Biden tests positive for COVID
Supposedly he is experiencing only mild symptoms. I actually believe that’s most likely the case, because in general COVID has become more and more mild over time – in the manner of most infectious viral diseases. That didn’t stop the government and the press from trying to scare people into thinking it would be otherwise.
Nevertheless, COVID can still be serious or even deadly in the vulnerable. Biden appears outwardly frail, but his problems may be more mental than immunological and he may sail through.
But it does bring to mind the question of what the Democrats are going to do about Joe, both between now and 2024 and during the 2024 campaign and election. Many people believed that the Democrats were going to remove him and replace him long before now, but that hasn’t happened.
I was never one of those who thought it would happen early, for several reasons. The first was that it serves them to have someone relatively malleable in there, and that’s Joe. The second is that although his cognitive decline is obvious, he still continues to function in a sort of doddering way and isn’t completely and utterly lost. The third is that I don’t think he’s cooperative about leaving; they’re going to have to forcefully kick him out. And the fourth and I believe the most important is that if they were initially relying on Kamala to fill in, they have long been reconsidering that option and finding it wanting.
When they callously and cynically nominated, promoted, and hid the truth about Biden during the 2020 campaign, they were calculating that enough American voters would buy the fiction of his moderation and competence long enough to elect him (or they were calculating on being able to make up the difference with vote manufacturing; take your choice). They already knew he was very cognitively challenged but they didn’t think it would matter because hey, it’s not that hard to run the country, right? And they would be the ones controlling him, and they’re very very smart, right? (Turns out it’s quite hard.) And Kamala was ready and waiting in the wings – except that, although they knew Joe was very marginal, I don’t think they understood how awful and unpopular Harris would be.
That’s the conundrum they face, and it’s one of their own making. Biden wasn’t supposed to make so many Americans turn on the Democrats, and Harris was supposed to be able to replace him. But until they figure out a better solution than Harris, they need Joe to hang in there.
And it just got worse for Joe here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKFYMxYYHE&t=3s
They were hiding the truth from people who were willing to be lied to.
It is indeed distressing to consider how many Americans (especially mis-educated professionals) “bought the fiction” peddled about the senile buffoon by the DNC and the MSM. Ronny Jackson (a real physician, unlike the vacuous and vapid “Dr. Jill”) has been calling, for quite some time, for a cognitive test to be administered to the man who is in the process of destroying the republic; only the amusing fact that the knives of many powerful Democrats would seem recently to have been, at least partially, unsheathed against Biden is of some (albeit small) consolation.
Dick Morris (one of Hillary Clinton’s myrmidons) claims that Hillary is planning a run in 2024. Wait… stop laughing!
Another peak into what we’re up against.
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/president-biden-has-covid/
Several of the comments are especially dispiriting because they’re from people who, even now, remain utterly convinced that the only problem with COVID is that people like Dr. Fauci didn’t have MORE power to control our existence.
Mike
This is their way out.
The third is that I don’t think he’s cooperative about leaving; they’re going to have to forcefully kick him out.
Not to mention that Dr. First Lady Dr. Jill “Doctor” Biden will have plenty to say about that.
Neo said, “I don’t think he’s cooperative about leaving; they’re going to have to forcefully kick him out.”
They’re also going to have to figure out what to do about the First Son: Hunter doubtless has a lot of dirt on most of the Swamp Creatures.
Happened to read a piece claiming China’s initial reax to Covid–mass death and cremations–was a fraud designed to sell the lockdowns and other stuff abroad.
Considering they forbade internal travel involving Wuhan but allowed Wuhanese to go abroad…it fits.
I bet they didn’t figure they’d have such avid customers.
Will Biden appear in public to reassure us the way that Trump did?
Actually, this may be a ploy, or excuse, to hide him, since every time he does appear it is a train wreck.
Next question. Is he routinely tested? Or did he have suspicious symptoms before he appeared in public, sans mask, yesterday? How many people did he infect?
Could he have caught COVID from all of the oil refineries in Delaware? After all he is spending an inordinate amount of time there, considering that the government he heads is in DC. It just makes sense. If you catch skin cancer from oil refineries, surely you can catch COVID as well.
Will he now issue an Executive decree banning Covid?
Inquiring minds are wondering.
Speaking of the great mask controversy. Can anyone explain to me why, if masks are ineffective, they have been standard in operating rooms ever since medicine came out of the dark ages? I don’t know how effective they are; but I have not had COVID. I am 87, and don’t want COVID now; so I continue to do the things I did when I did not catch COVID; i.e. N-95 mask in populated closed spaces. Personal choice, of course.
“Can anyone explain to me why, if masks are ineffective, they have been standard in operating rooms ever since medicine came out of the dark ages?”
Masks work if you use them like surgeons do, namely have them cemented to your face and NEVER take them off. Many, if not most, people are incapable of that level of mask-discipline and so their effectiveness is greatly reduced.
MIke
Oldflyer:
I’m pretty sure Biden is tested very frequently and regularly whether he has symptoms or not.
In addition, about your mask question – masks in operating theaters are not used in order to protect the wearer primarily (except from being splashed by fluids or tissue from the patient being operated on). They are used primarily to protect the patient from contamination by the doctor and other staff. In the operating theater, the patient’s body is being opened up. We’re not talking about catching a respiratory disease here, we’re talking about infections involving the surgical wounds.
See this.
Oldflyer said: Can anyone explain to me why, if masks are ineffective, they have been standard in operating rooms ever since medicine came out of the dark ages?
Regular cloth masks are more effective for stopping certain things than others. Some of it has to do with the size of a given particle/pathogen. In the case of the virus that causes Covid 19 (Sar-cov-2), it’s about 0.1 ?m in diameter. The space between the fibers of a typical (non N-95) cloth face mask is on the order of 50-100?m I believe. While N-95s can filter something like 98.8% of particles that are around 0.1 ?m in size.
That White House press briefing was pretty interesting. By our current media’s standards they grilled Jha and Jean-Pierre pretty good.
The thing is their responses were the correct ones for the sane people but to the Covidians they were unbelievably reckless.
Pretty funny watching them try to tap dance their way out of the environment that they created.
“Could he have caught COVID from all of the oil refineries in Delaware?”
Heh. It’s funny too that the refinery he was grousing about isn’t in Delaware but in Pa. across the state line. The only refinery in Delaware is 18 miles south from Claymont in Delaware City, nowhere near his hometown.
There is no reason to believe that joe bribem got vaxxed with same thing as the public or anything at all. Everything they do is fake or a lie. He might not even be positive. They are lying liars who lie.
This is what I was referring to above. She is right it doesn’t matter where he got and it hasn’t for a very, very long time and maybe never since the beginning of this thing.
Why would that be ‘disgusting’ as this Legal Insurrection writer terms it?
Hypocritical, yes, but not disgusting.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/07/jean-pierre-doesnt-think-it-matters-where-biden-got-infected-with-covid/
Talked to someone a couple days ago whose 90 year old father in a nursing home tested positive recently and they took him to the hospital for a couple of days and then he recovered and went back to the nursing home.
Even this is relatively common at this time.
MBunge:
Another reason they work for surgeons is because they use the mask one time only and then they discard them.
If surgeons re-used masks, despite the masks being firmly affixed to their face and despite them being the N 95 variety, my guess is that the masks would be rendered almost useless in preventing the spread of virus or bacteria. Also, surgeons do not touch their masks when wearing them.
The re-use of masks in the general population and the touching of the masks by the wearer, IMHO, renders them almost useless. The wearing of a mask and then touching it (most likely, repeatedly) after one’s hands have touched door knobs, public / private lavatory levers, elevator buttons, car steering wheels and door handles, shopping carts, paper coffee cups handed to you by baristas, etc. etc.
Early on when Covid had just made it’s grand appearance, Fauci gave an interview in which he EXPLICITLY stated (one of the few times he told the truth) that masks cannot and will not stop the transmission of virus particles because they can easily move through the masks; virus particles are way smaller than the openings in masks generally used in the general population.
This.
Biden is at as about the same risk for death from having Covid now as a 40-50 year old was two years ago.
1.3%.
https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1550209452216766464
Surgeons and doctors developed the concepts of cleanliness and antiseptics, wound debridrement, etc. to enable more patients to survive, not to protect themselves. That came later, protecting the providers.
I can’t see any reason why the current Administration would be in a hurry to replace crazy uncle Joe. He’s been propped up in the saddle for over 1½ years now, and they’re managing to get through what they want, with cooperation from Chez Pelosi and Senatus Schumer. Of course this is likely to change in January, but even then – what advantage would Democrats extract with a change? It would have to be someone capable of influencing with fresh ideas and political skill – so, who comes to mind?
Their problem isn’t Biden – he’s just the bumper sticker on their falling-apart, gas guzzling, oil-leaking, obsolete heap.
Will Hillary run again? Yes. Will she be hitting the hustings harder than last time? No. It will be a campaign not for president but to entice suckers to donate to her family foundation. After the checks have cleared she’ll bow out and endorse whomever has secretly promised the most pork.
I agree that neither Biden or ‘Doctor’ Jill wants him to resign.
California Gov. Newsom’s visit to the W.H. right after Biden left for the M.E. is a sure sign that the powers that be have begun to search for a new V.P.
They have to get rid of Bidet before 2024. As neither Bidet nor Harris will be an electable 2024 candidate.
“they were calculating that enough American voters would buy the fiction of his moderation and competence long enough to elect him.”
Well, enough were buying the fiction long enough to get him elected; but, what I just don’t get at all is the folks who STILL think he is great!
Two of my co-workers think he is doing a great job. One of them thinks all of Biden’s problems are left over from that lying, constitution-tramping, thieving, SOB, Trump; while the other believes anything negative about Biden is just the media lying to make him look bad.
Seriously, how can two otherwise smart people (I work with them and in work ways they are NOT stupid by any means) be so blind to the reality of Biden?
I truly am baffled!
I have thought for quite awhile that as much as Biden’s handlers wanted to get rid of Biden, there was just no way to do it that wouldn’t cause more damage to their future electoral prospects than having him remain. But I’m not so sure anymore.
The last few times I’ve seen Biden speak he seems to be more out of it than usual (which is saying something). The latest round of polling has him hovering around 60 percent disapproval and sinking. As bad as getting rid of him might look, the alternative might be worse. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him gone in the next few months.
I don’t know whether masks work or not. I do know I had a bad cold in February 2020, before I even knew about covid. I have only worn a mask when forced to and even then I bought a fake mask. Never very careful about social distance or anything else. So far as I know I never had covid, but then I was never tested or vaxed. I did drink a lot of gin and tonics and took my multi vitamins. I run a small business in a rural area and could count on one hand the number of customers who wore a mask in my shop.
The important thing is WHY Biden’s popularity has collapsed. Yeah, he’s been a cruddy President but he’s gotten virtually NO harsh coverage from the legacy media. When Trump was at his lowest, he was being battered every night on every channel. Ditto for Bush the Younger. Biden has gotten unbelievably good press given his performance in office.
I think it’s that an implicit promise was made in 2020 that if we just got rid of Trump, everything would be fine. I think the breaking of that promise is actually hurting Biden more than any actual failure of policy or circumstance. As bad as conditions are now, I don’t think that alone explains Biden’s complete and utter collapse in support among young voters and Hispanic-Americans.
Mike
“Seriously, how can two otherwise smart people (I work with them and in work ways they are NOT stupid by any means) be so blind to the reality of Biden?”
I suspect you’d be VERY surprised at the limited media diet of your co-workers. If you make enough money to not be terribly inconvenienced by inflation and most of your news comes from CNN or NYT, you probably have no idea how bad things really are. And your co-workers have also probably stopped watching/reading a lot of news as things have gotten worse, making it easier to delude themselves.
Mike
@Charles: “…how can … otherwise smart people … be so blind to the reality of Biden?”
Probably related to the same factors that religious belief or absence of such belief appears to have no direct relationship to intelligence. Political ideology often fits that mold. We mostly believe in a civic religion oriented to a constitutional federalized republic. The Dems/leftists believe in something else, that we believe will result (is resulting) in reduced liberty and prosperity.
A proposal by evolutionary psychologists is that such levels of belief beyond rational analysis may fit adaptations that improved a propensity to cooperate with fellow humans, leading in turn to increased survival for both the individuals and the groups exhibiting this (set of?) characteristic(s).
I don’t think any of the above contradicts MBunge’s comment. If it mattered to them, those coworkers are smart enough to do their own searches for more detailed info or alternative viewpoints. They don’t want to give up their group membership.
Biden has been a big success. If you’re a real progressive. he’s done exactly what you wanted. Open borders, anti-fossil fuels, big time spending, vax mandates, turning the armed forces into a social justice program, getting out of Afghanistan (badly), signaling weakness to Putin, anti-Israel stance, pro Iran deal, embarrassing m the U.S. in the Middle East on his recent visit, etc. These are all things that the progs like. They don’t want a strong, successful United States. They want us to be humble and play the globalist game.
When I get down in the dumps about how bad things are going, I remember this:
” Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2020 Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1″
We outnumber them and they are losing favor with some of their old reliable constituencies – blacks and Latinos. They have doubled down on climate change with their anti-fossil fuel policies creating much of the inflation and economic pain. And they seem intent on sticking to their guns. Biden is not their problem, though they will cast him as such. It’s the policies.
R2L,
‘A proposal by evolutionary psychologists…’
Would that be ‘Going along to get along’?
The 2020 election had no assurance of integrity. 2022 will have even less.
Can anyone name a single aspect of the leftist narrative that isn’t a lie?
Every single aspect of Covid was a lie — the extent of the risk, lockdowns, masks, social distancing, testing, cases, hospitalizations and deaths, ivermectin and HCQ, the vax, all of it.
Every argument about CAGW. The renewable energy farce, 2020 election, Jan 6, BLM, Antifa, inflation causes, white supremacy, gun control … ALL of it.
At some point we need to stop parsing the minutiae and trivia. Look at the integrated whole. The establishment is lying, stealing and cheating about everything. Why would anyone, could anyone, continue to pretend that they are even capable of honesty? Or that they have any concern for the best interests of the people?
They are at war with us. At war with the truth, with very concept of truth, with the Constitution and Declaration, with federalism, with the notion of liberty and fundamental human rights, with justice, with science.
When are people going to fight back?
I hold psychologists and psychiatrists in very low esteem. My brother outside Seattle is one of the latter, an atheist leftist with whom I no longer speak, despite our ages. He knows everything because he religiously reads the NYT and The Atlantic.
He treats mostly Seasonal Affective Disorder, which occurs because people there spend most of their winter time in the dark; hours of daylight are short, night is loong. Rx: sit in front of a bright light for 30 minutes daily. Or, here are some antidepressants you can try!
Psychiatry has the highest incidence of Democrats and of suicides of any medical specialty. They deal largely in BS. Once, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder; now it is “normal”.
Evolutionary psychology is an example of absurdity disguised as a “science”. Actually, much of psychology is BS, but it is one of the most popular college/university majors, and thus contributes to our degradation with crap such as “microaggressions.”
I accept that evolutionary psychology has a lot of “just so” assertions or claims. And that modern day “psychology” makes many hard to replicate or substantiate claims as well. The characteristics being explored or complex; and they really demand well thought out experimental protocols, large test populations for meaningful statistics, and thus it is really expensive to achieve meaningful, high confidence, results.
I used to think that physics, chemistry, and maybe biology were the “hard” sciences, because of the difficulty to learn about them, but they did tend to result in repeatable and high confidence experimental results. It is/was “relatively easy” to control for extraneous variables or parameters. With maturity I now realize that they are really the “easy” sciences and the “social” sciences, including psychology, are the “hard” sciences due to the complexity of human mentality, various cultural aspects, etc.
But it is also clear that our brains have evolved over millions of years from less capable ones possessed by primates and earlier hominids. The core causes are open to debate (bipedalism, opposable thumbs, better diets via control or use of fire, physical and mental adaptations for language, increased sociality, etc.), but they have resulted in some mix of inherent mentality and a capability to incorporate social and cultural adaptions on top of the inherited ones. One of those “conjoined” characteristics seems to be a desire for transcendence, spirituality, or religious experience. My supposition is that this desire exists along a spectrum from strong to weak across (or within) populations, but is not directly relatable to levels of intelligence (capability for pattern recognition, logical analysis, possibly superior observational skills(?), etc.)
Molly, I think the answer is “yes”. Recall from some prior thread it was mentioned that the Greek word for exile is “idiot”. Being a citizen or person exiled from your Greek city-state was close to a death sentence unless you were accepted by another polity, thus you were an idiot to pursue behavior that might result in such exile.
Idios, Liddell-Scott:
I. one’s own, pertaining to oneself: hence,
1. private, personal
2. one’s own
3. private interests, opp. public
4. of persons, personally attached to one
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*i%3Aentry+group%3D5%3Aentry%3Di%29%2Fdios