Teresa Hanafin writes Fast Forward for the Boston Globe.
She writes:
Trump has canceled his planned trip to the CDC today, and I figured it was because the researchers there didn’t want him spreading his misinformation and pseudo-facts about the coronavirus while standing in a place that’s supposed to be all about science.
Turns out somebody there fell ill. White House aides worried it could be the virus, and Trump thought wearing a face mask might smudge his spray-on. Fortunately, the employee tested negative, and Trump says he’ll go another time.
He’s heading to Nashville to tour the tornado destruction, then on to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, his umpteeth visit to one of his own resorts at an astounding cost to taxpayers.
Trump, who continues to own his properties, has built quite the profitable pipeline from taxpayers’ wallets to his bank account, which is probably why he has spent 30 percent of his presidency at a joint he owns.
His son Eric lies every time he says that the Trump Organization doesn’t charge the Secret Service to stay at the resorts while they are protecting his father: “They stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping,” he told Yahoo Finance last year. “We charge them, like, 50 bucks.”
Try anywhere from 400 bucks to 650 bucks or more per night. That’s one hell of a cleaning job.
Trump also charges the Secret Service a whopping $17,000 a month to rent a three-bedroom cottage at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where he goes in the summer when Palm Beach gets too hot. He charges the service even when he’s not there. BTW, that’s about twice the going rate for a summer cottage in the area.
Trump, of course, has been desperately trying to hide all of this from the public that’s paying for his ample leisure activities. But the watchdog group Public Citizen and The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold and colleagues have been doggedly filing Freedom of Information Act requests for three years, and the truth is getting out. Here’s more.
Now that Joe Biden has become the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, the Post reports that “President Trump and his Republican allies are rapidly shifting their focus to former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, reviving attacks that led to Trump’s impeachment, in an effort to broadly define as corrupt the potential Democratic presidential nominee.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The whole mercenary clan is cashing in on Trump’s presidency. Ivanka has obtained several patents from China for various products. Jared and Ivanka reportedly pushed to get the opportunity zone for developers in the tax bill of 2017. Jared turned a $5 million dollar investment into a $20 million dollar profit by recently selling his share in a development group.
“Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, pushed for the Opportunity Zone tax breaks to be included in Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul. The breaks offer investors big cuts in capital gains taxes if they put money into businesses and buildings in 8,700 poor, struggling neighborhoods across the country that otherwise might not attract the money.”
Opportunity Zone investment is working along side charter school expansion efforts in many cities. The Trump family is a family of grifters and profiteers that are using the office of the presidency to line their own pockets.https://buzzflash.com/articles/jared-kushner-profited-millions-from-tax-breaks-he-got-trump-to-include-in-2017-tax-breaks?fbclid=IwAR2RJ8xq8cKhF8wynOYVGASzonmOo5ho-PBtiiSGobI5c5zt1yzPLVn_GAc
The GOP and Trump are going to attack Joe Biden’s son Hunter!? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, chutzpah to the nth degree of hypocrisy. The White House is crawling with Trumpian nepotism, Trump’s offspring and their spouses are a rich source for attack ads.
Warning, Warning, please be seated for the following: televangelist scam-scum and rabid Trump supporter, Jim Bakker, claims to have the “cure” for the corona virus, it’s “only” $125 a bottle. This so called phony cure could actually do physical harm. This man should be sued into penury at the least and convicted of fraud and corruption. Hell is too good for Jim Bakker.
Dear God, he’s coming to Nashville? Haven’t we Tennesseans suffered enough?
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Fake President Donald Trump’s son Eric lies every time he says that the Trump Organization doesn’t charge the Secret Service to stay at the Trump resorts while they are protecting his father.
Donald Trump should rebrand his family business Liars Inc. and hire a ghostwriter (like he has done for all the books that have his name on the cover as the author) to write a new book with this title: “Succeed in Business by Mastering the Art of Lying” by Donald Trump.
Then Trump can launch another University that hands out expensive college degrees in the “Art of Lying”.
But as with making deals, he’s not good at it. LOL.
True, and because Trump is an unsuccessful, ignorant, “dishonest” business crook, he will probably file bankruptcy to get rid of the national debt as he has done so many times to dig himself and his businesses out of debt from his failed ventures.
I think it would be a safe bet that he has no idea that most of the national debt is owed to the citizens of this country and not to China. And, since he tunes in to Faux News early every day for his daily briefing from Hannity or someone else like Limbaugh, he has only heard that China holds most of the U.S. debt.
If anyone attempts to correct that misconception, Trump will claim they are full of fake news and that his gut hunch says he has to file bankruptcy the save the country from its own debt.
Who Owns the US National Debt? The Biggest Owner is American citizens.
The American public holds $17.1 trillion of the national debt. Foreign governments and investors hold 39% of it. Individuals, banks, and investors hold 17%. The Federal Reserve holds 11%.
https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
Two horrific diseases have spread across the United States: COVID-19 and Trumpism. The latter affects only the feeble-minded but induces dangerous, aggressive behavior and extreme cognitive decline.
Maybe the two joined together as one will be terminal.
Trumpism + COVID-19 = doubles the risk factor for those individuals.
Will Pence or one of Trump’s “brilliant” children carry the COVID-19 virus back to Trump?
interesting to contemplate what the virus scare will do to Trump’s dependence on rallies
Ciedie, just had that conversation! What happens to Trump’s rallies?
Of course he knows more than the experts.
Since the Demonists have anointed Trump as their “Chosen One,” maybe Trump has convinced himself that he is protected by their god and nothing can touch him.
Or, Trump made a deal with the Devil and is protected that way.
Indeed! My fingers are crossed.
Yvonne: Ahhh. How sweet. His getting the virus would be a great move. Maybe then he’d start thinking about more than himself. Nah. Wouldn’t happen. No campaign rallies are on the books!!!
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White House Staff Fear for Trump’s Health After Handshake With Man Exposed to Coronavirus, Says Report
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Correspondent-At-Large
Published
Mar. 09, 2020
4:18AM ET
Yuri Gripas/Reuters
President Donald Trump, an admitted germaphobe, is now two degrees away from someone who tested positive for the novel coronavirus—and his staff at the White House is reportedly getting more and more worried about the illness. Over the weekend, a photo emerged of the president shaking hands with Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union who led the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. Schlapp has admitted he was in direct contact with an as-yet-unnamed attendee of the four-day conference who tested positive.
The Washington Post reports there is growing tension among Trump administration officials who fear the virus could dominate the president’s fourth year in office, and there are increasing fears over Trump’s personal health. The president is in an age bracket that is particularly vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19. His personal doctor, Sean Conley, reportedly now attends some White House meetings on the coronavirus, the White House is being cleaned more regularly, and no campaign rallies were scheduled as of Sunday evening. It’s reportedly the first time this year that there were no rallies on the books.
Read it at The Washington Post
From what I have been reading from the BBC, all it takes to be exposed to the coronavirus is being in the same room with someone that is contagious. Just by breathing, they are spreading the virus to everyone else in the same room or nearby space. They do not have to be ill from the virus to be a carrier.
That means, the odds favor that Trump has already been exposed. Pray! Pray a lot! That Trumpty Dumpty has a great fall off of the COVID-19 wall and his thin-shell shatters and can never be glued back together again by the gluten found in BigMacs.
Lloyd Lofthouse: We have nothing to fear because Trump has contained the virus. He was considering closing the southern border.
Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon quickly pointed out that if Trump were truly concerned about the spread of the virus, he was looking at the wrong border.
“There are 5x as many confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Canada as Mexico,” Merkley wrote.
“Why isn’t Donald Trump focused on our northern border? I’ll give you three guesses but you’ll only need one.”
…………………………………….
Former CDC director @DrTomFrieden says that, with the Coronavirus outbreak, “nature can trump Trump. The fact is that a pandemic is currently inevitable.”
This is ‘reassurance” from the WH:
Coronavirus update: A whole-of-America approach
Protecting American communities from the global Coronavirus outbreak remains the top priority for President Trump and his Administration.
Vice President Mike Pence and the White House Coronavirus Task Force have been tapped by President Trump to lead the federal response. Over the weekend, the Vice President held a briefing with cruise industry leaders in Ft. Lauderdale, joined by Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield.
🎬 Watch VP Pence hold briefing with cruise ship executives
“As evidenced here today, it’s not just the whole-of-government approach, bringing the full resources of the federal government; it’s really a whole-of-America approach,” Vice President Pence said.
On Friday, President Trump signed an $8.3 billion funding bill to combat Coronavirus, support local responders, and defend the health and safety of the American people.
WATCH LIVE at 5:30 p.m. ET: White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing
Press Secretary Grisham: Now is not the time for partisan politics
I wonder how much of that 8.3 billion dollars Trump will eventually divert to building his Wobbling Wall.
Has Trump yet tweeted that if his wall had been finished, it would have kept the coronavirus out, saving America?
Lloyd Lofthouse: I think this quote explains a lot about what is happening. Trump doesn’t want the population to know the extent of the infections because it would make him look bad. He has bragged that closing down borders has saved many lives. Pence, who is anti-science has no business be the ‘czar’.
If we knew ACTUAL prevalence in the population … we could do a great job at planning for this.
—Howard Forman, Yale University
For me, not only are my fingers crossed but so are my toes and my eyes.
The Liar-in-Chief surrounds himself with sycophantic liars. Fox ‘news’ catches Kellyanne? Wow.
……………………………………
Fox News Catches Kellyanne Conway Lying for Trump About Cutting Entitlements
“He didn’t say that,” Conway said just before Fox News played a clip of Trump saying just that.
Mar. 06, 2020
“Oh, we’ll be cutting.”
Those four words—spoken in response to a question about entitlements during a Fox News town hall on Thursday—are likely to haunt President Donald Trump for the rest of his re-election campaign.
But don’t worry, Kellyanne Conway said Friday morning on Fox News, the president didn’t actually say what you heard him say.
Fox News host Ed Henry brought those comments, referring to them as something Trump “seems to be trying to clean up this morning,” during the White House counselor’s latest appearance on the network.
“Kellyanne, the president this morning promising he’ll protect Social Security and Medicare,” Henry said. “You were there at that town hall, he said the opposite. He said that he, in a second term, would cut Social Security and Medicare and he would cut entitlement programs. Why did he say that?”
“He didn’t say that,” Conway replied with a straight face. “You’re misquoting him, respectfully.” She went on to explain that when she brought up the reaction to the comments with Trump directly, he told her, “No, I’m talking about cutting deficits….
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-catches-kellyanne-conway-lying-for-trump-about-cutting-entitlements?source=email&via=desktop
Key background: Azar was appointed by Trump January 29, 2020, to oversee a coronavirus task force. And Trump released his proposed 2021 budget on February 11, 2020, which in addition to cutting the CDC’s budget by 16%, also calls for a 10% overall reduction for HHS. Internationally, Trump wants to cut the U.S.’ contribution to the World Health Organization by $65 million, a 40% reduction. (The U.S. accounts for about 2.5% of WHO’s $4.8 billion budget.) Trump’s proposed budget is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which has the power of the purse, and will ultimately decide how the funds will be spent, after various committees weigh in.
How can anyone who is a ‘committed Christian’, believes in “accountable government” and “pro-family” work with Trump? Should we say Mark Meadows, Trump’s newest White House Chief of Staff, is a sycophantic hypocrite?
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
I am pleased to announce that Congressman Mark Meadows will become White House Chief of Staff. I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one….
17.4K7:08 PM –
Mar 6, 2020
120 people are talking about this
CPAC2020: Above all, Congressman Meadows is a deeply committed Christian, and someone who has demonstrated a devotion to his faith even in the highest pressure environments. During his time in the House, Rep. Meadows has been a known champion for fiscal responsibility, accountable government, pro-growth economic policies, pro-family and pro-life initiatives, and a strong military.
Trump is claiming that he has a natural ability in medicine. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ OMG! He is demented and narcissistic. What a whack job, a nut case, a total IDIOT!
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‘Maybe I have a natural ability’: Trump plays medical expert on coronavirus by second-guessing the professionals
President Trump likes to say that he fell into politics almost by accident, and on Friday, as he sought to calm a nation gripped with fears over coronavirus, he suggested he would have thrived in another profession — medical expert.
“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who are feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the deadly illness. Citing a “great, super-genius uncle” who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.
“People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/maybe-i-have-a-natural-ability-trump-plays-medical-expert-on-coronavirus-by-second-guessing-the-professionals/2020/03/06/3ee0574c-5ffb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html
Carol, there are no words to describe this combination of ignorance and arrogance.
The beginning of wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.
Diane: There is really something wrong with this country when someone as off balanced as this can be elected to ANY office with any power. What is wrong with our legislators who continue to cover up and deny that he is demented or a criminal? Why does he get off time after time after time when others would be spending a well deserved time in prison? The media is at fault. We need more investigative journalists who will blast out just how crooked he is. Murdock and Rush L are making millions off this disaster of a man.
It’s unbelievable that now he considers himself just as smart as the doctors at CDC…AND that ALL these doctors are astounded by his inherent medical knowledge.
Not everyone was fooled by Trump who always knew more than everyone else on everything.
The late Professor William T. Kelley, who taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years and had Trump in his classroom, said, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had,” in a conversation with his close friend Frank DiPrima.
The professor “often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told of this—that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything.”
“The media is at fault.”
Yep, especially the really awful NYT journalists like Peter Baker who managed to write an entire story about Congressman Mark Meadows, Trump’s new Chief of Staff, without even mentioning that Mark Meadows was a birther who said he wanted to send Obama back to Kenya.
Peter Baker also wrote a story that was published yesterday about Trump’s visit to the CDC which presented Trump as an intelligent, rational, caring president.
Seriously, every NYT reader who depended on that newspaper for what happened at the CDC when Trump visited was told a complete lie by Peter Baker, and would have absolutely no idea that Trump had rambled incoherently and expressed more concerned for his own campaign than in the Americans affected by this.
There is also one other group at fault. That is the group of Americans who are not right wing racists like Trump and his Republican party, and yet refused to vote for HRC to stop Trump from being completely empowered. Some of those people who said Trump was no worse than a typical evil Democrat actually amplified the dishonest right wing propaganda that it was HRC who was corrupt and dishonest and must be stopped even if Trump became President.
Maybe those Americans were just innocently duped in 2016, but in 2020, anyone who isn’t voting for whichever candidate wins the democratic nomination (Bernie or Biden) is just as blameworthy as Trump supporters. No excuse if you had a chance to stop it and decided Trump wasn’t as bad as the alternative.
The comments on WaPo were blistering towards Trump on his vain visit to DCD. He knows more than scientists, his generals and people actually believe him? I am constantly appalled at why anyone believes anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. EVERYONE of the doctors at CDC as surprised at how much Trump knows about medicine!!! I figure he got his medical degree from Trump University, School of Medicine.
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“I like this stuff. I really get it,” Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who are feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the deadly illness. Citing a “great, super-genius uncle” who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.
“People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
Opps. CDC…NOT DCD. Duh on my comment.
Hmmmm, the doctors and scientists should have asked Trump to hold out his cupped hands and then poured a concentrated concoction of coronavirus, HIV, Ebola, flue, et al into them and say, “There you are, Mr. President. Stick your nose in that and sniff deep.”
After he does that, they continue. “Now, you can go to work and save the world. If anyone can do it, you can, because you say so. Now, please prove it, Mr. Stable Genius. After all, with your gun-hunch, you are smarter than everyone in the world.”
The Independent Women’s Forum/Voice, funded by the Koch and Bradley Foundations, National Christian Charitable Foundation, John William Pope Foundation …, may have swung the vote for Trump in Wisconsin. (Center for Media and Democracy report)
The organization’s method uses quizzes to deliver information to voters.
Here is why the Orange Blob is believed by too many voters. Where is the truth? Oh, of course, every other media is ‘fake’. Trump is putting down Biden because of a ‘competency issue’? Isn’t that a version of the pot calling the kettle black?
…………………….
Fox News’ town hall with President Trump on Thursday was the most-watched election town hall in cable news history, according to early Nielsen Media Research. | Fox News
By Brian Flood | Fox News
The event co-moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum averaged 4.2 million viewers from 6:30-7:30 p.m. ET. The record-setting town hall dominated cable news, topping MSNBC’s 1.4 million viewers and CNN’s 1 million viewers combined.
FOX NEWS TO HOST BERNIE SANDERS TOWN HALL WITH BRET BAIER, MARTHA MACCALLUM
Fox News also beat CNN and MSNBC combined in the key news demographic of adults age 25-54, averaging 744,000 during the town hall.
Trump, speaking with Baier and MacCallum in Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa., suggested that the new Democratic front-runner’s repeated gaffes could be a sign of a competency issue — honing a line of attack that Republicans are expected to repeatedly deploy if Biden becomes his party’s nominee.
The town hall covered an array of other topics, including stock market turbulence and deregulation. Out of the gate, Trump defended his administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying his decision to limit travel from China had averted a broader domestic crisis…
https://fxn.ws/2TOgP2K
Please ignore this misleading language from Faux’s bragathon: “Fox News’ town hall with President Trump on Thursday was the most-watched election town hall in cable news history, according to early Nielsen Media Research”
Who cares if 4.2 million viewers tuned in to Trumpty Dumpty’s latest lie-fest vs how many people vote.
In 2018, 118,581,921 ballots were counted.
In 2016, 138,846,571 ballots were counted. (NOTE: Trump lost the popular vote by 2.7 million)
4.2 million viewers tuning in to Trumpty’s lie fest = 3.51% of the total number of ballots counted in 2018, and 3.02% for 2016.
What if those 4.2 million viewers represent the sum total of Trumpty Dumpty’s rabid deplorable supporters, and when the 2020 election comes around, the rest of America runs them over on the way to the ballot box?
Faux brags that they have the largest CABLE news audience without explaining what that actually means.
“Majority of Americans Still Get The News By Turning ON TV, [2018] Pew Study Finds”
News watchers overwhelming prefer television …
75% watch the news on television
20% watch it online
https://deadline.com/2018/12/how-americans-watch-news-study-tv-online-pew-research-center-1202512745/
2019 Basic Cable Rankings, Total Viewers
Faux News 2.57 million (this represents between 1 to 2 percent of the total share of all 39+ listed cable news outlets. Faux is bragging about less than 2 percent of the total number of cable news viewers.)
MSNBC 1.8 million
ESPN 1.78 million
HGTV 1.32 million
USA Network 1.26 million
6 to 39+ cable news outlets left that are not listed in my comment. Click the link to discover how vast the cable-news industry really is. There is a lot more to cable news than only Faux.
https://deadline.com/2019/12/cable-ratings-2019-list-fox-news-total-viewers-espn-18-49-demo-1202817561/
Here is information from CDC:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
People at Risk for Serious Illness from COVID-19
If you are at higher risk of getting very sick from COVID-19, you should:Stock up on suppliesTake everyday precautions to keep space between yourself and othersWhen you go out in public, keep away from others who are sick, limit close contact and wash your hands often.Avoid crowds as much as possibleDuring a COVID-19 outbreak in your community, stay home as much as possible.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html?deliveryName=USCDC_2067-DM21539
The most unnerving aspect of the government response so far has not been Trump’s gibberish. He’s in over his head and it shows, as usual. And we know from his response to Hurricane Maria and other natural disasters that his only concern in a crisis is for his own political well-being. But I wouldn’t have expected to hear the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, laud Trump like a Fox News pundit:
“First I want to thank you, for your decisive leadership … I also want to thank you for coming here today … I think that’s the most important thing I want to say” –CDC Director Redfield slathers Dear Leader-style praise on Trump during his tour of CDC headquarters
Trump is afraid journalists will purposely contract coronavirus to give it to him. What a disgusting creep. I have no problem with the Orange One melting down.
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“He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This”: Trump, Germaphobe in Chief, Struggles to Control the Covid-19 Story
…Stories about Trump’s coronavirus fears have spread through the White House. Last week Trump told aides he’s afraid journalists will try to purposefully contract coronavirus to give it to him on Air Force One, a person close to the administration told me. The source also said Trump has asked the Secret Service to set up a screening program and bar anyone who has a cough from the White House grounds. “He’s definitely melting down over this,” the source said…
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-germaphobe-in-chief-struggles-to-control-the-covid-19-story?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=vanity-fair
China’s Wildlife Farming
A sad and disturbing look at why deadly viruses like SARS and COVID-19 keep emerging from China.
You’ve probably heard that the Coronavirus originated in a market in China. What the mainstream media hasn’t told you is what kind of market it was and why it exists.