This Incompetent Administration's Response to Coronavirus
 

Just incredible. The incompetence of IMPOTUS and his lackeys is beyond belief. How ANYONE can still support these clowns is simply laughable. But right here we have our resident moron Dondilion, who will believe anything Fucker Carlson tells him. :rolleyes:

Heather Cox Richardson
10 hrs ·
February 24, 2020 (Monday)

The major news today, both at home and abroad, is the spread, containment, and management of coronavirus. I am going to write about its political implications. I am neither a doctor nor an epidemiologist, and cannot weigh in on anything other than what this moment looks like to a political historian.

And, while that sounds like a strange lens through which to see this new disease, the virus is actually quite important for American politics.

By now, everyone knows the key elements of the coronavirus story: a pneumonia outbreak appeared in December in Wuhan, China, and scientists traced it to a new strain of coronavirus. After the disease claimed a number of lives, China issued the largest quarantine in history, keeping about 45 million people home from work and public spaces. Epidemiologists were impressively fast off the mark, isolating the new virus and beginning to develop models for how it spreads and vaccinations for how to stop it.

But it has moved quickly. As of 9:30 tonight, there have been slightly over 80,000 confirmed cases around the world and 2,699 confirmed deaths. (Let me reiterate: these are the existing numbers, but there are many reasons why they are not in any way definitive as a measure of health or of the epidemic. I’m just giving a sense of the scope of the crisis here for a political read on it.)

Last weekend, as I wrote here, the World Health Organization suggested that the window for containing the coronavirus was closing, but many scientists think the window has already closed.

And yet, the U.S. seems to be unprepared. In May 2018, under then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, the administration got rid of the official in charge of overseeing a U.S. response to a pandemic and disbanded the global health security team. Today Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli went on Twitter to ask people if they, too, were having trouble accessing the coronavirus map maintained by Johns Hopkins University. "Has the Johns Hopkins map of the coronavirus stopped working for other people, or just me?" Cuccinelli tweeted. "I just tried again, and it looks like Johns Hopkins put the information behind a membership wall of some kind. Seems like bad timing to stop helping the world with this (previously) useful resource. Here's hoping it goes back up soon."

Newspaper columnist Max Burbank shared the popular outrage: “Thanks for inspiring confidence. Shouldn't YOU GUYS have a map of this? Shouldn't the CDC? You know who they are, right? Isn't there anyone in charge of response to this? Or did someone colossally stupid eliminate that position?” American historian L. D. Burnett tweeted: “there is literally an ENTIRE FEDERAL AGENCY working for you that you could ask to provide you and all Americans with the latest information on the Coronavirus.” Health policy professor Howard Forman begged: “PLEASE can someone tell me that this is a parody account and that our Executive branch has a CLUE of what is going on? PLEASE!?” Forman then helpfully included links to useful resources for his followers.

The administration has been uncharacteristically quiet about the crisis, and seems unable to figure out how to handle it. I wrote before about its decision to return 14 infected people from the cruise ship the Diamond Princess to America in the same plane as uninfected people despite the protests of CDC officials, and now officials find themselves unable to find a place to house those people still in quarantine because of the flight. The infected travelers have brought the official count of U.S. cases to over 50, but experts think the number might be higher because we are not testing for it.

In 2014, when 2 health care workers infected with the Ebola virus were brought back to America for treatment, Trump had plenty to say. He tweeted: “Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days — now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” The next day he continued: “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back…. People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” He called for strict flight bans and quarantines and called it “morally unfair” when President Barack Obama sent troops to help contain the outbreak.

This time, though, Trump has been largely silent about the crisis except to say it is under control. On February 16, the Washington Post reported that Trump was worried by a 600 point stock market drop on January 31 after major airlines suspended flights to China. Afraid that strong action against the virus would worry people and thus hurt the economy, he focused on calming the markets by staying quiet, since he sees a strong economy as his primary strength going into the election. “The biggest current threat to the president’s reelection is this thing getting out of control and creating a health and economic impact,” according to Chris Meekins, a former Trump administration emergency-preparedness official.

Today, the administration’s silence changed. It requested $2.5 billion in emergency funding for the crisis (significantly less than the $6 billion Obama asked for to combat Ebola), and Trump, who is on a trip to India, weighed in. “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!”

Trump appears to have been pressured into acknowledging the crisis by its growing impact on the economy. The Chinese quarantine has slowed or stopped production there, emptying the pipeline of supplies flowing to American manufacturing and merchants, and this weekend’s news that the virus is spreading outside Asia sparked economic fears. The U.S. stock market dropped 1000 points today, a drop of 3.5%, its worst in two years. Airline stocks led the slide. And now, tonight, which is Tuesday morning in Japan, Tokyo stocks opened down about 1000 points on coronavirus fears. (The market was closed on Monday.)

As I say, I am 100% not going to weigh in on this as a medical issue—I am neither a doctor nor an epidemiologist—but as a political historian I will note two things. First, Trump’s instincts are right: this health crisis will definitely slow down the economy and could trigger a recession, and that would indeed cripple his reelection campaign.

Second, our public safety should matter more to a president than his reelection campaign.

And why would anybody who is competent want to work for the most incompetent CINC in the history of the office? Anybody wouldn't. Even Barr, pal of Robert Mueller, who we were stupid enough to put any faith in, turns out to be utterly incompetent.

If one's ideology is fucked up enough, they automatically qualify as incompetent.

I'm weighing in on the Covid19 virus over on AudioKarma.

There's nothing good about the situation.

They say 70% of us are going to have the illness within 2 years.

I have no doubt Donny and the Repubes are already strategizing ways to use this outbreak to rig elections in Nov by requiring people in certain "infected" areas to stay at home. The "infected" areas will all, of course, be in the Bluest sections of the country...

Stock market heads into free fall zone over virus scare, down 2000 pts. I'm sure Trump thinks it's all a conspiracy to tarnish his faux gold-plated bathroom fixtures.

Buy stock in O2 and respiratory equipment suppliers.

Invest in Big Pharma, vaccine will be a big seller.

Effers put all their eggs in the Chinese basket.

I was reading today about an outfit that worked up an experimental vaccine in record time. They'll be running human trials in March or April.

Interesting times we're living in, eh?

Meanwhile, that dilapidated state hospital in Costa Mesa that they want to open up for quarantined folk is only a mile due west from me. :eek:

Wut? :confused:

Maybe this will cure this disengaged incompetent narcissistic administration, like a cancer, by politically killing its host.

70% infected within two years translate to between 4 and 5 million dead in this country, based on a fatality rate of 2%. This will hurt.

But we should have vaccine after a year. That will cut some layers off the wide part of the infection pyramid.

It's the production loss due to sick time in the labor force that's going to get us.

Who the hell has three weeks of sick time annually ?

Wounder if the anti-vaxxers will be in line to get a shot when available?

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he was planning to destroy the coronavirus by sending an “incredibly mean tweet” in its direction.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said that he was already in the process of crafting insults about the virus that would obliterate it once and for all.

In a preview of the mean tweet he is devising, Trump said, “The thing about the virus is it’s incredibly small. It’s smaller than Mike Bloomberg. Once I point that out, the coronavirus won’t know what hit it.”

He added that he was also in the process of coming up with an insulting nickname for the virus.

“It’s going to be something about how small it is,” Trump said. “Something like Lil’ Micro Mini Virus. I’m still working on it, but it’s going to be so mean. You won’t believe how mean it’s going to be.”

Trump was dismissive of the scientists who have raised dire concerns about the virus in recent days. “These so-called experts are the same people who said I needed sunglasses to stare at the eclipse,” he said.

First they have to take themselves and their measles carrying offspring to their own little contagion island where they can live out their lives re-infecting each other instead of the rest of us. And if they want the COVID19 shot the vaccine will be shipped to them after they pay for it.

Yes, a Corona recession seems likely.

Heather Cox Richardson
9 hrs ·
February 25, 2020 (Tuesday)

Today has been weirdly unsettled as coronavirus news broke, the stock market tottered, and Trump attacked the Supreme Court and California Democrat Adam Schiff while trying to use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to cut government further.

But before I get to any of this, let me clarify something: you are hearing a lot now about the coronavirus “pandemic.” There is a HUGE difference between a pandemic and a deadly pandemic. A pandemic just means that an infectious disease has spread across the world. It does NOT mean that we’re all going to die from it (as people keep helpfully shouting on Twitter). So be smart and prepared, but don’t panic.

Today the administration acknowledged that the coronavirus is likely to spread across the nation, even as Trump surrogates tried to argue that it was contained or—as Rush Limbaugh said—just the common cold (four coronaviruses are among the viruses that cause what we call "colds," but this is a new, vastly more dangerous, strain). This turnaround revealed how woefully incompetent administration officers are. In a painful exchange between Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf (another acting secretary, rather than a permanent one), at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Wolf got the statistics for the death rates of coronavirus and influenza wrong (it appears to be around 2% for coronavirus; the death rate from influenza is about 0.1% annually), admitted he had no idea how many hospital beds or masks America has, and generally seemed completely over his head.

It was an interesting exchange, because Kennedy, of course, is a Trump enabler. Him lacerating this inadequate Trump appointee seemed to me simply to show his determination to demonstrate for voters his dominance over the younger man, since Kennedy is part of the cabal that supported seeding the government with these unequipped appointees in the first place.

For his part, Trump did not help. He told reporters that “We’re very close to a vaccine,” and that “we’re really down to probably ten” cases. Researchers say they are 12 to 18 months from a vaccine, forcing the White House to say that Trump was referring to an Ebola vaccine, not a coronavirus vaccine, when he spoke. The CDC has confirmed 57 cases of coronavirus in the U.S., but since the coronavirus test sent out by the CDC earlier this month turned out to be faulty, we have tested only 426 people aside from those evacuated by air from other countries. So how many cases we actually have is unclear.

Also interesting is that the administration is finally admitting we have a problem, over Trump’s objections. He appears deeply concerned that coronavirus worries will hurt the economy. Stock prices continued to slide today for the fourth day in a row, with the market taking another hit as the Dow Jones Industrial average was down 879 points. Trump’s surrogates tried to be reassuring. “We have contained this. We have contained this. I won’t say air-tight, but pretty close to air-tight,” Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said on CNBC. “The business side, and the economic side, I don’t think it’s going to be an economic tragedy at all … The numbers are saying the U.S. [is] holding up nicely.”

Trump is clearly most concerned about his political standing. In India today, he slashed at two Supreme Court justices he perceives to be his enemies, calling for Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse themselves from any cases involving him, even as news has broken that Justice Clarence Thomas's wife has been delivering suggestions to the White House for "disloyal" employees to fire. (Remember, the Supreme Court next month will take up the question of whether or not his accountant and banks have to respond to subpoenas for Trump’s financial records, as lower courts have insisted.)

He also called for an investigation into House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) alleging without evidence that he leaked classified information about Russian interference in the 2020 election. This, too, seems like deflection, since all evidence suggests that the leaker was Devin Nunes (R-CA), who news reports based on the accounts of several people present say told Trump about the meeting.

With people distracted by news of coronavirus, administration officials are not slowing down their determination to destroy the New Deal government that we have come to rely on. Far from shying away from their destruction of the activist government as it becomes apparent to most of us that slashing funds for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and getting rid of the pandemic spe************************ts on the National Security Council were a colossally bad idea, the administration has used the crisis to continue to downsize government. The administration wants $2.5 billion to pay for the emergency response to the coronavirus, but it only wants $1.25 billion to be newly appropriated emergency money. It wants to transfer the rest from existing programs, including $535 million from money appropriated to containing Ebola. It has also informed Congress that it intends to fund the emergency response to coronavirus by taking $37 million intended to provide heat to almost 750,000 low-income families. If it persists in this demand, it is essentially holding our safety hostage in order to achieve the goal of dismantling the New Deal government. Democrats say they want a clean emergency funding bill.

Today 70 former U.S. Senators indicated their worry about Trump’s increasing power. They wrote an open letter to the Senate noting that it has abdicated its legislative and oversight responsibilities and has given them over to the president. It is not, therefore, fulfilling its constitutional duties. The bipartisan group of senators called on their currently serving colleagues to create “a bipartisan caucus of incumbent senators who would be committed to making the Senate function as the Framers of the Constitution intended.”

So all this should sound terrifying, right? But, curiously, to me the worrying patterns that have been taking shape over the past months seem newly unsettled. None of today’s news is good: a serious disease, a sliding economy, an incompetent administration, an autocratic president. But all of these elements are creating an instability that will shake forces loose. It is times like these that throw all the cards up in the air. While it is scary to experience that chaos, it is also a time of great possibility. We can step back and let autocrats grab all the cards for themselves and consolidate their power. But we don’t have to. This sort of shock gives us the ability to catch the cards ourselves and reorder them on the table in entirely new patterns, ones that can build a different future.

Fucker Carlson Blames ‘Diversity’ And ‘Wokeness’ For Coronavirus
The Faux "News" host turned to racism as the outbreak continued to spread.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucke...b65e0f11c64b34

Sadly, though he's arguably more corrupt than even Limblow, there are those right here on these forums dumb enough to follow, and even quote this idiot.

Dang, anyone not totally screwed-up on race HAS to see this as racist demagoguery.

Coronavirus lays bare all the pathologies of the Trump administration
By
Max Boot
Columnist
Feb. 26, 2020 at 10:23 a.m. PST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...aos-president/

Forget what I said about vaccine truncating the infection pyramid. The administration says the vaccine will be deployed not to save lives, but to maximize profit.

The immorality of 'pure capitalism' was never more sharply highlighted.

Bernie Sanders ✔@SenSanders

Trump's plan for the coronavirus so far:

-Cut winter heating assistance for the poor
-Have VP Pence, who wanted to "pray away" HIV epidemic, oversee the response
-Let ex-pharma lobbyist Alex Azar refuse to guarantee affordable vaccines to all

Disgusting.

Listening to the CA Government’s press conference right now. Nobody kissing the guv’s ass here, no politics, the experts detailing the issue without BS. So unlike Donny’s presser the other day, where his incompetent toadies kissed his fat orange butt and floundered.

Not mentioned, but does anyone else see the possibility of using this as a pretext to declare martial law and cancel the election?
https://www.businessinsider.com/coro...ion-2020-2?amp

If stocks continue to tank, and the election is thrown into grave doubt, they could jump this way. Why not?

The coronavirus and Donny’s diseased credibility

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/...redibility.php

So...why did Dondillion's POTUS (ACK!!!) sit in front of the cameras yesterday and tell the country how it doesn't matter what the CDC he has decimated says about it...the Coronavirus is just going to disappear befor any Americans get sick, much less die. Why would he say this? Really?

One reason. The stock market. For three years he has been taking credit for the DOW streaking up to 29,000. And in a week the DOW is under 25,000. If Trump won't take responsibility for this necessary correction, he can't take credit for the run up. Could his emotional dysregulation have generated enough intellectual disorganization that he actually believes that when he says the coronavirus is going to disappear...that the day traders and hedge funders will automatically go on a buying spree...ending the correction and insuring his re-election?

He's a fucking lunatic...of course he does. And his finger is on the button.

Trump' s political fortune will not depend on corona nor the stock market, but largely on what occurs in the Democratic party.

The globalization wheels coming off plays to Trump's base.

What are we gonna do about those fuckin' globalist kikes, eh man?

PS - my post was not about the realities of your POTUS' political fortunes, it was about the pathological ways he chooses to attempt to enhance his political fortunes.

I can see it now, Dondillion finally gets to shake the hand of his POTUS. "It's such an honor to meet you Mr. President. And I want you to know that whenever you have the time, you're invited to come over to my house and fuck my sister."

Ya know, you're really not much different than Donny. You believe your own bullshit, and think you're being profound, when you're really just a simpleton. You're almost as much fun as Whell. Such a moron. :rolleyes:

"The reason they (the media) are paying so much attention to it (the coronavirus epidemic) today is that they think this is going to bring down the president." Acting chief of staff/rentboy, Mick Mulvaney, 2/29/20.

Meantime the pedophile continues to minimize the seriousness of the outbreak in a feeble attempt to reverse the current necessary correction in the equity markets. If he's so sure of re-election why would he be resorting to fucking nonsense like "nobody here has the virus, it's going to disappear."

The idea he is no doubt fondling is making the virus disappear by disappearing people who have it.

Yesterday Trump announced the first US Covid-19 death. A 50 year old man from Washington state.

"I want to say to our people, our citizens, the people of the world, frankly...she was a wonderful woman."

"Frankly", eh? All right then...this is gonna be important and Dondillion's POTUS is in top form. There is so very little that is important enough to this meatheaded shitsack for him to actually learn and retain anything about it.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/healt...day/index.html

Babbling headcase.

Was listening to an interview a couple of days ago now. A epidemiologist from Harvard IIRC and a authority on the Spanish Flu 1918/1919.

Made statements to the effect we will see a outbreak till summer then watch out this fall! Foresees shelter in place for months whole parts of the country and economy shut down as precautions.

Also there may never be a vaccine for this one.

Scary stuff....

John Harwood @JohnJHarwood
Feb 28

for those keeping score, change in Dow Jones Industrial Average from the day they were inaugurated into the presidency through Feb 28 of their 4th year in office:

Trump +28%
Obama +63%

Pretty insane ain't it? Although I don't think Obama had any more to do with DOW performance than any other president. And he did have the advantage of entering office at a point where the equity markets had pretty much bottomed out after the investment banking fiasco.

Trump’s baffling coronavirus vaccine event

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...vaccine-event/

The comprehension and attention span of a two year old. Sad!

Coronavirus death rate is 3.4%, World Health Organization says; Donny says 'hunch' tells him that's wrong

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...te/4961519002/

Sigh. Naturally, he said this on Faux "News", insHannity's hate-monger show.

Death rate is a crucial datum. Every .5% of death rate may correspond to about 1 million more people alive or dead in the U.S.

That said, there's plenty of reason to think that early death rate estimates may be inflated. The number of mild, untreated cases that are not in the database is unknown and must itself be estimated. A further complication is news out of China that two strains of novel Corona virus may exist, one more virulent than the other.