Murder
Tweet of the day: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
A: No
There is so much going on, as we hunker down in our houses, social distancing, living in fear and dying by the tens of thousands. America was unprepared for the pandemic, intentionally so, as our elected leadership first fired the country's pandemic experts and then watched without responding as the epidemic began to flare up in China. No preparations were made, as the President insisted US cases would quickly go from fifteen to zero and the coronavirus would vanish "like a miracle." States and municipalities did what they could but resources were not, and are not, available. There are no masks, ventilators, hospital beds. Nobody imported them, manufactured them, ordered them. Our ability to address the epidemic diminishes as medical staff are exposed to the virus, getting sick, dying. I don't need to tell you this. It's bad. It affects all of us personally.
This morning we are reading about the federal government's decision not to send medical supplies to Michigan or Washington state. In Exchange for Aid, Trump Wants Praise From Governors He Can Use in Campaign Ads
In a press conference, the President reported what he had said to Mike Pence, who leads the pandemic response team:
"When the federal government told us that we needed to go it ourselves, we started procuring every item we could get our hands on," [Michigan governor Gretchen Esther] Whitmer said Friday on WWJ 950AM. "What I've gotten back is that vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to Michigan. It's really concerning." Whitmer: Feds told vendors not to send medical supplies to Michigan
We are used to the president's pettiness. He surrounds himself with sycophants. He likes to be "appreciated," he cannot stand to be criticized. We know that, it is all part of the reality-TV life we live now.
But this is murder. There is nothing cute or funny about it. He's not draining the swamp or speaking for the voiceless, he is simply arranging for people to die. It's just wrong. No American life should depend on whether they or their governor "shows appreciation" for someone in Washington DC. I know there are people who will defend him, but this does not meet the standard of a modern civilized society.
A: No
There is so much going on, as we hunker down in our houses, social distancing, living in fear and dying by the tens of thousands. America was unprepared for the pandemic, intentionally so, as our elected leadership first fired the country's pandemic experts and then watched without responding as the epidemic began to flare up in China. No preparations were made, as the President insisted US cases would quickly go from fifteen to zero and the coronavirus would vanish "like a miracle." States and municipalities did what they could but resources were not, and are not, available. There are no masks, ventilators, hospital beds. Nobody imported them, manufactured them, ordered them. Our ability to address the epidemic diminishes as medical staff are exposed to the virus, getting sick, dying. I don't need to tell you this. It's bad. It affects all of us personally.
This morning we are reading about the federal government's decision not to send medical supplies to Michigan or Washington state. In Exchange for Aid, Trump Wants Praise From Governors He Can Use in Campaign Ads
In a press conference, the President reported what he had said to Mike Pence, who leads the pandemic response team:
“I tell him — I mean I’m a different type of person — I say, 'Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan' ... If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call. ... When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA, it’s not right.”The governor of Michigan has told the press that federal officials have told medical supply vendors not to deliver critically necessary equipment to her state.
"When the federal government told us that we needed to go it ourselves, we started procuring every item we could get our hands on," [Michigan governor Gretchen Esther] Whitmer said Friday on WWJ 950AM. "What I've gotten back is that vendors with whom we had contracts are now being told not to send stuff here to Michigan. It's really concerning." Whitmer: Feds told vendors not to send medical supplies to Michigan
We are used to the president's pettiness. He surrounds himself with sycophants. He likes to be "appreciated," he cannot stand to be criticized. We know that, it is all part of the reality-TV life we live now.
But this is murder. There is nothing cute or funny about it. He's not draining the swamp or speaking for the voiceless, he is simply arranging for people to die. It's just wrong. No American life should depend on whether they or their governor "shows appreciation" for someone in Washington DC. I know there are people who will defend him, but this does not meet the standard of a modern civilized society.
posted by JimK at 2:50 PM
230 Comments:
"This morning we are reading about the federal government's decision not to send medical supplies to Michigan or Washington state."
problem is you only read sources that reinforce your Trump Derangement Syndrome
when Michigan needs the ventilators, they'll get them
America is not buying the anti-Trump spin
Americans approve how Trump is handling this crisis
this morning, the Post released a poll they took with ABC, that has Trump tied with Biden among registered voters
a big change from a couple of weeks ago
this should worry Dems for two reasons
1. Dems have historically needed to be significantly ahead to win; this is both because their base tends to not show up to vote and because the poll-takers are biased against the GOP
2. Dem support is generally concentrated in a few densely populated areas that they have focused on to the exclusion of the rest of the country but the system is designed to ensure the President has broad public support
how ironic that the Dems tried the hardest to make Coronavirus a Trump scandal and it is actually improving, perhaps ensuring, his re-election
Dems didn't try to make it "another Trump scandal."
Dems were raising the alarm that this virus should be taken very seriously.
For weeks, Rump downplayed the danger and called it "another impeachment hoax."
When it finally became obvious that it wasn't going to go away on its own "like a miracle," and it wasn't actually a "hoax," he finally started to take it seriously.
It wasn't Dems trying to make this a scandal - it was Republicans trying to paint Dems with "derangement syndrome" and "impeachment hoax" that tried to make it a political scandal.
Trump can make plenty of scandals on his own. He doesn't need Dems to make that happen.
You have to give credit to Rump where it's due though - Promises made, promises kept:
America First - Coronavirus Edition:
Confirmed cases by country:
US: 124,763
Italy: 92,472
China: 82,120
Spain: 78,797
Germany: 58,247
Iran: 38,309
Are you tired of winning yet?
"Dems didn't try to make it "another Trump scandal.""
yes, they did
they have repeatedly claimed that Trump was singularly incompetent in handling this crisis and has exacerbated
the American people, the court of opinion that counts, are ruling against the Dems
"Dems were raising the alarm that this virus should be taken very seriously."
this is a complete lie
when Trump ordered a ban on visitors from China, back in January, Biden said Trump was "fear-mongering"
the recognized top expert on this, Anthony Fauci, says Trump's action saved countless lives
since Biden opposed this life-saving action, we can conclude that Biden would have cost lives if he had been in charge
"For weeks, Rump downplayed the danger and called it "another impeachment hoax.""
the hoax was not the virus, it was that he had not handled it correctly
"When it finally became obvious that it wasn't going to go away on its own "like a miracle," and it wasn't actually a "hoax," he finally started to take it seriously."
and yet, on a daily basis, Dems and the media continue to focus on Trump rather than solving the problem
one day, they were aghast that he banned European travelers
then, there was the obsession with how racist he was to call it the "China virus"
then, they tried to imply some tension between Trump and Fauci when Fausi didn't come to the daily briefing
then, they said he was lying when he mentioned anecdotal evidence of an anti-malaria drug (btw, Cuomo said the same and is now testing the drug in NYC)
then, he was having too many press conferences (that became a problem for them when it became obvious the voters approved)
"It wasn't Dems trying to make this a scandal"
it was, and is
"Trump can make plenty of scandals on his own. He doesn't need Dems to make that happen."
if that were true, Dems wouldn't be so frantic
"You have to give credit to Rump where it's due though - Promises made, promises kept:'
no promises were made
he tried to stop the virus from entering the US and Dems called him a "fear-monger"
their soulmates in Europe allowed this to go global
"America First - Coronavirus Edition:
Confirmed cases by country:
US: 124,763"
most of which are in NY and California
"Are you tired of winning yet?"
well, November is going to be a lot of fun
after getting a small bump by convincing all swamp creatures to turn against Bernie, Biden is doing what he does best: decline
Biden has run for President multiple time and it's always been a disaster
the only reason he's being considered now is because an inexperienced Obama chose him as his running mate
no one has ever served in the Senate as long as Biden did and been elected President
Americans don't like long-time Senators
"they have repeatedly claimed that Trump was singularly incompetent in handling this crisis and has exacerbated"
Yeah, well that happens when you spend 2 months blaming the problem on the Dems and don't take it seriously until after it has already spread exponentially.
"when Trump ordered a ban on visitors from China, back in January, Biden said Trump was "fear-mongering"
Yeah, Rump has a way of focusing on the wrong things and turning it into a dog whistle for racists.
The problem wasn't "visitors from China," the problem was anyone who might be infected coming from China - including American citizens coming back from China. If his administration had been on the ball, perhaps with a pandemic response office, everyone - including American citizens - would have at least had their temperature taken upon arriving in the US, and put sick people - including American citizens - in quarantine until it was safe to release them, rather than letting them go back home to spread the virus around. The problem isn't China or the Chinese people. The problem is a virus - it doesn't care what nationality you are.
"the hoax was not the virus, it was that he had not handled it correctly"
Try and re-write history all you like, but you're only convincing yourself.
"and yet, on a daily basis, Dems and the media continue to focus on Trump rather than solving the problem"
And yet, on a daily basis, Repubs and right-wing media continue to focus on Dems rather than fixing the slow and chaotic response of the president. He told governors to go and buy their own equipment, and then outbid them on it multiple times - wasting time and efforts that could have been spent saving people's lives.
"then, they tried to imply some tension between Trump and Fauci when Fausi (sic) didn't come to the daily briefing"
Fauci has to correct the stupid stuff Rump says on a daily basis. If Rump was half the "very stable genius" he thinks he is, he'd shut up entirely and let Fauci do all the talking.
"then, they said he was lying when he mentioned anecdotal evidence of an anti-malaria drug (btw, Cuomo said the same and is now testing the drug in NYC)"
No. Rump tweeted “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
It was Fauci that had to explain: “The president was talking about hope," that it was a very small and flawed test, and anecdotal.
Rump also erroneously claimed that the FDA had approved it to treat COVID-19. It still has not.
Meanwhile, some people are so enamored of his "medical advice," it has turned dangerous, with a man and his wife trying to immunize themselves with the chloroquine in fish tank cleaner.
Again, it would be better if Rump shut up and let Fauci do the talking.
"if that were true, Dems wouldn't be so frantic"
Dems aren't frantic. They're disgusted with what Rump is doing. And we're thanking God that he hasn't fired Fauci yet for not being "loyal" enough.
"most of which are in NY and California"
Indeed - those are also where the population is the most dense, and has the largest segments of their residents traveling all around the world. Other places are just behind them on the infection scale. Until we start testing folks on a massive scale and isolating the ones exposed - like they did in South Korea - this virus is just going to continue to spread here.
We're all only six degrees from Kevin Bacon. The coronavirus looks like it's even closer.
"well, November is going to be a lot of fun"
I just hope the virus is under control by then. If folks don't vote Rump out of office, they get what they deserve.
"no one has ever served in the Senate as long as Biden did and been elected President"
And no black man had ever been US president until Obama won.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 3h
“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 3h
...On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to Nielsen — ‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News...
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 3h
...alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom...
"Yeah, well that happens when you spend 2 months blaming the problem on the Dems and don't take it seriously until after it has already spread exponentially."
he didn't blame Dems for the pandemic
he blamed them for their reaction
Trump too it very seriously from the beginning
he immediately banned travelers from China, saving lives
Biden, the current Dem leader, called him a "fear-monger"
you can't rewrite history
"Yeah, Rump has a way of focusing on the wrong things and turning it into a dog whistle for racists."
Dems' constant endeavor to incite racial tension is among the many reasons Americans will reject them in the fall
"The problem wasn't "visitors from China," the problem was anyone who might be infected coming from China"
we didn't have time for fine distinctions, the world was looking at a looming pandemic
Europe took your approach and, as a result, hundreds of thousands will die
"Try and re-write history all you like, but you're only convincing yourself."
sounds to me as if you're the one that can't convince Americans of your warped views
most of them agree with me
"and yet, on a daily basis, Dems and the media continue to focus on Trump rather than solving the problem"
"Fauci has to correct the stupid stuff Rump says on a daily basis. If Rump was half the "very stable genius" he thinks he is, he'd shut up entirely and let Fauci do all the talking."
Trump gives the layman's view, Fauci provides the scientific perspective
Trump pays the Dr appropriate deference
Dems are simply mad because Trump is speaking and Americans are responding favorably
get used to it
you have to make it through four and a half years beyond now
"No. Rump tweeted “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”
It was Fauci that had to explain: “The president was talking about hope," that it was a very small and flawed test, and anecdotal."
I don't think he said "flawed"
when someone is dying with little hope, they can't wait for the FDA to spend 18 months
doesn't take an Einstein to see that
"Rump also erroneously claimed that the FDA had approved it to treat COVID-19. It still has not."
actually, Cuomo was also excited about the drug and the FDA approved letting him test on thousands of New Yorkers
"Meanwhile, some people are so enamored of his "medical advice," it has turned dangerous, with a man and his wife trying to immunize themselves with the chloroquine in fish tank cleaner."
Trump never suggested it not be a prescription drug or that you could ingest it mixed with cleanser
"Again, it would be better if Rump shut up and let Fauci do the talking."
better for Dems chances in the election, that is
"Dems aren't frantic."
oh, yes
they are
"If folks don't vote Rump out of office, they get what they deserve."
we agree on that
"And no black man had ever been US president until Obama won."
there was never any rational reason why a black man couldn't be President
you can't say that about career Senators
President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...
and America likes what it sees
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/28/trumps-approval-is-spiking-and-the-left-cant-stand-it/
"Trump too it very seriously from the beginning"
Keep trying to rewrite history. It won't work:
US intelligence officials reportedly warned President Donald Trump and Congress about the threats posed by the novel coronavirus beginning in early January — weeks before the White House and lawmakers began implementing stringent public health measures and as the president minimized the threat posed by the virus in his tweets and public statements.
The fact those warnings were largely disregarded — something first reported by the Washington Post’s Shane Harris, Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima — suggests Trump administration officials failed to take action that could have prepared the health care system to handle an influx of patients, helped Americans avoid mass social distancing, and saved lives.
Top health officials first learned of the virus’s spread in China on January 3, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday. Throughout January and February, intelligence officials’ warnings became more and more urgent, according to the Post — and by early February, much of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA’s intelligence reports were dedicated to warnings about Covid-19.
All the while, Trump downplayed the virus publicly, telling the public the coronavirus “is very well under control in our country,” and suggesting warm weather would neutralize the threat the virus poses.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!
5:42 PM - Feb 24, 2020
Privately, Trump reportedly rebutted health and intelligence officials’ attempts to get him to take action to prepare communities in the US while rebuking officials who were delivering sober risk assessments.
For instance, in late February, when Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said, “It’s not a question of if [community spread] will happen, but when this will happen, and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” Trump reportedly responded by calling Azar to complain “that Messonnier was scaring the stock markets, according to two senior administration officials."
The administration did begin taking some limited action about a month after Azar says the administration first began receiving warnings, blocking non-citizens who had been to China in the last two weeks from entering the country on February 3 — a move public experts have argued at best bought the US time to ramp up its testing capabilities, which it did not use, and at worst had no beneficial effects at all. (Note that citizens, who were just as able to carry the virus, were allowed in without any testing.)
Trump finally assembled a task force to address the virus, putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the effort on February 26, and declared a national emergency on March 13. And, just this week — nearly three months after first receiving warnings from his intelligence officials — the president’s public tone about the crisis shifted: “I’ve always known this is a real — this is a pandemic,” he said Tuesday as he admitted, “[the virus is] not under control for any place in the world.”
Rump wasted 2 months of critical time that could have been used for testing and contact tracing. If he had told governors what his intelligence reports were telling him, they could have started to prepare for the pandemic, even if he thought it was a hoax. He simply didn't do that, putting American lives at risk.
"sounds to me as if you're the one that can't convince Americans of your warped views
most of them agree with me"
There are a LOT of Republican idiots out there. Just because they agree with you doesn't mean they're right.
Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDhm808oU4
"Europe took your approach and, as a result, hundreds of thousands will die"
No they didn't. You're just making stuff up again.
"Trump gives the layman's view, Fauci provides the scientific perspective"
You have an unmatched ability to spin. How come you're not working for the White House yet?
"when someone is dying with little hope, they can't wait for the FDA to spend 18 months
doesn't take an Einstein to see that"
The WHO and other countries had tests that were already working for CV. Trump could have started using those right away. Instead he had the incompetent noobs he installed at the CDC try and come up with their own, which failed, and they had to go back and start again. US citizens shouldn't have to wait for months for a test that South Korea was already using effectively. It doesn't take an Einstein to see that.
"Trump never suggested it not be a prescription drug or that you could ingest it mixed with cleanser"
Well, I used to think that most people were smart enough to figure that out. But we're talking about Trump voters here, and well, to put it nicely, they're not Einsteins.
"Dems aren't frantic."
"oh, yes
they are"
I see you still believe you can read minds. Can you walk on water as well?
Of course your fortune telling abilities are legendary - like predicting McCain and Romney's "inevitable" wins.
Do you turn water into wine too?
"President Trump is a ratings hit."
Glad to see you and Rump are both focused on the most important thing right now during this pandemic - his ratings.
“Looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 [deaths], but I don’t want to be held to that,” Fauci said, cautioning that the number is a “moving target” that could change depending on a number of social and ecological factors.
“What we do know,” Fauci added, “is that we’ve got a serious problem in New York, we have a serious problem in New Orleans and we’re going to be developing serious problems in other areas.”
We'll see how long "America likes what it sees."
Nearly a dozen students at Liberty University, a private, evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia, are showing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, after coming back to campus after spring break, according to a New York Times report.
Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. is a staunch ally of President Donald Trump’s and has been one of the most outspoken opponents of social distancing guidance that has advised schools to avoid holding large, in-person gatherings.
Much like Trump, Falwell Jr. has routinely downplayed the impact of coronavirus, and made the baseless claim that North Korea and China developed the disease as a bioweapon to attack the United States.
By last week, about 1,900 students — of about 15,000 — were back on campus, a university spokesperson told Lynchburg’s News and Advance. By Sunday, Falwell Jr. told the Times, more than 800 of those students had left.
“Liberty will be notifying the community as deemed appropriate and required by law,” he said.
The head of Liberty’s student health service, Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr., told Falwell Jr. that the university had “lost the ability to corral this thing” before inviting potentially infected students back to campus, according to the Times. Eppes said he didn’t urge Falwell to close the school at that moment.
Elton John's IHeartRadio living room concert last night was heartening. Across America, amidst tragedy, citizens are coming together and pitching in. People are making masks, small businesses are making sanitizer, corporations are making respirators, neighbors are checking in on the elderly, health care workers bravely check in daily at work to face down death.
And TTFers, in their own characteristically social-disease style, frantically searches for a way to blame Trump.
If they were here in WWII, they'd be gripping about what FDR should have done sooner.
what a bunch of trash!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/fda-issues-emergency-authorization-of-anti-malaria-drug-for-coronavirus-care/ar-BB11SD0U?ocid=spartandhp
And TTFers, have already given sold out supplies to friends, offered to go grocery shopping for elderly neighbors, and contributed in other ways...
Like making sure misinformed conservative trolls take the contagion warnings seriously, instead of adopting the dangerous laissez-faire attitude that characterized the Rumpster early on, and still infects guys like Jerry Falwell Jr.
You should be thanking them.
"Like making sure misinformed conservative trolls take the contagion warnings seriously, instead of adopting the dangerous laissez-faire attitude that characterized the Rumpster early on, and still infects guys like Jerry Falwell Jr.
You should be thanking them."
no one here took anything more seriously earlier than anyone else
Dems were calling Trump a "fear-monger" when he stopped visitors from China
that was very early on
according to the experts, that saved lives
truth is, all kinds of approaches have taken place around the world, and none has proven successful everywhere
Italy took steps similar to South Korea and, obviously, it didn't work
closing borders is the most effective strategy but Trump waited too late to stop Europeans
all the Asian countries around China have done well but it's probably because they have experience with SARS
their populations simply know how to handle it better
even now, you see more Asian-Americans walking around with masks than the general population
we'll be ready next time
but it won't be thanks to whining TTFers
they claim they are "helping" by "making sure misinformed conservative trolls take the contagion warnings seriously" but they are much more focused on attacking Trump's actions early on
TTFers are trash
You forgot, we're still trashing Rump's actions because somehow he thinks it's more import to tweet about his appearance ratings than work on getting enough supplies out to the states.
Doesn't that piece of trash have something better to do?
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!
1:06 PM - Mar 29, 2020
This guy puts his own narcissism ahead of the needs of the country.
We don't need the "Lamestream Media" to tell us that - it comes across quite clear in his own words.
"You forgot, we're still trashing Rump's actions because somehow he thinks it's more import to tweet about his appearance ratings than work on getting enough supplies out to the states.
Doesn't that piece of trash have something better to do?"
oh, I see
you feel you have to attack Trump, in the midst of crisis, because he mentions that the public supports his actions and doesn't listen to the mainstream media
HOW DARE HE?
that makes TTF and CNN look reeeeeeally bad
LOL!!
"This guy puts his own narcissism ahead of the needs of the country."
oh, he's definitely a narcissist but how does that prevent doing what's best for the country?
sounds like you're just trash
Americans appreciate Trump's work on the crisis and think the Dems are trash
350 million fans can't be wrong
"oh, he's definitely a narcissist but how does that prevent doing what's best for the country?"
That's easy - the time he spends stroking his own ego about his ratings, or berating governors because they're not "nice" to him would be better spent how to allocate the limited number of new ventilators coming fairly to all the cities that need them.
Or figuring out how to get more PPE out to the hospitals that are currently (unsafely) reusing old ones and making new ones out of trash bags.
You would think some of the Republicans around him would clue him in on what his priorities should be in a crisis. Apparently they don't care either.
But you and he are fixated on his ratings numbers because you think it's making Dems "frantic."
I couldn't care less what his ratings are, and even his narcissism could be overlooked if he could just put it away for the duration of the pandemic. But clearly, he is incapable.
And for the record, TTFers aren't treating Rump any worse than conservatives treated Obama during his administration.
WASHINGTON — On March 13, the chief executives of CVS, Walgreens and Walmart stood by in the Rose Garden as President Trump described how he would enlist the retail and pharmacy outlets they operated across the nation to “vastly increase and accelerate our capacity to test for the coronavirus.”
After weeks of minimizing the coronavirus threat, Trump was finally taking it seriously. He used the March 13 address to declare a national emergency. And he described public-private efforts that would rapidly increase the number of Americans tested for the coronavirus, which causes a potentially fatal lower respiratory disease called COVID-19. That disease has killed more than 2,400 in the U.S., according to the latest statistics from a Johns Hopkins University database.
Testing had been slow to that point, but Trump signaled that was about to change. The leaders of the pharmacy and retail giants standing next to him appeared to be flesh-and-blood evidence of that redoubled effort.
“We’ve been in discussions with pharmacies and retailers to make drive-through tests available in the critical locations identified by public health professionals,” Trump said. He also described separate efforts to produce and distribute coronavirus testing kits.
But the promise of testing at local pharmacies, which Trump implied was at hand on a large scale, remains unrealized. Of the nation’s 67,000 pharmacies, only five sites currently have the capacity to test for the coronavirus through what an official called the Community-Based Testing Site program, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. If other pharmacies are testing, neither the federal government nor people in the pharmacy industry are aware of the effort.
The evident disconnect between Trump’s promise and on-the-ground reality is reflected in a sign that, according to a company representative, has been placed at every Target around the nation (Target’s pharmacies are operated by CVS): “This store is NOT a CDC testing center,” the signs say, using the acronym for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Above the message is Target’s logo, a red bull’s-eye. There is no other information.
The disconcerting message has caused inevitable befuddlement from Delaware to Texas. “I was surprised that I saw the sign,” said Jaipreet Virdi, a historian of medicine at the University of Delaware. She said she “wondered if [she] had missed crucial information regarding testing in Delaware.”
It was not clear how other pharmacy chains were handling the testing confusion. At a CVS on Wisconsin Avenue in the upper northwest corner of Washington, D.C. — just a few miles north of the White House and not far south of the National Institutes of Health — a sign said that “testing is NOT currently available at this location.”
A spokesman for CVS told Yahoo News that it has one testing site, in Shrewsbury, Mass., that is “presently testing more than 200 local first responders and health care workers per day.” He added that the company has “no plans to share at this time” about other sites, though such discussions are apparently taking place.
Walgreens has opened a single site in Chicago, which according to a press release is intended for first responders and the elderly. That site “will not be available to the general public,” the press release says.
Rite Aid, which did not respond to a Yahoo News request for comment, has opened a testing site in Philadelphia. The site is intended to “only serve first responders and health care workers,” according to news reports.
President Donald Trump took credit for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s high poll numbers on Monday, saying “one of the reasons why he’s successful is we’ve helped make him successful.”
“You say he’s gotten good marks but I’ve gotten great marks on what we’ve done,” Trump boasted on Fox & Friends when asked about Cuomo’s rising popularity amid the coronavirus pandemic that has hit New York especially hard.
The results of a Siena College poll released Monday gave the Democratic governor a 78% approval rating among New Yorkers, his highest level since early 2013. Among the Republicans polled, Cuomo earned a 70% approval rating. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) also scored a 61% approval rating among New Yorkers for his response to the crisis.
In contrast, Trump’s approval rating among New Yorkers was just 41%.
And yet the orange one still finds time in his busy schedule to take credit for Cuomo's approval ratings.
This is absolutely surreal.
"That's easy - the time he spends stroking his own ego about his ratings, or berating governors because they're not "nice" to him would be better spent how to allocate the limited number of new ventilators coming fairly to all the cities that need them."
he already has that sorted out, although he didn't personally plan it
it's not 1789, we have people for that
take Obama, for example
he spent most if his time writing kids' books, redecorating the Oval Office, planning trips to take his kids on while he still got free travel, shooting hoops with the WH staff, meeting with the IRS to figure how to stop the Tea Party by harassing them, listening to secret tapes of Trump campaign officials, trying to get the IOC to put the Olympics in Chicago (gross!), writing his Nobel Prize speech, asking Bill Clinton for advice on chicks, et al
luckily, Obama wasn't narcissistic
no, not at all...
"Or figuring out how to get more PPE out to the hospitals that are currently (unsafely) reusing old ones and making new ones out of trash bags."
like today, when he ordered a corporation to fast track a new mask recycling machine?
why didn't Obama do that?
"You would think some of the Republicans around him would clue him in on what his priorities should be in a crisis. Apparently they don't care either."
as we'be discussed, he took the appropriate actions at the right time
he's presiding over a country that is pitching in together
except for the trash at TTF
"even his narcissism could be overlooked if he could just put it away for the duration of the pandemic."
actually, you could overlook it anyway if you weren't so insecure because Dems are historic losers who are unsupported by Americans
his narcissism is irrelevant to those who are confident in their views
"And for the record, TTFers aren't treating Rump any worse than conservatives treated Obama during his administration."
under Obama, there would already be many more deaths
he was always more concerned with apologizing for America than supporting it
"And yet the orange one still finds time in his busy schedule to take credit for Cuomo's approval ratings.
This is absolutely surreal."
Cuomo has generally said things similar to Trump
no one has asked him why his state was unprepared for this crisis
"no one has asked him why his state was unprepared for this crisis"
Probably because our national security services weren't giving him all the intel on what the Chinese were hiding about CV, like they did for the Rumpster.
"he's presiding over a country that is pitching in together
except for the trash at TTF"
It appears that means you, because as we know, you haven't done anything, except tryp to prop up Rump's ratings.
Talk about insecure.
"like today, when he ordered a corporation to fast track a new mask recycling machine?
why didn't Obama do that?"
You really want to trust your life to a recycled mask that was previously exposed to Ebola?
There's a reason recycling masks hasn't been done before - it's dangerous.
If Rump had been on the ball he could have learned something from South Korea and at least implemented their test and track strategy before the problem got so far out of hand that it overwhelmed his ability to nip it in the bud.
Instead of spouting ridiculous sentiments like:
"[W]hen you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
He should have had the CDC tracking down the contacts of all 15 of those people and checking if they needed to be quarantined.
But clearly, that was WAY too much to expect from a man who thinks windmills cause cancer.
Now he thinks if he can keep the death toll below 100,000 it will be a "very good job":
"Donald Trump has extended America’s national shutdown for a month, bowing to public health experts, and scientific reality, and warning that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president claimed that, if his administration keeps the death toll to 100,000, it will have done “a very good job” – a startling shift from his optimistic predictions of a few days ago when he said he hoped to restart the economy by Easter.
Trump also undermined his plea for unity by uttering falsehoods, verbally abusing reporters and making incendiary allegations that implied health care workers were stealing masks, without providing evidence.
The extended deadline marked a humiliating retreat for the president who, having squandered six precious weeks at the start of the pandemic, more recently complained that the cure is worse than the problem and floated Easter Sunday as a “beautiful timeline” for reopening big swathes of the country."
Sheriff's deputies on Monday arrested the head of a Florida church, accusing him of ignoring local orders against mass gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic and showing "reckless disregard for human life," authorities said.
The River at Tampa Bay church held services over the weekend, and Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said he had no choice but to take action against the pastor, Rodney Howard-Browne.
"Last night I made the decision to seek an arrest warrant for the pastor of a local church who intentionally and repeatedly chose to disregard the orders set in place by our president, our governor, the CDC and the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group," Chronister told reporters.
"His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week."
Even in highly polarized times, America historically displays an uncanny ability to unite in the face of a universal foe. For example, after taking office in 2001, President George W. Bush was still reviled by many Democrats following the hotly contested vote recount showdown of the 2000 election. But once the tragedy of 9/11 shocked America, our national conscience and body politic largely coalesced around a shared sense of mission and a will to win, together.
Unfortunately, in 2020 America, as our nation faces a warlike attack from the coronavirus and the concomitant economic fallout, Democrats choose to posture, mislead, and play politics. Specifically, presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the trash at the Teach the Facts blog deploy outright partisan lies, even as our nation endures the throes of this pandemic.
President Trump initiates a flurry of action to address the historic virus challenge. Through legislation, executive orders, and travel bans he embraces the role of a wartime president marshaling all the capabilities of our great nation to counter, and ultimately defeat, this invisible enemy. Inevitably, in decision-making amid the fog of war, some missteps unfolded and some misstatements were made. But the big picture reveals an impressive mobilization of the public by government at every level as well as the genius of America’s private sector. The American public traditionally rallies to action-oriented leadership, and this was no exception: Last week, the Gallup poll reported a 60% approval rating for the president on his handling of the virus. In addition, Trump’s overall approval rating hit the highest of his presidency, per the RealClear Politics polling average.
In contrast to Trump the commander-in-chief, the dithering Democrats prefer to blather and use the critical moments of a national crisis to play politics. Biden’s main super PAC, Unite the Country, has directed millions of dollars toward airing a TV commercial using demonstrably false smears against the president. The ad repeats the often-cited falsehood that Trump called the virus a “hoax.” As even the Trump-antagonistic Washington Post concedes, Trump clearly referred to Democratic attacks upon him as a hoax, and not the malady itself. The Biden attack ad also claims that Trump “eliminated the pandemic response team.” This is another frequent Democratic Party talking point, but as Tim Morrison, an alumnus of that very NSC staff, explains, the Trump White House refashioned, but did not dissolve, its pandemic response office. These falsehoods are employed in the service of the Democrats’ election-year narrative: That the president “let the virus spread unchecked across America.” No mention is ever made by the loyal opposition that Trump took decisive, early action by restricting travel from China. Or that Joe Biden himself assailed Trump for this move, accusing him of xenophobia.
Democrats also hold top National Institutes of Health official Anthony Fauci out as a model. But they quote him selectively. Dr. Fauci himself has verified that the president’s swift action to ban China travel “absolutely made a difference.”
The viral dishonesty flows not only from the pro-Biden super PAC, but also from the candidate himself. In the last Democratic debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, he erroneously claimed that the administration turned down World Health Organization tests for the virus. Biden falsely asserted that the WHO “offered the testing kit. ... We refused it. We didn’t want to buy them.” In fact, there was no such offer at all, and the WHO does not even produce tests. As FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn stated, “The WHO does not have its own test that it is distributing globally. It has only posted on its website protocols from some test developers, including our own CDC.”
Biden spread more coronavirus propaganda when he declared in a March 12 tweet that “a wall will not stop the coronavirus.” I guess that’s a dig at Trump’s border wall. But it’s a cheap shot, and an odd one to make at this time: Social barriers are literally the entire point of a quarantine. Whether a closed door to an apartment or a well-guarded national border, they emphatically stop viruses.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also indulged in brazen partisanship, manipulating the virus calamity into a political weapon against the president. In a CNN interview Sunday, she actually blamed him for American deaths, claiming “his denial at the beginning was deadly. … As the president fiddles, people are dying.” In response, Sen. Lindsey Graham described her hyperbole as “the most shameful, disgusting statement by any politician in modern history.”
Well, that’s saying a lot, senator, but the record shows that it was the speaker, rather than the president, who was in denial. After all, she took a weeklong spring break away from Washington, adjourning the House of Representatives in the middle of the crisis. As the president and his team worked around the clock to fashion a disaster bailout bill of unprecedented proportions with the Senate leadership of both parties, Pelosi was ensconced in San Francisco. When she returned, she threw a monkey wrench into the legislative levers by demanding a wish list of liberal pet projects, and then took credit for engineering the whole thing.
America faces a difficult month ahead. Health concerns have suddenly changed our way of life in marked ways and forced agonizing physical separations for communities and families across our land. With the entire month of April now designated for continued protective restrictions by the administration, the pronounced economic sacrifices will test the will of our people and enterprises. In such a dire time, Democratic leaders like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi need to set aside prevarications and partisan pandering. If they cannot help America pull together at a time like this, then they should remain quiet – or summarily be pushed aside by voters in November.
"Probably because our national security services weren't giving him all the intel on what the Chinese were hiding about CV, like they did for the Rumpster."
actually, that's probably not it
experts have warned if the possibility of pandemics for years
why was his state so unpreoared?
"It appears that means you, because as we know, you haven't done anything, except tryp to prop up Rump's ratings."
I don't think I have much to do with Trump's ratings
I simply present facts to blog of assorted miscreants who are a bunch of trash
"Talk about insecure."
that would be Dems who don't understand why the country isn't falling for their lies, and fear they are losing an issue to Trump
again!
"You really want to trust your life to a recycled mask that was previously exposed to Ebola?"
could you fill us in on how many cases of Ebola the US has had in the last year?
"There's a reason recycling masks hasn't been done before - it's dangerous."
viruses are pretty easy to kill if they aren't in a living host
"If Rump had been on the ball he could have learned something from South Korea and at least implemented their test and track strategy before the problem got so far out of hand that it overwhelmed his ability to nip it in the bud."
the assertion that the CDC wasn't tracing cases at the beginning is a lie
but even if it were true, why aren't Dems getting behind the President now instead of helping Russia and China sow division
in WWII, one could have made many criticisms of how FDR waited too long to confront the Axis powers
but there was no point in that when we were at war
only unpatriotic trash did that
"He should have had the CDC tracking down the contacts of all 15 of those people and checking if they needed to be quarantined."
the CDC did trace the contacts of the early people
you implication is a lie
"Now he thinks if he can keep the death toll below 100,000 it will be a "very good job""
the experts have told him that's the low end of the best case scenario so that's his aspiration
TTF is revealing it didn't mean it when they said he should listen to the experts
"The extended deadline marked a humiliating retreat for the president who, having squandered six precious weeks at the start of the pandemic, more recently complained that the cure is worse than the problem and floated Easter Sunday as a “beautiful timeline” for reopening big swathes of the country."
this is typical of the reporting from the mainstream media
pointless attacks
it's what TTF loves to read
what a bunch of trash!
evidence that the administration strategy is working
this is why the President extended the guidelines
the virus is on the run
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/health/coronavirus-restrictions-fevers.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR3zSNTAkVnA4ShOBTtvxx3_KX-Ne0pwpTjoyTBJCq8IEqpdACKa_ONTvvA
"Tweet of the day: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
A: No"
Q: Are you better off than you would be if Hillary and and Tim Kaine ran the country?
A: oh my my, oh hell yes
"There is so much going on, as we hunker down in our houses, social distancing, living in fear and dying by the tens of thousands. America was unprepared for the pandemic,"
throughout history, America has always been unprepared for any crises and then we rise to the occasion when we have to
Pearl Harbor, 9/11, et al
"intentionally so,"
bullshit
"as our elected leadership first fired the country's pandemic experts"
his team now is doing a great job
glad he didn't leave any loser Obama appointees in charge
"and then watched without responding as the epidemic began to flare up in China."
he responded immediately with a travel ban from China that Dems cantankerously opposed
according to the experts, the ban saved lives
but then, Dems are always anti-life
"No preparations were made, as the President insisted US cases would quickly go from fifteen to zero and the coronavirus would vanish "like a miracle.""
wasn't unreasonable to think since that's what happened with SARS and MERS
"States and municipalities did what they could but resources were not, and are not, available. There are no masks, ventilators, hospital beds. Nobody imported them, manufactured them, ordered them. Our ability to address the epidemic diminishes as medical staff are exposed to the virus, getting sick, dying. I don't need to tell you this. It's bad. It affects all of us personally."
yes, it does
these governors should have prepared long ago
experts have been saying for years that it was only a matter of time
other than encouraging them to do what's right, Trump has no power until it officially became an emergency and only then could he invoke statutes to handle that
Dems are going to lose nationwide in November because of how they responded to this tragedy by joining Russia and China in trying to divide our country in time of crisis
A new study has found that states with GOP governors or a majority-Republican electorate have lagged behind their Democratic counterparts in instituting social distancing policies amid the coronavirus pandemic. Those delays are “likely to produce significant ongoing harm to public health,” the researchers warned.
The study, “Pandemic Politics: Timing State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19” — by political science professors and a health metrics researcher from the University of Washington — found that red states or states with Republican governors instituted social distancing policies an average of nearly three days later than blue states did.
“Our findings are unambiguous: political variables are the strongest predictor of the early adoption of social distancing policies,” the study stated. “All else equal, states with Republican governors and Republican electorates delayed each social distancing measure by an average of 2.70 days ... a far larger effect than any other factor, including state income per capita, the percentage of neighboring states with mandates, or even confirmed cases in each state.”
While the gap may initially appear to be small, the difference could translate into a significant number of human lives with a disease that can spread explosively in a single day. The researchers noted the different outcomes in American cities during the 1918 influenza pandemic depending on how they responded: Stricter social distancing policies resulted in a fraction of the lives lost compared to places where policies were looser.
One high-profile Republican governor, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, didn’t enact a stay-at-home order until Monday — and it only applies to South Florida.
Suddenly last week he insisted on quarantines for New Yorkers coming into the state.
The University of Washington researchers theorized that Republicans’ delayed response to COVID-19 has been influenced by “cues” from President Donald Trump. Trump initially “strongly signaled ... that the coronavirus was an exaggerated threat or even a hoax — a position that was magnified and reinforced by Republican-leaning media outlets,” the study stated.
The scientists warned that if GOP governors and states with Republican majorities continue to lag behind in social distancing policies, the “cumulative impact on those states — and on the country as whole through spillovers — could be vast.”
The study is in the name link above. The graph on page 11 shows that Republican run states delayed action by nearly 3 days - which just happens be very close to the unmitigated doubling rate of the virus. This means they basically increased the damage done to their states by nearly a factor of 2.
"A new study has found that states with GOP governors or a majority-Republican electorate have lagged behind their Democratic counterparts in instituting social distancing policies amid the coronavirus pandemic. Those delays are “likely to produce significant ongoing harm to public health,” the researchers warned."
pathetic
in this time of national crisis, all TTF trash can conjure up is political division
the big blue state, with a governor the press is implying to be the reincarnation of Winston Churchill, has half the cases in America
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday pointed out that the January Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump distracted from crucial early efforts to respond to the emerging coronavirus pandemic.
During an appearance on popular moderate commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show, McConnell was asked about a POLITICO article published Monday that pointed to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., as one of the first people on Capitol Hill to sound warnings on coronavirus. The article quoted Cotton as blaming impeachment for diverting the government's focus away from the threats.
When asked about Cotton's early warnings, McConnell said: "It came up while we were tied down on the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment."
McConnell also praised his Senate colleagues from pivoting “from the most partisan thing you could possibly be involved in, the impeachment of a president, to a unanimous vote on a $2 trillion dollar package all within a couple of months.”
McConnell also said he would look at any future coronavirus response bill produced by the House majority "like Reagan suggested we look at the Russians — trust, but verify."
"I’m not going to allow this to be an opportunity for the Democrats to achieve unrelated policy items that they would not otherwise be able to pass," McConnell said.
The Senate leader also accused Democrats of wanting to "turn the President’s handling of all this into a political liability for him."
TTF supports the facts......
April Fools!
Trump's daily CV briefing last night was perfect
did you know George W created a stockpile of 100 million respirator masks after the anthrax scare?
did you know Obama used them all up during the swine flu outbreak?
and then used the money allotted to replace them on something else?
that's right
OBAMA USED ALL THE MASKS AND DIDN'T REPLACE THEM !!!
worst
President
ever
The World Over, Stubborn Believers Don’t Care About Their Survival — or Yours
We've said time and again that Christians do not play well with others.
In the end Christianity is a selfish, self-centered belief. It doesn't care about people outside its boundaries and it doesn't care about the natural world. It is a headlong rush to be done with the one life any human will ever have in favor of the false hopes and promises of some mystical afterlife for which there is no evidence.
Trump has had four years to replace the respirator masks that Wyatt/Regina allege Obama lost, why didn't Trump replace them if he knew "this was a pandemic before anyone was saying it was a pandemic"?
Trump was warned in early January that there would be a pandemic and he insisted for months it was a hoax and everything was wonderful - NO NEED TO PREPARE FOR IT.
Trump continues to fail at helping mitigate this crisis. There are ventilators and personal protective equipment in some regions while other regions have run out and are in desperate need. There needs to be a central coordinating agency that see what's needed gets to where it needs to be. That is the role of the federal government and yet Trump does nothing.
Trump does nothing while he leaves the states to bid amongst themselves for respirators and personal protective equipment in order to reap obscene profits from price gouging companies holding out for highest dollar (Republicans).
He could enact the Defence Protection Act and have the military take control of the country's entire supply of ventilators and personal protective equipment and see that it gets where its needed. That's what the military does - move goods from one place to another and it does it very well.
And yet Trump refuses to enact the Defence Production Act and to save tens of thousands of lives.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
despite all the frantic whining by the trash at TTF, the US has one of the lowest death rates from CV in the developed world
Trump is doing great
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/01/low_us_covid-19_death_rate_means_efforts_are_working.html
Trump's commitment to creating confusion with lies and contradictions continues unabated during the national health crisis. Recently he has:
- Claimed one hundred thousand coronavirus deaths in the United States should be deemed a success.
- Accused hospital workers of stealing much-needed surgical masks.
- Lied about recorded statements he had made days earlier about the pandemic.
- Mistreated reporters who asked factual questions about the government's criminally inadequate response to the coronavirus.
- Told governors on a conference call that he hadn't heard complaints about a lack of coronavirus tests.
- Offered false hope about an unproven covid-19 cure.
It's all part of White House's pattern of sending mixed and conflicting pandemic messages, often from multiple sources. It's exactly what the federal government should not be doing at a time of a national health crisis, according to guidelines established by the Center for Disease Prevention, which urges leaders to be consistent, transparent, and accurate. Trump has effectively ordered a stand down for the virus invasion, dangerously downplayed the public health risk ("I think it's going to work out fine"), and relentlessly praised his own performance. ("We’ve done a phenomenal job on this.")
In response, lots of journalists ask with genuine astonishment, 'Why is he undermining scientists? Why is he knowingly misleading the public during the pandemic?' Because the plan is to create a nonstop loop of puzzlement to the point where it's not possible to understand what Trump's policy is and what direction the federal government is going. All the while attacking the news media in order to create confusion about the facts. (Today, nearly eight-in-ten Republicans think the press is exaggerating the covid-19 risks.)
This authoritarian approach is foreign to America, and specifically to American presidents, all of whom before Trump would've considered it unthinkable to place the population in jeopardy during a national health emergency, and to then lie about it everyday. For longtime Kremlin watchers though, what Trump is doing, and what he's being doing since Inauguration Day 2017, looks quite familiar — he's using the Vladimir Putin playbook, and what observers in Moscow have called the "fog of unkowability."
The fog is a particularly pernicious form of state-backed propaganda, and Putin has been practicing it for years on the Russian press. Trump now borrows heavily. “Trump’s team is finding ways to shrewdly approximate Putin’s capacity to shape narratives and create alternative realities,” noted Mike Mariani in Vanity Fair, back in 2017. “Specious narratives, conspiracy theories, and indeed fake news have been part of Russia’s geopolitical playbook for more than half a century.”
Mariani added:
Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who has studied Russian propaganda for years, sees major similarities between Putin’s and Trump’s approaches. “Create chaos in the system, such that you don’t know what is the truth or not the truth,” he says. The Kremlin does this by flooding television and digital media with biased coverage and wanton spin. The Trump administration has discovered something equally effective: lying to reporters and publicly attacking critics are like tossing grenades into the media eco-system….Once this quagmire—in which truth and lies are knotted up and nothing is incontrovertible—is established, the final aim comes into view. “You don’t even know what is real information anymore, and without that, no one can hold you accountable,” Watts says.
This week in the Washington Post, Putin critic Garry Kasparov noted, "Like most dictatorships, Putin’s regime lies constantly, even when it doesn’t have to. Trump’s tendency to echo autocratic rhetoric is well-established, and the pandemic is no exception."...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans give high marks to state and local governments for their handling of the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic that has swiftly remade everyday life. But less than half approve of the job done thus far by President Donald Trump and the federal government, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Even so, and while he remains deeply polarizing, the poll finds Trump’s approval ratings are among the highest of his presidency. Forty-four percent of Americans support Trump’s oversight of the pandemic, in line with his overall 43% approval rating. That’s at the high end for the Republican president during his more than three years in office.
The coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed more than 4,000 Americans and shut down much of the U.S. economy, is the most urgent and unpredictable crisis of Trump’s presidency. The coming weeks will likely shape how Americans view the wisdom of giving him a second term in the November election, where he is likely to face off against former Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump initially downplayed the virus, comparing it to the flu. He also suggested restrictions on work and travel could be lifted by mid-April, arguing that the response to the virus shouldn’t be worse than the health crisis itself.
But the president has shifted his stance again in recent days, and on Tuesday, the White House estimated up to 240,000 Americans could die from coronavirus even if strict social distancing measures are maintained. If those steps aren’t taken, the number of deaths seems certain to increase.
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump said.
Trump’s approval ratings are propped up by strong support from Republicans: 82% back his handling of the pandemic. Democrats remain overwhelmingly opposed to the president, with just 14% of Democrats supportive of his actions in recent weeks.
The president, whose lengthy press conferences from the White House have been broadcast daily throughout the crisis, rates higher than both the federal government as a whole and the U.S. Congress, which just approved $2.2 trillion in emergency funding for major industries, small businesses and individuals. Lawmakers are already discussing additional ways to stabilize the economy as the pandemic appears likely to stretch deep into at least the spring or summer.
Thirty-eight percent of Americans approve of the federal government’s handling of the outbreak, while 41% disapprove. And just 31% approve of how leaders in Congress are handling the crisis, less than the 41% who disapprove. Fewer than half of Democrats or Republicans approve of how Congress is handling the situation.
Americans have a far more favorable opinion about the response efforts by their state and local governments — positive feelings shared across the political spectrum. More than half of Americans, including 56% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, say their states are managing the outbreak well.
Judy Kunzman, 73, a retired nurse in Lower Swatara Township, Pennsylvania, is among those who says her state government's response is superior to that of the president and federal government.
"I keep thinking of Harry Truman and how he always said, ‘The buck stops here.’ Our president says, ‘I’m not taking responsibility for that,’” Kunzman said. She said that while Trump appears to be taking the matter more seriously in recent days, his response still leaves a lot to be desired.
“When you have to be pushed to the edge before you do the almost correct thing, that’s not an improvement,” Kunzman said...
...State and local governments have much of the power to shape the response in their locales, determining what businesses remain open, how long schools will be shuttered and what penalties there are, if any, for those who violate stay-at-home or similar orders. That’s led to a patchwork of restrictions, with major cities including New York, Chicago and San Francisco virtually shuttered. More than 30 states issued stay-at-home orders more than a week ago, while Florida’s governor resisted doing so until this week, even as coronavirus cases rose in the state.
Trump, too, initially resisted recommendations from public health officials to extend social distancing measures through at least April. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he decided to abandon his county-by-county approach for a statewide order after consulting with Trump.
The poll shows that a large majority of Americans, 78%, back requiring Americans to stay in their homes except for essential errands. Roughly the same amount also favor restricting travel within the U.S. and requiring bars and restaurants to close.
Those numbers reflect a sharp increase in public concern over the virus within the past six weeks. Half of Americans now say they are extremely or very worried about either themselves or a family member being infected by the virus. That compares with 31% who said the same just two weeks ago and 22% who said so six weeks ago, when more Americans were concerned about the flu.
Susan Oldfield, a 68-year-old retiree in rural Jesseville, Arkansas, said she trusts the guidance from the federal government and wishes more people did.
“I see people using poor judgement and saying, ‘Oh, this is just a hoax,’ or, ‘This is just something to smash our rights or take away our constitutional rights,'” Oldfield said. “It doesn’t seem like, to me, it’s like you have to do this for no reason. You have to do this for a real reason.”
You can always tell when Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous is upset by something I've posted - immediately after I post they post a bunch of tedious cut and pastes to try and change the subject:
Trump is an utter failure at mitigating the impact of the coronavirus. That's why Moscow Mitch McConnell is trying to use Trump's trial in January to excuse his inaction.
Trump didn't spend one second testifying at his trial, it took up absolutely none of his time. He had time for golfing and celebrations and election rallies, but he was "too busy" to head the warnings of experts back in January that he needed to ramp up production of respirators and personal protective equipment by invoking the Defence Protection Act which he still corruptly refuses to do.
you can always tell when Randy posts something that gets someone upset
just pinch yourself and you'll wake up !
in the real world, people just laugh when Randy makes a post
yeah, if something like that happens, it must be a dream
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHOHOHOHOHOHAAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sooooOOOOOooooOOOOOoooo upset !!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHOHEEHEEHOHOHOHOHAAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
While the country is trying to deal with this epidemic, Trump and his lackey attorney general Bill Barr continue their efforts under cover to make Trump dictator for life - Barr has secretly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies.
Obviously there's no need to detain people without trial in order to mitigate this health crisis - this is a power only dictators seek. But Trump and Bill Barr will use any emergency to try to seize more power and control for Trump and destroy American democracy.
Read the full article. As you can see the response has been universally negative from both the left and the right.
Lol, Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous are triggered.
They're frustrated that their religious "morality" is detrimental to society and they don't want to admit it.
The essence of morality is "Do whatever you want, but harm no one."
If we are to have the best possible society our highest priority has to be maximizing happiness for all in an equal and fair way. Its destructive to put one's religion ahead of that.
Canada has 1/10th the population of the United States and yet we've tested twice as many people for coronovirus as the U.S. has.
This is a Trump administration failing on a colossal scale - there needs to be widespread testing to track and fight the spread of the disease but Trump is preventing it from happening because he wants to mislead the public about how bad a state the USA is.
The USA has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world even with limited testing. Imagine how bad the numbers actually are given that the Trump is only allowing 1/20th of the amount of testing that has gone on in countries that are dealing effectively with this outbreak.
Nature won't be fooled. As the months go by Trump won't be able to hide from the public this monumental disaster he has done nothing to check.
Polls show only 38% of the American public think Trump is doing a good job handling the epidemic. Trump can't win in November. This is why he and Barr are seeking the power to detain people indefinitely without trial - dictatorship is the only thing that will keep Trump in office after November.
The Trump administration has failed to curtail exports by U.S. companies. On Monday alone, roughly 280 million masks in U.S. warehouses were purchased by foreign buyers, per Forbes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it "has not actively encouraged or discouraged U.S. companies from exporting overseas."
WHY HASN'T TRUMP INVOKED THE DEFENCE PRODUCTION ACT TO SEE THAT UNUSED SUPPLIES GET TO WHERE THEY'RE NEEDED????!
How's that "AMERICA FIRST" working for ya, America?
Ten years ago today, I signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It protected those with preexisting conditions, cut the uninsured rate in half, and lots more. But its still under political attack from Republicans right when we need care the most. We have to protect it, build on it, until we can cover everyone.
First problem: Free-market capitalism with little to no regulation
Second problem: No laws in place to deal with the supply and demand issues involved in a pandemic
Third problem: An incompetent administration (and political party) which is disciplined to care onliy about money, not people.
And those 280 million masks that were sold by profiteering companies overseas without any hold from the Trump administration, that was just in ONE day.
"UNUSED SUPPLIES GET TO WHERE THEY'RE NEEDED????!"
Randy regularly leaves for weeks to undergo intensive therapy for mental illness and always comes back as insane as ever
"Max_1 said...
How's that "AMERICA FIRST" working for ya, America?"
pretty well, Max
how's your job at the KGB going?
"Barack Obama said...
Ten years ago today, I signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It protected those with preexisting conditions, cut the uninsured rate in half, and lots more."
Barry, it did no good. Vastly increased co-pays and deductibles made it of little use to those who formerly had no insurance.
"Bruno - ICR&ITMFA said...
First problem: Free-market capitalism with little to no regulation
Second problem: No laws in place to deal with the supply and demand issues involved in a pandemic
Third problem: An incompetent administration (and political party) which is disciplined to care onliy about money, not people."
Bruno, can you give us one example of anyone in America dying because they couldn't get a respirator?
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous allege that Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) did no good.
Tell that to the 100 million Americans with preexisting health conditions that can now get health insurance they couldn't get before.
And as we speak Republicans are fighting in court to take away Americans protections for those with preexisting health conditions.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous assert that if people don't know the name of someone who has died from a lack of a respirator that that is evidence that its not happening.
That's a logical fallacy. Its like me asserting that because Wyatt/Regina don't know off the top of their heads the name of a hockey player recently injured that it never happens. Its yet another example of Wyatt/Regina's arguing in bad faith.
A year ago Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous screamed to the internet "I'LL NEVER RESPOND TO ONE OF PRIYA'S COMMENTS EVER AGAIN!!!!"
And here they are responding to one of my comments. Its typical for them to adamantly insist reality is one way only to later state it isn't that way.
Back then Wyatt/Regina screamed "I'M SURE PRIYA IS ON THE WATCH LIST OF EVERY LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY IN THE WORLD!!!"
and they call me nuts...
Weeks ago the Pentagon told Trump they had 2000 ventilators that they were willing to give to whomever needed them the most. Since then there's been no contact from the Trump administration telling the Pentagon where to send them.
This kind of failure to act is happening on a massive scale with Trump being AWOL.
A national emergency like this requires central leadership to coordinate all 50 states and 100s of entities. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to die needlessly because to Republicans, lives are less important than rigidly adhering to the agenda of cutting all federal government activity.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "no one is above the law, including the Bidens"
If there's any truth to the allegation that the Bidens committed a crime then why hasn't the Justice Department indicted him?
The Bidens are squeaky clean, just like Hillary - they can look all they want they can't find anything.
Its Trump whom Republicans like Wyatt/Regina have argued is above the law. Trump's attorney general Bill Barr applied for the job by stating that he believed Trump is above the law and that if Trump appointed him AG that he'd assist Trump in putting himself above the law.
The defence offered by Trump's lawyers at his impeachment trial was entirely based on the idea that Trump is above the law.
This is what dictators do, they pervert the justice system to attack those who oppose them and to put themselves above the law.
You got what you voted for. You wanted someone to smash the system and talk trash to people you hate.
Now we've got people sick and dying, and a broken government in total chaos and the whole country will have to pay the price.
Per the CDC on March 1 there were 30 total cases of Covid 19 in the US that we were reported.
Today, per the Johns Hopkins website there are 216,721 cases in the US that we know of.
Heckuva job you are doing there Trumpie!
Wasn't that number supposed to be 0 by now?
Winning!
Talisman said "Wasn't that number supposed to be 0 by now?"
Yep. Back at the end of February Trump said the 15 coronavirus cases would soon be zero. He was told in early January this was going to be an epidemic and he lied to the public again and again, calling concern over this "a Democratic hoax".
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Bruno, can you give us one example of anyone in America dying because they couldn't get a respirator?"
Suzanne Hoylaerts
Last summer the Trump administration let the contract lapse with the firm maintaining the ventilator stockpile. Now ventilators are reaching states in disrepair, just when they are being needed most.
That's Republicans for you - blindly cutting everything the government does based on the false belief that government is unconditionally a bad thing.
President Obama signed a contract to create ventilators in preparation for an eventual pandemic.
The Trump administration let them get sold overseas instead of filling our stockpile.
these exchanges today between Randy and his split personalities give you a feel for what conversations are like in the nuthouses of Canada
After lining his pockets with taxpayer dollars, the president is trying to negotiate his way out of paying his own bills.
Churches are NOT essential in a pandemic! They are pits of infection and a threat to public safety.
"Churches are NOT essential in a pandemic! They are pits of infection and a threat to public safety."
sounds like you have a PhD in Stupidity, CJim
churches are closed
most of them are using Zoom or Facebook Watch parties to hold services
it's true a couple of idiots have held services but a few idiots in New Jersey have had neighborhood bonfires too
why are you saying "New Jersey parties are NOT essential in a pandemic! They are pits of infection and a threat to public safety."?
it's because you are full of hatred for religious believers
likely because you fear that what they teach is true
get help
Trump's military:
Murder civilians, get a pardon.
Protect your sailors, lose your command.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman said "sounds like you have a PhD in Stupidity, CJim churches are closed"
No surprise there that Wyatt/Regina are trying to gaslight readers again - churches are open across Florida and several other states because they've been defined as "essential" services by corrupt Republican governor.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "it's because you are full of hatred for religious believers likely because you fear that what they teach is true".
You mean that Jesus is eternally torturing people for finite and often trivial "crimes"? That's what the bible says, you own it.
At least Hitler's torture of innocents was finite, Jesus's torture of innocents is infinite. Jesus is infinitely more evil than Hitler.
Given that Wyatt/Regina's church highest priority is persecuting harmless lgbt people, they deserve the hatred good people have for them.
No one is going to die from not going to church but many will die from going to church.
For a sizable percentage of religious people, humans are secondary to rituals for their imaginary celestial dictator.
A key Senate committee is pressing forward with its investigation targeting former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, despite logistical challenges posed by the global coronavirus pandemic.
The investigation centers on Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, and allegations that a Democratic public-affairs firm sought to leverage Biden’s role to influence State Department policies under the Obama administration.
The probe, which Democrats are vigorously trying to stop, has fueled tension among the Senate’s ranks, even breaking out into a rare a\verbal altercation between senators during a classified briefing.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee’s inquiry was entering a critical phase last month when senators dropped all nonessential work to focus on delivering economic and medical relief as the coronavirus reached a crisis point in the United States. The Senate is not due back in Washington until April 20 at the earliest.
“While the chairman is primarily focused on the once-in-a-generation crisis we’re experiencing, our oversight staff is continuing to push ahead with their work. Nothing has changed in our long-term plans for our investigations,” said Austin Altenburg, a spokesman for the committee’s chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).
In fact, a Senate staffer working on the probe explicitly told one witness’ legal team several weeks ago — just before the wave of lockdowns — that the coronavirus pandemic would not impede the committee’s probe, according to a source familiar with the matter.
No one is going to die from not going to New Jersey bonfire parties but many will die from going to New Jersey bonfire parties.
President Trump announced on Friday that he would be nominating Justin Walker, a federal judge in Kentucky and a protégé of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the second most important court in the country.
Walker, 37, was confirmed for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky just five months ago.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Walker clerked for Kavanaugh, then a D.C. Circuit judge, and former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
He went on to work at two private law firms and teach part-time at the University of Louisville law school.
Before attending law school, Walker served as a speechwriter to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The coveted D.C. Circuit seat comes with a lifetime appointment and is usually a proving ground for future Supreme Court justices.
Walker is a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who last month joined Kavanaugh in praising the young judge at an oath ceremony in Kentucky.
"Judge Walker is a brilliant and fair jurist who reveres the Constitution and our nation’s founding principles," McConnell said in a statement. "He understands the crucial but limited role that a judge must play in our constitutional order. I have known my fellow Kentuckian for a long time. The entire country will benefit from having this brilliant, principled, and fair-minded legal expert on this consequential bench."
I'm not advocating attending New Jersey bonfire parties Wyatt/Regina. The vast majority of large gatherings that are going on are religious people in churches. Again we see the religious people are the problem, not the solution.
And if the Bidens did anything wrong, why doesn't the Justice Department indict them?
Because they're squeaky clean like Hillary - decades of investigations at the cost of millions upon millions in taxpayer dollars and they couldn't find a damn thing. The public won't buy that same B.S. when you try to do it to Joe Biden.
Bill Barr recently approached Congress and asked for the right to have judges detain people without trial for as long as him and Trump want. There's the ongoing attack on democracy that Trump and his corrupt attorney general continue to wage under the cover of the COVID 19 disaster.
Trump administration ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses
Months before the discovery of the deadly coronavirus in China, the Trump administration ended a program that helped laboratories around the world detect viruses that could spread from animals to humans and cause the next global pandemic.
The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
“It’s absolutely critical that we don’t drop the idea of a large-scale, proactive, predictive program that tries to catch pandemics before they happen. Cutting a program that could in any way reduce the risk of things like COVID-19 happening again is, by any measure, shortsighted,” he added.
It is unclear whether another five-year grant would have dulled the impact of the current pandemic. But the Trump administration has come under increased criticism for its past moves to downgrade global health security, including proposals to slash funding to science agencies and the elimination of the National Security Council’s key global health post.
This is so important for everyone to understand.
This explains why Governors say: I'm not getting the supplies I need - yet President Trump says we are sending tons of supplies: It's going from the federal government to commercial distributors who then deliver to the highest bidder: states! The states are competing against each other.
Trump needs to take control of the national supply and distribute it based on need. Instead he let's the states fight it out amongnst themselves so Republican one percenters can maximize profits at the expense of people's lives.
There needs to be federal coordination and control of this. Trump playing "backup" to the states (his words) is resulting in thousands of needless deaths with tens of thousands more to come.
Update On The State Of "The Swamp"
The Head of the CIA has committed war crimes.
The Sec. of Commerce was an investment banker.
The Sec. of Defence was a Raytheon lobbyist
The Head of the E.P.A. was a coal lobbyist.
The Head of H.H.S. was a big pharma lobbyist.
The Sec. of Education profits from private schools.
The Sec. of the Treasury was a Goldman Sachs executive.
The Sec. of Interior was an oil lobbyist.
The Sec. of Labour was a Wall Street lawyer
What Swamp?
These are Trump's federally protected wetlands.
Americans have been complaining and protesting their healthcare systems in America for decades now ONLY to have a virus show our National leaders why the healthcare system in America leaves a majority behind in overall health standards.
I pray, when this is over, Americans rise up to secure a better future for their health and well being. Profits over people is NOT a healthcare model to rally around.
With Trump sending needed medical supplies to commercial distributors so they can price gouge the states and enrich their Republican owners you can bet Trump is getting a piece of that action. His entire presidency has been a money making scheme for him and his family. Just like any other tin pot dictator.
President Trump said he would authorize the use of a wartime-era law to force GM to produce ventilators, but the company still hasn't received a formal order. GM, as a result, hasn't allowed private companies or hospitals to place orders
When this pandemic is over the same Republicans in Congress who demanded billions in handouts for corporations will demand billions in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to pay for it.
Mark my words.
The people who reject the scientists warning about global warming but immediately buy every bottle of hand sanitizer when scientists warn them about coronavirus prove that it was never about believing or disbelieving. It's about what doesn't directly affect them and what does.
Fifty days ago I attended a Homeland Security committee meeting about the coronavirus - and no current Trump administration public health officials bothered to show up.
Now more than 5,000 Americans are dead. Their failure to act swiftly cost lives.
and she didn't sell her stock to make millions in blood money.
Trump: We inherited "obsolete" "broken" tests from Obama admin. Now we have good tests.
This is a typical deception by Trump - there were no coronavirus tests 3 and a half years ago, it was only identified in late 2019.
But of course Trump has to pretend he's better than Obama - the gaslighting of America.
President Trump's decision to fire Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson is yet another blatant attempt by the President to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.
This retribution against a distinguished public servant for doing his job and informing Congress of an urgent whistleblower complaint is a direct affront to the entire Inspector General system. It undermines transparency and oversight the American people expect.
With the help of Republicans Trump keeps chipping away at the system of justice and accountability to place himself above the law.
Trump's entire defence during his impeachment trial was that he is above the law - "Article II says I can do whatever I want."
This on the heals of corrupt Attorney General Bill Barr asking Congress to give Trump the power to arrest and indefinitely detain whomever he wants without trial or any sort of due process.
Now Trump is floating the trial balloon of letting only those over 65 vote by mail because his supporters are primarily those over 65. Everyone else can stay home or risk their lives voting in person. Its one attack on democracy after another from this tyrant.
looks like the blog has been hit with a Randy lunacy virus
the only sane course of action is to social distance from making any reply to these voluminous and spreading insane posts
btw, I was listening to NPR this morning and when the news came on at the top of the hour, for the first time in weeks, the top story wasn't virus related
it was that the inspector has issued his report and found that the FBI under Obama routinely submitted false information to the FISA court to get permission to surveil US citizens, including Trump campaign stafers
it's a good thing we have term limits to stop little wannabe dictators like Obama
Timeline:
Jan 3, 2020 - Trump knows of virus
Jan 3, 2020 - Trump rally
Jan 4, 2020 - Plays golf
Jan 5, 2020 - Plays golf
Jan 9, 2020 - Trump rally
Jan 14, 2020 - Trump rally
Jan 18, 2020 - Cabinet advises Trump the virus is serious
Jan 18, 2020 - Plays golf
Jan 19, 2020 - 1st US case reported
Jan 19, 2020 - Plays golf
Jan 27, 2020 - Chief of Staff Mulvaney holds an intervention with Trump to get him to pay more attention to the virus. Mulvaney is fired in February.
Jan 28, 2020 -Trump rally
Jan 30, 2020 - Trump rally
Feb 1, 2020 - Golf
Feb 2, 2020 - Golf
Feb 10, 2020 - Trump rally
Feb 15, 2020 - Golf
Feb 19, 2020 - I think it’s going to work out fine
Feb 19, 2020 - Trump rally
Feb 20, 2020 - Trump rally
Feb 21, 2020 - Trump rally
Feb 26,2020 - “We only have 15 cases and soon it will be down to zero. We have it all under control.”
Feb 28, 2020 - Trump holds rally
Feb 28, 2020 - “This is their new hoax.”
Feb 29, 2020 - 1st US death
March 2, 2020 - Trump holds rally
March 7, 2020 - Democrats work the weekend to craft relief Bill
March 7, 2020 - “No, I’m not concerned at all. We’ve done a great job.”
March 7, 2020 -Golf
March 8, 2020 - Golf
Mar. 10, 2020 - “And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
Mar. 13, 2020 - Declares National Emergency
Mar. 13, 2020 - “I don’t’ take responsibility at all”
one thing the media keeps pushing is that Trump "knew" about the virus because intelligence briefed him
these stories surface every time there is a crisis
George W knew Osama bin Laden was coming
he knew Katrina would happen
truth is, intelligence predicts so much that doesn't come to pass, that it's hard to filer through
the virus outbreaks have been predicted many times and not happened
another thing is Trump said the virus was a "hoax"
no, he said Dems accusations of the handling of it was a hoax
another falsehood is that if Trump shut down everything earlier, we wouldn't have this problem
earlier, when there were a handful of cases, Americans wouldn't have put up with the shutdown
another is if only Trump had tested earlier, this would have been caught
no, Trump began screening overseas visitors early on or symptoms
and there are nations, like Italy. that tested early and were hit hard
btw, European countries all have nationalized health insurance and it didn't stop this
some fun pandemic reading:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/other/FavorabilityRatingsPoliticalLeaders.html
comparing the favorability rating of Trump. Pelosi, Schumer, and McConnell
preview: Trump wins
Biden has consistently rated +9% over Trump for president. This is why Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, and Trump and Putin are attacking democracy - they know they can't win a free and fair election.
The problem with Kushner is ultimately a problem with Trump, Pepper said.
“It’s a case study for the problem with nepotism,” he said. “When [Ohio governor] DeWine is standing up there, even though his own kids are involved in politics – they’re not the ones standing next to him. Who’s leading the Ohio response? Amy Acton, the state health director, who has studied and taught this her whole life.
“The biggest difference between DeWine and Trump is, one is relying on experts who have prepared for this for years.
“And the other is relying on Jared Kushner.”
It happened again. Somerset County NJ officials ordered 35K N95 masks for front-line healthcare workers. 24 have died in Somerset already. The Trump Administration took their entire order without warning. Where'd it go?
Americans lives are cheap under Donald Jerk Trump's presidency.
I'll tell you where those N95 masks Trump keeps seizing are going. They're going to private distributors who price gouge states competing against each other. And you can bet Trump and his family are getting a cut of those profits from people's deaths.
Why else would Jarod Kushner refer to the federal stockpile of personal protective equipment as "ours"?
The web site for the reserve has always stated these supplies were for the States but less than 24 hours after Kushner said it wasn't for the states the web site was changed to say the same thing.
If the reserves of medical equipment aren't for the states, then who the hell is going to use them??
Obviously there is no other candidate for these reserves than the states, unless Trump and Kushner are seizing them to profit off of the process of states bidding each other up. That's why they call this federal reserve "ours" - Trump and Kushner mean that literally, its the Trump's family's reserve to profit off of.
He's grabbing medical supplies anywhere he can use them as a lever against blue states or states whose governors speak truths about him
Remember...
While Trump was eliminating the Pandemic Response Team, Republicans let him.
While Trump was lying about the risks of COVID-19, Republicans supported him.
While Trump continued to target Obamacare during the pandemic, Republicans helped him.
Trump didn't kill Americans by himself, Republicans killed Americans too.
"While Trump was eliminating the Pandemic Response Team, Republicans let him."
Trump has a perfectly fine pandemic team
"While Trump was lying about the risks of COVID-19, Republicans supported him."
at that point, it was anyone's guess
there has been a lot of crying wolf over the years from the medical community
it wasn't unreasonable to think that would happen again
"While Trump continued to target Obamacare during the pandemic, Republicans helped him."
Obamacare is worthless, although Trump did not "target" it during the pandemic
you're a liar
"Trump didn't kill Americans by himself, Republicans killed Americans too."
Trump saved lives that would have been lost if a Dem was President
he stopped visitors from China as soon as it became apparent there was an outbreak
Biden said Trump was a "fear-monger" for doing this
America can't risk a Dem President
how about that big ventilator shortage?
truth is, most COVID patients that go on ventilators die
most of those who survive, can never breathe without one again
On the same day Larry Kudlow said the coronavirus was "contained" on Feb. 25th, Trump's campaign spox made an even more bold claim.
"We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here..and isn't it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama."
Trump Axed Massive Mask Manufacturing Plan in 2018
“In September 2018, the Trump administration received detailed plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic,” the Washington Post reports.
“The plans, submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services by medical manufacturer O&M Halyard, were the culmination of a venture unveiled almost three years earlier by the Obama administration.”
“But HHS did not proceed with making the machine.”
The math doesn't look good.
I did a regression analysis of the number of US deaths for the coronavirus using the data from here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
If you start from Mar 10th (call that day 1) and go to Apr 4th (day 26), the best fit equation is y = 17.331e^0.2465x with a correlation coefficient (R^2) of 0.9965. (This value being very close to 1 indicates a very good fit - the data and the estimate are right on top of each other.)
If the virus continues to take lives following the same exponential curve, the math predicts a total of 75,622 deaths next Sunday (the 12th), and 6,391,610 deaths at the end of April.
The only hopeful sign in the data is that for 4/2 through 4/4, the actual deaths are a bit below the estimated line. So performing the calculations again starting from 3/29 (because a few more points should give a better estimate of the trend), the best fit equation becomes y = 48.623e^0.1999x with a correlation coefficient of 0.9930. Not as good a fit, but the time constant is essentially 5 days rather than a little over 4 - this makes a huge improvement.
That line estimates a total of 43,508 deaths on the 12th, and 1,589,447 on the 30th.
Our best hope is that the small dip that has occured in the past 3 days means we are reaching the peak for the US. If that is the case, then we can look forward to the deaths being a lot lower.
If not, and this just reflects the deaths in New York going down in the last few days, and the rest of the country is still on the same trajectory, this could be very ugly.
If you're the kind of person who prays, you might pray the the social distancing and stay at home orders started soon enough.
Good luck.
Trump said tonight that he is the one who thought of the Right to Try law on access to experimental medications. These laws were pushed by a libertarian think tank and have passed at the state level since 2014.
Priya is in favour of this.
On Sunday, initially at least, there was no White House briefing on the president’s public schedule. But the bad news kept coming. Coronavirus deaths continued to climb and reports of the heartland being unprepared for what may be on its horizon continued to ricochet around the media.
Jared Kushner's coronavirus overreach puts more American lives on the line
Lloyd Green
Read more
In the words of one administration insider, to the Guardian: “The Trump organism is simply collapsing. He’s killing his own supporters.”
Members of the national guard, emergency workers, rank-and-file Americans: all are exposed. Yet Trump appears incapable of emoting anything that comes close to heart-felt concern. Or just providing straight answers.
Rather, he is acting like Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America: repeatedly letting governors know the burden of shoring up their sick, their doctors and their people falls on their shoulders first. The national government? It’s the world’s greatest backstop.
Remember when the Republican party freaked out about Barack Obama and the US “leading from behind” abroad? Remember the howls that evoked from GOP leaders? Those days are gone. Welcome to what Martin O’Malley, a Democratic former governor of Maryland, calls the “Darwinian approach to federalism”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/05/trump-is-killing-his-own-supporters-coronavirus-covid-19
Fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson releases a statement on his firing saying "it is hard not to think that the President's loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial IG"
"The math doesn't look good."
of course, it doesn't
it doesn't take into account the fact that most Americans have been stuck in the house for the last couple of weeks
are you stupid all the time, or just when you've bee cooped all day?
"That line estimates a total of 43,508 deaths on the 12th, and 1,589,447 on the 30th."
there is no chance that 1.6 million will die of CV-19 before the end of the month
are you stupid all the time, or just when you've bee cooped all day?
"it doesn't take into account the fact that most Americans have been stuck in the house for the last couple of weeks"
Of course it doesn't take that into account. The only *potential* evidence that was having an effect was the previous 3 days (as of today, now 4) of being below the trend line. Shortly before that, the data spent 6 days ABOVE the trend line (days 16 through 20) - indicating it could be worse. You don't have to believe me - you can do the analysis yourself in Excel.
If being stuck in the house has helped, and the death rate is truly going down now, that trend just started 4 days ago. It is too early to tell (from the death rate data alone) how much the rate has slowed down, how broad the peak will be, or how fast it will drop; especially since a number of red states purposely delayed lockdown orders.
As such, I made no concrete statements about what the actual number of deaths will be - the point was to extrapolate from limited existing data and let people know what it showed. As we still lack sufficient testing capacity to properly gauge the actual infection numbers, an accurate mortality rate, or the quantitative effects of social distancing, trying to pin down the actual number of deaths is still a guessing game subject to very large variations - as the two different estimates based on different sections of the same data showed.
The last 4 data points of 27 days give hope that 1.6 million is a high-end upper bound. In fact, using ONLY those last 4 days show a time constant that has increased to 6.658 days. This is encouraging, but 4 data points aren't enough to define a trend.
"there is no chance that 1.6 million will die of CV-19 before the end of the month"
Actually, there is. Right now that chance appears to be shrinking and will drop even further *IF* the last 4 days actually indicate the start of a real trend. I'm hopeful that it does. However, lookdown orders came late to a number of states and it's too early to tell how much damage that will cause - that hasn't shown up in the data yet. We'll have to wait for that.
"are you stupid all the time, or just when you've bee [sic] cooped all day?"
Just because you don't understand the limits of the model, or how the lack of concrete testing data, reliable mortality rates, and a lack of measured effects of mitigation efforts limit the predictions doesn't make me stupid. I limited the analysis to the measured data available and said as much.
If you've done some analysis and would like to share it with the class, and explain how you arrived at your conclusions, feel free.
Go ahead and show us how smart you are; or you can just keep making making ad hominem attacks like you always do.
People can gauge your intelligence (or lack thereof) for themselves.
"Of course it doesn't take that into account."
and since "that" is reality, our analysis is worthless
"the point was to extrapolate from limited existing data and let people know what it showed"
kind of ignorant since conditions have changed
maybe you can extrapolate from the latest episode of Walking Dead and "let people know what it showed"
LOL!!
"Actually, there is. Right now that chance appears to be shrinking and will drop even further *IF* the last 4 days actually indicate the start of a real trend. I'm hopeful that it does."
you and I both know: 1.6 million will not die before April 30
"However, lookdown orders came late to a number of states"
not really
except for Cuomo who was dead-set against them until the cases exploded in NYC
now, the media tries to create a myth that he's a great leader
yeah, he'll lead the media lemmings right over the cliff
"Just because you don't understand the limits of the model, or how the lack of concrete testing data, reliable mortality rates, and a lack of measured effects of mitigation efforts limit the predictions doesn't make me stupid."
maybe it's alcohol abuse that as diminished your mental capacity, I really don't know what's causing you to make all these stupid conclusions
oh yeah, 1.6 million dead by May Day !
"People can gauge your intelligence (or lack thereof) for themselves."
get back to me on April 30, and we'll see how close to 1.6 million we are
all you believe are your eyes
and your eyes just tell you lies
"not really
except for Cuomo who was dead-set against them until the cases exploded in NYC"
So you're just going to pretend that Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp didn't order a shelter-in-place until April 2nd, but it left the beaches open, after local authorities had already closed them.
You're just like Rump - you think you can lie all you like and no one is going to notice.
"get back to me on April 30, and we'll see how close to 1.6 million we are"
All I said was that there was a chance. I didn't say it a big chance, and I explained all the caveats. A small chance though isn't zero chance. I certainly hope the 4.5 day trend in lower deaths continues. I never said there would be 1.6 millions deaths at the end of the month. I examined the data and reported the regression analysis. At the very least it shows how crucially important the stay-at-home restrictions are.
Idiots like Brian Kemp however could turn Georgia into the next New York.
I don't know what insecurities cause you to lash out at people trying to explain math, but that's your problem. Maybe when things calm down you can visit a therapist about that.
The U.S. had a program - PREDICT - that identified lethal viruses abroad to prevent their spread to the U.S...
It found 1,200 viruses (and 160 coronaviruses) in 10 years.
It was actively working in China.
Two months before the Wuhan outbreak,Trump shut the program down.
Because Trump is all about blindly undoing everything Obama did regardless of the human toll that causes.
Doug105 said ""While Trump was eliminating the Pandemic Response Team, Republicans let him."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump has a perfectly fine pandemic team".
Utter shuck and jive. Trump has no pandemic response team beyond Mike Pence who has done nothing. An entire qualified medical team in Pandemics was destroyed because Obama's name was on it, now there's nothing.
Doug105 said "While Trump was lying about the risks of COVID-19, Republicans supported him."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "at that point, it was anyone's guess"
That's untter nonsense. The medical community was unanimous on the threat this presented, Trump was warned back in January and all the way into March Trump lied that it was a "Democratic hoax" to make him look bad.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "there has been a lot of crying wolf over the years from the medical community it wasn't unreasonable to think that would happen again"
Name a few examples of this alleged "crying wolf" then.
You can't because they're aren't any. The medical science on this is sound, consistent, and right on the money.
Doug105 said "While Trump continued to target Obamacare during the pandemic, Republicans helped him."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Obamacare is worthless, although Trump did not "target" it during the pandemic".
Giving the 100 million Americans with preexisting health conditions the right to insurance is the most important thing to happen in American health care in history. And of course Trump has been targeting it non-stop since he was elected. As we speak Republicans are fighting in court to destroy Obamacare and its protections for preexisting conditions. Just as Americans need it most, Trump and Republicans are fighting to take away health care from tens of millions of Americans who only have insurance thanks to Obamacare.
Doug105 said "Trump didn't kill Americans by himself, Republicans killed Americans too."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump saved lives that would have been lost if a Dem was President".
By eliminting Obama's Pandemic Response team and ignoring the crisis for three months thousands of Americans have and will die needlessly.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "he stopped visitors from China as soon as it became apparent there was an outbreak"
He most certainly did not.
It was several weeks after having been warned about the outbreak before Trump implemented the travel "ban" which was a ban in name only. 300,000 people had come into the U.S. from China in the previous month so the horse was already out of the barn.
That the Trump administration “banned flights,” “closed the borders,” or “stopped flights” from first China and later the European Union to halt the spread of COVID-19 has become a staple of its defense of its response to the pandemic. But it simply isn’t true. At no time through the course of this awful period have flights even once been halted between either China and the U.S. or Europe — including even Italy — and the United States.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Biden said Trump was a "fear-monger" for [implementing this fake ban]
No suprise you're lying again. Biden said no such thing. He said Trump was a fearmonger for insisting on referring to the coronavirus as a "chinese virus". Lies like this are standard tactics for Wyatt and Regina Hardiman - they've been lying like this on this blog for two decades.
The truth is that Trump has done virtually nothing to slow the spread of this contagion and has lied to the public continuously giving them deadly wrong advice and downplaying the threat. That's why he's so terrified of a a review of his response after the November election - he and all Republicans know its been a disaster.
“Messianic Rabbi”: Trust Trump Because He’s Appointed By God To Be “Spiritually Above” Experts Like Dr. Fauci
“We are in a small window of time where we need to be decreeing, praying, believing, and speaking it out of our mouths – critical at this time – speaking out of our mouths and agreeing with what Donald Trump is saying and not some of his advisers.
“I’m talking to you spiritually. I am not a scientist, I am not a doctor, and I do respect [Fauci’s] knowledge, I respect where he comes from, and I respect him in his position that God has put him in.
“But in the order of spiritual alignment, Donald J. Trump is the Cyrus above him. As believers, we need to agree – I believe that God puts kings and leaders in their place, I believe God has put Donald Trump in his place as a Cyrus—and we need to agree with what he’s saying.” – Curt Landry.
Landry last appeared on JMG when he declared that any coronavirus vaccine will be from the “pits of hell” and will constitute the mark of the beast.
He also appeared on JMG in 2017 when he commanded Hurricane Irma to remain at sea.
The storm did not remain at sea and caused nearly $80 billion in damage and 92 lost lives in the US alone.
Trump Junior: Pardon Joe Exotic Just To Troll The Media
Mediaite reports:
Everyone’s new big Netflix obsession is the docuseries Tiger King. Joe Exotic, the “star” of the show, is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence after being convicted last year on a number of charges, including murder-for-hire.
Donald Trump Jr. appeared on SiriusXM’s The Jim and Sam Show Monday, and they all joked about the possibility of a pardon for Joe Exotic.
Trump Jr. joked, “Maybe not right now, but I can generally be for this just for the meme. And just for frankly watching the media reaction to this thing. It would be pretty amazing to ultimately see that.”
Comment from the link above: “Remember when the GOP used to pretend to be the law and order party? Now they’re talking about pardoning someone based on a TV show just to have more childish memes to share on social media.”
Wow!!
Randy obviously believes deeply in the old adage: if ya can't dazzle'em with brilliance, baffle'em with bullcrap !
nice to see no one makes any response to him
"So you're just going to pretend that Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp didn't order a shelter-in-place until April 2nd, but it left the beaches open, after local authorities had already closed them."
and, yet, Georgia has 7K cases and NY has 135K
Cuomo draggiong his feet on closing down Manhattan has cost thousands of lives !!
we don't even need to mention his fateful decision to not stockpile respirators in his state, the center of countless visitors from around the world
the guy should be tried for war crimes
"All I said was that there was a chance. I didn't say it a big chance,"
no, you didn't, Tokyo Rose
you also didn't point out that the chance was basically non-existent
because, like the TTF trash you are, you would like to harm the morale of your fellow citizens during a massive crisis
"I don't know what insecurities cause you to lash out at people trying to explain math,"
oh, the poor dear victimized boy
persecuted because of devotion to mathematics
the last of the great bigotries !
"The U.S. had a program - PREDICT - that identified lethal viruses abroad to prevent their spread to the U.S...
It found 1,200 viruses (and 160 coronaviruses) in 10 years.
It was actively working in China.
Two months before the Wuhan outbreak,Trump shut the program down."
wow, it only took two months, you say?
you mean this great Pandemic Team was in place just last fall and had made no preparations for something like this?
Trump was right to replace them
they were usless
.
"Cuomo draggiong his feet on closing down Manhattan has cost thousands of lives !!"
he's a snivelling sleazeball extraordinaire !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
his brother, Fredo, is no better
let's just say Fredo shouldn't go fishing with any of Andrew's bodyguards
The U.S. had a program - PREDICT - that identified lethal viruses abroad to prevent their spread to the U.S...
It found 1,200 viruses (and 160 coronaviruses) in 10 years.
It was actively working in China.
Two months before the Wuhan outbreak,Trump shut the program down."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "wow, it only took two months, you say? you mean this great Pandemic Team was in place just last fall and had made no preparations for something like this?"
They made all manner of preparations - Trump destroyed and dispersed all their work and preparations. If Trump had left them in place they would have had the country far more ready for this than it has been under Trump.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump was right to replace them"
Trump DIDN'T replace them. Trump destroyed the Pandemic Response Team and PREDICT and left nothing in their place. He appointed a man with no medical knowledge to lead a non-existent team - Mike Pence.
Mike Pence who caused and presided over a massive HIV outbreak in Indiana, someone who couldn't be less qualified or more destructive to lead the response to COVID-19.
Good anonymous said "So you're just going to pretend that Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp didn't order a shelter-in-place until April 2nd, but it left the beaches open, after local authorities had already closed them."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "and, yet, Georgia has 7K cases and NY has 135K"
This is a perfect example of the sort of bad faith argument Wyatt and Regina have relied on in their two decades here. This is comparing apples and oranges. New York is a central hub for world travel, Georgia is not. New York has a far greater population than Georgia. For both these reasons New York has a far higher number of cases. That in no way negates the fact that the governor of Georgia is increasing the rate of infection in Georgia by leaving the beachs open or the fact that Georgia's peak infections is going to lag behind New York's due to the aformentioned reasons. The worst is yet to come for Georgia and the Republican governor there is making sure more deaths occur than are necessary.
Republicans and Trump hate science and have been eliminating as much scientific expertise from the federal government as they can to decrease opposition to their fantasy ideas that will harm the country in countless ways.
Trump has cut medical expertise in general and pandemic response in particular at every opportunity and is leaving a crisis that requires national leadership to be fought out amongst states bidding each other up on medical equipment to maximize profits for the Republican price gougers Trump is in league with.
The world's average number of coronavirus deaths per each million of population is 9.6. The United States is at much worse than average - 33 deaths per million of population.
Trump fired all the competent medical people and continues to eliminate more as they disagree with his dangerous advice. That's why things are so bad.
back in January, that medical genius, Anthony Fauci, said the coronavirus wasn't something to worry about
back in January, the director of WHO said the coronavirus probably can't be transmitted from human-to-human
back in January, Joe Biden said banning Chinese visitors was fear-mongering
but, in March, Andrew Cuomo, said you can't close down NEW YORK CITY
but, somehow, it's all Trump's fault
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous sure are anxious about what I post, lol :) - "Please don't read her posts people, please ignore them!"
I forgot,
Obama used up the stockpile of respirator masks during the swine flu
Congress gave him the money to replace then
AND HE SPENT IT ON SOMETHING ELSE !!!!!!!!!!!
what a prize jackass !
but, somehow, it's all Trump's fault
In NYC as we speak health care workers are dying from a lack of personal protective equipment because Trump is putting profits ahead of health. Remember what Trump's son-in-law said "The national stockpile is OURS!" - Trump and family believe personal protective equipment is for their own personal profit.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Obama used up the stockpile of respirator masks during the swine flu Congress gave him the money to replace thenAND HE SPENT IT ON SOMETHING ELSE !!!!!!!!!!!but, somehow, it's all Trump's fault".
Again we see bad faith argument by Wyatt and Regina Hardiman. The masks they're referring to? 100 million. And yet on March 30th alone 280 million masks were sold to foreign buyers. Again we see Wyatt/Regina make a mountain out of an Obama mole hill when the truth is what Trump has done is orders of magnitude worse.
Its time Trump stopped blaming Obama for his failures, he's had four years to get his shite together and its been a disaster.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "back in January, Joe Biden said banning Chinese visitors was fear-mongering"
Biden said no such thing, and the so called "ban" allowed Americans to fly freely back and forth between China and the USA
This is a typical style of lying for Wyatt/Regina, take something a Democrat has said and falsely claim it was in regards to something else. The truth is Biden said referring to COVID-19 as "the chinese virus" was fear mongering - it had nothing to do with the mild travel restrictions between China and the U.S. that Trump put in place.
Wyatt and Regina Hardiman haven't the slightest reticence about lying at any time as you can see. They've been lying like this for decades here. Have a look back through the archives (my name was Randy/Randi Schimnosky back then) and see how I've debunked their lies over the years.
UPDATE: Former Navy Secretary Mabus, to me: "Either you become a full fledged defender of Trump, regardless of the harm to the military, or you lose your job. Evidently no one is allowed to tell the truth if it conflicts with what Trump is saying.
looks like sad Randy from Canada continues to converse with himself while none reply
as for Kevin:
"Either you become a full fledged defender of Trump, regardless of the harm to the military, or you lose your job. Evidently no one is allowed to tell the truth if it conflicts with what Trump is saying."
unfortunately for you, Kevin, Trump comes on TV every night and let's Tony contradict him
since the ratings for these updates rival the Bachelor, everyone has seen and knows what you are saying is wrong
btw, Trump was right to ban travelers from China back in January, when Fauci, WHO, and Biden all disagreed with that action
countless lives were saved
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/key-coronavirus-model-now-predicts-many-fewer-us-deaths/ar-BB12edu1?ocid=spartandhp
One of the nation’s top public health officials suggested Monday that because Americans are taking social distancing recommendations “to heart,” the death toll from the novel coronavirus will be “much, much, much lower” than models have projected.
“If we just social distance, we will see this virus and this outbreak basically decline, decline, decline. And I think that's what you're seeing,” said Robert Redfield, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control.
“I think you're going to see the numbers are, in fact, going to be much less than what would have been predicted by the models,” he said.
Redfield’s remarks on Monday struck a rosier tone than some other recent predictions.
But officials on the White House task force have said they believe that even with a tough week ahead, the numbers in some places suggest that social distancing is working and could provide a reprieve soon.
National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci said he was very interested in data in New York that the number of admissions to intensive care and intubations in the last three days had started to level off.
“We just got to realize that this is an indication despite all the suffering and the death that has occurred that what we have been doing has been working,” he told reporters.
At the same time, Dr. John Brownstein, a Harvard epidemiologist who being paid by ABC News to sensationalize, said that Redfield’s comments could mislead Americans into feeling a sense that the disease’s spread is under control.
“Models are only as good as their assumptions, obviously there are a lot of unknowns about the virus” he said. “A model should never be used to assume that we have a number.”
Redfield also said the CDC kept some early models to themselves, without divulging the timing or nature of those models.
“CDC had models early on -- we didn't really publicize the models,” he said. “We used them internally to understand mitigation strategies.”
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A Los Angeles doctor said he is seeing significant success in prescribing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc to treat patients with severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Hydroxychloroquine has been touted as a possible treatment for COVID-19 by President Trump among others, but it remains controversial as some experts believe it is unproven and may not be effective.
The drug has long been used for treatment of malaria and conditions such as lupus and arthritis but is not technically approved by the FDA for COVID-19. The agency, however, is encouraging trials and has provided limited emergency authorization for its use to treat COVID-19 patients.
Dr. Anthony Cardillo said he has seen very promising results when prescribing hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc for the most severely-ill COVID-19 patients.
"Every patient I've prescribed it to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free," Cardillo told Eyewitness News. "So clinically I am seeing a resolution."
Cardillo is the CEO of Mend Urgent Care, which has locations in Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and Burbank.
He said he has found it only works if combined with zinc. The drug, he said, opens a channel for the zinc to enter the cell and block virus replication.
He added that the drug should not be prescribed for those who are presenting only mild symptoms, as there are concerns about shortages for patients with other conditions who need to take the drug on a regular basis.
"We have to be cautious and mindful that we don't prescribe it for patients who have COVID who are well," Cardillo said. "It should be reserved for people who are really sick, in the hospital or at home very sick, who need that medication. Otherwise we're going to blow through our supply for patients that take it regularly for other disease processes."
10 key ways that Trump has let the coronavirus pandemic get out of control:
1. Refusing to take responsibility for his administration's response to the pandemic. Trump doesn't believe he's responsible for how he and his administration are dealing with the crisis. When asked by reporters about it, he said, "I don't take any responsibility at all."6
2. Shutting down the White House pandemic office. Trump closed the White House's National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense in 2018—despite official briefings starting even before his inauguration about the threat posed by pandemics.7,8
3. Ignoring intelligence warnings. Trump ignored dire warnings in January and February from U.S. intelligence agencies about the coronavirus pandemic, downplaying the threat and blocking necessary preparations.9 He also stonewalled inquiries from Congress starting in early February.10
4. Failing to test. Trump failed to mobilize the government and private sector to establish testing early on to contain the spread of the virus.11 Dr. Fauci calls the lack of early testing "a failing" of the U.S. response.12 Now, we're left with lockdowns and intense social and economic disruptions to try to mitigate the harm.
5. Failing to procure medical supplies. Trump failed to marshal the powers of the federal government to procure the medical supplies and hospital beds needed to meet the scale of this public health crisis. For instance, if the Trump administration had reacted in February to the ventilator shortage, the shortage would have been resolved by mid-to-late April. Because the administration failed to react, we might have enough ventilators only in early June, at best.13
6. Spreading lies and misinformation. Early in the crisis, Trump said that the coronavirus would simply disappear. "It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle—it will disappear."14 Then, he promoted a risky antimalarial drug as a treatment, with no evidence.15 He accused governors of not needing the personal protective equipment and ventilators they asked for, and he accused health care workers of stealing and selling masks.16,17 And he still continues to spread lies and advance his own political agenda, boasting about his poll numbers and television ratings.
7. Appointing Mike Pence to run the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Pence has a history of skepticism and denialism around science and a record of poor response to public health crises as governor of Indiana.18
8. Blocking access to health care, which puts all of us at risk. Trump and his Republican lackeys in Congress refuse to pay for coronavirus and COVID-19 medical care—except for testing.19 But even the testing provision is full of loopholes, with reports that people are showing up at hospitals to get tested and then getting billed thousands of dollars because, while the tests are free, the emergency room visits are not.
9. Favoring governors who are political allies when distributing lifesaving medical supplies and pitting states against one another instead of distributing supplies based on most urgent need and fostering cooperation in this national emergency.20
10. Failing to hire competent experts to manage this crisis. Trump and his administration are incompetent, and, as a result, people are needlessly dying. There is tremendous turnover in key administration positions, many positions are left unfilled, and people are often unqualified for their jobs. This results in horrifying incompetence in the best of times, and catastrophic inadequacy now.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "btw, Trump was right to ban travelers from China back in January, when Fauci, WHO, and Biden all disagreed with that action"
There's two lies I already debunked:
1) the so called ban wasn't a ban, it continues to allow Americans to travel freely back and forth between the two countries.
2) Biden (nor WHO nor Fauci) never disagreed with the "ban" Trump put in place. Biden criticized Trump for his racism in insisting on calling the coronavirus the "chinese virus".
Trump Axed Massive Mask Manufacturing Plan in 2018. Because you've got to kill everything Obama did no matter how destructive that is, dontchya knnow.
Prospects are dim for Republicans in November.
Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points in polling for president
Its going to be a blowout for Democrats!
2020 Election Swing State Poll Data Reveal A Giant Blue Wave
President Donald Trump appears to be responding to the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. with an eye towards the general election this November, but a Monmouth University poll indicates that his virus response, even if temporarily popular among some circles, isn’t exactly helping his chances. In 300 “swing” counties around the country, in which recent margins of victory for candidates have been comparably small — under ten percent — likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads Trump by a full nine percent. He nabbed 50 percent of the support — almost a full majority — compared to just 41 percent for Trump. That’s not exactly a winning coalition for the incumbent.
Lol, Wyatt and Regina Hardiman sure whine a lot about the posts I make. But they're too scared to try and debate me about it because they know they can't win that argument.
Trump And Allies Hold Stock In Malaria Drug Pharmas
The consensus of the medical community is that hydroxicloroquine is at best a slight help for a few Covid-19 patients but presents an unacceptable risk of death and serious injury for people taking it willy nilly as Trump has been promoting.
Now we know why Trump is risking people's lives by encouraging blindly taking this drug - he's profiting off of it.
Trump has no problem letting people die if he benefits from it.
Listen to the medical experts, not Trump who averages ten lies a day or the quacks he refers to.
Threw on Cosmos for some background noise as I putter around this morning. Just hearing science words from an enthusiastic voice is soothing, especially the parts about "we don't know this - yet. And that's okay, because it means there's still more to learn, and that's amazing!" Such a refreshing change of pace when compared to a conman who insists he can never be wrong and that he knows more than experts in every field. (eta: I meant Trump's daily cult rallies when talking conman, in case that wasn't clear. Altered the sentence a bit to hopefully reinforce that)
I thought I was being pretty obvious about it, but apparently Wyatt/Regina haven't caught on; there's really only three of us posting on this blog - me, good anonymous, and bad anonymous(Wyatt and Regina Hardiman).
I guess you two didn't notice that while the other posters aren't responding to me, they aren't responding to you two either.
That's what we call "confirmation bias", folks. :)
"Trump has no problem letting people die if he benefits from it."
letting people die? how?
you're just lying trash
"Listen to the medical experts, not Trump who averages ten lies a day or the quacks he refers to."
he as several experts at his briefings every day
he lies less than most politicians
there are multiple unquacked sources reporting great results from hydroxicloroquine
Dem icon, A Cuomo, who is responsible for countless deaths by delaying NY closures, is using it in NYC
"Threw on Cosmos for some background noise as I putter around this morning. Just hearing science words from an enthusiastic voice is soothing, especially the parts about "we don't know this - yet. And that's okay, because it means there's still more to learn, and that's amazing!"
Tell that to conman "Do the Math" who said 1.6 million Americans will die by May Day !
"Such a refreshing change of pace when compared to a conman who insists he can never be wrong and that he knows more than experts in every field."
someone has to make decisions
experts often disagree
but you know that
you sift through the experts to find the ones who agree with your preconceived notions and have a soothing voice
ever hear of second opinions?
such as 1.6 million won't die and neither will 200K
according to the expert at CDC
"Good anonymous posted "Trump has no problem letting people die if he benefits from it."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "letting people die? how?"
By conning them into taking hydroxychoroquine willy nilly which can cause death in people both directly and indirectly by depriving people who actually need the drug for things like lupus.
Good anonymous said "Listen to the medical experts, not Trump who averages ten lies a day or the quacks he refers to."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "he as several experts at his briefings every day"
Who vehemently disagree with Trump but have to softpedal the truth at those briefings because Trump becomes enraged if anyone contradicts his ill-informed and dangerous opinions. The consense of the medical community (as I posted above) is that hyroxychoroquine is potentially dangerous and fatal and there isn't sufficient evidence to allow people to take it willy nilly as Trump keeps advocating. Trump and his cronies stand to make money off of the sale of this drug.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "he lies less than most politicians"
Show me another politician with a record average of 12 lies a day over thee years
This kind of survey has been done repeatedly in the past. Yes Democratic politicians do lie but at about 1/3 or 1/4 or 1/20 the rate of Trump and Republicans.
Makoto said "Threw on Cosmos for some background noise as I putter around this morning. Just hearing science words from an enthusiastic voice is soothing, especially the parts about "we don't know this - yet. And that's okay, because it means there's still more to learn, and that's amazing!"
"Such a refreshing change of pace when compared to a conman who insists he can never be wrong and that he knows more than experts in every field."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "someone has to make decisions"
Trump isn't making any decisions. He's done nothing to mitigate this epidemic. At the very least he should have issued a national stay-at-home order to get Republican states in line with the consensus medical position that this is what helps most. Instead he's spewed deadly misinformation and stopped medical experts like Fauci from speaking at his press briefings.
Multiple investigations have documented that the Trump response to the outbreak was characterized by weeks of delay, confusion, infighting and consistent efforts by Trump and other top administration officials to minimize the risk, a record encapsulated in the banner headline across Sunday's Washington Post: "70 Days of denial, delays and dysfunction. A blistering report Monday from the Health and Human Services Department's Inspector General found hospitals facing "severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results" and "widespread shortages" of personal protective equipment that "put staff and patients at risk."
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/a-party-of-haters.php
Trump Ousts Pentagon IG Overseeing Pandemic Funds
Glenn Fine, the acting inspector general at the Defense Department, was dismissed from his acting position at the Pentagon, making him ineligible to be the watchdog over spending to counter the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Fine is one of the most experienced and respected IGs. His service goes back many years, for both parties. Not a partisan bone in his body.
Fine, a career official who will remain a deputy inspector general, had been chosen for the spending role by a committee of inspectors general. The move is another instance of the president chafing at independent oversight.
Trump has removed independent coronavirus watchdog Glenn Fine, upending the oversight panel just days in.
The Pandemic relief bill calls for a council of Inspectors General to choose an **existing** IG to lead the pandemic oversight effort. By removing Glenn Fine as Pentagon IG, it means that Fine cannot lead the pandemic oversight effort
Yet again we see the president removing people from their position of expertise so he can gas light the American public for his personal benefit.
Boy, Wyatt/Regina sure are angry about what I post.
That's what happens to people who lie prolifically.
Check out the archives, they've been lying like this for two decades.
"Tell that to conman "Do the Math" who said 1.6 million Americans will die by May Day !"
Do the Math never said that, Lying Mcliarface.
Clearly you couldn't understand what was written, so all you're left with is lying and attacking. That's what we've come to expect from you.
The past few days with deaths "only" around 1200 per day made it look like the curve bent down a bit. Right now though, it's nearly 1900 for the day with several more hours before the site resets.
One data point isn't enough to make say that the trend has reversed, especially when daily the variations appear to oscillate with a period of about 3 days. Let's hope today's number is an outlier, and not a continuation of the previous trend.
President Trump lashed out on Tuesday at the World Health Organization, creating a new enemy to attack and threatening to withhold funding from the world’s premier health institution even as a deadly virus ravages nations around the globe.
“We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the W.H.O.; we’re going to put a very powerful hold on it and we’re going to see,” Mr. Trump said, accusing the organization of having not been aggressive enough in confronting the dangers from the virus. “They called it wrong. They call it wrong. They really they missed the call.”
In effect, Mr. Trump was attempting to blame the W.H.O. for the very missteps and failures that have been leveled at him and his administration. Public health experts have said Mr. Trump’s public denials of concern about the virus slowed the American response, which included slow testing and a failure to stockpile protective gear.
Trump reportedly firing SEVEN inspectors general all at once
Guess he figured out that inspectors general were created to ensure accountability and oversight.
Those are 2 things Trump can't stand.
This move is VERY dangerous to American democracy.
Trump: "What do you have to lose [by taking an unproven drug for coronavirus]?
President of the American Medical Association: "You could lose your life."
"Do the Math never said that, Lying Mcliarface.
Clearly you couldn't understand what was written, so all you're left with is lying and attacking. That's what we've come to expect from you."
"Lying Mcliarface"?
look, my puerile pal, the guy said if we extrapolate the data, based on what's happened so far, we'd have 1.6 million deaths in the US
why did he say that when we have taken extreme mitigation measures, literally costing us trillions, which make that extrapolation meaningless?
like Tokyo Rose in WWII, he was trying to attack the morale of those who fighting the enemy
he's classic TTF trash
"Trump reportedly firing SEVEN inspectors general all at once
Guess he figured out that inspectors general were created to ensure accountability and oversight.
Those are 2 things Trump can't stand.
This move is VERY dangerous to American democracy."
the idea that someone Trump has the authority to fire is there to provide oversight over him and hold him accountable is absurd
if you think that is "VERY dangerous to American democracy", you need to go back to school and take poly sci 101 again
why China is to blame and has too much influence over WHO, making that organization an accomplice:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/08/how_the_wuhan_virus_will_change_the_world_order_142886.html
"why did he say that when we have taken extreme mitigation measures, literally costing us trillions, which make that extrapolation meaningless?"
That's easy. To show how serious and deadly this pandemic is, and how important it is to adhere to the mitigation efforts.
If those mitigation efforts are working, they were only showing up in the previous 4 days of the data at the time of the first post. Yesterday's numbers (over 1900 dead) reversed that short "trend."
Right now, it's not clear from the data if an actual slowdown has occurred. The exponential fit (unfortunately) is still the best one for the data. And I'm not one to believe the moronic musings of an orange blowhard with 0 medical knowledge in the oval office. There are other ways to try and figure out what's really going on here.
Now tRump is trying to claim he's a "cheerleader" to whitewash his down-playing of the seriousness of this disease.
We don't need a cheerleader for the coronavirus. We need a real leader.
"That's easy. To show how serious and deadly this pandemic is,"
oh, thanks
we had no idea
"and how important it is to adhere to the mitigation efforts."
but not mentioning what effect mitigation have?
stop ratioanalizing
"If those mitigation efforts are working, they were only showing up in the previous 4 days of the data at the time of the first post. Yesterday's numbers (over 1900 dead) reversed that short "trend.""
it wasn't supposed to happen that fast
you have to remove the NY data, because their incompetent governor chose to delay mitigation until it was too late
"The exponential fit (unfortunately) is still the best one for the data."
There you go again
there is no chance 1.63 million will die by May Day
"And I'm not one to believe the moronic musings of an orange blowhard with 0 medical knowledge in the oval office. There are other ways to try and figure out what's really going on here."
yeah, by listening to the experts he presents daily at his briefings
your way is to scour the internet or the worst scenrio
"Now tRump is trying to claim he's a "cheerleader" to whitewash his down-playing of the seriousness of this disease."
he referring to is initial stance, which was not unreasonable given the misinformation he was getting from WHO
"We don't need a cheerleader for the coronavirus. We need a real leader."
you mean like Biden, who wouldn't ban visitors from China
he'd have led us to triple the tragedy
"it wasn't supposed to happen that fast"
Really? When are we supposed to be seeing the effect of that then, oh very stable genius?
It's now April 8th. We have 22 days until the end of the month. In those 22 days, the deaths will need to reach a peak, flatten out, and then go back down. As of yesterday, it was still going up.
"you have to remove the NY data, because their incompetent governor chose to delay mitigation until it was too late"
The first state to order a lockdown was California on Mar 19. As of yesterday, California had 17,460 cases and 434 deaths. Which is a certainly better than New York, with 142,384 cases and 5,489 deaths.
New York issued its stay at home order on Mar 22nd - 4th in the nation to do so, and only 3 days after California.
Only two other states besides CA (Illinois, NJ) shut down before New York. Every other state that has shut down, has done so after that. 5 states have still not shut down, and others have only partially shut down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_government_response_to_the_2020_coronavirus_pandemic
If New York was too late, so was nearly every other state in the union. South Carolina didn't shut down until yesterday.
Believe the Rumpster all you like, but there's nothing showing up in the data yet, or in the shutdown dates that would lead one to believe we're going to see a major slow down any time soon.
Good anonymous said "Now tRump is trying to claim he's a "cheerleader" to whitewash his down-playing of the seriousness of this disease."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "he referring to is initial stance, which was not unreasonable given the misinformation he was getting from WHO"
Trump never got any "misinformation" from WHO. WHO warned Trump in early January (along with a vast array of medical experts) that there was a pandemic and Trump claimed it was a hoax all the way through the beginning of March.
Good anonymous said"We don't need a cheerleader for the coronavirus. We need a real leader."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "you mean like Biden, who wouldn't ban visitors from China"
That's a lie, Biden never said any such thing. And the "ban" wasn't a ban, it allows Americans to freely fly back and forth from China.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "
"you have to remove the NY data, because their incompetent governor chose to delay mitigation until it was too late""
New York issued its stay at home order Mar. 22nd. 14 Republican states still have not issued a stay at home order despite the fact that every medical expert says this is by far the most important mitigation exercise.
Trump could and should issue a national stay at home order but the feckless danger to humanity won't do it. He continues to do nothing in the face of 12000 dead that is exponentially increasing.
Non-stop lies out of Wyatt/Regina and they like to think they're my moral superior.
The truth is I am their moral superior because I put fairness first and my highest priority is maximizing the happiness for all in an equal and fair way.
I'm willing to accept you two back into the fold, but first you have to come back into compliance with the social contract - I'll treat you fairly and you treat me fairly. That means this constant lying of yours needs to stop.
REPORT: US Intel Warned White House Of “Cataclysmic” Pandemic In November, Were “Briefed Multiple Times”
As we can see, Wyatt/Regina's claim that Trump wasn't warned or was mislead about how serious this was isn't true in the slightest. Trump had repeated emphatic warnings about what was to come and did nothing. Up until the beginning of March Trump was still claiming the pandemic was a Democratic hoax.
Poll: Majority of registered voters say Obama would handle the pandemic better than Trump
In the poll only 44% of voters approved of Trump's job performance.
Trump is the first president in history to have never had a positive job approval rating in his term.
Things are looking mighty dim for Republicans in November.
"Really? When are we supposed to be seeing the effect of that then, oh very stable genius?"
well, unstable imbecile, Deborah Birx, the expert leading the mitigation task force, said the curve would peak on April 15
she said it a week ago Sunday
she must not be as smart as you though, she says 1.6 million won't die by May Day
"The first state to order a lockdown was California on Mar 19. As of yesterday, California had 17,460 cases and 434 deaths. Which is a certainly better than New York, with 142,384 cases and 5,489 deaths.
New York issued its stay at home order on Mar 22nd"
cases were exploding in NY by then
he delayed too long - for MY
"If New York was too late, so was nearly every other state in the union."
not really
no other states have a fraction of the mess created by Cuomo in NY
"Believe the Rumpster all you like, but there's nothing showing up in the data yet, or in the shutdown dates that would lead one to believe we're going to see a major slow down any time soon."
the evidence shows that the same mitigation efforts most of the country used has worked in California and Washington
there is clear evidence your 1.6 million number was based on ignorance
-or malevolence
turn back from your Tokyo Rose imitation and admit you are a traitor to your country
New polls released this week show most Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic – a marked shift as the death toll climbs in the United States.
Trump, who is running for reelection in November, initially downplayed the threat posed by the coronavirus before taking action to mitigate its spread. His approval rating initially rose, but as the virus hammered the economy and more Americans became infected, views on how he has handled the outbreak have taken a negative turn.
In a CNN poll released Wednesday, 52% disapproved of how Trump was combating the virus, up from about 48% disapproval in early March's CNN poll. When asked about Trump's handling of the pandemic at the beginning of March, 41% approved and 48% disapproved.
The federal government as a whole fared worse in the CNN poll, with 55% disapproving of its response and 41% approving, compared with 48% approving and 47% disapproving in CNN's poll at the end of March.
Opinions on Trump's handling of the crisis mostly broke down along partisan lines: 88% of Republicans approved of Trump, 14% of Democrats approved, and 45% of independents approved.
CNN's poll was done April 3-6 with a sample size of 1,002 Americans and a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.
A Monmouth University poll released Wednesday also showed public approval of Trump's coronavirus response slipping. Forty-six percent of respondents said Trump was doing a good job and 49% said he was doing a bad job. In March, half of respondents said he was doing a good job and 45% said he was doing a bad job. Monmouth's poll was surveyed April 3-7 with a sample size of 857 adults and a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
A poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed similar results. In their poll April 6-7 of 1,116 American adults, 53% disapproved and 42% approved of Trump's handling of the pandemic, a shift from the 46% disapproval and 48% approval in their poll March 30-31. The Reuters/Ipsos poll has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points.
Views on information sources during the pandemic break down along party lines. Forty-five percent of respondents in a poll by Politico and Morning Consult said they were satisfied with the information Trump provided about the coronavirus; that percentage dropped to 16% among Democrats and soared to 79% among Republicans.
Majorities on both sides of the aisle said they were satisfied with the information from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Seventy-six percent of all respondents said they were satisfied with the information he provided, and nearly 80% of both Democrats and Republicans said they were satisfied.
The Monmouth poll mirrored the results, with 35% of respondents and large proportions on both sides of the aisle saying Fauci was the most trusted public official on television and 20% saying Trump was the most trusted. Close to half, or 45% of Republicans, said Trump was the most trusted official, compared with 3% of Democrats.
Forty percent of the respondents in the Politico/Morning Consult survey said they thought Trump's response to the coronavirus was "excellent" or "good," and 54% rated the response as "just fair" or "poor."
The Politico and Morning Consult poll was conducted April 3-5 among 1,990 registered voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
NY is a Dem state disaster zone
the Dem-media-Hollywood complex has created the myth of a gallant leader
much like Jim Jones, Cuomo has led his followers to death
leadership is not a virtue
it's a type of power and can be used for good or bad
he used it to fail to prepare his state and to make a fatal decision about mitigation timing
Some of the biggest names in right-wing media are questioning the official Covid-19 death toll. Indeed, they’re suggesting the numbers might be inflated in an effort to paint President Trump and/or the crisis in the worst possible light. In recent days, a version of this theory has been floated by personalties such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson, Brit Hume, and “Diamond & Silk.”
Hume, who previously tweeted that New York’s “fatality numbers are inflated,” tweeted on Tuesday evening, “Well Dr. [Deborah] Birx just said it. Anyone in U.S. who dies with Covid-19, regardless of what else may be wrong, is now being recorded as a Covid-19 death.” (This is not quite what Birx said. She explained that if someone who goes into the hospital to be treated for the virus also “had a pre-existing condition” that eventually caused the individual to die, that would be counted as a Covid-19 death.)
Hume later appeared on Carlson’s show and offered the same message he did in his tweet. “There may be reasons people seek an inaccurate death count,” Carlson replied. The Fox News prime time host added, “When journalists work with numbers, there sometimes is an agenda.”
Hume and Carlson are not alone. Levin tweeted Tuesday evening that he has “suspected this for weeks.” And Limbaugh, who initially dismissed the coronavirus as the “common cold,” said recently, “It’s admittedly speculation, but … what if we are recording a bunch of deaths to coronavirus which really should not be chalked up to coronavirus?”
The death toll is likely *UNDERSTATED*
Right-wing media luminaries are advancing their theory in the face of reporting which indicates that the coronavirus death toll is being understated. An April 5 NYT story noted, “Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher.”
The NYT story cited hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners who said the official death toll doesn’t account for many people: “The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next.”
NYC Council health committee chair Mark Levine also said on Twitter the official NYC death toll “is certainly an undercount.” Levine explained, “Only people who die at home who are known to have a *positive coronavirus test* have the disease listed as the official cause on their death certificate. We know there are many others going uncounted.”
Trump was asked on Tuesday at the White House briefing about the accuracy of the death count, with a reporter suggesting it is a possible undercount because of the reasons outlined above. Trump pushed back, saying, “I think they’re pretty accurate on the death count. Somebody dies, I think the states have been pretty accurate.” Trump added, “No, the death counts, I think they are very, very accurate.” That said, given how the speculation about death counts being inflated are saturating right-wing media, it would not surprise me one bit if Trump later repeated the theory.
Of course he’s going to go with it. It may not be tomorrow or the next day. But he’ll get there.
And the fact that all those Fox News loonies are disseminating this crap to their millions of Trump cultists is simply horrifying. They are people without character or integrity who simply cannot ever, ever admit they are wrong. It’s one thing to engage in dirty politics. But this is next level.
They will say anything to keep Trump’s numbers down.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "[the New York Governor} delayed too long [to put a stay at home order in place]".
This is the perfect example of the hypocrisy in Wyatt/Regina's posts, accusing New York of waiting too long to put a stay at home order in place while 14 Republican states have yet to do so and Trump refuses to issue a national stay at home order to put an end to this Republican failure to prevent the spread of this disease.
Elizabeth Warren calls for provisions in Congress' next coronavirus recovery package that would protect voters' ability to safely cast a ballot. One proposal would require states to mail a ballot to every registered voter with a prepaid return envelope.
"We must not allow Republicans to exploit the pandemic to engage in voter suppression."
Republicans waged a fierce attack on democracy in Wisconsin. Due to the need for social distancing people wanted to vote by mail rather than risking their lives by standing in line. The Republican legislature voted against this and Republicans on the State supreme court sided with them in refusing to delay the election or let everyone vote by mail to minimize deaths from voting.
History has shown that the more people who vote the more likely it is Democrats win. This was demonstrated in 2018 with high voter turnout and Democrats sweeping the midterm elections. Trump and various Republicans gave up the game when they said if everyone is allowed to vote Republicans will never win again. They know the majority of the public is against them so they've waged war on democracy trying to prevent as many people from voting as possible.
Of the 180 polling places in a city of 600,000 only five were open for voting with lines nearly a mile long or longer. Republicans in Wisconsin did everything they could to shut down voting there knowing if most people get to vote they will vote Democratic.
The Speaker of the Wisconsin legislature mocked concerns for democracy by showing up at polling places decked out head to toe in personal protective equipment and then telling people as they were going to vote "its perfectly safe!", while the gear he was wearing sent the opposite message, that it is very dangerous to vote. Republicans clearly believe preventing people from voting is funny, that democracy is a bad thing.
For the past couple of decades at least there have consistently been millions more votes for Democrats in Congress as well as for the Democratic candidate for president. Republicans have manipulated the system so that Republican votes are worth more than Democratic votes giving them the ability to thwart the will of the people and "win" in many elections where they were on the losing end of the vote count.
If you want to save American democracy in November get out and vote no matter what. The majority of the public wants Democrats in power, we can win in the face of Republican attacks on democracy, let's make it happen!
Good anonymous posted "Some of the biggest names in right-wing media are questioning the official Covid-19 death toll. Indeed, they’re suggesting the numbers might be inflated in an effort to paint President Trump and/or the crisis in the worst possible light. In recent days, a version of this theory has been floated by personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson, Brit Hume, and “Diamond & Silk.”"
The last I heard the death count in the United States was 12,000 and that is almost certainly a gross under count.
In countries that have looked there are twice as many deaths (or more) than are expected based on past years that haven't been counted as coronavirus deaths.
The real death toll in the United States from coronavirus is almost certainly 24,000 or more.
Remember how Republicans went nuts for three years blaming(falsely) Hillary for four deaths in Benghazi?
When Trump is responsible Republicans are claiming 12,000 - 24,000 deaths aren't a problem in the slightest, that Trump is doing a "great" job.
Trump and his Republican supporters have blood on their hands.
Well after hearing about the disproportionate amount of blacks vs. percentage of population that have died from Coronavirus my first thought is that it gives less incentive for Republicans and Trump to address the pandemic A.S.A.P.
For instance:
Illinois 42% of deaths are black, population 15%.
Michigan 41% of deaths are black, population 14%.
Louisiana 70% of deaths are black, population 32%.
Am I being crass or unreasonable.
No.
Witness the hours long lines in Texas that mainly targeted minority precincts for voting.
Witness the Republican party fighting tooth & nail for Wisconsin voters having to risk increased exposure to wait in line for hours to vote at 5 of 180 open precincts.
It's an abomination and I sincerely hope it backfires in November.
Fox, Breitbart are fonts of misinformation, conspiracy
If letter writer John Meekins (“Help for small business lacked appropriate coverage,” Monday) listens to Fox News, Breitbart and President Trump, he has no idea of what is really going on. President Trump has made more than 16,000 documented lies or misstatements since inauguration.
On Fox, Sean Hannity claimed the virus was a hoax and a week later said that he never called the virus a hoax. Like the president, Fox Entertainment (they are not newsmen or journalists) will lie to your face even when they know there is videotaped evidence of what they said before.
Only a conspiracy theorist would listen to Breitbart, so maybe that’s Meekin’s problem. Fox news is a detriment to America just like our current president. They are dangerous.
Joe R. Tilley, Columbus
Fox News reporter: "Testing is still a big issue in this country. When can hospitals expect to receive a quick turnaround of these results?"
Trump: Not my job. Stop being so horrid.
Trump's worst nightmare is Republican voters turning against him. It's happening.
40% of 2016 Trump voters say the president did not take coronavirus seriously enough early in the crisis, up 17 points from last week.
"but, so far, despite starting at the same point, our death toll, like theirs [South Korea's], is not too high compared to other countries"
TTF's troll made that remark on March 19, 2020.
Here's where we stand "compared to other countries" today, April 8, 2020.
Italy 17,669 COVID-19 deaths...292.4 Deaths/1M population
Spain 14,673 COVID-19 deaths....314.0 Deaths/1M population
U.S. 14,463 COVID-19 deaths....44.2 Deaths/1M population
.
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China. 3,333 COVID-19 deaths....2.4 Deaths/1M population
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.
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.
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.
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S, Korea. 200 COVID-19 Deaths....3.9 Deaths/1M population
New Zealand crushed the Covidvirus curve with only one death. This is how it is done in a country with a real leader.
Trump just described his role as president is to be a cheerleader, don't tell the people anything bad could happen, tell them what they want to hear. As Chris Cuomo said, that is the very opposite of leadership.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "but, so far, despite starting at the same point, our death toll, like theirs [South Korea's], is not too high compared to other countries"
No surprise that once again Wyatt/Regina are being deceptive.
The world's average number of coronavirus deaths per each million of population is 9.6. The United States is at much worse than average - 33 deaths per million of population.
Trump fired all the competent medical people and continues to eliminate more as they disagree with his dangerous advice. That's why things are so bad.
There's almost certainly 25-30 thousand Americans dead from coronavirus due to Trump's cheerleading instead of actually leading.
The US has struggled to implement testing on a broad scale, which is largely due to early stumbles by the federal government in preparing for and responding to the novel coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out faulty test kits in February, and the US has been behind the curve ever since.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's top expert on infectious disease, in March told House lawmakers the US must admit it's "failing" in terms of testing for the virus.
More recently, a sobering report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services warned of recurring delays and issues with testing at US hospitals, as well as severe shortages of supplies.
President Donald Trump has scoffed at questions from reporters about issues with testing, and often made misleading comments about the availability of tests.
On March 6, for example, Trump said "anybody" who needs a test could get one. That was not true then, and remained false as of Wednesday.
Trump on Tuesday also falsely said the US is outpacing other countries in terms of testing.
"We've performed 1.87 million tests to date. So that's 1 million, 870 thousand — million tests. Think of that: 1,870,000 tests to date. And now we're performing them at a level that nobody has ever seen before," Trump said at the daily White House press briefing on coronavirus.
But with a population of roughly 327 million people, and less than 2 million tests conducted, this places the US far behind other countries in terms of testing per capita.
Trump has at times sought to blame the Obama administration over testing failures, stating he inherited a broken system, even though the novel coronavirus only emerged several months ago.
A majority of Americans (52%) said Obama would be a better leader than Trump during the coronavirus pandemic, compared to just 38% who said the same about Trump, a Politico-Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday found.
As of Wednesday morning, there were over 12,000 reported coronavirus deaths in the US, and roughly 400,000 confirmed cases of the virus.
Unfortunately covid19 has impacted African American communities in greater numbers than white communities.
Republicans are gambling that if they play this just right, more democratic voters will die than republican. They really are that cold.
"the evidence shows that the same mitigation efforts most of the country used has worked in California and Washington"
Two cases out of 50... and many states didn't shut down until later. It's too early to tell if they shut down in time. If it's showing up in the data yet, it's a small effect.
"there is clear evidence your 1.6 million number was based on ignorance"
The 1.6million figure was one of 2 regression runs on data publicly available data. You can run the numbers yourself to see if I made a mistake. It was never intended to be a prediction, and I never said we should expect 1.6 million deaths by the end of the month. Go back and read the original post and see for yourself.
But you keep pretending that I did because your modus operandi is to keep perpetuating a lie until enough people believe it is the truth. But you're not fooling anyone here.
"-or malevolence
turn back from your Tokyo Rose imitation and admit you are a traitor to your country"
What? The five people reading this blog are going to misread my post as badly as you did and it's going to affect the course of this country?
You are f'ing insane... and your desperation is showing.
What's the matter? Did you not stock up on toilet paper before the shelves were emptied?
That could be a real problem for someone who's so full of... stuff.
Good anonymous, I think you may be underestimating the audience size for this blog. This blog is for Montgomery County which is the largest county in Maryland, adjacent to Washington D.C. Many of the people in Montgomery county are wealthy washington insiders and family. Their opinion carries a lot of weight in Washington. That's why Wyatt and Regina Hardiman spend significant amounts of their time spreading propaganda here and have done so for almost two decades
Personally I think Wyatt and Regina are being paid to post here and elsewhere (as Northdallas30). Why else would they devote so much of their lives to spreading Republican propaganda here? Unless they're two self-loathing gays who are obsessed with self-accepting lgbt people.
The Trump Admin is suggesting that ASYMPTOMATIC employees should go to work to prevent critical shortages in a workforce...
... Regardless of a lack of testing, viral shed happens before first symptom. Asymptomatic people = Typhoid Mary's. They will decimate the workforce through spread of virus.
Sure, clean more, face mask, etc. So, what about the break room water tower?
"Good anonymous, I think you may be underestimating the audience size for this blog. This blog is for Montgomery County which is the largest county in Maryland, adjacent to Washington D.C. Many of the people in Montgomery county are wealthy washington insiders and family. Their opinion carries a lot of weight in Washington."
hahahahahahahahahohohohohohhohohohohHEEHEEHEHHEhohoHAHAHAHAHheeheehee-oh my, is someone stoooooopid?!?!?!? hohohohohohohohahahahahahahah-hidey-hidey-ho!!!
ROFL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"hahahahahahahahahohohohohohhohohohohHEEHEEHEHHEhohoHAHAHAHAHheeheehee-oh my, is someone stoooooopid?!?!?!? hohohohohohohohahahahahahahah-hidey-hidey-ho!!!
ROFL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I concur !
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous are losing their marbles.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "back in January, that medical genius, Anthony Fauci, said the coronavirus wasn't something to worry about". No suprise, that was another lie.
Dr. Fauci Warned In 2017 Of ‘Surprise Outbreak’ During Trump Administration
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist, warned in early 2017 that a “surprise outbreak” would occur during the Trump administration, and he said that more needed to be done to prepare for a pandemic.
Fauci ticked off a list of measures needed to prepare for such a crisis, including creating and strengthening global health surveillance systems, as well as public health and health care infrastructure; practicing transparency and honest communication with the public; coordinating and collaborating on both basic and clinical research, and developing universal platform technologies to better facilitate the development of vaccines.
Despite Fauci’s early warnings and calls for action, a report on Sunday analyzing the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic found that federal agencies waited until the middle of last month to order vital medical supplies and equipment to fight the coronavirus, despite warnings about its pandemic potential being made in January. As the virus has spread across the country, reports persist of mass shortages of supplies in hospitals and medical centers.
“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius said. Fauci has also expressed exasperation over the efforts to stem the tide of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. On Thursday, he spoke out against states that have not issued a stay-at-home order to help prevent the virus from spreading.
Trump could issue a national stay-at-home order but refuses to take this obvious step to save lives.
Wyatt/Regina continuously claim to be ignoring my posts, but the actually hang on every word, seething in anger because they're afraid to respond.
Hey Hardimans, if you think no one's reading here, what are you two doing here investing so much time and effort over the past two decades? Just not too bright?
Washington Post: Three months into the coronavirus epidemic, the Trump administration has yet to devise a national strategy to test Americans for the deadly disease - something experts say is key to blunting the outbreak and resuming daily life...even the most aggressive states have tested just a small fraction of their residents.
Your Trump pandemic response team:
- the stupidest f'ing moron on the planet
- the stupidest f'ing son-in-law on the planet
- they guy who sells pillows
- the doctor who trashed her reputation to become a Trump toady
- one actual expert but he needs security because of death threats from Republicans
Breaking News: The virus came to New York area mainly from Europe, not Asia, genetic analysis shows
So much for Trump's loophole filled "ban" on China.
Social distancing bends the curve and relieves some pressure on our heroic medical professionals. But in order to shift off current policies, the key will be a robust system of testing and monitoring - something we have yet to put in place nationwide.
Today I endorse Joe Biden for president. This trying time for our country has made crystal clear that elections matter and that we need a strong, honest, and compassionate leader in the White House. Donald Trump is not that person; we must defeat him in November.
Thanks, Katie. You're a real credit to your gender. Just think how great sleepy Joe "they're all fear-mongers" Biden would have done
btw, we don't have to wait until May 1 to see what a fool "Do the Math" is
just yesterday, "Do the Math" was still saying the model showing 1.6 million deaths was the best one
looks like the experts agree with me:
Anthony Fauci said Wednesday morning that he thinks the number of U.S. deaths from coronavirus will end up being less than the original projection of 100,000 to 200,000.
Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, attributed the drop to the success of social distancing measures that have directed people to stay home and closed many businesses.
“Although one of the original models projected 100- to 200,000 deaths, as we're getting more data and seeing the positive effect of mitigation, those numbers are going to be downgraded,” Fauci said on Fox News. “I don't know exactly what the numbers are going to be, but right now it looks like it's going to be less than the original projection.”
By the end of March, the White House was projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths as America's best-case scenario for the pandemic.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield made similar comments on Tuesday, saying he expected the number of deaths to be “much lower” than what was predicted by the models.
A closely watched University of Washington model is now projecting about 60,000 deaths in the U.S.
“We need to keep pushing on the mitigation strategies because there's no doubt that that's having a positive impact,” Fauci the expert said said.
President Trump has been eager to reopen the economy, and Fauci said planning for that is underway at the White House, where late Tuesday night there was a meeting on the subject in the Roosevelt Room.
here's what "Do the Nath" was saying less than 24 hours ago
"Right now, it's not clear from the data if an actual slowdown has occurred. The exponential fit (unfortunately) is still the best one for the data. And I'm not one to believe the moronic musings of an orange blowhard with 0 medical knowledge in the oval office. There are other ways to try and figure out what's really going on here."
"Do the Nath" has other ways, other than the experts Trump assembled and present every day, to "figure out what's really going on here"
it's called the Trump Derangement Method of interpreting the facts
"America’s major medical society specializing in the treatment of respiratory diseases has endorsed using hydroxychloroquine for seriously ill hospitalized coronavirus patients.
The American Thoracic Society issued guidelines Monday that suggest COVID-19 patients with pneumonia get doses of the anti-malaria drug."
looks like Do the Math was wrong and the "orange blowhard with 0 medical knowledge" was right
again
btw, the US is starting to see high death rates and many doctors are starting to think it's because of overuse of ventilators
they may cause more harm than good, as 80% of coronavirus patients on ventilators are dying
other intensive respiration therapies cause less harm and work better
another Dem talking point bites the dust
give 'em hydroxychloroquine and avoid using ventilators
and things will get better
turns out if you just do the math without using your brain, you make an ass out of you and your friends
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