This Incompetent Administration's Response to Coronavirus

[Dondilion]

Efforts to counter China's chokehold on drugs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/b...ump-drugs.html

[Chicks]

Google's Project Baseline COVID-19 website (the one Donny lied about, saying the feds were working with Google to roll it out nationwide) is now available in my county, first one outside the Bay Area. Signed up, not eligible for testing yet (no symptoms), but nice to know it's there if needed.

https://www.projectbaseline.com/study/covid-19/

[Chicks]

Walter Shaub @waltshaub
14h
Trump just REFUSED to promise Trump Org won't receive money from the bailout.

But Trump Org receiving money would VIOLATE the Constitution. It would be an illegal emolument.

Congress MUST explicitly ban Trump Org from getting ANY money AND must include other built-in oversight.

[Chicks]

Ron Wyden @RonWyden

I just voted no on the partisan #COVID19 bill. Here's why: while nurses are being forced to make their own masks and gowns, McConnell and Trump are busy creating a taxpayer-funded slush fund for their buddies. I will stay here as long it takes to get this done the right way.

4:09 PM · Mar 22, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

[Chicks]

With several Repubes in quarantine, Dem senators aren't allowing Senate to pass a "bail out Donny and his pals" BS bill. Good. Bankrupt the MF again.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by HarmanKardon

Latest news from Germany:

Chancellor Angela Merkel got the Covid virus.

Sad news. May she, and we all, fare well.

But on edit, I've heard the news now is that her Corona test came back negative. That's much better!

[Chicks]

Can the coronavirus obliterate some Republican myths?
By Jennifer Rubin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...blicans-myths/

Right-wing populists obsessed with fanning xenophobia and distrust of intellectuals have been denying climate change for years, painting it as a “hoax” cooked up by China to undermine America’s way of life. It is scarily familiar to the coronavirus, huh? Authoritarian leaders bent on concealing reality and discrediting objective truth see every event as a contest between “them” (foreigners) and “us” (“real” countrymen who support the leader). Having attacked government as the “deep state” and the “swamp,” they are uniquely unprepared to harness the powers and resources of government when it cannot be directed at a foreign, largely invented threat.

President* Trump’s use of “Chinese virus” (not even “China virus”) serves not only to cast blame elsewhere but to convert a science and math problem (stopping community spread, flattening the curve) into a political issue. Trump knows how to address the latter — by demonizing critics, enticing the mainstream media to cover his circus, presenting himself as the sole depository of truth, substituting spin and lies for results — because it mirrors his career.

At bottom, Trump has always been a huckster, a failed operator of everything from airlines to football who cons people (bankers, Trump University students) out of their money. He promises a coronavirus cure and millions of tests just like he promised customers delicious steaks and a university degree. It’s all showmanship; there is no real accomplishment. He has suffered from overselling and underperforming his entire life.

When the problem is concrete, factual, unspinnable, Trump is at a loss of what to do. He has no superior understanding of complex issues. He chases away bad news so the problem cannot be quantified and addressed properly. He has not even learned how the federal government operates. Trump is worse than useless; he stymies others from acting (as he did despite months of warnings about the pandemic from national security personnel) and misleads the public, undermining the cooperation we need to effectuate social distancing.

The question raised by the coronavirus is whether it will recalibrate the thinking of Republicans in any material way. Decades of demonizing government and the degree to which Trump’s anti-truth, anti-reality mentality (enabled by a right-wing echo chamber) have seeped into the Republican bloodstream are hard to ignore. They have placed us in grave peril. And now even Republicans must turn to science and to government.

Republicans are working on a massive stimulus bill (something they resisted under President Barack Obama) in recognition that only the federal government can stave off a brutal economic crash. Republicans just like Democrats look to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientific experts to guide us. The latter have grown in stature just as Trump and his virus-deniers have shrunk. Each day experts’ calculations regarding the spread and the severity of the virus look more astute.

Will all of this translate into the right’s willingness to acknowledge the reality of climate change, a process nudged along by extreme weather catastrophes in red states such as Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma?

Hard to say. They're pretty far gone.

[Chicks]

The Coronavirus Bailout Stalled. And It’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault.
Senate Republicans are blocking passage of an economic bailout plan that protects jobs and wages.

By The Editorial Board

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/o...-congress.html

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky failed to do his job this weekend. As the economy spiraled downward, Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said he would produce a bipartisan bailout bill authorizing an infusion of desperately needed aid.

Instead, Mr. McConnell emerged on Sunday evening with a bill that would provide a lot of help for corporate executives and shareholders, and not nearly enough for American workers. It would let the Treasury Department hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations — potentially including businesses owned by President Trump — without requiring a binding commitment to preserve jobs and wages. And the bailouts could remain secret for six months.

Senate Democrats, refusing to play along, blocked the bill in a procedural vote on Sunday night and again on Monday afternoon. But responsibility for the deadlock rests squarely on Mr. McConnell’s shoulders.

Moscow Mitch, protecting his corrupt benefactors.

[Chicks]

Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety
As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the “Chinese virus,” many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/u...t-attacks.html

Donny, Faux "News" and Trumpkins are fully to blame for this disgusting behavior.

Are you right there spitting, @Dondilion?

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Chicks

Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety
As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the “Chinese virus,” many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/u...t-attacks.html

Donny, Faux "News" and Trumpkins are fully to blame for this disgusting behavior.

Are you right there spitting, @Dondilion?

The Chinese Government will not like this. Trump will welcome the distraction of a confrontation with them, and right wing opinion could easily be led into feverish anti-Chinese hysteria as the deadlly virus tears into us. There's just about no limit on how bad this may get.