Trump VS COVID-19 Threat

[lpetrich]

I sometimes think that Trump ought to be dragged to The Hague and put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Sort of like what happened to Serbian leader  Slobodan Milošević when he was deposed. The US pressured his successors to deport him for trial for war crimes, and they complied. A US helicopter took him from Belgrade, Serbia's capital, to the airbase at Tuzla, now a civilian airport, and from there to The Hague.

Logistically, it ought to be a simple matter to deport Trump to The Hague. The first step is getting him to Andrews Joint Base. It's 11 mi / 18 km by helicopter. From there, he can go by military transport to a US airbase in Europe, like Ramstein in Germany or Lakenheath in the UK (actually a British airbase that the US shares). From Ramstein, it is about 220 mi / 370 km to The Hague, and from Lakenheath, 160 mi / 260 km. One could do it by military helicopter.

Why The Hague? The  International Criminal Court is seated there. There is the problem that the US has not signed the treaty that established it:  States parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

During the Obama administration, US opposition to the ICC evolved to "positive engagement," although no effort was made to ratify the Rome Statute.[20] The current Trump administration is considerably more hostile to the Court, threatening to arrest and prosecute ICC judges and staff in US courts as well as imposing visa bans in response to any investigation against American nationals in connection to alleged crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the US in Afghanistan. The threat included sanctions against any of over 120 countries which have ratified the Court for cooperating in the process.[21][12]

So Joe Biden might revert to an Obama-like attitude toward it.

 

[Patooka]

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault!

This is why you need to stop read bigoted right wing propaganda sites. Trump isn't responsible for the pandemic and no one has said that he is. Ever.

And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

Well. One out of two is a significant improvement considering your track record. Yet I don't think you believe that, for some reason.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault! And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

What are you, 5 years old?

 

[Worldtraveller]

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault! And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

What are you, 5 years old?

That's insulting.



...to 5 year olds.

 

[Elixir]

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault! And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

What are you, 5 years old?

Please stop with the demeaning comments.
I know some five year olds who are neither disingenuous nor stupid.

 

[funinspace]

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault!

This is why you need to stop read bigoted right wing propaganda sites. Trump isn't responsible for the pandemic and no one has said that he is. Ever.

And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

Well. One out of two is a significant improvement considering your track record. Yet I don't think you believe that, for some reason.

Maybe it is a snarky round about way of saying "I was full of shit"...

The alt-reality crowd seem to be stuck on the shiny trinket that the Dotard did this one thingy called a non-ban ban from China.

Anywho, another very telling event from the Clownstick show, was flying back of US passengers from the cruise ship Costa Luminosa from France on March 20, with coordination from Pompeo's State Department (but look over there at BENGHAZI!!!). No quarantine, just go to the regular Atlanta terminal and fly on home if you don't have a fever or other obvious signs. Just try to imagine how many cases spread from somewhere less than 350 people let loose into a major airport hub...and told to find your way home...Fuck the STUPID.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/us/costa-luminosa-passengers-ordeal/index.html

Costa coordinated the flight along with the French government and health authorities, Carnival said. The State Department, which has worked to repatriate Americans, also told CNN that the cruise line arranged for the flight.

Sheehan and more than 350 Americans and Canadians were loaded on buses, where they waited for hours before boarding the chartered overnight flight to Atlanta.

At the cargo area where the plane landed, passengers were met by health officials in hazmat suits, Bradbury said. They got a temperature check and a visual assessment, along with paperwork asking whether someone had a cough, a sore throat or other ailments associated with coronavirus, she said.
Those with signs of possible illness were taken into a separate room while those with no symptoms headed to customs, and were later put in buses that dropped them off near a terminal, Bradbury said. From there, they were all told to go in and get their bags.

"We're thinking someone is going to be meeting us ... nope. You just walk in and you're in the terminal with everybody else. We were shocked," Bradbury said.
Several passengers told CNN they were allowed to wander around inside the airport, including at least one person who was symptomatic.
<snip>
Phoenix-area residents Kelea Nevis and her husband, Jim Nevis, were briefly held after his fever registered over 100 degrees, she said. Officials gave her husband a Chick-fil-A sandwich, and retook his temperature after a wait, she told CNN. It had dropped to around 99 degrees, so they were cleared to take a commercial flight home. "His temperature was 102.5 when we landed," Kelea Nevis said.

Five days after they got home, he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. He tested positive for coronavirus, and was hospitalized.

 

[Elixir]

Murka Furst!
Thanks, Donald.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump has a vaccine event today... and the press is scrambling to figure out what is to be announced. Trump loves that shit. Part of the problem of his presidency.

Clearly, there is no vaccine yet. We are still 8 months at the earliest away, and certainly any vaccine approved now would be hazardous to take. So if there is an announcement, I'd presume it'd be about an unexpected proactive approach of coordinating pharma companies to provide the infrastructure necessary to get the vaccine produced in the extraordinary quantities necessary, as obviously a single company simply wouldn't have the resources to expand themselves for a single vaccine.

That'd be a nice change of pace for the Trump White House. Of course, even if this is the case, we could still be in the situation of Trump only caring about US vaccination and strong arming the rest of the world away from it.

 

[KeepTalking]

The blame game continues. But the facts are a little harder to explain/hide!

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dip...-game-us-china-and-who-are-all-keen-pass-buck

Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the WHO, told US broadcaster CNN on Monday that at the time, “alarm bells were already ringing through the halls of the WHO”, and that it was “aware it was a very serious matter”.
As the number of cases rose, the WHO began issuing technical guidance, with its technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, saying on January 14 that it was “certainly possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission” of the virus.
But on Twitter, the WHO’s official account on January 13 and 14 continued to suggest there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”.

How can one fail to grasp that "certainly possible" and "no clear evidence" are not mutually exclusive terms?

 

[blastula]

Trump has a vaccine event today... and the press is scrambling to figure out what is to be announced. Trump loves that shit. Part of the problem of his presidency.

Clearly, there is no vaccine yet. We are still 8 months at the earliest away, and certainly any vaccine approved now would be hazardous to take. So if there is an announcement, I'd presume it'd be about an unexpected proactive approach of coordinating pharma companies to provide the infrastructure necessary to get the vaccine produced in the extraordinary quantities necessary, as obviously a single company simply wouldn't have the resources to expand themselves for a single vaccine.

That'd be a nice change of pace for the Trump White House. Of course, even if this is the case, we could still be in the situation of Trump only caring about US vaccination and strong arming the rest of the world away from it.

It's obviously a response to Rick Bright's testimony about their incompetence and corruption to try to bullshit that they've been doing everything right all along and are now making the most beautiful and strongest vaccine ever.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So Trump labels vaccine "effort"... what effort... "Warp Speed", a nonsensical space travel speed created by Gene Roddenberry to help explain being able to travel with ease in the galaxy, well one quadrant of it at least.

Meanwhile:

It’s risky. It’s expensive, but we’ll be saving massive amounts of time. We’ll be saving years if we do this properly.

Jebus! If we do this property... via the risky way?! Trump realizes he can't just sell junk bonds and bam, we have a vaccine, right? Here is the thing, Dr. Fauci says, 'okay, this is a little outside what is typically done, but it is worth the slightly higher risk" I think, okay. Let's go. Trump says "It's risky!" and I get frightened. It'd be like saying we have to drive this really fast and the professional race car driver says "That'd be driving too fast!"

And umm...

Typically pharmaceutical companies wait to manufacture a vaccine until it has received all the regulatory approvals necessary, and this can delay the vaccine's availability to the public as much as a year, even more than that. Our task is so urgent that under Operation Warp Speed the federal government will invest in manufacturing all the top vaccine candidates before they're approved so we're knowing exactly what we're doing before they're approved.

What?! He says a couple things here. First, he states that the government will oversee manufacturing every vaccine before they are approved. This implies... well exactly what he said. I'm not an expert in this field, but I've got to think that the US lacks the capacity to mass produce a dozen or several dozen vaccines at the same time... and wait to see which one(s) work. These aren't widgets.

The second part of the sentence "so we're knowing exactly what we're doing before they're approved".... I need a translator there.

 

[bilby]

the idiot in chief thinks that testing causes covid.

Trump: Coronavirus testing may be ‘overrated’ and reason for high U.S. case count - POLITICO

“And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world,” he added. “But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

this is why we suck at testing, he'd rather not know about it. his vain idiocy is getting people killed.

And if ny you idiots would stop measuring it, the distance from New York to Los Angeles would be far shorter, saving a fortune in airfares.

 

[bilby]

All of them. I haven't heard of a single government condemn the WHO in the last ten years at any UN summit.


Fucking hell, can you at least not be so incoherent with your use of pronouns? What are you trying to say? If you're trying to say Trump's ban of Chinese people was effective, let me be the first to say you are dead fucking wrong. Banning people from a country to enter whilst allowing others to return with no fucking quarantine protocols does not contain an outbreak. It accomplishes two things:

1)jack

and

2)shit

If you are referring to something other than Trump's ineffective ban please clarify.

Yea, sure, the pandemic throughout the world is all Trump's fault!

Nah, just the severity of it in America is Trump's fault.

And WHO was never China's mouthpiece!

Well that's certainly true. Though I can't help thinking you don't actually believe it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Trump has a vaccine event today... and the press is scrambling to figure out what is to be announced. Trump loves that shit. Part of the problem of his presidency.

Well, he was talking about using sunshine.

Maybe this is about using bottled sunshine. It would work, after all--just ignore all the collateral damage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So Trump labels vaccine "effort"... what effort... "Warp Speed", a nonsensical space travel speed created by Gene Roddenberry to help explain being able to travel with ease in the galaxy, well one quadrant of it at least.

Meanwhile:

It’s risky. It’s expensive, but we’ll be saving massive amounts of time. We’ll be saving years if we do this properly.

Jebus! If we do this property... via the risky way?! Trump realizes he can't just sell junk bonds and bam, we have a vaccine, right? Here is the thing, Dr. Fauci says, 'okay, this is a little outside what is typically done, but it is worth the slightly higher risk" I think, okay. Let's go. Trump says "It's risky!" and I get frightened. It'd be like saying we have to drive this really fast and the professional race car driver says "That'd be driving too fast!"

And umm...

Typically pharmaceutical companies wait to manufacture a vaccine until it has received all the regulatory approvals necessary, and this can delay the vaccine's availability to the public as much as a year, even more than that. Our task is so urgent that under Operation Warp Speed the federal government will invest in manufacturing all the top vaccine candidates before they're approved so we're knowing exactly what we're doing before they're approved.

What?! He says a couple things here. First, he states that the government will oversee manufacturing every vaccine before they are approved. This implies... well exactly what he said. I'm not an expert in this field, but I've got to think that the US lacks the capacity to mass produce a dozen or several dozen vaccines at the same time... and wait to see which one(s) work. These aren't widgets.

The second part of the sentence "so we're knowing exactly what we're doing before they're approved".... I need a translator there.

So, in the end, Trump has announced more people in charge of doing stuff... not announcing that stuff has been accomplished. The good news, Jared Kuschner was not named head of Warp Speed.

On the plus side, Sec. Esper indicates that a vaccine will be available by the end of the year. Is it possible to prove a vaccine works and produce and ship it that quickly?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump has a vaccine event today... and the press is scrambling to figure out what is to be announced. Trump loves that shit. Part of the problem of his presidency.

Well, he was talking about using sunshine.

Maybe this is about using bottled sunshine. It would work, after all--just ignore all the collateral damage.

 

[lpetrich]

'They are angry': Pandemic and economic collapse slam Trump across Rust Belt - POLITICO

The Industrial Midwest was always going to be a battleground in November.

The region is now becoming a new front line for Americans’ lives and livelihoods as coronavirus hot spots proliferate and jobless rates spiral. The confluence of a ferocious pandemic, deepening economic turmoil and rising political tensions is more pronounced here than anywhere else in the country. And it sets the stage for a combustible campaign season that is testing President Donald Trump’s efforts to move on and insulate himself from the crisis—and Joe Biden’s ability to blame him for the fallout.

Cuomo extends New York's stay-at-home order until June 13

With metrics trending in the right direction, Cuomo announced this week that Central New York had become the fifth of the state’s 10 economic regions to qualify for the first phase of reopening once the statewide Pause order was set to expire at midnight Friday.

Four other regions — the North Country, the Southern Tier, the Mohawk Valley and the Finger Lakes — had already qualified by meeting all seven state criteria on hospital admissions, available beds, testing and tracing.

Ivanka Trump: I wear a mask near Donald Trump, he doesn't have to

Ivanka Trump, daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, says she wears a mask at the White House, and that's one reason the president doesn't have to.

"There are different procedures as it relates to interacting with the president," Ivanka Trump told USA TODAY on Thursday when asked about criticism her father has received for declining to wear a mask in public.

The president "is tested on a daily basis – all those who come into contact with him are tested on a daily basis," she said in an interview. "No one is in close proximity to him that isn't wearing a mask."

How convenient.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

'They are angry': Pandemic and economic collapse slam Trump across Rust Belt - POLITICO


Cuomo extends New York's stay-at-home order until June 13


Ivanka Trump: I wear a mask near Donald Trump, he doesn't have to

Ivanka Trump, daughter and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, says she wears a mask at the White House, and that's one reason the president doesn't have to.

"There are different procedures as it relates to interacting with the president," Ivanka Trump told USA TODAY on Thursday when asked about criticism her father has received for declining to wear a mask in public.

The president "is tested on a daily basis – all those who come into contact with him are tested on a daily basis," she said in an interview. "No one is in close proximity to him that isn't wearing a mask."

How convenient.

You wouldn't want our president to have to act like an adult now would you?

 

[lpetrich]

Pramila Jayapal on the coronavirus, the economy, and progressive power - Vox

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is the co-chair of the 95-member House Progressive Caucus. That means, in the aftermath of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, she leads the most influential bloc of progressive power in the federal government. And one thing that separates Jayapal from other elected officials: She’s actually willing to talk about it.

...
Ezra Klein
Let me start here: Are Democrats getting rolled on stimulus?

Pramila Jayapal
I don’t think we’re getting rolled at all. But the whole set of circumstances has been challenging, and we have not responded yet at the scale of the crisis that we face.

he first [Covid-19] death in my home state was on February 29. We passed our first package the week after that. The administration was in denial. The president was on TV likening it to a hoax and dismissing concerns repeatedly. It wasn’t just that Congress had to step in: We had to step in against a president who was dismissing the threat. So when you think about the fact that we passed three packages in three weeks that totaled almost two-and-a-half trillion dollars, that’s a remarkable achievement.

PJ then discussed backstopping payrolls.

It has gotten incredible support from 100 economists just wrote a letter, including Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. And it’s actually what other countries have done. Germany had this in place coming out of the last recession, and it’s widely credited for why Germany has been able to recover quickly. But other countries have put it into place with the coronavirus: not only European countries like the UK, France, and others but Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia.

Then on how a Republican Senator supported a similar idea.

Mark Zandi at Moody’s, who used to work for McCain and is quite a respected economist on both sides of the aisle, has been working with me on a cost estimate. His initial estimates are that it would cost us far less than what we’ve already spent or appropriated on the paycheck protection program. And we would stop mass unemployment, which provides huge benefits down the road that he hasn’t even calculated.

Then on wielding power and making awkward compromises.

 

[lpetrich]

Should one act like the Tea Party and its Freedom Caucus? The FC only had 32 seats in the House, but that was enough to obstruct the rest of the House Republicans. PJ again:

If you had 20 members every time who were willing to stand up and say, no, we’re not going to vote for this —even in a really difficult situation knowing all of the things that can come down on you if you vote no on an important leadership priority — that would be a different situation. We don’t always have that. You need to have a sufficient bloc.

It also depends on whether Republicans are going to vote for the bill. If the Democratic majority has decided that they’re going to go with moderates and Republicans so that they have enough votes to pass the bill, you have no leverage.

The House Progressive Caucus is much larger, at 95 members, but its members don't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and many of its members may not have much taste for Tea-Party hardball tactics.

It’s much easier if there is something genuinely bad in a bill. We have no problem whipping no votes on the National Defense Authorization Act. Now, I will say that that gets support from the other side, so we still don’t defeat it because they come to a bipartisan agreement.

I think that’s the other thing people have to understand: We can say no, but if we do, it also pushes people to court the other side.

A bit later,

We are ultimately very interested in governing, and I’m glad to be a party that is interested in governing and generally in helping people.

However, I’m also an organizer, and I do think that we need to elect more people that are willing to be bold, to take leadership, and build the institutional structures to support organizing efforts, not only on the outside but on the inside. I’m really focused on trying to do all of those things because as long as people think that government isn’t going to help them or isn’t relevant to their lives, they’re not going to be engaged — and progressives lose when people aren’t engaged.

There's also not wanting to seem assholish - unpleasant and unlikeable.