to be a shit show. There is no pulling out of a losing war that isn't a shit show.

Doing it, is the achievement.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

< Live Mixshow - Thurs 11PM/EST >
https://twitch.tv/djchiefone

----Mixtape Archives-----
https://soundcloud.com/djchiefone

... find a way to make that a negative.

Those nazis are utterly shameless.

----------------------------------------

"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

really like Biden so my grade would not be good

Legislatively speaking the last truly effective POTUS of merit...was LBJ

knowing how to solve the problem. Or we elected him and all his experience because we thought he knew how to solve the problem.





**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

He did pass the historic infrastructure Bill but he's been behind the curve on everything else.

Not sure anyone saw that coming. Two members of the President's own party literally undoing a WhiteHouse-Senate-House Majority for a President.

Maybe a C. Though i want to give him a D for believing the "Manchin is a good guy, we can come together and talk." I still don't think he grasps that being Partisan in the United States is permanent. Our system is broken. He waited too long to come out swinging.

---------------------------------------

"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." - James Baldwin

Seriously, secret service need to run up in their crib and set shit off.

I’m joking but… not really joking

They would have some horse heads in their bed if it was the GOP.

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

The first couple months, maybe. But Biden's inability to accept that Manchin and Sinema were massive sellouts and were never going to come around was a huge misstep. He coddled them and they still said "nope." That old school "we can work out deals" approach might have completely ruined his term.

---------------------------------------

"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." - James Baldwin

https://tenor.com/NA41.gif

>
>They would have some horse heads in their bed if it was the
>GOP.
>
>

_______________________________________

And im not sure McCain ever did that to a President of his own Party. He stepped out while Obama was President. Republicans are step in line ever since the Trumpster. You will never see Republicans do what the Democrats just did to their own President.

---------------------------------------

"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." - James Baldwin

>And im not sure McCain ever did that to a President of his
>own Party.

7 Republican senators voted to impeach Trump

>And im not sure McCain ever did that to a President of his
>own Party. He stepped out while Obama was President.
>Republicans are step in line ever since the Trumpster. You
>will never see Republicans do what the Democrats just did to
>their own President.

_______________________________________

I was referring to members of a party voting against a sitting President of their own party. Outside of McCain, Republicans stay in lock-step with each other.

---------------------------------------

"The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." - James Baldwin

party and/or be replaced by an even worst republican.


Not saying he can't get them to do what he wants, but I doubt its strong arming. Just give them hella stuff. Bring back earmarks.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"