Trump VS COVID-19 Threat

[lpetrich]

Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

Some local officials are disappointed the federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites this Friday. In a few places those sites will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available.

...
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells NPR, "Many of the Community-Based Testing Sites (CBTS) are not closing, but rather transitioning to state-managed sites on or about April 10."

The agency and a spokesperson for FEMA say the CBTS program originally included 41 sites. It was intended as a stop-gap to bring testing to critical locations, especially for health care facility workers and first responders.

"The transition will ensure each state has the flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate testing sites within the needs of their specific community and to prioritize resources where they are needed the most," the HHS spokesperson said.

All Things Considered on Twitter: "The federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites on Friday. While some sites will transition to being state-managed, others will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available. https://t.co/DuBCbJoRDO" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: " The Trump admin is ENDING FEDERAL FUNDING for coronavirus testing sites on Friday
Yes, you read that right. It’s completely irresponsible.
If anything, we should err on the side of testing “too much” - we’re *nowhere* near that.
Trump ending support now will cost lives. https://t.co/vN1Sd7GMiH" / Twitter

Cut salaries, taxes to reopen U.S. economy says Laffer, conservative fave - Reuters

Tax non-profits. Cut the pay of public officials and professors. Give businesses and workers who manage to hold on to their jobs a payroll tax holiday to the end of the year.

What about the extra aid funneled to newly jobless workers by the $2.3 trillion fiscal rescue package? Such government spending, Laffer told Reuters in an interview, will only serve to deepen the downturn and slow the recovery.

“If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, you will get less people working,” Laffer said. “If you make it more unattractive to be unemployed, then there’s an incentive to go look for another job faster.”

...
Most economists agree here that the United States' consumer spending-driven economy can't be "reopened" until testing is widespread enough that infected people can be identified and isolated.

From last year, Why are we still pretending 'trickle-down' economics work? | Morris Pearl | Opinion | The Guardian - "Sadly, Laffer’s career has been heavy on punditry, light in academic rigor, and absolutely destructive for the average American and the long-term health and sustainability of our economy."

It all began in 1974, when Laffer walked into a bar with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who were working for the Ford administration at the time. Out of it came the “Laffer curve,” a U-shaped graph illustrating the relationship between tax rates and revenue.

The ends of the curve are basic enough – at a tax rate of 0, the government will raise $0 in revenue, and at a tax rate of 100, the government will still raise $0 in revenue because people won’t work without take-home pay.

At the extremes, the Laffer curve is correct, but that doesn’t tell us anything about the points in the middle. Laffer’s idea, however, was that a “tipping point” existed on the continuum in between, where people’s incentives to work and invest decreased because tax rates were too onerous.

Ronald Reagan and other Republicans loved that idea.

More recently, in Kansas, where an extreme version of Laffer’s theory was implemented and tax rates were cut by nearly a third, the state suffered one of the worst fiscal disasters in recent history.

The Laffer curve has done immense damage to the US economy in the 40 years since its inception. It also ignores a fundamental reality: tax cuts for the rich don’t work.

Each and every time state or federal governments have tested Laffer’s trickle-down theory, deficits balloon, rich folks hoard their wealth at the top, and average Americans suffer.

The greatest periods of growth in our country, such as the 1950s and 1990s, have coincided with decisions to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

The problem is that the promised bursts of economic growth never happen. What happens instead is increased deficits. Republican activist Grover Norquist advocates tax cuts to "starve the beast", and what he advocated has been what has happened. To use Norquist's terminology, the Lafferites promise that tax cuts will "feed the beast".

 

[lpetrich]

Fed rolls out $2.3 trillion to backstop Main Street, local governments during crisis - Reuters

The Fed said it would work through banks to offer 4-year loans to companies of up to 10,000 employees and directly buy the bonds of states and more populous counties and cities to help them respond to the health crisis.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fed rolls out $2.3 trillion to backstop Main Street, local governments during crisis - Reuters

The Fed said it would work through banks to offer 4-year loans to companies of up to 10,000 employees and directly buy the bonds of states and more populous counties and cities to help them respond to the health crisis.

Why does it sound like we are about to spend $6 trillion to backstop a $400 billion a week economy?

Fed rushes out to backstop small businesses and companies that have already laid off 14 to 16 million people!!!

 

[ZiprHead]

Fed rolls out $2.3 trillion to backstop Main Street, local governments during crisis - Reuters

The Fed said it would work through banks to offer 4-year loans to companies of up to 10,000 employees and directly buy the bonds of states and more populous counties and cities to help them respond to the health crisis.

Why does it sound like we are about to spend $6 trillion to backstop a $400 billion a week economy?

Fed rushes out to backstop small businesses and companies that have already laid off 14 to 16 million people!!!

My wife's employer is trying to get the employee coverage loan to help out her employees. Covers employees pay plus you can get another 25% for help with operating expenses.

 

[Elixir]

I know a few locals doing that. Distracted by the loud shiny rescue loan, they aren't thinking about the other 2.5 trillion dollars for which the Trump cabal has abolished oversight. But I'm sure we can trust him. Besides, we'll never have to know.



And meanwhile ....

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A nurse bought protective supplies for her colleagues using GoFundMe — then the hospital suspended her – Raw Story

Actually, the hospital was right in this case. The problem is what you can buy on the open market is likely dodgy. If she chose to use open market stuff herself that's one thing, providing it to others is setting the hospital up for lawsuit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This whole thing is getting fishy now. There's a new "#filmyourhospital" and many of the videos show the hospitals as being ghost towns, not "overrun with patients in chaos." Even the NYC hospitals show tons of ambulances parked and not doing anything. There's no warzone atmosphere at any of these hospitals where people film.

Some people even went to the testing sites and they have a tent up just for show with nothing underneath them.

CBS even put up a video of a hospital in Italy and said it was "a hospital in NYC" to fear monger. They were caught lying.

This is getting very strange now...

Looking at that--I see a guy walking around in a facility with nobody around, everything pristine, no medical supplies to be seen. That looks to me like something that's still being set up. No surprise, they know the numbers are still going up.

Next video, things outside look dead. Of course--visitors aren't allowed, the traffic volume is going to be way down.

They also seem to be saying that because it's not a ton of ambulances that there must not be an issue--nope, you can get to the hospital by other means. Acute trauma, you're probably going by ambulance. Something that develops more slowly you very well might not. I was in the ER nearly two years ago--taxi, not ambulance, I walked in under my own power. (Went to the quick care, they confirmed the kidney stone I suspected and sent me down the street to the ER as they weren't able to deal with it.) I suspect a lot of the Covid-19 patients are this way, also--it gets bad enough, someone drives them to the ER.

The people posting this crap are trying to get people killed.

 

[Jayjay]

Also, there may be less need for ambulances when there is less traffic and less people in general outside, less people getting alcohol poisonings and drug overdoses in parties, etc.

 

[lpetrich]

Susan Glasser on Twitter: "When you’ve lost the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page... https://t.co/aaY3TDCajF" / Twitter with a picture of a dead-tree version of the editorial. It is datelined 2020 Apr 8.

Someone stopped watching the briefings because "they have become less about defeating the virus and more about the many feuds of Donald J. Trump."

The briefings began as a good idea to educate the public about the dangers of the virus, how Americans should change their behavior, and what the government is doing to combat it. ...

But sometime in the last three weeks Mr. Trump seems to have concluded that the briefings could be a showcase for him. ...

They last for 90 minutes or more, and Mr. Trump dominates the stage. His first-rate health experts have become supporting actors, and sometimes barely that, ushered on stage to answer a technical question or two. Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the task force, doesn’t get on stage until the last 15 minutes or so. That becomes the most informative part of the session, since Mr. Pence understandably knows details the President doesn’t. ...

Mr. Trump opens each briefing by running through a blizzard of facts and numbers showing what the government is doing—this many tests, that many masks, so many ventilators going from here to there, and what a great job he’s doing. ...

Then discusses how easily Trump is "baited" by journalists.

On Tuesday Mr. Trump was asked, in a typically tendentious question, why he had compared the coronavirus to the flu. Instead of saying he had been hoping for the best but was wrong when he'd said that, he got into a fight over the severity of the flu. This sort of exchange usually devolves into a useless squabble that helps Mr. Trump’s critics and contributes little to public understanding.

With such pettiness, he will NOT be remembered as a good President.

His response:
Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "The Wall Street Journal always “forgets” to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are “through the roof” (Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according to @nytimes) & is only way for me to escape the Fake News & get my views across. WSJ is Fake News!" / Twitter

More pettiness.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This whole thing is getting fishy now. There's a new "#filmyourhospital" and many of the videos show the hospitals as being ghost towns, not "overrun with patients in chaos." Even the NYC hospitals show tons of ambulances parked and not doing anything. There's no warzone atmosphere at any of these hospitals where people film.

Some people even went to the testing sites and they have a tent up just for show with nothing underneath them.

CBS even put up a video of a hospital in Italy and said it was "a hospital in NYC" to fear monger. They were caught lying.

This is getting very strange now...

View attachment 26993

It's not a conspiracy if the videos show the hospitals being ghost towns.

Except that's not what the videos show. They're showing a lack of visitors.

Why did CBS show a hospital in Italy and claim it was NYC, then?

A modern ICU looks like a modern ICU. Exactly where is unimportant, they used the footage they have. They can't just go film an an ICU these days!

 

[Half-Life]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

 

[Half-Life]

This whole thing is getting fishy now. There's a new "#filmyourhospital" and many of the videos show the hospitals as being ghost towns, not "overrun with patients in chaos." Even the NYC hospitals show tons of ambulances parked and not doing anything. There's no warzone atmosphere at any of these hospitals where people film.

Some people even went to the testing sites and they have a tent up just for show with nothing underneath them.

CBS even put up a video of a hospital in Italy and said it was "a hospital in NYC" to fear monger. They were caught lying.

This is getting very strange now...

Looking at that--I see a guy walking around in a facility with nobody around, everything pristine, no medical supplies to be seen. That looks to me like something that's still being set up. No surprise, they know the numbers are still going up.

Next video, things outside look dead. Of course--visitors aren't allowed, the traffic volume is going to be way down.

They also seem to be saying that because it's not a ton of ambulances that there must not be an issue--nope, you can get to the hospital by other means. Acute trauma, you're probably going by ambulance. Something that develops more slowly you very well might not. I was in the ER nearly two years ago--taxi, not ambulance, I walked in under my own power. (Went to the quick care, they confirmed the kidney stone I suspected and sent me down the street to the ER as they weren't able to deal with it.) I suspect a lot of the Covid-19 patients are this way, also--it gets bad enough, someone drives them to the ER.

The people posting this crap are trying to get people killed.

Yes, so this means the hospitals are not "chaotic warzones" as the media said they were.

So, they lied to us. What they should've said was, "Hospitals are ghost towns these days. Not much going on due to the virus."

Why the fear mongering using phrases such as "chaotic warzones?"

 

[Keith&Co.]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

Find anyone here saying 'this is all Trump's fault,' halfie?

 

[Half-Life]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

Find anyone here saying 'this is all Trump's fault,' halfie?

Because they say he should've acted sooner instead of playing golf. I believe Ziprhead posted a whole picture of Trump going golfing with a timeline.

But at that time, no expert was saying we should shutdown.

 

[crazyfingers]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

Find anyone here saying 'this is all Trump's fault,' halfie?

Correct. I don't know anyone claiming it's all Trump's fault.

It appears to be a certainty though that Trump has made it worse, not better, by his science denials, delays, lying and overall complete incompetence and massive screwups.

 

[Half-Life]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

Find anyone here saying 'this is all Trump's fault,' halfie?

Correct. I don't know anyone claiming it's all Trump's fault.

It appears to be a certainty though that Trump has made it worse, not better, by his science denials, delays, lying and overall complete incompetence and massive screwups.

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...ities-are-sharing-misleading-post-about-trum/

According to the actual facts, the pandemic team quit on their own. Trump never fired them. That's media lies.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

And Kent Hovind promised money to anyone that proved evolution*.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Fox News issued a challenge today to anyone who says that this is all Trump's fault.

They said, "Find me one expert back in February who was calling for a national shutdown. You won't find one."

Find anyone here saying 'this is all Trump's fault,' halfie?

Because they say he should've acted sooner instead of playing golf. I believe Ziprhead posted a whole picture of Trump going golfing with a timeline.

But at that time, no expert was saying we should shutdown.

Now, completely different question. Who, here, is saying this is xALL Trump's Fault?'
Just one quote. Or name the thread and the post number? Name the poster?

 

[Keith&Co.]

According to the actual facts, the pandemic team quit on their own. Trump never fired them. That's media lies.

And Mobly just 'resigned' rather than being forced out of his office. Sure. These distinctions exist to protect people from the facts.

 

[ZiprHead]

This whole thing is getting fishy now. There's a new "#filmyourhospital" and many of the videos show the hospitals as being ghost towns, not "overrun with patients in chaos." Even the NYC hospitals show tons of ambulances parked and not doing anything. There's no warzone atmosphere at any of these hospitals where people film.

Some people even went to the testing sites and they have a tent up just for show with nothing underneath them.

CBS even put up a video of a hospital in Italy and said it was "a hospital in NYC" to fear monger. They were caught lying.

This is getting very strange now...

Looking at that--I see a guy walking around in a facility with nobody around, everything pristine, no medical supplies to be seen. That looks to me like something that's still being set up. No surprise, they know the numbers are still going up.

Next video, things outside look dead. Of course--visitors aren't allowed, the traffic volume is going to be way down.

They also seem to be saying that because it's not a ton of ambulances that there must not be an issue--nope, you can get to the hospital by other means. Acute trauma, you're probably going by ambulance. Something that develops more slowly you very well might not. I was in the ER nearly two years ago--taxi, not ambulance, I walked in under my own power. (Went to the quick care, they confirmed the kidney stone I suspected and sent me down the street to the ER as they weren't able to deal with it.) I suspect a lot of the Covid-19 patients are this way, also--it gets bad enough, someone drives them to the ER.

The people posting this crap are trying to get people killed.

I saw a video made by some conspiracy theory idiot that was talking over a news video demonstrating a "patient " being intubated. He caught that the "patient" was a mannequin and not a real person so the corona virus issue was fake. It didn't take long for him to get lambasted for so many things wrong in his video. The fact that there was a sign in the background that said "No food or drink near the mannequin". He didn't realize medical personnel use mannequins for practice. I told him any medical person that allowed a camera crew into a treatment room with a CV patient would be out of their mind for several reasons, safety, patient privacy. He didn't realize it was obviously a training demonstration.

I and others slammed the idiot so hard he took the video down shortly afterwards.