” The U.S. had a program — PREDICT — that identified lethal viruses abroad to prevent their spread to the U.S. It had 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.” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Please share widely!
George Takei : Sorry. This isn’t our “Pearl Harbor” moment. That was a surprise, dastardly attack by an enemy nation. This is our “Chernobyl” moment : a preventable catastrophe that was denied, downplayed and mismanaged until tens of thousands were dead.
I found out today that a treasured friend is ill and his wife is hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia. . She is in her thirties. Each individual case, each individual story makes you wonder whether that particular tragedy might have been avoided had the Trump Administration acted responsibly and early when it had early warning.
Far too little attention has been paid to his motivation for ignoring early warnings. The man is a madman, and the credulous press treats him like he is normal even as he abuses them like a sarcastic tyrant. More than one person I know longs for a member of the press to tell him off in no uncertain terms and give up their access as an act of protest.
Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing to see a modern day Helen Thomas pipe up and say, “No! I decide what question I ask, not you, so back off.”
Why do I say “madman”? Because he makes it clear day after day that he cares about only himself. And yet the press cowers and cowers in his presence. Don’t think Trump doesn’t know this. The White House press corps has zero solidarity.
I see no sign of madness in Mr. Trump.
I see instead a Russian asset whose prime directive from Vladimir Putin is to cause as much chaos, despair, and damage as possible to everything that America is and stands for.
Mr. Trump learned how use natural catastrophes to accomplish this end in his handling of Hurricane Maria. He destroys the federal agencies needed to handle a natural catastrophe, and when the pandemic strikes it has maximum impact. When it is clear that cooperation among states is vital to getting each state the equipment it needs when it needs it, Mr. Trump directs that they instead fight among themselves for it. When his epidemiologists say that face masks are needed to limit the damage, he refuses to wear a mask. The common thread of ALL of it is to maximize hurt, suffering, and harm.
He behaves as though he WANTS the economy to collapse, people to die, businesses to fold, alliances to be broken, the electoral system to fail.
This is the single unifying characteristic of virtually every action of Mr. Trump.
“With Donald Trump, all roads lead to Vladimir Putin”
tRump and his ass lickers are evil. Anyone who supports this traitorous monster and his obsequious minions will be harshly judged by all decent, patriotic Americans on November 3 — 209 days from today.
Being simultaneously mad and Putin’s asset are not vices mutually exclusive of each other.
I am currently a grounded snowbird. This site has a venomous hatred for anything conservative and the ability to have any discussion of policies, historical response to pandemics, the ability to use this outbreak as a learning tool, etc is out the window. A distant family member died from corona recently, there was no secret plot that led to their demise.
This too shall pass. At the moment though I am sure Trump would win the state of Fla if the election were held today. (I didn’t vote for him)
@the ability to use this outbreak as a learning tool, etc is out the window:
What learnings do you think are “out the window”?
@A distant family member died from corona recently:
I’m sorry for your loss.
What does that untimely death have to with presence or absence of any “secret plot”?
Just for clarity, I’ve said nothing about anything “secret”. The involvement of Vladimir Putin and Russian organized crime in the affairs of the Donald Trump administration and GOP has been widely documented in a multitude of reliable sources with corroborating evidence. There is no “secret” here — everything that I’m talking about is hidden in plain sight and has been since at least the 2016 campaign.
@venomous hatred for anything conservative:
I agree that this site shows a venomous hatred for deceit, corruption, thuggery, misogyny, tyranny, flagrantly unrestrained greed, and so on.
You seem to argue that this equivalent to “conservative”. Is that what you mean?
It is hard to have a rigorous discussion when I have no idea what you are talking about. Merkel and Johnson are conservative leaders who have handled this crisis with far more gravity and competency than Donald Trump (albeit, belatedly and perhaps fatally so in the case of Mr. Johnson whom I do wish a speedy recovery even if I find his politics distasteful ).
There is nothing intrinsically conservative about misleading the public, attacking experts, attacking journalists, denying science, and making states compete over supplies. There is nothing intrinsically conservative about failing to invoke the Defense Production Act to make supplies, as past wartime presidents have done. As past conservative leaders like Winston Churchill did to protect their people, nationalizing production until the threat passes.
What we have with Donald Trump is not an ideological failure, but a complete absence of personal responsibility wedded to incompetent leadership. Even George W. Bush had a robust pandemic response plan and team assembled in place. If anything, his perceived overreaction to SARS looks
commendable in hindsight.
I assume that the “venomous hatred” and “secret plot” language refers to my comments about Mr. Trump’s apparent ties to Mr. Putin.
I grant you that it’s possible that one way to describe this behavior is “a complete absence of personal responsibility wedded to incompetent leadership”. That characteristic misses the blatant self-interest that pervades every action and statement.
While this characterization is possible, it seems to me that Occam’s Razor provides far simpler characterization — Mr. Trump is acting as Russian asset.
I can think of no instances at all over the last four years — large or small, macro or micro, major or minor — where Mr. Trump’s errors and misdeeds work against the interests of Russia and Mr. Putin. It seems to me that if these were the result of incompetence, senility, or simple blunders then they would be more evenly distributed for and against the interests of Mr. Putin and Russia.
It seems to me that the publicly-available evidence demonstrates a clear bias towards the interests of Mr. Putin and Russia in all this provocative behavior.
I agree that we do not yet have compelling public evidence that this bias is knowing and intentional . Is that because it isn’t, or is it more likely because we either haven’t looked or haven’t been allowed to see the results of those who did look?
We still don’t have testing data for COVID-19 for the overwhelming majority of Americans or for nearly all of the US land area. I think anybody who is paying attention knows that that absence of testing data does NOT mean that disease is not present.
We won’t know whether or not the pro-Putin and pro-Russian bias of Donald Trump and Trumpists is intentional until we investigate it (or see the results of those investigations).
The absence of that data does NOT mean anything.
You are describing legitimate European conservatism. I actually haven’t seen real conservatism lately in this country, at least among those in power, so much as don’t-give-a-hoot nihilism.
Even some American conservatives are doing a good job. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio comes to mind. No BS, follows the scientists, shut down his state and schools earlier and for longer than most showing himself to be very sober minded about the whole thing. He does not attack journalists and is pressing for the needed help from Washington without groveling in front of Trump. He is a conservative Republican, but he has my praise as an effective leader during this crisis. Donald Trump does not.
There was a pretty hysterical attack on DeWine on this blog when he postponed the Ohio primary. That would tend to support what Scott is saying..
I disagreed with that attack and I think Tom walked it back. The issue in this thread is whether Trump is doing a good job and whether it is a form of “liberal bias” to argue he is not.
For me I joined the discussion because I was trying to elevate the discourse out of the gutter. I know far more people who are Trump supporting “ass lickers” as Fred calls them than Dem liberals. I have to stop reading on here, and will. I’ll check back in after Trump is re-elected and maybe we can talk about Ivanka running.
@I joined this discussion because …:
Earlier, you wrote:
Is this your idea of elevating discourse?
“venomous hatred”?
You’re just trolling.
Mr. DeWine postponed that election an eternity ago when there was substantially less risk to the Ohio public. He took those steps unilaterally after refusing to even ask the Ohio Legislature to consider scheduling a delay or arranging for mail-in voting.
Mr. Evers, Democratic Governor of Wisconsin, has been attempting to get the GOP-majority state legislature to delay the primary for some time now. The pandemic in MUCH worse in Wisconsin today than it was in Ohio at the beginning of March.
Once more you seem more passionate about attacking me than about addressing the issues at hand.
“substantially less risk” ???
The NYTimes COVID infection data by date says that for the state of Ohio, there were 37 COVID infections and 0 deaths reported statewide on 17-Mar-2020.
Current Wisconsin media report that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says that corresponding figures for Wisconsin on Sunday, 5-April-2020 were:
2,267: COVID-19 Infections statewide
68:COVID-19 deaths
2,267 cases vs 37 and 68 deaths vs 0 shows significantly increased risk to me.
I invite you to offer data to challenge my statement about the relative risk. So far, you’ve done nothing more than confirm my observation that you’re more interested in insulting me than having any sort of reasonable discussion.
So the fake news ( NY Times) reporting of Obama contracting in 2009 for 40,000 ventilators and 5 years later the company never delivered a single one is a myth. And the wikipedia entry about 156 million masks being put in the national stockpile in 2006 and then used in the 2009 flu pandemic without being replaced by Obama or Trump is also a myth. Looking at right wing media vs the left wing you’d think it isn’t the same country they’re reporting about.
None of this matters. Both parties only look to screw the other party and hurting the general public is collateral damage. Biden may or may not win, he’ll be ineffective because Republicans will want to drag their feet to make him look bad. Right now Trump will win Fla, like it or not.
@scott12mass:
Your commentary is both more meaningful and easier to respond to if you provide actual cites. What NYTimes piece? When? In what context? What Wikipedia Entry? What are its sources? Did you examine them?
@Looking at right wing media vs the left wing …:
At least one extreme of the dichotomy you offer doesn’t even pretend to report actual facts. When did Sean Hannity ever attempt to offer anything resembling actual facts?
There’s no question that our media are sharply divided. That does not mean that all of it is “fake”. Suppose two sources observe the same explosion. One says it happened, provides a time-stamped videotape of the event, provides a time-stamped seismic trace of the event, and provides photographs of the charred rubble afterwards. Another source reports that nothing happened, and then reports that “some unreliable sources repeated rumors of an explosion.”
You would apparently have us dismiss both sources — leaving the question of whether or not an explosion occurred unanswered. Your answer appears to be “none of his matters.”
I think that an enormous number of people will sicken and die unnecessarily. I think that pretty much all of us (save for a tiny handful of the very wealthy) face a lengthy, intense, and utterly unnecessary economic depression.
Maybe none of that matters to you. It matters to me.
For some “owning the libs” is the most important thing. Not competence. Not consistency. Not leadership. Not personal responsibility. Scott’s argument boils down to “but Obama”. Obama hasn’t been President for four years. This guy has had every opportunity to dismantle his legacy in other areas, surely he has had enough opportunity to double the Pandemic team and make it twice as good. Instead he sacked every last member! He ignored every warning and he downplayed the danger to manipulate the markets. It’s sorely bit him in the ass.
I wonder when the MAGA hats will wake up and realize this guy doesn’t care about them and doesn’t take responsibility for anything. Maybe when their grandma can’t get a ventilator since we ran out, like what happened to my students, or maybe when their wife who works in a hospital doesn’t have access to PPE like mine. We’ve already lost two 9/11’s in NY alone and another 9/11 in the rest of the country. Trump was right to say it happened on Bush’s watch and he did not make us safer, now it’s on his watch. Not Clinton’s. Not Obama’s. Not Hillary’s. Not Bidens. His. When unemployment hits double digits and rises to 30%, which is likely, I cannot see what he has going for him. Is losing your job worth caging a Mexican kid? Is losing your parents?
Shortages related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
wikipedia
I thought Florida was in the bag for Trump, but that state has been hit hard and it’s Trump lite Governor has done a piss poor job responding to it.