4 ms·

The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US w

The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US wasn't that bad; global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on; if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what; that's not a serious problem. If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us; if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so. But they now believe that movie actors are drinking the blood of babies and that China somehow rigged up the increase in CO2 as a way to confound us. They think scientists are mostly lying. It's not clear from an information theoretic perspective how to restore stability to the US system. Maybe once they've killed a million immigrants, I'm sorry had excess mortality in the camps in the hot SW and in Cuba, and things all around them are worse for their own children and families, they will repent and embrace truth, justice and the American way. One can hope.

pstuart 2y ago
It's a third rail to touch but important: "wokism" has been weaponized by the right, and for low information voters (i.e., a majority of the population), voting is an emotional act. Hate and anger are powerful emotions.
Dalewyn 2y ago
[flagged]
- _yb2s 2y ago
  > Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly But we don't have a right to recklessly infect other people with a disease against their will either. Personally, as someone trying to keep elderly and immunocompromised friends and family alive through the pandemic, some of whom ended up dying from COVID, I am still angry at anyone who disobeyed or fought against those lockdowns: they were killing other people. > equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative Action have always left me a bad taste Affirmative action is illegal in the USA, and nearly all DEI initiatives and efforts are based on making sure people are hired on merit instead of race, and that the workplace culture doesn't make it impossible for people from other backgrounds to participate and succeed, e.g. is inclusive. Trump's claims about meritocracy are a red herring. The core premise of the MAGA movement is the idea that only white people are qualified, and anyone else is a "DEI hire." If you’re a Japanese American you can bet these people think you are unqualified and should be replaced. > The sheer amount of tax dollars being spent with wanton abandon is ridiculous science US academic research is the 'engine' that drives industrial/tech dominance in the USA, and is practically a rounding error in federal spending. Go look up any successful engineering or science professor at a well known research institution and you will typically find a large number of companies that exist spun off just from the research of a single lab.
  - jacobgkau 2y ago
    > Affirmative action is illegal in the USA, It was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court (for college admissions, at least) in 2023. Don't pretend like it didn't exist before that. It had to be exist before it was able to be challenged in court.
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  > understands how tax brackets are structured should know this. Yes, tax avoidance/efficiency shenanigans abound, Trump himself has admitted to using them, but why not? Noone is going to leave money on the table. The law allows for them. The tax laws should be rewritten if it's a problem. It IS a problem and they SHOULD be re-written, so why isn't it?? Saying "change tax laws if its a problem" when its structurally almost impossible to get through congress IS the problem people are talking about & its disengenuous to handwave that away.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  > Speaking as a Japanese-Americann, equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative Action have always left me a bad taste. They are racism, sexism, and all the other forms of discrimination. I 300% support Trump's mandate to judge everyone strictly based on merit, it's MLK's dream given new life. Congrats on buying into the propaganda. Do you really believe that these initiatives push anyone to hire the unqualified? When you have ten candidates who are all qualified, and your entire workforce is white, or asian, or black, or male, all that DEI asks is to maybe consider not just hiring more of your ethnic group/gender/etc. Maybe branch out a bit. What it does not say is that if you have 1 qualified candidate from the majority ethnic group and 9 who are unqualified minorities, you have to lower your standards. That's the lie that the reactionary groups are pushing, and it's received readily without the burden of even slight scrutiny. The people pushing falsehoods about DEI are, shockingly, not enlightened progressives in any other regard. They are not the philosophical heirs of Dr. King.
  - tines 2y ago
    I'm not sure we can have a productive conversation about this, but while Republicans are indeed full of shit, DEI initiatives certainly do have an effect on meritocratic selection. For example in colleges Asians are/were rejected at higher rates despite having higher academic performance because of representation goals; black doctors have lower MCAT scores/GPAs than doctors of other races; etc. Personally, I'm all for affirmative action with criteria that aren't based on protected class. For example if you help out poor people instead of black people, you'll end up helping a lot of black people in the end, but you will also help Asian/other people that need the help, and you won't waste your resources "helping" black people who don't need it.
    - mullingitover 2y ago
      I have no problems with that, but I’d take it a step further and also ban legacy admissions privileges.
- lanstin 2y ago
  Your entire post is untrue statements linked together. > >Covid response in the US wasn't that bad > Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly, and more broadly the emergency powers used for protracted timeframes to enforce them were ruled illegal by various State courts. Public health overrules free assembly, and it always has. And we didn't actually have lock-downs in the US, unlike China. I was able to take a walk every day, and in the end found that if the entire US had followed the California guidelines, a few more hundred thousand lives would have been saved. > >global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on > But screeching Global Warming or Climate Change against everything doesn't > actually help. It certainly helps you feel warm and fluffy, though. Don't take action to prevent harm to yourself because you feel bad about the message - a classic "don't act on what is true" strategy. I don't feel warm and fluffy, but I do use solar power to power my HVAC and cars, in the hope that our descendants will be able to enjoy the sandy beaches I grew up on. > >if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what >"So what?" is how Trump got elected and then re-elected. Don't underestimate >peoples' resentment to being talked down, especially over long periods of time >for no justifiable reason. There's a reason Trump called his 2024 run the >people's retribution. For the US, for one state to look down on other states is the norm. No one criticizes South Carolina more than North Carolina. This self-superiority is not a problem in the way that dying of a preventable disease or getting flooded by a heavy rainstorm is. Asheville was perfectly happy not being DC; it didn't like getting flooded. >>If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. >The wealthy pay more taxes, anyone who understands how tax brackets are >structured should know this. Yes, tax avoidance/efficiency shenanigans abound, >Trump himself has admitted to using them, but why not? Noone is going to leave >money on the table. The law allows for them. The tax laws should be rewritten if >it's a problem. Compared to like when Nixon was President, the middle class is harmed and the wealthy pay much less (prima facie not enough given the issues with having good schools). I would love to let the Trump tax cuts expire. >>Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us >Speaking as a Japanese-Americann, equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative >Action have always left me a bad taste. They are racism, sexism, and all the >other forms of discrimination. I 300% support Trump's mandate to judge everyone >strictly based on merit, it's MLK's dream given new life. Do you think Trump is actually hiring the best people for jobs? Do you think legacy admissions to elite schools is a good idea? Do you think that allowing people to continue to refuse to sell homes to Asians is good? I live in a city with only about 2% African Americans, so the discriminatees are mostly Asian and South Asian. What I have found is that a more egalitarian approach to cultural differences enriches the whole city. And I certainly supported reparations to the survivors of the Japanese internment camps, and would support a similar pay-back for the descendants of people impoverished by chattel slavery or red-lining, racist urban "redevelopment" or job discrimination. >>if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. >There is nothing successful about illegal aliens spamming the country en masse. >There is nothing prosperous about an economy propped up by illegal slave labor. Not sure what you mean by illegal slave labor, but immigration to the United States is overwhelmingly an economic and cultural positive. Most (at least as of 4 Feb 25, things are changing rapidly) of the "illegal" immigrants Trump is referring to are legal refugees who very quickly become successful US residents and to whom we have treaty obligations to help (because of the problems before WWII). >>If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so. >The sheer amount of tax dollars being spent with wanton abandon is ridiculous science or otherwise, especially when we also have many pressing concerns that need to be on the budget. US gov't spends about $73B in 2022 according to https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246 Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense are roughly 10x that. It's very little spending for a lot of good benefits; even on a purely economic basis, pure research pays for itself. Again, your post seems to be a long series of falsehoods. I don't know if you believe them or not, but your post makes my point: Trump was elected by voters that believe things that are not so.
- kentm 2y ago
  Frankly I’m done with entertaining the concerns about coastal elites looking down on the common clay. I’ve talked a lot with people with this position. They look down on other people just as much, if not more. They will talk a lot about respecting their opinions and beliefs and then completely write off huge swathes of Americans because they are “not real Americans.” I think they should remove the log from their eye before complaining about the speck in others.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  > Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly, No right in the constitution has ever been, and never will be, absolute - including the right to life. For example, your right to life ends the split second after you are a credible threat to someone else's right to life - which is why cops will shoot you if you point a gun at someone - or them. Your right to leave your house ends when doing so means you could make other people seriously or life-threateningly sick. Hence why health departments have had the legal authority to order people confined for two centuries. You want to participate in society? There are requirements. If you don't like them, go live in a country that doesn't have those laws - there a plenty of countries with little functioning government where you can live out your libertarian wet dreams. > The wealthy pay more taxes, anyone who understands how tax brackets are structured should know this. In 1960, billionaires paid a 56% tax. Today they pay a 23% tax: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/global-billionaires-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/globa... In 2018 billionaires paid less tax than the poorest half of the population: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-time-history-us-billionaires-paid-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-tim... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/incom...
  - veeti 2y ago
    > If you don't like them, go live in a country that doesn't have those laws - there a plenty of countries with little functioning government where you can live out your libertarian wet dreams. Or they could move to the total opposite, a notorious high government nanny state like Finland, where the mere suggestion of a curfew was immediately dismissed as unconstitutional as it should be.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
KennyBlanken 2y ago
> Covid response in the US wasn't that bad ...what? Trump's son-in-law was put in charge of supply distribution, refused to invoke the defense production act, and when they finally did, Trump took ages to actually "order" ventilators. They refused to implement testing because they knew that tests would show how bad things were and justify measures that would hurt the stock market. Trump largely didn't do anything at first because COVID-19 was most severely impacting the coastal blue states because of higher population densities. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-ignore-blue-state-covid-19-testing-deaths-ncna1235707 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-igno... and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-the-markets-decide-covid-19-fate https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-th... They routed supplies away from blue states to red states. He sent ventilators to Russia, FFS: https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russia/ https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russ... Trump told states to get their own PPE (because blue states needed them more badly than red states, and he didn't want red states to have to pay for it), then the feds outbid state agencies for PPE. And when that didn't work, just outright had customs steal them: https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-demands-answers-from-fema-on-plans-to-ensure-massachusetts-receives-essential-medical-equipment https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-deman... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-government-took-control-of-the-ppe-pipeline https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-gove... Our state's orders for PPE was impounded at the port by the feds, who them claimed they had no idea what anyone was talking about. Our state got a bunch of PPE because the NFL football team owner sent his team's 737 to China to pick up masks and gowns (which turned out to have all sorts of problems, like being sized for children.) Our governor stopped just shy of saying "yes" when asked if he'd sent state troopers into NYC to meet the plane and escort the truck. https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-state-troopers-sent-to-nyc-to-protect-medical-supply-shipment https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-st... > If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. "Will be"? It's been going on for decades. Bush and Trump tax cuts made it even worse and skyrocketed the deficit to boot.
- flaminHotSpeedo 2y ago
  Ugh it sucks to be reminded of all that bullshit. Though it's good not to forget. But I think the earlier comment may have been referring to the restrictions in the US relative to other countries. Most other countries were much more severe for their lockdowns

pstuart 2y ago

It's a third rail to touch but important: "wokism" has been weaponized by the right, and for low information voters (i.e., a majority of the population), voting is an emotional act. Hate and anger are powerful emotions.

Dalewyn 2y ago

[flagged]

_yb2s 2y ago
> Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly But we don't have a right to recklessly infect other people with a disease against their will either. Personally, as someone trying to keep elderly and immunocompromised friends and family alive through the pandemic, some of whom ended up dying from COVID, I am still angry at anyone who disobeyed or fought against those lockdowns: they were killing other people. > equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative Action have always left me a bad taste Affirmative action is illegal in the USA, and nearly all DEI initiatives and efforts are based on making sure people are hired on merit instead of race, and that the workplace culture doesn't make it impossible for people from other backgrounds to participate and succeed, e.g. is inclusive. Trump's claims about meritocracy are a red herring. The core premise of the MAGA movement is the idea that only white people are qualified, and anyone else is a "DEI hire." If you’re a Japanese American you can bet these people think you are unqualified and should be replaced. > The sheer amount of tax dollars being spent with wanton abandon is ridiculous science US academic research is the 'engine' that drives industrial/tech dominance in the USA, and is practically a rounding error in federal spending. Go look up any successful engineering or science professor at a well known research institution and you will typically find a large number of companies that exist spun off just from the research of a single lab.
- jacobgkau 2y ago
  > Affirmative action is illegal in the USA, It was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court (for college admissions, at least) in 2023. Don't pretend like it didn't exist before that. It had to be exist before it was able to be challenged in court.
bad_haircut72 2y ago
> understands how tax brackets are structured should know this. Yes, tax avoidance/efficiency shenanigans abound, Trump himself has admitted to using them, but why not? Noone is going to leave money on the table. The law allows for them. The tax laws should be rewritten if it's a problem. It IS a problem and they SHOULD be re-written, so why isn't it?? Saying "change tax laws if its a problem" when its structurally almost impossible to get through congress IS the problem people are talking about & its disengenuous to handwave that away.
mullingitover 2y ago
> Speaking as a Japanese-Americann, equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative Action have always left me a bad taste. They are racism, sexism, and all the other forms of discrimination. I 300% support Trump's mandate to judge everyone strictly based on merit, it's MLK's dream given new life. Congrats on buying into the propaganda. Do you really believe that these initiatives push anyone to hire the unqualified? When you have ten candidates who are all qualified, and your entire workforce is white, or asian, or black, or male, all that DEI asks is to maybe consider not just hiring more of your ethnic group/gender/etc. Maybe branch out a bit. What it does not say is that if you have 1 qualified candidate from the majority ethnic group and 9 who are unqualified minorities, you have to lower your standards. That's the lie that the reactionary groups are pushing, and it's received readily without the burden of even slight scrutiny. The people pushing falsehoods about DEI are, shockingly, not enlightened progressives in any other regard. They are not the philosophical heirs of Dr. King.
- tines 2y ago
  I'm not sure we can have a productive conversation about this, but while Republicans are indeed full of shit, DEI initiatives certainly do have an effect on meritocratic selection. For example in colleges Asians are/were rejected at higher rates despite having higher academic performance because of representation goals; black doctors have lower MCAT scores/GPAs than doctors of other races; etc. Personally, I'm all for affirmative action with criteria that aren't based on protected class. For example if you help out poor people instead of black people, you'll end up helping a lot of black people in the end, but you will also help Asian/other people that need the help, and you won't waste your resources "helping" black people who don't need it.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    I have no problems with that, but I’d take it a step further and also ban legacy admissions privileges.
lanstin 2y ago
Your entire post is untrue statements linked together. > >Covid response in the US wasn't that bad > Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly, and more broadly the emergency powers used for protracted timeframes to enforce them were ruled illegal by various State courts. Public health overrules free assembly, and it always has. And we didn't actually have lock-downs in the US, unlike China. I was able to take a walk every day, and in the end found that if the entire US had followed the California guidelines, a few more hundred thousand lives would have been saved. > >global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on > But screeching Global Warming or Climate Change against everything doesn't > actually help. It certainly helps you feel warm and fluffy, though. Don't take action to prevent harm to yourself because you feel bad about the message - a classic "don't act on what is true" strategy. I don't feel warm and fluffy, but I do use solar power to power my HVAC and cars, in the hope that our descendants will be able to enjoy the sandy beaches I grew up on. > >if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what >"So what?" is how Trump got elected and then re-elected. Don't underestimate >peoples' resentment to being talked down, especially over long periods of time >for no justifiable reason. There's a reason Trump called his 2024 run the >people's retribution. For the US, for one state to look down on other states is the norm. No one criticizes South Carolina more than North Carolina. This self-superiority is not a problem in the way that dying of a preventable disease or getting flooded by a heavy rainstorm is. Asheville was perfectly happy not being DC; it didn't like getting flooded. >>If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. >The wealthy pay more taxes, anyone who understands how tax brackets are >structured should know this. Yes, tax avoidance/efficiency shenanigans abound, >Trump himself has admitted to using them, but why not? Noone is going to leave >money on the table. The law allows for them. The tax laws should be rewritten if >it's a problem. Compared to like when Nixon was President, the middle class is harmed and the wealthy pay much less (prima facie not enough given the issues with having good schools). I would love to let the Trump tax cuts expire. >>Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us >Speaking as a Japanese-Americann, equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative >Action have always left me a bad taste. They are racism, sexism, and all the >other forms of discrimination. I 300% support Trump's mandate to judge everyone >strictly based on merit, it's MLK's dream given new life. Do you think Trump is actually hiring the best people for jobs? Do you think legacy admissions to elite schools is a good idea? Do you think that allowing people to continue to refuse to sell homes to Asians is good? I live in a city with only about 2% African Americans, so the discriminatees are mostly Asian and South Asian. What I have found is that a more egalitarian approach to cultural differences enriches the whole city. And I certainly supported reparations to the survivors of the Japanese internment camps, and would support a similar pay-back for the descendants of people impoverished by chattel slavery or red-lining, racist urban "redevelopment" or job discrimination. >>if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. >There is nothing successful about illegal aliens spamming the country en masse. >There is nothing prosperous about an economy propped up by illegal slave labor. Not sure what you mean by illegal slave labor, but immigration to the United States is overwhelmingly an economic and cultural positive. Most (at least as of 4 Feb 25, things are changing rapidly) of the "illegal" immigrants Trump is referring to are legal refugees who very quickly become successful US residents and to whom we have treaty obligations to help (because of the problems before WWII). >>If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so. >The sheer amount of tax dollars being spent with wanton abandon is ridiculous science or otherwise, especially when we also have many pressing concerns that need to be on the budget. US gov't spends about $73B in 2022 according to https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246 Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense are roughly 10x that. It's very little spending for a lot of good benefits; even on a purely economic basis, pure research pays for itself. Again, your post seems to be a long series of falsehoods. I don't know if you believe them or not, but your post makes my point: Trump was elected by voters that believe things that are not so.
kentm 2y ago
Frankly I’m done with entertaining the concerns about coastal elites looking down on the common clay. I’ve talked a lot with people with this position. They look down on other people just as much, if not more. They will talk a lot about respecting their opinions and beliefs and then completely write off huge swathes of Americans because they are “not real Americans.” I think they should remove the log from their eye before complaining about the speck in others.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
> Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly, No right in the constitution has ever been, and never will be, absolute - including the right to life. For example, your right to life ends the split second after you are a credible threat to someone else's right to life - which is why cops will shoot you if you point a gun at someone - or them. Your right to leave your house ends when doing so means you could make other people seriously or life-threateningly sick. Hence why health departments have had the legal authority to order people confined for two centuries. You want to participate in society? There are requirements. If you don't like them, go live in a country that doesn't have those laws - there a plenty of countries with little functioning government where you can live out your libertarian wet dreams. > The wealthy pay more taxes, anyone who understands how tax brackets are structured should know this. In 1960, billionaires paid a 56% tax. Today they pay a 23% tax: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/global-billionaires-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/globa... In 2018 billionaires paid less tax than the poorest half of the population: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-time-history-us-billionaires-paid-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-tim... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/incom...
- veeti 2y ago
  > If you don't like them, go live in a country that doesn't have those laws - there a plenty of countries with little functioning government where you can live out your libertarian wet dreams. Or they could move to the total opposite, a notorious high government nanny state like Finland, where the mere suggestion of a curfew was immediately dismissed as unconstitutional as it should be.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

KennyBlanken 2y ago

> Covid response in the US wasn't that bad ...what? Trump's son-in-law was put in charge of supply distribution, refused to invoke the defense production act, and when they finally did, Trump took ages to actually "order" ventilators. They refused to implement testing because they knew that tests would show how bad things were and justify measures that would hurt the stock market. Trump largely didn't do anything at first because COVID-19 was most severely impacting the coastal blue states because of higher population densities. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-ignore-blue-state-covid-19-testing-deaths-ncna1235707 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-igno... and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-the-markets-decide-covid-19-fate https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-th... They routed supplies away from blue states to red states. He sent ventilators to Russia, FFS: https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russia/ https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russ... Trump told states to get their own PPE (because blue states needed them more badly than red states, and he didn't want red states to have to pay for it), then the feds outbid state agencies for PPE. And when that didn't work, just outright had customs steal them: https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-demands-answers-from-fema-on-plans-to-ensure-massachusetts-receives-essential-medical-equipment https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-deman... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-government-took-control-of-the-ppe-pipeline https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-gove... Our state's orders for PPE was impounded at the port by the feds, who them claimed they had no idea what anyone was talking about. Our state got a bunch of PPE because the NFL football team owner sent his team's 737 to China to pick up masks and gowns (which turned out to have all sorts of problems, like being sized for children.) Our governor stopped just shy of saying "yes" when asked if he'd sent state troopers into NYC to meet the plane and escort the truck. https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-state-troopers-sent-to-nyc-to-protect-medical-supply-shipment https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-st... > If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. "Will be"? It's been going on for decades. Bush and Trump tax cuts made it even worse and skyrocketed the deficit to boot.

flaminHotSpeedo 2y ago
Ugh it sucks to be reminded of all that bullshit. Though it's good not to forget. But I think the earlier comment may have been referring to the restrictions in the US relative to other countries. Most other countries were much more severe for their lockdowns