cwericb

Thanks, caught the last half of that. I must say he seemed quite reasonable compared to what we have seen over this past winter. "Margaret: What do you think is most important in a leader during this pandemic? Rudy: Truthfulness & discretion." Honest and good answer - but is that not the exact opposite of what we have been seeing?

On the subject of sociopathic narcissists ... with a very condescending look, Pence delaired that he didn’t need to wear a mask because he tested negative recently. Aside from being disrespectful, aside from setting a poor example, and aside from the fact he could have contracted the virus - or something else - since his test, I believe the tests are only about 85% accurate. So that excuse was about a truthful as his suggestion that he couldn’t look people in the eye with a mask on. His supporters must be so proud.

You can argue your graphs, studies, and statistics all you want, but when you have a mentally ill lunatic in charge of the country all those facts mean little. A few days ago I wrote here that the United States had become the laughing stock of the world. Here is what Ireland’s most respected mainstream political writer says... Irish Times April 25, 2020 By Fintan O’Toole THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity. However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful. Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious weeks of warning about what was coming, the world’s best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world’s leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic. As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, “The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus – like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.” It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time – wilfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News became vectors of the pestilence. The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked on live TV. If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world’s leading nation – an idea that has shaped the past century – has all but evaporated. Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to do? How many people in Düsseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas? It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has exposed it in the most savage ways. Abject surrender What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump – he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety. Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order. In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students travelling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and “recreational activities”. Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: “We didn’t know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours.” This is not mere ignorance – it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fuelled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus. It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right. Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted. The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence. Fertile ground But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it. There are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection. Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder. And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here. That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality. And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element. As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics. Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.

It’s time Americans take a look at the two party system. Absolutely.

“Biden the rapist” Yup, here we go again... Do you want to share the proof that Biden raped someone? I haven't seen any. Or are you taking a page out of DJT’s book and slinging any mud you can at someone who might be a threat to the guy you have been defending for at least the past 3 years? Since you appear to be referring to something (not rape) that MAY happened 30 years ago, where were you and what were you doing 30 years ago? " They are literally two versions of the same individual." Biden vs Trump? You have got to be kidding.

“The fact that we are even having this conversation (and its only this week's conversation in a stream of similar conversations) shows how unfit this President is for any type of leadership. It's the President for crissakes!! It's the one person we shouldn't have to worry about telling their citizens to poison themselves and then backtracking. I used to tell my kids they could grow up to be President because it was so respected and esteemed. Now it's become a joke and reflects on America.” Yes! That is the point. Do Trump supporters not realize that he has made the USA the laughing stock of the whole world? He is an embarrassment to the country and its reached the point that other world leaders just try to humour him while laughing behind his back. Is there anyone out there that doesn't realize that the man clearly has mental issues? That certainly does not reflect well on those who continue to make excuses for him. Wake up before it is too late.

Never mind the personal attacks and the liberal bashing, what specifically was said that you disagree with? Or do you think things are going along just fine ?

Trump Tweet: Thank you to Rachel @Maddow for putting our Military on full display, and showing how GREAT a job the Federal Government is doing! Also, a special thanks to General Semonite, a Patriot of the highest order and a truly talented engineer and builder! Maddow responded : Hi, Mr. President -- thanks for tweeting that interview. Gen. Semonite and the Army Corps are indeed doing great work, but at nowhere near the scale that is needed. We're hundreds of thousands of hospital beds behind, months behind schedule, and... ...we're about to see the number of sick patients surge and hospitals overflow in multiple US sites at once. This is not an NYC problem or even just a city problem. The apex patient surges will not happen tidily, one after the other, they'll flare up all over, overlapping. Mr. President, with all the heroism and good work we're seeing from Americans around the country, you personally are leading the worst national response of any industrialized nation in the world, in what is now the largest COVID-19 outbreak on earth. I say this without any malice at all, but please know that the US response is a catastrophe that is on track to cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Stop talking about yourself and hyping unproven treatments and demanding people compliment you and all the rest of the nonsense. (1) Nationalize the supply chains for critical medical supplies -- you should have done that months ago. Fifty states fending for themselves is idiotic, but it persists day after day, week after week. You can fix this now. (2) Get people like VP Pence and your son-in-law out of the way and bring in actual, experienced pandemic response experts and scientists to lead the response and brief the nation. (3) Some Governors are following your zig-zagging and dithering lead and refusing even now to institute clear stay at home orders to slow the spread of the virus -- tell them unequivocally to change course, now. (4) Prisons, jails, detention centers will be death traps for prisoners/detainees and staff. They'll also become leaking reservoirs of infection for every community -- order emergency decarceral measures, now, before it spreads wildly everywhere people are kept behind bars. (5) We're going to need mass testing, a massive effort to isolate those with the virus (separate and apart from uninfected people staying home), a huge data-driven contact tracing effort, and a wartime-level mobilization of health workers and people to support them. You're failing to do any of that. Any of it. Any of it. You're failing on every measure, and it is worse by the day. Find experts who can do this for the country and please, sir, get out of the way. Thank you again for tweeting that interview.

"He has a BA in economics? There's no way this clown didn't pay someone to do assignments for him. Can you picture him writing even a little 500 word essay, on anything?" Coincidentely, back a while ago Trump sent letters to his former schools threatening legal action if any of his marks were released. I think we might guess why.

Always good to know the country is in good hands and run by a very stable genius. I know this because he said so and he wouldn't lie to me.

Well if Trump supporters tend to follow his advice he might not have many supporters by November.

At last... another potential cure! After a Homeland Security official mentioned the ability of disinfectants like bleach to kill the coronavirus on surfaces, Trump remarked on the effectiveness. “And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Trump said during his daily press briefing at the White House. “Because you see it gets on the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.”

Kind of sums it up nicely: "The curve is flattening; we can lift restrictions = The parachute has slowed our fall enough; we can take it off now."

netnet. Well said.

"I don't think you can trust the "active" number. The tracking of recoveries is sketchy at best. If someone tests positive but they have a very mild case at home they're unlikely to go back into the system as recovered. " The number of active cases, the number of recovered and the number of deaths each correspond to the same ratio between Canada and the US - 30:1. When the difference in population is factored in the US has approximately 3 times that of Canada. This could change. I now see Manitoba has closed its borders like several other provinces. I think this is probably going to mean that the US/Canadian border can't be opened no matter what Trump or Trudeau want until the provinces agree. Sure like to see it reopened, but it is a little early yet.

"There are other factors: population density and volume of international travel being two that come to mind. Realistically my guess is a combination of all these factors. " Well Toronto is the same size as Chicago or larger and I would suggest that per capita Canadians travel as much as Americans or more. Plus 90% of Canadians are clustered within 100 miles of the US border.

Here are some interesting statistics: The US has had 654,000 cases less 56,000 recovered. So about 600,000 active cases Canada has 29,000 cases less 9000 recovered. So about 20,000 active cases Deaths show the same ratio. So the US has 30 times the active cases and deaths that Canada has but (roughly) only 10 times the population. It would seem Canada has - so far - handled the situation considerably better. Three weeks ago Trump wanted troops on the Canada US border. Only Mr. Trump knew why. Now Trump wants to open the border. But Canada is not ready for this yet which puts Trudeau in an awkward position as he doesn't want to piss off Trump any more than necessary and he has already done this when Trump unsuccessfully tried to hijack Canada's masks. I am guessing that individual provinces will declare or extend States of Emergency which I believe gives them power to control provincial borders. This takes the authority away from Trudeau so he does not have to make a decision that would irritate Trump. It is somewhat similar to the Trump vs states individual authority.

The present administration is an elaborate satire.

“Profiteering? You mean running their business the same as they had the past 30+ years?” But that is the point - this is not the same as situation as anything experienced in the last 30+ years. “This is profiteering?” Yes when your competitors have been responsible citizens and you have taken advantage of that to pick up their business. “The amount of lives and businesses ruined because of this will greatly exceed that of the virus, which wouldn't you know, seem on pace to resemble a bad year of the flu!” Yes! Because the world has taken a responsible path to do whatever necessary to reduce the deaths. Because of this we have been able to reduce the numbers, so you say - see it wasn’t that bad after all. “And I guarantee the reason he is standing for this nonsense is because he doesnt have the spine to call out state governors and deal with the media heat he'd get.” We agree 100% on this. He will do anything he can to have some other entity take responsibility for any part of this that he can. PS. If he had any balls he would have had a nation wide shutdown and he could have made a step by step program to return to normal. But he left it up to the goverrnors so he wouldn't have to take any responsibility.

“I used to frequent a small Bergen County deli in Paramus. This place was the last to shut down in Bergen County. They stayed open and fought and at one point the owner said they were doing 300% more business because they were one of the few ones open during the crazy stretch. The governor literally forced them to send their employees home and shut the doors. That is astoundingly anti American...” Wow, I don’t know where to start ... but that is some definition of the American people. Because they were willing to stay open and thereby contribute to the spread of a deadly virus their sales were up 300% due to the fact that more responsible outlets closed to protect their staff and patrons. This deli was simply profiteering at the expense of their competitors - and customers. By the way, I just have to ask, have you taken any steps to avoid catching or spreading the virus? Did you risk going to the deli when it remained open?

Here is what you get when sociopaths play games with humanitarian issues. First Trump attempted to hijack Canadian masks. Now “Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin". Nice bunch of people, hard to tell them apart at times. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html

I have a problem with the statistics that are presented to us on a daily basic. “There were 500 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed today today.” Well obviously that number is out of the total number tested. If there were 1,000,000 tested, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. If there 5,000, 1,000 or 500 in total tested, that is a different matter.

"While many in South East Asian countries went at least till now without shutdown and low deaths?" Perhaps, but what will it look like in a month's time?

"And what is the real tragedy - the number of unemployed (destroying lives) or the tragic early death of someone due to having CV?" Perhaps its just me but personally I would rather be unemployed than dead.

In his own words.... Jan. 22: Trump makes his first comments about the coronavirus, saying he is not concerned about a pandemic. “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. … It’s going to be just fine.” Jan. 30: Trump says of the threat: “We think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” Feb. 7 (tweet): ”… as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.” Feb. 10: “I think the virus is going to be — it’s going to be fine.” Feb. 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” Feb. 19: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.” Feb. 24 (tweet): “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” Feb. 25: “You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are … getting better. They’re all getting better. … As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I think that we’re doing a great job.” Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When 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.” Feb. 28: “I think it’s really going well. … We’re prepared for the worst, but we think we’re going to be very fortunate.” Feb. 28: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Feb. 28: “This is their new hoax.” Feb 29: “Tremendous amounts of supplies are already on hand. We have 43 million masks, which is far more than anyone would have assumed we could have had so quickly, and a lot more are coming.” March 4: “Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.” March 6: “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.” March 9 (tweet): “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” March 10: “And it hit the world. And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” March 11: “I think we’re going to get through it very well.” “The vast majority of Americans: The risk is very, very low. Young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus.” March 12: “It’s going to go away. ... The United States, because of what I did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point … when you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.” March 13: “We’ll have the ability to do in the millions (tests) over a very, very quick period of time.” March 15: “This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.” March 16: “If you’re talking about the virus, no, that’s not under control for any place in the world.” March 17: “I’ve always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic … I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” March 24:"I give it two weeks..." "So, I think Easter Sunday, and you'll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it's just about the timeline that I think is right,"