This evening the New York Times published a story about a Trump’s repeated lies, boasts, and ignorance about the pandemic. The story did not include a Trump’s assertion yesterday on the Sean Hannity show that governors were inflating their need for ventilators, followed by orders to GM and Ford to start producing ventilators. One day he proclaims there is no crisis. The next day he responds to the crisis. Confusion? Distraction? Ignorance?
Linda Qiu writes:
Hours after the United States became the nation with the largest number of reported coronavirus cases on Thursday, President Trump appeared on Fox News and expressed doubt about shortages of medical supplies, boasted about the country’s testing capacity, and criticized his predecessor’s response to an earlier outbreak of a different disease.
“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” he said, alluding to a request by Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. . The president made the statement in spite of government reports predicting shortages in a severe pandemic — and he reversed course on Friday morning, calling for urgent steps to produce more ventilators.
Speaking on Fox on Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested wrongly that because of his early travel restrictions on China, “a lot of the people decided to go to Italy instead” — though Italy had issued a more wide-ranging ban on travel from China and done so earlier than the United States. And at a White House briefing on Friday, he wrongly said he was the “first one” to impose restrictions on China. North Korea, for one, imposed restrictions 10 days before the United States.
He misleadingly claimed again on Friday that “we’ve tested now more than anybody.” In terms of raw numbers, the United States has tested more people for the coronavirus than Italy and South Korea but still lags behind in tests per capita.
And he continued to falsely claim that the Obama administration “acted very, very late” during the H1N1 epidemic in 2009 and 2010.
These falsehoods, like dozens of others from the president since January, demonstrate some core tenets of how Mr. Trump has tried to spin his response to the coronavirus epidemic to his advantage. Here’s an overview.
Playing down the severity of the pandemic
When the first case of the virus was reported in the United States in January, Mr. Trump dismissed it as “one person coming in from China.” He said the situation was “under control” and “it’s going to be just fine” — despite a top official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention telling the public to “expect more cases.”
No matter how much the count of cases has grown, Mr. Trump has characterized it as low.
“We have very little problem in this country” with five cases, he said in late January.
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He maintained the same dismissive tone on March 5, as the number of cases had grown by a factor of 25. “Only 129 cases,” he wrote on Twitter.
A day later, he falsely claimed that this was “lower than just about” any other country. (A number of developed countries like Australia, Britain and Canada as well as populous India had fewer reported cases at that point.)
By March 12, when the tally had again increased tenfold to over 1,200, the president argued that too was “very few cases” compared to other countries.
He has also misleadingly suggested numerous times that the coronavirus is no worse than the flu, saying on Friday, “You call it germ, you can call it a flu. You can call it a virus. You can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody knows what it is.”
The mortality rate for coronavirus, however, is 10 times that of the flu and no vaccine or cure exists yet for the coronavirus.
In conflating the flu and the coronavirus, Mr. Trump repeatedly emphasized the annual number of deaths from the flu, and occasionally inflated his estimates. When he first made the comparison in February, he talked of flu deaths from “25,000 to 69,000.” In March, he cited a figure “as high as 100,000” in 1990.
The actual figure for the 1990 flu season was 33,000, and in the past decade, the flu has killed an estimated 12,000 to 61,000 thousand people each flu season in the United States. That’s so far higher than the death count for the virus in the United States, but below projections from the Centers for Disease and Prevention, which estimated that deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, could range from 200,000 to 1.7 million. As of Friday evening, more than 1,200 deaths in the United States have been linked to the coronavirus.
On the flip side, Mr. Trump inflated the mortality and infection rates of other deadly diseases as if to emphasize that the coronavirus pales in comparison. “The level of death with Ebola,” according to Mr. Trump, “was a virtual 100 percent.” (The average fatality rate is around 50 percent.) During the 1918 flu pandemic, “you had a 50/50 chance or very close of dying,” he said on Tuesday. (Estimates for the fatality rate for the 1918 flu are far below that.)
This week, as cities and states began locking down, stock markets tumbled and jobless claims hit record levels, Mr. Trump again played down the impact of the pandemic and said, with no evidence and contrary to available research, that a recession would be deadlier than the coronavirus.
Overstating potential treatments and policies
The president has also dispensed a steady stream of optimism when discussing countermeasures against the virus.
From later February to early March, Mr. Trump repeatedly promised that a vaccine would be available “relatively soon” despite being told by public health officials and pharmaceutical executives that the process would take 12 to 18 months. Later, he promoted treatments that were still unproven against the virus, and suggested that they were “approved” and available though they were not.
Outside of medical interventions, Mr. Trump has exaggerated his own policies and the contributions of the private sector in fighting the outbreak. For example, he imprecisely described a website developed by a company affiliated with Google, wrongly said that insurers were covering the cost of treatment for Covid-19 when they only agreed to waive co-payments for testing, and prematurely declared that automakers were making ventilators “right now.”
Often, he has touted his complete “shut down” or “closing” of the United States to visitors from affected countries (in some cases leading to confusion and chaos). But the restrictions he has imposed on travel from China, Iran and 26 countries in Europe do not amount to a ban or closure of the borders. Those restrictions do not apply to American citizens, permanent residents, their immediate families, or flight crews.
Not only were these restrictions total and absolute in Mr. Trump’s telling, they were also imposed on China “against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right.” His health and human services secretary, however, has previously said that the restrictions were imposed on the recommendations of career health officials. The Times has also reported that Mr. Trump was skeptical before deciding to back the restrictions at the urging of some aides.
Blaming others
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent test kits to states in February, some of which were flawed and produced inconclusive readings. Problems continued to grow as scientists and state officials warned about restrictions on who could be tested and the availability of tests overall. Facing criticism over testing and medical supplies, Mr. Trump instead shifted responsibility to a variety of others.
It was the Obama administration that “made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing,” he said on March 4. This was a misleading reference to draft guidance issued in 2014 on regulating laboratory-developed tests, one that was never finalized or enforceable. A law enacted in 2004 created the process and requirements for receiving authorization to use unapproved testing products in health emergencies.
The test distributed by the World Health Organization was never offered to the United States and was “a bad test,” according to Mr. Trump. It’s true that the United States typically designs and manufactures its own diagnostics, but there is no evidence that the W.H.O. test was unreliable.
As for the shortage of ventilators cited by Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Trump has misleadingly said that the governor declined to address the issue in 2015 when he “had the chance to buy, in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down.”
A 2015 report establishing New York’s guidelines on ventilator allocation estimated that, in the event of a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 flu, the state would “likely have a shortfall of 15,783 ventilators during peak demand.” But the report did not actually recommend increasing the stockpile and noted that purchasing more was not a cure-all solution as there would not be enough trained health care workers to operate them.
Rewriting history
Since the severity of the pandemic became apparent, the president has defended his earlier claims through false statements and revisionism.
He has denied saying things he said. Pressed on Tuesday about his pronouncements in March that testing was “perfect,” Mr. Trump said he had been simply referring to the conversation he had in July with the president of Ukraine that ultimately led to the House impeaching him. In fact, he had said “the tests are all perfect” like the phone call.
He has compared his government’s response to the current coronavirus pandemic (“one of the best”) favorably to the Obama administration’s response to the H1N1 epidemic of 2009 to 2010 (“a full scale disaster”). In doing so, Mr. Trump has falsely claimed that former President Barack Obama did not declare the epidemic an emergency until thousands had died (a public health emergency was declared days before the first reported death in the United States) and falsely said the previous administration “didn’t do testing” (they did).
At times, Mr. Trump has marveled at the scale of the pandemic, arguing that “nobody would ever believe a thing like that’s possible” and that it “snuck up on us.”
There have been a number of warnings about both a generic worldwide pandemic and the coronavirus specifically. A 2019 government report said that “the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease.” A simulation conducted last year by the Department of Health and Human Services modeled an outbreak of a rapidly spreading virus. And top government officials began sounding the alarms about the coronavirus in early January.
Despite his history of false and misleading remarks, Mr. Trump has also asserted, “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
The number of COVID-19 infections is now doubling in the US every three days.
100K; 200K; 400K; 800K; 1,600K; 3,200K; 6,400K; 12,800K; 25,600K
That’s 24 days at the current rate. 25.6 million cases. New Orleans has 350 available ICU beds.
I meant to write “Louisiana.” Louisiana has 350 ICU beds available for the entire state.
Perhaps shelter in place will blunt this rate of increase. But we’re in trouble.
Trump is repeatedly shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. His never-ending lies have already caused several deaths since he took office. Just a few days ago, his lies about a dangerous drug caused one man to take them and he died.
This is more proof that he is unfit for office.
“After Trump Hyped Chloroquine as a Covid-19 Cure, a Man Died Trying to Self-Medicate With a Version of the Chemical Used to Clean Fish Tanks”
“The First Amendment does not protect “fighting words” which, by being said, cause injury or cause an immediate breach of the peace. Despite what many seem to think, especially Trump and his base, the “freedom of speech” guarantee in the Constitution doesn’t give you the right to say anything you want, anywhere you want. The First Amendment makes it unconstitutional for the government to suppress speech (and “expression” as it has come to include). While freedom of speech is one of our fundamental rights, there are limitations. … As a general rule, limitations on free speech preclude speech that is harmful to others, threatening, or generally repulsive and reviled.”
How many Americans have to die before Moscow Mitch and the GOP McConnel controls stops Trump by removing him from office using the 25th Amendment?
“The Hurdles to Removing a President Under the 25th Amendment”
https://www.lawfareblog.com/hurdles-removing-president-under-25th-amendment
The GOP will never remove Trump from office. They had their chance and they refused. We have to do it.
I know. Sad! We cannot get rid of the irrational, malignant narcissist, psychopathic monster in the White House.
“As a general rule, limitations on free speech preclude speech that is harmful to others, threatening, or generally repulsive and reviled.”
Fox is telling Trump that the country needs to get back to work. Medical experts shouldn’t be guiding politics, etc.
Why is Fox allowed to get away with lies that will be responsible for killing people? This is talk that is harmful to people in this country and nothing is being done because they are the “truth tellers” against all that “fake news” that wants to make the president look bad.
DISGUSTING! DISGUSTING! DISGUSTING! DISGUSTING
“Fox is telling Trump that the country needs to get back to work. Medical experts shouldn’t be guiding politics,”
The same way, meteorologists shouldn’t advise people to stay home when a hurricane is coming, geologists shouldn’t advise people to evacuate when big earthquake is coming or a volcano is about to erupt.
Soon, 2+2=4 will only be a rigid liberal opinion.
Mathematical Conspiracies
Square root of a negative one
“e” and “π” and other “fun”
These are simply Liberal plots
Meant to tie us up in knots
Gauss and Euler, front-runners of the liberal knot knitters.
I think this is poem is going to be hard to best.
Math Conspiracies (2)
Gauss and Euler set the stage
For the present Liberal Age
Threw the right wing for a loop
With their math rotation group
Lloyd, could you cite the quote:
“The First Amendment does not protect “fighting words” which, by being said, cause injury or cause an immediate breach of the peace. Despite what many seem to think, especially Trump and his base, the “freedom of speech” guarantee in the Constitution doesn’t give you the right to say anything you want, anywhere you want. The First Amendment makes it unconstitutional for the government to suppress speech (and “expression” as it has come to include). While freedom of speech is one of our fundamental rights, there are limitations. … As a general rule, limitations on free speech preclude speech that is harmful to others, threatening, or generally repulsive and reviled.”
I love this, but I haven’t been able to find it.
I don’t know if I can find all the links.
How about this one?
“Fighting words are, as first defined by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), words which ‘by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.’
“Fighting words are a category of speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment. Further, as seen below, the scope of the fighting words doctrine has between its creation in Chaplinsky and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of it today. …
Then there are four SCOTOS cases listed that involve the Fighting Words Doctrine (they make it clear that is not the complete list):
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words
I think this makes it crystal clear that Trump’s endless lies are a danger to the quality of life in this country, to life itself, and are a growing threat to social interest, order, and morality.
Can Trump be sued for the words he has used?
We will have to wait until he is out of the White House to find out.
Trump takes everything personally. He is holding a grudge against New York because it along with California has stood up to Trump. It is despicable that he would refuse to send much needed ventilators to a state that has been so hard hit by Covid-19.
Same w/Illinois. He is angry w/Gov. Pritzker because he stood up to him. Chicago Mayor Lightfoot has done the same.
It’s time for Cuomo to turn the Trump tower into a hospital, sell all the furniture and other valuables there and buy ventilators.
And, of course, close the borders of NY to the president.
Lock him out of NY. Lock Him Out!
Great idea!!
An excellent suggestion, Mate! It’s such a blight on the city anyway.
Wow, love that, Mate! & Trump Tower in Chicago, too!
& everywhere else!
(& also your border closure idea!)
retiredbutmissthekids: Pritzker and Trump have had a few words. I’d LOVE to see Trump Tower Chicago turned into a hospital. Great IDEA!!
Maybe this GREAT idea could spread around the US and the world.
I think we can all play a role on providing oversight on how the Trump Administration spends the billions of dollars in relief funds that are supposed to go to the public.
The Trump employees are wholly corrupt. They won’t be able to resist stealing it. I can guarantee huge sums will go to their relatives, friends and political cronies. It’s going to be a free for all of corruption and graft.
The signing, today, took half an hour because a whole bunch of Trumpty toadies had to take turns thanking the president for his remarkable leadership in getting these checks out to workers and small businesses. You can bet that the Faux News State Propaganda Network will be playing excerpts from that over and over.
And then there were “President Trumps Coronavirus Guidelines for America.” So even the CDC response has to be Trump-branded.
I think the next Republican president will be worse than Trumpty Dumpty.
I just received my “President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America.”
WHAT A PILE OF HORSE SHIT! He is taking credit for telling Americans do what he originally opposed. [Remember when the number will go down to 0 and everything is being handled SO well.]
Just because the liberal media reports that the numbers are going up, it doesn’t mean, the numbers are not already at 0.
Also, who cares about what’s happening in other countries, like in Italy? Our country is uniquely equipped to protect itself. Its citizens have guns to protect themselves against anything, a puny little foreign virus notwithstanding.
Coronavirus Cure
Coronavirus ain’t no match
For AR with a “bump” attached
When Covid comes a knockin here
I’ll let em have it, have no fear
“Hold on son, All American Boy, stay still, while I’m shooting them viruses in your lungs. They’ll think twice before attacking you again! They’ll never dare to leave Gina again.”
Grandma had a string of successful massage parlors, but the government shut down all Nana’s sensual businesses. –Andrew Calhoun, Punned-it.
Mate, you have eased my mind considerably.
You guys evidently haven’t heard. President Trump plans, for Easter, to draw a circle around the United States, with a sharpie and to write “No Caronavirus Hear” in the middle of the circle. So, Mate, you can stop shooting the virus in people’s lungs then.
“The Right to kill viruses”
Hold on son
American boy
I’ve a gun
That’s not a toy
Gun will kill
The virus dead
Just hold still
Your pretty head
SomeDAM, this could be come the Flor-uh-duh state anthem!
The Secondary Amendment: “The right to scare germs”
Elections, 2020
Trumpty Dumpty wanted a wall.
He wanted it big; he wanted it tall.
Driven by terror of those with brown skin,
He got propagandists to give it some spin,
For there was no depth of utter insanity
Too murky for Carlson and Ingram and Hannity,
But next came the virus denial and then
All the spin doctors of all Fox and Friends
Couldn’t put Trumpty together again.
Excellent!
love it!
Poor Trumpty.
The professional public school critics are already hard at work…criticizing public schools response to the crisis:
Instead of paying thousands of people three figure annual salaries to criticize public schools what if we paid thousands of people to actually assist public schools in handling the crisis? Wouldn’t that make more sense and be a better use of public funds?
I agree. The NYT editorial starts out by noting the inequitable access of school students to internet. That’s just one piece of vast social inequities– which schools are supposed to solve single-handedly?
“No district examined by the center had “a clear solution for ensuring that 100 percent of students have a … device and reliable, long-term access to the internet.”
Gee I wonder why not.
Could it be: Public schools do not, generally speaking, deliver education via the internet! So why would they have such a system in place? Any districts that require students to use internet, e.g., for delivery of hw assnts, must make alt arrgts for those w/o at-home devices/ connection. Obviously, districts [like my AP sis’ in upstate NY– probably more common than not] where the majority of students lack at-home devices/ connection are NOT going to have that “in place,” because it can’t be implemented for all students.
Your average school system has MINIMUM 20% kids free/ reduced lunch [most likely also lacking devices/ connection], so such a set-up is not going to be “in place,” sitting on the shelf in case of natl emergency school shutdowns. Ergo, $$ is included in covid-19 rescue bills to help districts get it off the ground– & due to our vast social inequities [as reflected in pubschsys], it will doubtless be patchy, incl on-the-fly bandaids like parked schoolbus hot-spots & teachers scrambling for eqpt & curriculum. They should be praised, not bashed, for whatever they can come up with.
Virus modelers factor in a new public health risk: Accusations their work is a hoax
Coronavirus projections show the danger of ending social distancing too early, while Trump and some conservatives question the evidence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-models-politized-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_evening_edition&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_evening
ABC News: Trump abruptly demands ramped-up ventilator production after downplaying need.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-abruptly-demands-ramped-ventilator-production-downplaying/story?id=69835999
Trump Is Now Openly Trying to Censor His Critics. He May Succeed.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/trump-political-ad-cease-and-desist-letter.html?sid=5a271b0c15dd96a5728b5ffa&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=TheSlatest&utm_campaign=traffic
The President’s mendacious nightly press briefings on the coronavirus will go down in history for their monumental flimflammery.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/the-trump-oclock-follies?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_032720&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67b913f92a41245df0c6d&cndid=45272181&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily
The failures and incompetence of the Trump administration began before he was inaugurated. One of the legally mandated briefings that were part of the transition between administrations was about the threat of a pandemic very much like the one we’re are now enduring. Read the article to learn about the cascade of failures that set us on the path to today. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797
I think Trump uses a simple, very effective technique teenagers use all the time. I’d call the technique “continuously creating excuses in advance”.
So when he says “I am going to open our country for business by Easter”, he may or may not believe in what he is saying. But he knows that many people ask the question “When is this whole thing end?” And when people complain about the hardships of closed businesses, Trump can say “Well, I wanted to open the country, but these people in Congress wouldn’t let me.” And if, for whatever reason, the country does open on Easter, he can say “I promised you that I’ll open the country for business, and I kept my word.”
This way, he simply cannot lose in front of his fans. He is always with them, he always wants to do what they want, and if what he wants doesn’t happen, it’s because of all these others in Government or media.
Teenagers do this all the time (I certainly did it back then, 100 years ago): brag to the other teenagers what they they are going to do, like how they are going to get everybody alcohol, and if they do not succeed, it’s because of deplorable naysayers like mom or police.
Brag, promise, complain, then brag, promise, complain, and do this dycle endlessly. It works, let’s face it.
I have been thinking the same thing in another way. Since those teens want to keep their friends the same way trump wants to keep his voting base, and since, like a teen’s friend group, his voting base is everything to him, this behavior is not surprising.
This is how I see Republicians playing the game. They insist that the virus is not so bad. This makes the democrats be the bearer of all the bad news. Or it makes the scientists be the bearer of bad news. No one likes bad news. Then he will take credit with good news when the bearers of bad news get their way and we get out of this thing.
Scientist will give a more distant vaccine date, because to fail to meet the deadline set arbitrarily close would de-legitimize them. But Trump is no scientist, and nothing makes him appear illegitimate to his voters so he runs no risk. So all Trump has to do is to do exactly what his medical people say and tell people they are making him do it. Everyone who doubts the severity of this virus will recall that somehow he knew what he was doing. Like your teen, he does know what he is doing. The pernicious effects of what he is doing will long be felt.
“Brag, promise, complain, then brag, promise, complain, and do this dycle endlessly”
Trump is a repeating densimal
SDP,
You forgot “ridicule, attack, mock, and belittle” in the Trump cycle of rhetoric.
Rational Irrationals
Trump’s a repeating densimal
Repeating stupid lies
Utterly reprehensible
Pretending to be wise
“I did it 100 years ago.” When my son was five, he asked me, “Daddy, did you know President Lincoln personally?” I had to explain to him that ours wasn’t a particularly close relationship.
Year before last, one of my students, in class, asked, “How old are you, Mr. Shepherd?”
I answered, “Well, let’s see, Alexander sacked the city of Tyre in 332 BCE, so. . . .”
A few days later–I’m not making this up–my Principal got a call from a parent saying, “That Mr. Shepherd’s a crazy person. He thinks he’s thousands of years old.” Which was, of course, half right.
On my 30th birthday, still in grad school and in good shape since I was the goalie for the Ohio State water polo team, I told my students that this was my birthday. They asked me how old I was. As a math prof, I never liked giving out answers right away, so I conducted a survey. Only one student put me under 40, and the vast majority put me between 50 and 60. I asked them for the reason, and they said “because of your lack of hair”. They explained to me, helpfully, that in this country, only old people are bald.
He’s had three years to replenish supplies and prepare our country for this inevitability. Instead he dismantled the pandemic prevention team set up by Obama and now issues his steady stream of blame and deflection. With leadership like this who needs Russian interference?
Callisto: I wish the media would refuse to go to Trump’s daily ‘press conferences’. It’s very obvious by now that all he wants is free time to bloviate. He’s now found an even bigger audience for his lies than the ego campaign rallies.
I agree, Carolm, it’s time for the media not to report anything Trump says. Just don’t mention his name. That would give him a heart attack, plus his lies would stay in his inner circles.
The media has the power to create a world without Trump, and they should use it. The World would benefit.
The American maibstream media made Trump and he continues to make them billions of dollars.
They ain’t about to give that up simply to save lives.
Not incidentally, they media absolutely love it when Trump calls them fake news because it sets the stage for a classic battle.
This is old news from NYT, but what a disgusting way for a president to act. it shows immaturity and lack of compassion.
…………………………………..
And he attacked Democratic governors for being insufficiently grateful for his efforts.
“Think of it, 22 days ago we had the greatest economy in the world,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference. “Everything was going beautifully. The stock market hit an all-time high again for the over 150th time during my presidency.”
He singled out the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, and the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, for his prime time scorn.
Mr. Inslee, he said, was “a failed presidential candidate” who was “constantly tripping and complaining.” Ms. Whitmer “has no idea what’s going on,” he said.
He then said he told Vice President Mike Pence, his coronavirus coordinator, to stop calling Mr. Inslee and Ms. Whitmer: “Don’t call the woman in Michigan, doesn’t make any difference,” he said of Ms. Whitmer.
“Very simple. I want them to be appreciative,” he said, saying his administration has “done a hell of a job.”
Every awful thing said about Trump is true and then some. However, in the absence of an effective Democratic opposition (still, I’m asking, where the Hell is Joe Biden???), the majority of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of this crisis. We need to get past the notion that Biden can handle this. He can’t even handle a livestream. And, no, Andrew Cuomo may be “looking presidential” the past few days, but he’s not the answer either (I’ll link a couple of articles showing how he’s just as much part of the problem). There is only one person who has been in front of this crisis all along, and he’s still running for president (and Nathan Robinson should be his vice president): https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/everything-has-changed-overnight
dienne: Thursday night, Anderson Cooper had an interview w/Bernie (who, despite his recent heart attack, was in the Senate chambers to vote; you know, that doofus Repugnant Senator who demanded that the vote only take place in person?). So, of course, Coop interviewed
Biden yesterday. (I think it was a much longer interview.) I listened to very little…couldn’t bear to watch/listen. So–that’s where he was (interviewed from his home).
Anyway, I watched Democracy Now this morning, & they had a brief clip of IQ’s briefing from Thursday or Friday, & Betsy DeVos was, this time, standing next to him. Anyone hear the whole briefing, what she was doing there?!
Hdienne77, have you seen the comments after Bernie’s twitter post? All of them are from the far right. For example,
I situation like this, God is in total control.
@realDonaldTrump
knows that God needs to be worshipped no matter how the evil tries to make ppl stay in their homes and worship lucifer through watching destructive holyweird movies. God bless America and God bless Trump
and
This is a natural position for Bernie to take, he’s a communist. Communists hate God and seek to replace God with the almighty state. This whole scenario has been a dream come true for Bernie. Be doesn’t want to see it come to an end just yet.
They are coming in by the hundreds.
Dienne77 asks, “Where the hell is Joe Biden???”
He’s at home doing what the rest of the country is supposed to be doing, in self-isolation.
What can Joe Biden do? He doesn’t hold public office. He isn’t a member of Congress. He isn’t a governor. He isn’t even an elected member of his state legislature.
Oh, wait, he is doing something, … from his home.
“Live broadcasts, online fundraising, one-on-one calls: How the Biden campaign is adjusting its tactics amid the coronavirus”
… “From his home in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden told reporters on a call Friday that his campaign had hired a professional team to set up the ability to broadcast live on television networks from there — potentially with the small group of reporters that travels with his campaign present. He said he aims to be up and running by Monday, holding regular briefings on the response to the coronavirus pandemic and answering questions from reporters.” …
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/joe-biden-coronavirus-campaign-tactics/index.html
God is in control and God bless Trump.
I’ve read stories of ministers who KNOW that having their full congregation meet and pray will keep coronavirus away. How about that looney tele-minister who had his worshipers put their hands on their TV screens and ‘touch his outstretched hand’ to be cured?
My Trump friend didn’t like the news that came from the CDC or Johns Hopkins because it was anti-American. She doesn’t read fake news that bashes Trump.
This country has a lot of loose screws walking around.
I do believe it will come crashing down upon Trump. Because of his ineptitude we are on the same path as Italy. Our curve of infections are just starting. $1200 is not enough to help. Since this package that bails out industries costs $2 trillion, doubt that there will be another check. We ‘can’t bankrupt the government by giving out checks to needy people.’
Trump, who wants oversight into how stimulus money is spent, wants it to go to hotels and cruise ships. Cruise ships, to avoid paying US taxes, are mostly registered in other countries. They shouldn’t qualify for anything. Trump and his children shouldn’t profit from this but I’m sure the Orange Moron will figure out how to get around that restriction.
God bless Trump. In the midst of answering a question about the ongoing trade war with China President Donald Trump turned from reporters, looked to heavens and proclaimed, “I am the chosen one.”
Andrew Cuomo is not the answer: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/andrew-cuomo-medicaid-coronavirus
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/stop-trying-to-make-andrew-cuomo-happen
Are you saying, Dienne,
That Andrew Cuomo
Is just Donald Trump,
But run in slo-mo?
Cuomo has been an effective communicator during this crisis but bear in mind that most of his campaign funding came from Wall Street and he has declared himself the champion for charter schools. I think he hates public schools and teachers.
What’s the question?
If Cuomo is the answer
Remind me of the question
A neolib enhancer
Will never cure congestion
I know Diane’s comments forum isn’t the place to promote my own blog, which is why I’ve never done so and only do it now–and probably for the only time ever–advisedly.
That said, the only thing I have to add to yet another sophisticated and gratifying colloquy in these pages (i.e. this one) is this:
For students seeking to understand the president’s response to the COVID19 crisis, here is a lesson plan on personality disorders: https://wp.me/p50jv5-4tO
Thanks.
Perfect, Mark. And if you won’t shamelessly promote your blog, I will. So many great resources, there, everyone, for teachers and kids!!! And all the free offerings of the teeming mind of this great teacher!
As always, Bob, I am grateful to you. I’ve actually been quite busy preparing new material, fretting over posting documents under copyright (e.g. a book of origami instructions I scanned as PDFs and now want to put out there for parents of young kids), and publishing 10-12 posts a day.
I always, however, have Diane’s blog open in a tab and follow these forums closely. I don’t know about anybody else, but the voices of reason in this forum, even in disagreement (or perhaps especially in disagreement) in this forum are my connection to social stability and sanity.
Thank you, Mark. Feel free to link to your blog here anytime.
Thank you Diane!
Countries that have flattened the curve made testing widely and freely available, using innovative approaches like mass drive-thru test centers. South Korea has been conducting around 12,000-15,000 tests every day, and has the capacity to do 20,000 daily. While it is hard to get accurate estimates, the CDC reports that only around 25,000 tests have been conducted in total nationwide by CDC or public health labs in the U.S.—compare this with the roughly 250,000 tests that South Korea has done to date.
Behind a paywall at Daily Beast, “Fiona Hill: Trump’s Corona Virus Talk Sounds a Lot Like Russia’s”
Not surprising. We know where Trump gets his orders.
Excellent comments.
I would add concerning Cuomo, Democracy Now exposed HIS OWN ineptness in preparing for the crisis.
Too
How can ANY society exist based on lies? Post [truths], alternate “truth’. one builds on something less even than sand. Mind boggling.
I think it’s best to pay no attention to Trump. He just tries to confuse us.
Birx Spins ‘Extraordinarily Low Numbers’ of Coronavirus Cases
Posted on March 27, 2020
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, misleadingly claimed that 19 states — “almost 40% of the country” — “have less than 200 cases” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. In fact, 17 states with 7.2% of the U.S. population have fewer than 200 confirmed cases each.
Birx made her remarks at a task force press briefing at the White House on March 26 on a day when the United States passed China and became the country with the most confirmed coronavirus cases in the world. As of March 26, the U.S. had more than 83,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,200 deaths, according to data collected by John Hopkins University…
At the same briefing, President Donald Trump spoke about wanting to soon open “large sections of our country that aren’t so seriously affected.” The president has said he would “love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” as he put it during a Fox News virtual town hall on March 24.
Public health officials have warned that going back to business in a couple of weeks would worsen the coronavirus outbreak. “This disease will not respect state borders and city borders, and will move around this country just like it’s moved around the world,” Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the New York Times…
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/birx-spins-extraordinarily-low-numbers-of-coronavirus-cases/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pug
800,000 Doctors Demand Trump End Dangerous Campaign Against Social Distancing
March 28, 2020
A coalition of physicians’ groups warned that Trump’s proposals would jeopardize the lives of millions of Americans.
A council representing more than 800,000 doctors across the U.S. signed a letter Friday imploring President Donald Trump to reverse his call for businesses to reopen by April 12, warning that the president’s flouting of the guidance of public health experts could jeopardize the health of millions of Americans and throw hospitals into even more chaos as they fight the coronavirus pandemic…
https://truthout.org/articles/800000-doctors-demand-trump-end-dangerous-campaign-against-social-distancing/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons
I haven’t been watching the daily briefings (see pertinent clips & reports on Democracy Now, read the newspapers, watch different news outlets {not Fox, though}), but, in order to further protect ourselves, I, & everyone, have to remember the adage, “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”
Thanks for the info., Lloyd.
This is one reason that the US will follow the same direction as Italy. It takes a united front to combat this disease and we don’t have any decent leadership.
…………………………..
Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency virus measures, faces a torrent of false claims that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.
March 28, 2020
…An analysis by The New York Times found over 70 accounts on Twitter that have promoted the hashtag #FauciFraud, with some tweeting as frequently as 795 times a day. The anti-Fauci sentiment is being reinforced by posts from Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group; Bill Mitchell, host of the far-right online talk show “YourVoice America”; and other outspoken Trump supporters such as Shiva Ayyadurai, who has falsely claimed to be the inventor of email.
Many of the anti-Fauci posts, some of which pointed to a seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci had sent praising Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of State, have been retweeted thousands of times. On YouTube, conspiracy-theory videos about Dr. Fauci have racked up hundreds of thousands of views in the past week. In private Facebook groups, posts disparaging him have also been shared hundreds of times and liked by thousands of people, according to the Times analysis.
One anti-Fauci tweet on Tuesday said, “Sorry liberals but we don’t trust Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
The torrent of falsehoods aimed at discrediting Dr. Fauci is another example of the hyperpartisan information flow that has driven a wedge into the way Americans think. For the past few years, far-right supporters of President Trump have regularly vilified those whom they see as opposing him. Even so, the campaign against Dr. Fauci stands out because he is one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts and a member of Mr. Trump’s virus task force, and it is unfolding as the government battles a pathogen that is rapidly spreading in the United States.
It is the latest twist in the ebb and flow of right-wing punditry that for weeks echoed Mr. Trump in minimizing the threat posed by the coronavirus and arguably undercut efforts to alert the public of its dangers. When the president took a more assertive posture against the outbreak, conservative outlets shifted, too — but now accuse Democrats and journalists of trying to use the pandemic to damage Mr. Trump politically…
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
28 March 20
…with everybody looking elsewhere, the administration* is taking advantage of the situation to do away with government functions of which Republicans have disapproved for decades. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency. From The Hill:
The temporary policy, for which the EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”…
The EPA has been under pressure from a number of industries, including the oil industry, to suspend enforcement of a number of environmental regulations due to the pandemic.
“EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. In a 10-page letter to the EPA earlier this week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) asked for a suspension of rules that require repairing leaky equipment as well as monitoring to make sure pollution doesn’t seep into nearby water…