The Smoke Eater For Feb. 26, 2020
Boomers, new rules, and "don't panic."
Good afternoon, this is The Smoke Eater for Wednesday, February 26, 2020, and I tried not to talk shit...
Quick Hit
* Old people get into another televised slap fight * Factchecking Boomers * New rules for the end of the world * Sick news about COVID-19 * Israeli’s are thrilled to head to the polls again *
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Original photo by U.S. Air National Guard Master Sgt. Matt Hecht
Everyone One Else Is An Asshole
The six elderly white people (and Butters) vying for the Democratic presidential nomination took turns yelling over one another again last night. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders took the brunt of the beatings in the South Carolina debate, with their fellow candidates attempting to portray them them as rotten meatbags who just haven't started to stink yet. Other candidates attempted to remind people that they existed, offering up their own half-baked policy ideas, and alternate realities where they were they single-handedly saved America from boogeymen. Hot takes suggest Bloomberg's canned one-liners weren't as effective as his staffers would have hoped, and that Sen. Elizabeth Warren's throat-cutting selfies may have come too late in the race. Over on Fantasy Island, the Twitterati writhed and struggled to make sense of an audience in South Carolina jeering, cheering, and booing the geriatrics ripping on one another for two hours.
The consensus seems to be that Joe Biden won the debate by insisting, insisting, insisting that he was in the best position to win Flyover Country's swing voters (period, period, period), and that Sanders' bro-bots were unphased. Both Biden and Sanders will continue shuffling ahead of the pack heading into the South Carolina primary this weekend, but the jury is still out on Super Tuesday next week.
Fact Check: Notable low-lights include former Vice President Joe Biden claiming to write every Senate bill over the last 40 years; Sen. Amy Klobuchar acting like her bill to close the boyfriend loophole wasn't dead on arrival; Mike Bloomberg showered both Republicans and Democrats with his mega bucks and seemed to almost say he bought politicians; Tom Steyer isn't the only person who supports slavery reparations (and earns brownie point for saying the US is actively engaged in a cyber war); and Pete Buttigieg has the third most campaign donations behind Sanders and Warren. Additionally -- and every fact checker is pointing this out -- despite it being his signature campaign platform for almost five years, Sanders has never released a comprehensive and mathematically accurate cost analysis of his Medicare For All proposal, and is now claiming it's "impossible" to predict the effects on the economy.
[WaPo / NYTimes / AP / CNN / PolitiFact]
BONUS: In the event that Bloomberg's "Naked Cowboy" comment flew over your head, he's some tourist trap who stomps around Times Square with a guitar while wearing plastic booty shorts. In real life he's just another Midwestern asshole with a strange love of Donald Trump.
Rules You Can Lose
Under a new rule proposed by the Trump administration, the CFPB could collect so-called "zombie debts" that have passed a state's statue of limitations provided debt collectors tell consumers that they can't be sued to recoup the money. Under the Trump administration, the CFPB has allowed debt collectors to call consumers seven times a week and send an unlimited number of texts and emails.
The EPA is finalizing changes to the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards, a rule that limits mercury and toxic emissions from oil and coal-fired power plants, despite opposition from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, former EPA advisers, and some energy industry suits who don't like poisoning the biosphere. The administration feels it's not "appropriate or necessary" for the EPA to police air pollutants. Some energy companies argue any cost savings that comes as a result of ignoring the Obama-era environmental rule are modest. One EPA study says repealing the rule could cause potentially 11,000 premature deaths, 4,7000 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 540,000 days home from work/school.
In 2018 A federal regulator recommended changing rules governing offshore oil drilling against the wishes of engineers involved with crafting the recommendations, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump officials then tried to cover up their involvement in deleting language related to the prevention of blowouts, like Deepwater Horizon -- moves the drilling industry supported.
Did You Nazi This Coming?
Section 230 of the Communication's Decency Act is kind of like the First Amendment for the internet. CNN's Brian Fung has a good explainer on Section 230, and why some conservatives want to change the law under the premise of fighting child porn. Behind the scenes, this is being championed by people who like to complain about the "censorship" of conservatives who who are kicked off social media for spewing garbage, like neo-Nazi propaganda or anti-vax conspiracies. On the other hand, Section 230 also allows companies skirt repercussions for hosting revenge porn, hatespeech, or protecting trolls.
Last week the DOJ held a workshop that unsurprisingly focused on porn and "lawless spaces online." Most of this was furthering a publicity circus that has no basis in reality, and gives giving credence to ideas that are genuinely anathema to human rights, like privacy and net neutrality.
Tyler Brooks opines at Above the Law that anyone who values internet freedoms should start freaking out, regardless of whether they're shitposters or scholars, lest you allow Attorney General Bill Barr to write new laws for the internet.
"Don't Panic"
Federal health officials are warning Americans to start preparing for a potential outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Yesterday U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters that the immediate risk to Americans remains remains low, but that could change. Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the public should, "prepare with the expectation that this could be bad," adding, "I understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe, but these are things that people need to start thinking about now."
Health officials are urging countries to use common sense to combat the virus. Dr. Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization's envoy to China, says simple things like combating price gauging and training hospital workers to track the spread of the virus can help. The US National Institute's of Health's head of infectious disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the world is "teetering very, very, close" to a global pandemic, noting that travel restrictions and quarantines have given officials, "time to really brush off our pandemic preparedness plans and get ready for the kinds of things we have to do."
There have only been 14 confirmed cases in the US, plus the 43 repatriated travelers, but there is concern this may be the result of faulty test kits and under reporting or misdiagnosing colds or the flu. US health officials say containment efforts have been "largely successful," though the CDC’s Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat cautions, “We don’t know exactly what will occur here.” The people most susceptible to the virus are people with weak immune systems, like the elderly and diabetics.
The CDC is reminding people to use all the standard disease prevention measures you're already used to: namely WASHING YOUR DAMN HANDS. Paranoid people are being cautioned that surgical masks are (aside from making you look fashionable) only useful for people who are already sick. Anyone in a risk prone area should wear an N-95 rated mask, or similarly approved mask.
NOTE: If your kid is an Antifa super soldier who gets tear gassed fighting the proletariat, or you have a partner who works around airborne oil/paint particulates, you probably have acess to a suitable respirator.
Fear of the virus has continued to send global markets into a panic, though bean counters say things appear to have stabilized. Yesterday, Trump's director of the National Economic Council, former TV economist Larry Kudlow, bragged "We have contained this. I won't say [it's air tight], but it's pretty close to airtight," adding that the outbreak might be a "human tragedy," but is unlikely to be an "economic tragedy.
The White House is now considering the appointment of a "czar" to oversee response to the outbreak. This morning Trump shitposted the media was attempting to "make the Caronavirus [sic] look as bad as possible, including panicking markets." Trump then declared, "USA in great shape," and announced a presser at 6:00 p.m. ET.
China, If You're Listening...
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus has exposed a deep flaw in China's state-run media operations. Internet savvy people have taken to hoping the Great Firewall of China to post and preserve personal stories and videos on unconventional websites, like GitHub, a website for sharing computer code. Some of the videos show nurses being forced to shave their heads, and breaking down under stress. The state has tried to fight back with Jiangshan Jiao and Hongqi Man, patriotic cartoon mascots, and a slew of almost Mad Libs-style propaganda. One of the more ridiculous news stories included a pair of newborn twins asking their father where their mother, a nurse, was.
Though China initially tried to cover-up the outbreak, the government's dramatic shift to contain the virus has been applauded by health officials. As the number of infections begins to subside, China is now shifting its focus towards economic stability as online retailers race to fill market gaps, and imposing strict health screenings on people entering the country to prevent a resurgent outbreak.
Officials have begun asking schools and businesses to consider canceling large public events in the wake of outbreaks in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The virus has even caused 2020 Olympics officials to consider the impact of the virus; possibly postponing or canceling the games, though it's still early.
BONUS: The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story on the quarantine of some of China's Olympic teams. Through a stroke of luck, their women’s futball team was already in training, so they’re unlikely to be affected. The New York Times has a story about how the start of the international futball season has been delayed as a result of the virus.
One More Thing...
Israeli's are headed to the polls for the third time in less than a year on Monday, and nobody expects this latest round of elections to yield a working government. Speaking to the New York Times, Miri Paperni, a 45-year old accountant, described the situation as, "A twisted reality, where our leaders don’t do their job," adding, "They don’t care at all that the country is falling apart, that there are no budgets for anything, that nothing really is functioning properly. It feels like we are slipping down a slope and not realizing that this is happening to us. People are living their daily life, but they’re in a free-fall."
OK, now here's a warm and fuzzy critter video: Squeaky otter pups!
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