Trump is living in a magical land, where coronavirus does not exist

[bodysong]

Trump is living in a magical land, where coronavirus does not exist

If he does not believe it exists, it does not. Simple!

The US president some states in "very good shape" will be able to reopen "literally tomorrow".

Minutes after the CDC director emphasized the importance of “early diagnosis,
isolation and contact tracing,” the president contradicted the public health officials.
There are states with “wide open plains, wide-open spaces,” Trump said. Aggressive
testing and tracing aren’t necessary in those areas, according to the president.

“We’re beating the date” of reopening by May 1, Trump said. “That’s big stuff.”

He reiterated that many, “very important states” are ready to reopen.

(But every state has hundreds, if not thousands to tens of thousands of cases.
Trump will not say which states are doing well enough to considering scaling
back distancing measures.)

Trump said that many states have already met the criteria to reopen, but declined to name any of those states.

Undermining what Drs Fauci and Birx just said, Trump is predicting a new normal
that’s pretty much exactly like the old normal.

“We want every seat occupied” in an Alabama football stadium with 110,000 seats,
Trump said. If a restaurant has 158 seats, all 158 should be filled, he noted.
‘That’s our normal,” Trump said. “And it’s going to happen relatively quickly.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...st-updates-trump-guidelines-reopening-economy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52305053

April 16, 2020

"The tenor of the president's comments do not seem to match the hard reality
that is somewhat recognized in the plan. And there seems to be some discord
there," Inslee said. "We're making decisions on data, not dreams."

- Jay Inslee (Democrat), governor of Washington state

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/16/8334...rus-guidelines-on-a-path-to-reopening-the-cou

March 6, 2020

President Donald Trump toured the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta today.
After claiming that "anybody that needs a test" for COVID-19 can get one (they can't)
and saying that he has a natural ability to understand infectious diseases (he doesn't)
and that his uncle was "a great super genius" (we can't confirm), our president turned
to more pressing concerns: he called our governor a "snake" (he isn't).

Trump smears Jay Inslee, governor of the state at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak:
"I told Mike [Pence] not to be complimentary of the governor, because that governor is
a snake."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2020

(Reality, April 16, 2020- Trump threw the People to his wolves.)

If you live in the city of Detroit, which is currently overwhelmed by the virus'
corpses, you will think the protesters have completely lost contact with reality;
if you are not in the city, you will see the protesters as heroes, as Tea People,
as men and women who are fighting for the freedom "to truck, barter, and
exchange one thing for another." This division is getting real. Those in big
cities, which vote blue, have been hit hard by the virus; and those in the rural
areas, which vote red, have not. The stay-at-home order, then, has the aspect
of protecting Democrats and harming Republicans. We can expect politicians
on the right to make something big out of this biological split.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog

"The best diagnosis for Trump is that he is a malignant narcissist. "

"It contains the narcissistic part, which is no big deal alone -- lots of people are
narcissistic -- but the malignant part is the sociopathy dimension. These terms
suggest that Trump is a very primitive man. He is also a man who has a fundamental,
deep psychological defect. It is expressed in his inability to empathize with others
and his lack of genuine loyalty to anyone.

You will notice that Trump wants everyone to be loyal to him, but he is loyal to nobody."

salon.com

April 15, 2020

- Greg Sargent

President Trump is spinning his new decision to suspend funding to the World
Health Organization as an act of decisive leadership — one that showcases his
devotion to effective crisis management, to gathering good empirical information,
and to holding people accountable for leadership failures that had catastrophic
human consequences.

In just about every conceivable way, this is the opposite of the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...=lk_inline_manual_38&itid=lk_inline_manual_38

https://www.salon.com/2017/09/12/ha...mp-is-a-sociopath-and-a-very-sick-individual/

Do we have a Reich, yet ?

 

[Knoturnal]

Trump is living in a magical land, where coronavirus does not exist
Do we have a Reich, yet ?

True to your first statement.
As to your second I don’t think we do but it’s not like he doesn’t spin it to seem that way even though he hasn’t realized totally that he doesn’t run one.
Too bad he hasn’t learned not to shoot off his big mouth yet. I believe he’s going to find someday he could use a few new friends especially if he runs off all his older ones.

 

[bodysong]

Trump again lashed out against Andrew Cuomo over Twitter,
mocking the New York governor for “ridiculously” requesting
40,000 ventilators.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Cuomo ridiculously wanted “40 thousand Ventilators”.
We gave him a small fraction of that number, and it was plenty.
State should have had them in stockpile!

April 17, 2020

“State should have had them in stockpile!” Trump tweeted.

Cuomo said late last month that the state needed 30,000 ventilators to address
the surge in coronavirus cases, and the governor emphasized at his press conference
today that his requests were based on the federal government’s projections of the outbreak.

“Read your own report next time before you criticize,” Cuomo said of Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...eopening-plan-states-governors-latest-updates

Jonathan Chait ✓
Twitter › jonathanchait

I'm skeptical that Trump's plan to unleash potentially violent anarchy
will help us get through the pandemic

(link)

51 minutes ago

Trump can't deploy effective testing, so he's deploying angry mobs instead

(link)

New York Magazine ✓
Twitter › NYMag

Trump is fomenting anarchy in his own country, undermining the prospects
for the orderly recovery he needs in order to win reelection, and creating the
risk of a violent tragedy. @jonathanchait

35 minutes ago

Daniel Dale ✓
Twitter › ddale8

The president keeps talking as if all the governors are now perfectly content
with their supplies situations. They aren’t. Here’s what Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly
said on CNN tonight:

(link to CNN)

17 hours ago

 

[bodysong]

Miami's rich-poor divide is exposed by flawed Covid-19 testing

16 Apr 2020

Fisher Island’s super-rich have bought rapid-test kits from the local university
while poorer Floridians are made to wait

Some criticism is directed at the University of Miami health system (UHealth),
which recorded a record $217.2m profit in 2018, financial records show. UHealth
accepted an undisclosed amount of money from Fisher Island for thousands of the
blood tests, the Miami Herald said, available to every resident and worker regardless
of whether they were showing symptoms.

Nobody was available to comment on Wednesday at the Fisher Island club, which
according to Business Insider charges annual membership dues above $22,000 on
top of a quarter-million-dollar initial fee.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/16/miams-coronavirus-testing-exposes-covid-19

The Poors

The first cars arrive at Hard Rock Stadium shortly after 4am.

It is three hours until sunrise, and five before the state-run coronavirus drive-through
testing station opens its gates, but the early arrivals, some coughing and feverish,
all wearing face masks, want to be sure of their slot. Even so, some are out of luck.

With a daily capacity of only 400 tests, it takes authoritiesfewer than 120 minutes
to exhaust their limited supply of throat swabs, and those at the back of the queue –
after hours waiting in temperatures close to 90F – are sent away to try another day.

 

[bodysong]

Everyone on exclusive Fisher Island, even the staff, can get tested for coronavirus

April 13, 2020

The private island, set along Government Cut and nestled between Miami
and Miami Beach and accessible only by boat, worked out a deal with
UHealth to make the tests available to the 800 or so families that live
there, and all the workers who maintain the property and patrol its streets.

UHealth spokeswoman Lisa Worley said. UHealth has a clinic on Fisher Island
whose doctors have helped administer the COVID-19 tests, Worley said.

“This is what the Fisher Island residents wanted,” Worley said.
“Our physicians ordered it for them, they paid for it themselves.”

DeMaria said the cost of the tests came out of the island’s annual operating budget.

The purchase and availability of the testing are in sharp contrast to much
of the rest of the state, where only about 1 percent of the population has
been tested for the deadly virus that has caused a global pandemic. Most
people who want a test have to meet certain criteria during a screening.
Then an appointment must be set up, which generally means a lengthy
wait in line.

Those without vehicles can’t even access drive-thru testing sites.

As of Monday afternoon, the Florida Department of Health was reporting that
almost 21,000 people in Florida had contracted COVID-19 and that 470 people
had died. Miami-Dade County had the highest numbers of infections and deaths.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241920656.html

 

[Milli3736]

Lessons never learned

I have to confess that the reaction in the UK to Trumps messages over this period have been met with increduality. I fear history will not judge the USA well in years to come. It always comes that nations have a fall from positions of power and influence.
Every empire be it territorial or industrial ends at some point, The Romans to the British all had a gradual decline till an event occured that spelt the end.
Is this the end of the dominance of the USA over the "Free world", Europe now does not look to America for a lead .Countries sense that by turning inward the USA has ceded its power to others.
I fear this as the USA has mostly been a force for good.Where a power vaccum exists it is always filled but by whom this time ?

 

[ThatLuckyGuy]

As a fellow Brit, I take your point. But I think from the perspective of the rest of the world, Trump is such a clown, so ridiculous, that he's not seen as representative of the US as a whole. More of a temporary glitch in the matrix. If Biden is elected in November, it will be forgotten eventually and the Us' position as 'leader of the free world' intact.

I have to confess that the reaction in the UK to Trumps messages over this period have been met with increduality. I fear history will not judge the USA well in years to come. It always comes that nations have a fall from positions of power and influence.
Every empire be it territorial or industrial ends at some point, The Romans to the British all had a gradual decline till an event occured that spelt the end.
Is this the end of the dominance of the USA over the "Free world", Europe now does not look to America for a lead .Countries sense that by turning inward the USA has ceded its power to others.
I fear this as the USA has mostly been a force for good.Where a power vaccum exists it is always filled but by whom this time ?

 

[Fuzzy1975]

As a fellow Brit, I take your point. But I think from the perspective of the rest of the world, Trump is such a clown, so ridiculous, that he's not seen as representative of the US as a whole. More of a temporary glitch in the matrix. If Biden is elected in November, it will be forgotten eventually and the Us' position as 'leader of the free world' intact.

As a Canadian, I disagree, while Trump may be a blip, he has also shown the world that it only takes one election in the US to change and destroy a 70 some year old western partnership. While ties may again be rejoined, no one country will ever hold the US in the same level of trust as it had in the past, moving forward.

Without that trust, the US can never be immediately seen as the "world leader" again simply by the election of a new president. That position needs to be earned all over.

 

[bodysong]

Trump is a terrifying clown with a sledge hammer.

Trump pretends that he is sending help to the People, and then
shifts billions of dollars to his billionaire friends. He presents
the media with the spectacle of himself and his blather and lies-
the result is nothing but a Potemkin effort to put up a facade, that
hides the fact that nothing effective and practical was done. He
leaves people to die, and ignores it. Not part of his fabulous life,
not part of his glamourous world. He does not help losers, that are
not in a position to give him something. He gives the people that
vote for him, a hate rally, so that he can boost his ego, but each
hamlet and villiage is left with Trump's debt for a security team
that guards Trump's life, Trump's entourage, and vehicles, and
payment to police for directing traffic and crowds. Sadly, Trump's
alliance is busy in DC stealing everything Trump's voters have.
Including their health, their loved ones, and their very lives.

/end bodysong comment

Liz Goodwin ✓
Twitter › lizcgoodwin

Trump’s view on testing—that it’s not the federal government’s responsibility
and that it’s going great already—have experts and govs worried the reopening
plan is doomed to fail

2 days ago


April 16, 2020

“Experts say the curve has flattened,” Trump said in unveiling new guidelines.
“Our team of experts agree we can begin the next front in our war. We’re opening
up our country."

To many health experts, governors, and lawmakers, Trump’s approach looks
like a slow-motion repeat of his administration’s initial failure to prepare for
the deadly virus last winter. As he careens into a second, potentially chaotic
phase of his response, they say he risks reigniting the spread by ignoring
calls for a stronger federal role in testing and in contact tracing to control
the disease.

(...)

“The federal government has to be the force behind getting testing up fast,” said Jeffrey Shaman.

“Having the federal resources behind it consistently in a coherent fashion with
a competent leader leading it is desperately needed.”

Trump’s road map lists testing under “state preparedness responsibilities,” suggesting
states are largely on their own, but he also offered a series of guidelines.

“This is a huge frustration for all of us,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said Wednesday
of the lack of testing kits from the federal government.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was even more blunt. “I want to make sure
we’re clear: I can’t do it,” he said on CNN, explaining that the international supply
chain involved in obtaining testing equipment creates a byzantine challenge for
governors. “The president said the states must do it. The states are saying, ‘We can’t.’ ”

As for testing, “it's up to the governors,” Trump said.

“We’re not going to be running a parking lot in Arkansas,” the president
added Wednesday, referring to drive-through testing sites.

(Jared Kushner committed to drive-through testing, but only 8 testing sites exist)

Trump’s message this week spooked governors coast to coast, leaving them unsure
how to begin to get people back to work without federal help to obtain testing supplies
from an overburdened international supply chain and to expand lab capacity. Trump
has been reluctant to use his powers under the Korean War-era Defense Production
Act to obtain ventilators and protective equipment, and does not appear poised to
deploy it for testing supplies, either.

Adequate testing is even more crucial as preliminary studies suggest
many people without any symptoms can carry and spread the virus.

Trump said Thursday that he believes widespread testing is not necessary
to reopen much of the country.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04...n-governors-fear-second-coronavirus-disaster/

Public health specialists including former Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention director Tom Frieden have also recommended the government
hire an army of 300,000 contact tracers around the country, who would use
test results to ensure ill people and those who came into contact with them
stayed in quarantine for two weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/coronavirus-massachusetts-contact-tracing.html

How much funding and people has Trump provided, to trace the spread
of coronavirus ?

 

[bodysong]

The New England Journal of Medicine has published a horrifying account
of a health care executive going to extraordinary lengths to evade what appear
to be mafia tactics by the federal government in order to obtain personal protective
equipment.

(This has been happening, all of this month.)

Over the last few weeks, it has started to appear as though, in addition to abandoning
the states to their own devices in a time of national emergency, the federal government
has effectively erected a blockade —
like that which the Union used to choke off the supply chains of the Confederacy during
the Civil War — to prevent delivery of critical medical equipment to states desperately
in need. At the very least, federal authorities have made governors and hospital executives
all around the country operate in fear that shipments of necessary supplies will be seized
along the way. In a time of pandemic, having evacuated federal responsibility, the
White House is functionally waging a war against state leadership and the initiative
of local hospitals to secure what they need to provide sufficient treatment.

You could call this piracy. You could call it sanctions. The federal government is
choking supply chains to states like it chokes supply chains to Iran and North
Korea. These blockades aren’t as complete as those surrounding sanctioned
regimes, of course, and some amount of the disruption may be honest confusion
in a time of crisis. But the disruption is being brought about by federal interference,
and unlike the kind of disruptions you’d want to engineer against antagonistic states,
the purpose seems completely unclear — indeed the policy is inexplicable and indefensible.

Which may be one reason why no explanation has been given. We don’t know where
these supplies are going. We don’t know on what grounds they are being seized,
or threatened with seizure. What business do the DHS and FEMA have with v
entilators and PPE purchases by governors and local hospitals?
“This is like a story out of the last days of the Soviet Union,” David Frum wrote
on Twitter, of the NEJM letter. “This is what it means to be a failed state,”
wrote the essayist Umair Haque, echoing him. In the absence of an explanation,
it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that this is simply mafia government,
exerting control for the sake of control, not in spite of but because of the crisis-led
demand, and squeezing the American people, as they die in hospital beds and attend —
with inadequate protection — to the sick and scared.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html

 

[bodysong]

Lowest of the Low': McConnell and Trump

Ripped for Blocking Food Assistance in Covid-19 Package

"McConnell and Trump don't have to worry about where their next meal
is coming from—but they don't think others should be afforded the same
right."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump are under fire
after blocking a proposed increase in funding for federal nutrition assistance at a time
when millions of people across the U.S. are relying on food banks to survive the
economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin informed Republican senators
in a conference call Sunday that the additional SNAP funding would not be included
in the final legislation.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that SNAP enrollment
has jumped by 40% since last month as millions report being out of work.

More than 26 million people have filed jobless claims since mid-March.

The lowest of the low: GOP is denying struggling families help w/ groceries
during a pandemic. McConnell & Trump don’t have to worry about where
their next meal is coming from – but they don’t think others should be
afforded the same right.

— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) April 23, 2020

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...ped-blocking-food-assistance-covid-19-package

 

[hogjack]

Cutting and Pasting the Internet, One Post at a Time

 

[bodysong]

WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to Covid-19

20 April 2020

Herd immunity hopes dealt blow by report suggesting only 2%-3%
of people have been infected

Only a tiny proportion of the global population – maybe as few as 2% or 3% –
appear to have antibodies in the blood showing they have been infected with
Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization, a finding that
bodes ill for hopes that herd immunity will ease the exit from lockdown.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...t-very-few-have-had-covid-19-without-symptoms

 

[bodysong]

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms received a racist text message after
she expressed her concerns over Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to allow
some non-essential businesses to reopen starting Friday, April 24.

- Ashleigh Atwell
April 23, 202

Bottoms shared a picture of the message in a tweet on the night of Wednesday, April 22.

With my daughter looking over my shoulder, I received this message on my phone.
I pray for you.

“Conscientious stupidity or sincere ignorance.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) April 23, 2020

“N—-r just shut up and RE-OPEN ATLANTA!” the message read.

“With my daughter looking over my shoulder, I received this message on my phone.
I pray for you,” Bottoms wrote before she quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The mayor has been a vocal critic of Kemp’s decision to allow some non-essential
businesses to resume operations on Friday, April 24 after being shut down just nearly
two weeks prior due to coronavirus precautions. Bottoms’ critique has become more
pointed as time passes.

“Our numbers are not going down. And simply because we have hospital beds
available doesn’t mean that we should work to fill them up,” she said during an
interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. “I am asking people to please stay home.
Avail yourself of the services that we have through the city, whether it’s through o
ur food program, or our small business loan program.”

She added, “We need to, as government leaders, step up and give people an incentive
to stay home. But there’s nothing essential about going to a bowling alley in the middle
of a pandemic.”

https://atlantablackstar.com/2020/0...g-back-on-governors-decision-to-reopen-state/

 

[Schlank]

Trump and His Staff Wouldn’t Wear Masks. Now the White House Is a COVID Hotspot


Donald Trump’s primary concern beyond himself and re-election is to defend this hypercapitalist system at all cost. He and his allies spent the week attempting to hypnotize a terrified, cloistered, frustrated population into believing tens of thousands of deaths, even hundreds of thousands of deaths, is an acceptable price for doing business.

It is a monstrous argument put forth by a monstrous man, and just as Trump’s lethal sales pitch was reaching its peak, COVID-19 came into his home and tapped him on the shoulder. By all reports, he and his closest minions are tested multiple times a day, despite his claims that testing is “overrated.” Yet testing does not prevent infection, and clearly, whatever testing regimen they were using was not nearly enough.

What is happening inside Trump’s house right now is a perfect allegory for how the administration has handled the pandemic to date. There was a lot of bluff talk and faux-courageous showboating for the cameras back when concrete steps could have been taken, even as the virus made itself at home and began to spread. Upon discovery that whatever they were doing was insufficient, incomplete steps were taken to mitigate the damage, but it was already far too late. Now comes the part where we wait to see how bad it will get.

https://truthout.org/articles/trump...tent&eId=0235767e-fd85-41fd-a069-f275c8fa61c4

 

[bodysong]

It took one question for a reporter to expose Trump's latest baseless
Obama conspiracy theory.

Trump’s latest Twitter meltdown features QAnon, accidental self-owns,
and a lot of "OBAMAGATE"

- Aaron Rupar

With the coronavirus continuing to ravage the country both in human and economic
terms and his poll numbers sagging, President Donald Trump spent his event-free
Mother’s Day posting up a storm — sending the sort of public statements that
would have been cause for national concern in any previous era.

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21254398/trump-tweets-mothers-day-obamagate-coronavirus

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21254398/trump-tweets-mothers-day-obamagate-coronavirus

Aaron Rupar ✓
Twitter › atrupar

In a normal presidency, the president's latest Twitter meltdown
would be a major national scandal. In Trump's America, it was
Sunday

10 hours ago

 

[bodysong]

Aaron Rupar ✓
Twitter › atrupar

“Since writing ‘HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY’ at 8:10 a.m. on Sunday, Trump has used
his Twitter account to make or elevate allegations of criminal conduct against no less
than 20 individuals and organizations.”

(link - Washington Post)

4 hours ago

On the episode of Fox News's "The Five" that is going on right now, "Obama"
has been mentioned 17 times. The entire first segment of the show was devoted
to "Obamagate." "Coronavirus" has been mentioned twice.

6 hours ago

"A majority of the Court seemed concerned that the House has too much
power to investigate POTUS. The Supreme Court appears likely to create
a special rule for Trump — or, at least, for sitting presidents — that it wouldn’t
apply to any other person."

(link to VOX)

7 hours ago

FUX TV is attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci after the scientist tried to protect people.

 

[bodysong]

Donald Trump's Lawyer Tries to Convince the Supreme Court That Presidents
Are Above the Law

Justice Elena Kagan saw problems with the argument.

She said, “The president shouldn’t be treated like an ordinary citizen,
but it’s also a fundamental precept that the president isn’t above the law.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politic...reme-court-that-presidents-are-above-the-law/

In general, the justices seemed more troubled by subpoenas issued by three House committees
than with the ones coming from New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
None indicated they agreed with the assertion from Trump’s private lawyer Jay Sekulow
that the president enjoyed immunity from investigation while in office.

The court’s liberal justices seemed more accommodating to Congress’s position that
it has an important job to do in investigating potential wrongdoing and then proposing
legislation to correct it.

“For example, the Ethics in Government Act, Congress may decide that it needs to beef up
that legislation,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “It may also decide that for financial
disclosure purposes, there should be disclosure of tax returns … Investigate to see if you
need legislation of that sort.”

Ginsburg noted that only Trump has withheld his tax returns; every other president
since Jimmy Carter has disclosed voluntarily.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/12/trump-taxes-scotus-hearing-live/

 

[bodysong]

FUX TV does it, again

May 11, 2020

Trump wants it both ways: both to pretend the ghoul stalking us is imaginary,
and to do as much to protect himself from it as possible.

But Trump, thinking magically, wants the rest of us to go back to our workplaces, too —
but without the safeguards that allow his workplace to function

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...=lk_inline_manual_24&itid=lk_inline_manual_24

Trump's White House is on fire with testing, masks, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant.

May 12, 2020

Trump’s abject hypocrisy tells us where he’s failed

Trump gets protection from others but will not protect them in return
for utterly selfish reasons.

We know testing is really important (because Trump claims victory and, even more
telling, demands testing in his workplace), and we know that tracing is a critical part
of containing the virus (since Trump demands that the White House trace cases).
We know how important masks are to protect others (because Trump demands that
others wear them). Amid Trump’s lies, exaggerations and hypocritical rules, then,
we still can discern what really matters — and how badly this president is falling short.
Indeed, in his stunning lack of concern that others enjoy the same protections he wants
for himself, we see that it is not so much that Trump doesn’t believe in science, but that
he is determined to ignore science when it serves his personal interests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/12/trumps-abject-hypocrisy-becomes-problem/

(FUX TV) urges viewers to 'put freedom before fear,' then extends its own
work-from-home order

May 12, 2020

Fox News personalities have been urging governors to reopen states and telling
viewers things like “put freedom before fear” and “herd immunity is our friend.”
Anyway, they say, the virus is “easing” and will “eventually burn out.”

Meanwhile, the Fox News offices will remain closed to the vast majority of the
network’s employees until June 15, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports.

A memo from Fox’s chief operating officer, John Nallen, extended the network’s
work-from-home order to June 15, but a source told Stelter: “We were originally
told of a potential return to the office in mid-May back in late March, so I wouldn't
be surprised if we don't make [the June 15 date] and we push it to late summer.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...=lk_inline_manual_24&itid=lk_inline_manual_24

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/12/tr...es--and-the-press-corps-finally-smells-blood/

Daily Kos

Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted that if states open without meeting the federal guidelines
“there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control."

"Americans, he said, might experience needless "suffering and death that could be avoided,"
and paradoxically, such an event could also set back any economic recovery.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...l-thinking-on-reopening-A-reckoning-is-coming

 

[bodysong]

A journalist/ reporter is telling us what he really thinks.

(That is not how you sell advertising space at a newspaper site or magazine site)


"...harsh judgments on Donald Trump, Mike Pence and Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield."

- Dan Froomkin

May 14, 2020

"We completely blew it for the first two months of our response."
"We were in a headless-chicken phase, and yes"-

"...it's the president's fault, it is not China's fault," McNeil said. "So we lost two months
there, and that was because of incompetent leadership at the CDC,
I'm sorry to say — it's a great agency, but it's incompetently led, and I think
Dr. Redfield should resign."

Donald McNeil called Pence a "sycophant." As for Trump, he said-
"The real cover-up was the person in this country who was saying, you know,
'This is not an important virus, the flu is worse, it's all going to go away, you know,
it's nothing.' And that encouraged everybody around him to say, 'It's nothing, it's nothing,
it's nothing.'"

McNeil added, "This is the same guy who said, 'Inject yourself with disinfectant,
stick ultraviolet lights into your lungs.' This is not somebody whose grasp of the
science is even third-grade level."

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/14/sh...reporter-donald-mcneil-has-seized-the-moment/

 

[bodysong]

Another doctor sold their country out, and betrayed The People, and shamed their field.
Some are too greedy to resist betraying their oaths to do no harm

Willing to dump her reputation and credentials into the garbage pile,
and sing a song that pleases Trump and his alliance- she pollutes and
defiles real science in order to sell a story to the uninformed.

She had to pull off a criminal act to complete her separation from sane and decent people.

She decided to sell something that is not science- and fuck over real science.

Judy Mikovits is joining a long line of traitor cunts that enable Trump.

"...the viral video of Dr Judy Mikovits blaming the coronavirus outbreak on a
conspiracy led by big pharma, Bill Gates and the World Health Organization is
the work of a discredited crank. But scientists fear that does not make her claims
any less dangerous because, in an age of conspiracy theories, those about medicine
have unusual potency.

The film of Mikovits is taken from a soon to be released documentary, Plandemic,
in which the virologist claims US health agencies buried her research showing
vaccines weaken people’s immune systems and made them more vulnerable to
Covid-19. She also asserts that wearing masks is dangerous because it
“literally activates your own virus”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...o-plandemic-judy-mikovits-conspiracy-theories

Judy Mikovits’s book- Plague of Corruption

She falsely claims that wealthy people intentionally spread the virus to increase
vaccination rates and that wearing face masks is harmful.

Across the Web, skeptics of the coronavirus pandemic have rallied behind the book
and the conspiracies promoted in “Plandemic.” The film trended on Twitter and
racked up 1.8 million views on Facebook before the platform removed the video,
The Post reported.

The coronavirus-related theories Mikovits presented defy accepted science and wilt
under scrutiny, according to dozens of experts who spoke up after “Plandemic”
trended this week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/08/plandemic-judy-mikovits-coronavirus/

 

[Stephen_Coyle]

This is Not Leadership, This is Criminal Negligence

When the going gets tough, the tough go golfing. Or at least Donald Trump does. This three minute recap of the Memorial Day weekend and today’s new milestone in America, 100,000 dead from COVID-19, puts Trump’s coronavirus response and his entire presidency into a simple context: America has no government right now. We’re in one of the worst crises we have ever faced and we lack a functioning federal government.


https://politizoom.com/2020/05/27/t...pushnotification&utm_content=pushnotification

 

[Schlank]

The Trump administration has all but given up fighting the pandemic


“It’s going to disappear,” President Trump said about the novel coronavirus at the end of February, before the first American was believed to have died from covid-19. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” It never did — to date, more than 2 million Americans have been infected with the virus and more than 112,000 have died — but Trump’s administration is now acting as though the miracle already came.

In fact, it’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the president and his administration have all but given up fighting the pandemic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...istration-has-all-given-up-fighting-pandemic/

 

[bodysong]

Trump's propaganda session in the Rose Garden

Aaron Rupar ✓
Twitter › atrupar

it's as if there is no pandemic at the White House

6 hours ago

No coronavirus masks, no safe social distancing.

Trump privately met with the families before his Rose Garden event this afternoon

But the families did not attend the Rose Garden event itself.

Instead, law enforcement officials stood around Trump as he signed the executive order
creating a bizarre visual after weeks of protests against police brutality.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ard-brooks-shooting-donald-trump-live-updates

Shoulder to shoulder, surrounding Trump closely.

 

[SecretSapphic]

This is Not Leadership, This is Criminal Negligence

When the going gets tough, the tough go golfing. Or at least Donald Trump does. This three minute recap of the Memorial Day weekend and today’s new milestone in America, 100,000 dead from COVID-19, puts Trump’s coronavirus response and his entire presidency into a simple context: America has no government right now. We’re in one of the worst crises we have ever faced and we lack a functioning federal government.


https://politizoom.com/2020/05/27/t...pushnotification&utm_content=pushnotification

As Covid-19 Infections Increase on Capitol Hill, HHS Secretary Azar Says Public Health Protocols Don't Apply to President's Inner Circle
Democratic lawmakers were incredulous after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday testified following President Donald Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis that the Trump family can't be expected to take the precautions that public health experts recommend, while also claiming the spread of the coronavirus to more than 7.3 million Americans is a matter of "individual responsibility."

Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis as Trump reportedly began developing Covid-19 symptoms, Azar told Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) that the president's family did not wear masks at the first presidential debate last Tuesday because "the first family and the protective aspect around the president is a different situation than the rest of us."

Despite the fact that at least two members of the Trump family are now ill, Azar suggested the family is in "a protective bubble."

Someone explain to me how the Trump family’s refusal to wear a mask can be justified by Azar on the grounds that the family is in a “protective bubble” when both Trump and Melania are infected?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...ol-hill-hhs-secretary-azar-says-public-health