Here's how it looks on Twitter:
Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you @OANN https://t.co/d40JQkUZg5— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2020
April 13, 2020
"Trump retweets #firefauci tweet, raising speculation of a frayed relationship..."
Fox News reports.
Here's how it looks on Twitter:
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276 comments:
1 – 200 of 276 Newer› Newest»Fauci is plural for Faucet.
He needs to shut his spigot(s).
I am Laslo.
Shoot the messenger seems to be the Republican solution to info you would rather not receive.
I just want to know what private business will do to support the public good if this push turns out to have been too hastu.
Fauci is realizing he got taken for a ride by China and WHO.
Now he is trying to thread the needle of 'correcting' his history without stepping on the landmines that come with such endeavors.
My guess is he will have his revised story fully in place in time for his impeachment testimony.
I am Laslo.
In another report yesterday Fauci is said to state that China knew about the risk to humans of this virus in December - clearly faulting them and their misleading for the slowness of the response by the rest of the world.
Once again criticizing and holding Trump responsible for something he hasn't done.
Fauci is a CNN and Hillary loving snake. And as Coulter said of those 9-11 widows the Dems trotted out, he's enjoying his fame a little too much for the situation.
Medical experts would keep the eoconomy closed down until the last case disappears. They go for a victory on points, points being only one thing.
Economists would open it up right away, different points.
A meta-expert has to make a chemical calculation between them.
Fauci's ego is bigger than his brain. Why is it we shouldn't wear a mask?
If everyone was told to wear a mask in February, we could have prevented much of this.
The experts, and I include those on this site, refuse to tell us what conditions need to be met for people returning to work.
relying on experts is not serving us well.
I believe there was something else that Trump was dealing with at the time. Seems like that is in the memory hole. Regardless, trump was doing his job back then, with little support from congress.
Why are we (sic) now demanding trump should act as a dictator? Rhetorical, of course.
Hey iowan, did you ever find a link for your version of what was said about “flattening the curve”?
"Shoot the messenger seems to be the Republican solution to info you would rather not receive.”
If the messenger comes to you and says one thing, and then two months later tells the world that he said another, and both versions are on tape, shooting that messenger gets kind of tempting.
Why is Fox News and blogoverse all atwitter because Trump retweeted something?
Trump ? Who the **** is Trump? Is he a famous blogger ? :)
I'm guessing #FireFauci wasn't the important part of that tweet
Hey iowan, did you ever find a link for your version of what was said about “flattening the curve”?
I looked a little and got bored.
It has nothing to do with answering the question. Is mitigation preventing death, or delaying death?
But todays question is one I have been raising for a while. What circumstances need to exist to lift restrictions in place. What DATA, will trigger a restart of business? The grace period of "we'll see". is sounding a lot like what parents tell their children when they mean "never"
Updated data from Minnesota --
LINK TEXT
The more important data is the median age of the people dying.
Trump was definitely right to stop travel from China, but he also downplayed the threat and should have taken more actions earlier. Trump's devotion to "positive thinking" and aversion to accepting bad news worked against him in this case. But that is not a partisan issue, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Trump was accused of racism, and his opponents were also downplaying the threat, some going so far as to encourage people to attend a large festival in Chinatown, presumably to demonstrate how un-racist.
That Trump's critics are asinine and that Trump dropped the ball are not mutually exclusive propositions.
Trump was definitely right to stop travel from China, but he also downplayed the threat and should have taken more actions earlier.
ISTM the cases we were seeing then weren't life threatening. We didn't foresee what would happen when the virus hit people with diabetes and obesity. We didn't force New York being such an odd pocket.
I will be really interested to see more statistics when this is all over. All the non- or barely- symptomatic people walking around will make the numbers even more interesting.
"The experts, and I include those on this site, refuse to tell us what conditions need to be met for people returning to work."
To avoid giving specifics ensures you have the time needed to move the goal posts accordingly for your winning score and victory lap.
• are we waiting for the curve to be flattened nationwide, or are we going to look at it regionally?
• are we waiting for the curve to be flattened, or waiting for a vaccine?
• are we waiting for the curve to be flattened, or waiting for new cases to drop to zero?
• is there a mortality rate that signals we are okay to move on?
• are we waiting for Trump to decide so that we can impeach him for whatever decisions he makes?
Don't worry, ma: we're only bleeding out here.
I am Laslo.
I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you @OANN
And all the "proper" folks were calling him racist for it, back then.
Standard "when did you stop beating your wife" stuff. Trump is a racist for calling a stop to China flights when he did. Now he is a racist because he didn't do it soon enough and LOTS of PoC are getting ill.
If only Hillary were in charge, if she were, there wouldn't even be a pandemic (yet). The admin and media would be saying this is just a heavy flu season and all the "experts" would be bobbing their heads in agreement.
How many more? We've reduced the estimated death toll from millions to maybe a hundred thousand or two.
I thought that was a tame Trump tweet. Very passive, stating a fact and thanking someone. No accusations or attacking a person. Nothing here,next.
"I looked a little and got bored. “
So you insisted on an explanation of a made up quote. Noted.
Remember that SARS was not that contagious. This was thought to be like SARS.
Trump was definitely right to stop travel from China, but he also downplayed the threat and should have taken more actions earlier.
What actions? What actions did Fauci recommend that the President ignored? This is a simple question never asked of Fauci. The narrative is being created from thin air,(Like the Russian hoax) but no specifics are cited. We know the China travel ban was met by the House of Representatives drafting legislation to overrule the President. In light to legislative push back, what actions should have been taken. Since Fauci has yet to make a claim any of his recommendations were ignored by the President, that leaves actions that only President Trump could have come up with on his own with out EXPERTS leading the way.
I watched the Fauci appearance. It wasn't that confrontational. He was simply saying that it would have been better to have shut down earlier but that other factors were in play.....Fauci seems open minded and balanced. He perhaps has a different opinion than Trump on certain things, but he expresses those opinions respectfully and he is paid to have those opinions....Fauci is enormously popular. I think he has plot armor and that Trump will not be firing him anytime soon.
So you insisted on an explanation of a made up quote. Noted.
No. I asked a simple question. Mitigation prevented deaths from COVID, or delayed those deaths? A simple question that experts can't answer. Noted
Frankly I’m bored with this Monday morning QB-ing. I know it’s fodder to keep the broadcasts going but it really is not helpful to us now. We should be focusing on where we are at now, what we need to see to be able to reopen, and how we actually go about reopening- what guidelines do we follow once open, by region or industry. Let’s have a balanced debate about that.
"Trump implied (blah, blah, blah)
This is the moral equivalent of "unnamed sources said ...")
And didn't we already go through this Fauci vs Trump schtik a few weeks ago?
BTW I think we need to drop the Fox News as a conservative source for news thing. It's getting hard to distinguish them from the NYT.
Breezy, you're right of course.
I have been trying for a while to get those specifics into the field of debate. But that sucks all the air out of the orangemanbad balloon. That was my first post this morning.
@Iowan2:
What actions?
Uhh...the ones Trump ended up taking. They needed to be started weeks earlier than they were. It's pretty evident that Trump was far more concerned with messaging and with the stock market reactions. One of Trump's weaknesses is that he does not take bad news well, and he is even worse at having to give it. It was mentioned in another thread that Trump was a devotee of Normal Peale, his pastor as a child and the officiant of his first wedding. Peale was the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, and Trump credits Peale's ideas with helping him weather his financial troubles in the early 1990s. Scott Adams is also apparently a Peale devotee.
@iowan2: "It has nothing to do with answering the question. Is mitigation preventing death, or delaying death?"
To hazard a guess, some of both? Some people are going to die, no matter the intervention; but also some may die without intervention that would survive with it. So it's a matter of managing case load so that resources will be available to save those who who might die without treatment.
What Breezy and Iowan and Laslo said.
I’ve been asking for weeks what does ok to go back to work / church / school look like. Not one person, even those who have the time to share their boundless expertise in hundreds of comments posted a week, has ever answered me in detail, other than CStanley who did give a sensible and serious answer when I asked her what she thinks we ought to do.
There are a fair amount of Karens (male and female) out there who seem to think that the answer is zero cases. Complete eradication. Smallpox-level victory.
Does anyone from the not-yet camp have anything less that than to suggest? If so, what?
How many geniuses are out there today proclaiming what should have been done, what they would have done, and what Trump did not do in preparation for what no one in 100 years has seen? Frankly- no one has ever seen this one.
More Monday morning QBing from the media than after a botched Super Bowl call that allows the Patriots to win another one. The media which has spent the past 8 or so years dropping any mask of objectivity and throwing all in as radical Leftists now wants us to follow their pointed fingers as they proclaim Trump killed thousands of people.
While the virus was hitting, Nancy and the Dems were still neck deep in their coup attempt. Never forget what they were doing. And with that in mind, ignore this call from the press that Trump killed thousands. If he did, so did Cuomo, Whitmer, Pelosi, and Schumer. All of them failed at preparing for something no one really thought would happen. We all knew it could happen. But we never really saw it happening to us. Trump acted on cutting travel. My wife and I acted (holed ourselves up) before Trump sent out his advisory to stay home. Any people who did not do that promptly on their own accord- without the Government telling them to do so- should also have fingers pointed at them. If that's what we're all about now. They, too, may have killed thousands. OK...a little hyperbolic for a Monday am. But my point is that none of us did exactly what we know we'd do today- if we were starting over.
Media clamoring for anything should raise your skepticism radar into full alert.
His tweet is not what Twitter thinks it is. The whole magilla is based on the #FireFauci hashtag. Trump's comment in his retweet doesn't come close to endorsing it.
THEOLDMAN
But who cares about Twitter? I go there for some instant news from the few people who reporting credentials I trust.
She could be wrong about the date. Fauci definitely said that in January. Did he repeat that at the end of February?
It always ends up at the same place.
Trump can't fire that guy. That guy is totally independent, and in charge. Firing that subordinate is an affront to the Constitution and an assault on democracy.
3 solid years of "Trump can't fire that guy undermining the Trump administration".
@Temujin:
All of them failed at preparing for something no one really thought would happen.
Back in February, people were basically lining up in two camps. One was saying that the virus posed a significant risk and that social distancing and a big effort by the government would be needed to mitigate the problem. The other camp was saying that the threat was exaggerated and did not pose a serious risk. One camp ended up being right and the other being wrong. That isn't Monday morning quarterbacking.
@J. Farmer: Knowing what we know now? Sure, we should have taken steps earlier. Knowing what we knew then? Our precautions were sensible, and there was large agreement across the political spectrum that this didn't appear *at the time* to be too terrible an outbreak or disease. So much so that the Democrats tried to reverse steps the President actually took and as late as March 13th were telling their constituents to continue behaving normally in NYC. It was only after the outbreak in Wuhan could no longer be suppressed did we begin to get an idea how virulent this virus was.
Agree with Laslo @ 4/13/20, 5:21 AM
Also, others.
Medical experts
People seem to be forgetting that Most Published [medical] Research Findings Are False ... even when they have plenty of time to work on their research.
The logic of the shutdown was readily evident at the beginning - it was "we can't have a dying POC granny in street with Rachel Maddow weeping over her", otherwise to be described as avoid over-loading the hospitals. We avoided it, therefore let's go back to work. Life is not designed for human beings to avoid all contact with pathogens and it cannot be. People at risk (hello fat people, especially old fat people with other problems) should stay in for awhile longer. Everyone else ought to get back to it. Declare that we flattened the curve and go back. Goal met.
The United States shouldn't and doesn't delegate political decisions to doctors and/or other so called experts.
Democrats were still licking their balls telling us the most important thing in the world was John Bolton testifying, while Trump assembled a racist virus task force.
Farmer adopts the post-Jim Crow south historic revision. Everybody switched sides!
@Jeff Weimer:
@J. Farmer: Knowing what we know now? Sure, we should have taken steps earlier
The threat of the virus and the steps taken to slow the spread were recommended weeks before Trump stated them publicly. Over that time, he was downplaying the threat of the virus. Hell, Tucker Carlson met with Trump face-to-face at Mar-a-Lago to convince him to take the threat more seriously. You can be a Trump supporter and still acknowledge this. People make mistakes.
I think we should leave Trump alone to do his job, and fire most of the treasonous media. Really tired of the lies and misinformation coming the NYT, the WaPoo, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. Since we can't fire the chucklebuckets, all we can do is ridicule them.
J Farmer... To exemplify your concept of Trump's inaction, I'd recommend you complete a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, in the dark, with 28 pieces missing from the box, with a starving Bouvier des Flanders tugging on your pant leg. Against a clock.
@J Farmer,
"The other camp was saying that the threat was exaggerated and did not pose a serious risk. One camp ended up being right and the other being wrong. That isn't Monday morning quarterbacking."
Which camp predicted 2.2 Million US deaths?
Which camp is responsible for shuttering a big chunk of the economy, causing massive unemployment?
Which camp argued from the beginning that California (population 39 Million) didn't have a significant problem because the death numbers were relatively low, much lower than an average flu season?
@browndog:
Democrats were still licking their balls telling us the most important thing in the world was John Bolton testifying, while Trump assembled a racist virus task force.
Farmer adopts the post-Jim Crow south historic revision. Everybody switched sides!
From my first comment: "But that is not a partisan issue, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Trump was accused of racism, and his opponents were also downplaying the threat, some going so far as to encourage people to attend a large festival in Chinatown, presumably to demonstrate how un-racist."
Are their politically-motivated, partisan attacks on Trump? Undoubtedly. Does Are there legitimate criticisms of Trump? Certainly.
Him and Tom Cotton, apparently. And that was borne more out of suspicion of China and its motives. At the same time, Democrats were actively trying to undermine the cautious (too cautious it turns out) steps that were taken.
@Bay Area Guy:
Which camp is responsible for shuttering a big chunk of the economy, causing massive unemployment?
If I'm not mistaken, the administration is on board with that policy.
Which camp argued from the beginning that California (population 39 Million) didn't have a significant problem because the death numbers were relatively low, much lower than an average flu season?
On the same day that New Yorkers were advised to ignore concerns about coronavirus and attend a festival in Chinatown, Californians were being cautioned about the threat and encouraged to practice social distancing. There's also questions of population density and how many cases were imported into the east coast from Europe.
"No. I asked a simple question.”
Now you are lying. I don’t get why you think anybody should take you seriously.
If only Trump had listened to...Tucker Carlson.
And what if Trump had shut everything down because Tucker Carlson said it was the thing that had to be done, and it turned out to be wrong (which may well be the case)?
What if Trump had moved cautiously because the "experts" he consulted with told him that such caution was warranted, despite what Tucker Carlson and Tom Cotton told him?
Would you be saying--well, yeah, he screwed up, but it's OK because Tucker Carlson was recommending it?
Monday Morning QB'ing is really, really easy.
I don’t care about the politics of this shit. I am, however, fed up with living under house arrest over a manufactured panic.
Ulster Co. has recorded 11 potential COVID-19 related deaths out of a population of 184,000. I say potential, because not all the victims are being tested to prove they died from the virus.
Our governor has placed us under house arrest and threatened us with a $1,000 find for coming within 6 feet of another person.
This panic is an absurdity. Every day the “model” forecasting deaths is drastically revised downward. I don’t know what to make of our sheepish submission to experts and authorities. We should them to go fuck themselves and go back to living our lives.
Browndog @ 7:32 True. And funny. Thanks.
The biggest mistake was flooding in the American citizens from Europe in mid March. An easy decision to make in hindsight. Going forward we just need to to use that data to guide our actions next time we go through this. There will be a next time. As some great philosophers have said all past is prologue.
Trump downplaying potential severity floating the word hoax talking about zero cases very soon didn't help but even if Cheeto acted sooner we still might have been nailed from all those people coming home from Europe.
What counts is what we do going forward we can't change the past. I'm continuing to bet on Trump's rational self-interest to get re-elected. This will be a gamble to go against his feverish deplorable base, but it's not like he's shooting somebody in broad daylight on 5th avenue.
People who speak truth to power don’t last long in the Trump administration—remember Azar?
There is only one early action that could have prevented more old sick overweight people from dying: their strict isolation. Even then, a substantial number would have died anyway, for lack of effective enforcement and in some cases impossibility (e.g., in nursing homes).
Other than that, social distancing will likely be shown to have had a modest, and in some ways counterproductive, impact: as Wittkowski explains, the epidemic peaked in China and South Korea before the effect of distancing could have made a difference, and premature distancing prevents the epidemic from producing the kind of herd immunity among the young that actually protects the old, setting a country up for a second wave later.
The seriousness of the Wuhan virus was overstated, after it was initially understated: the real case fatality rate will turn out to be less than 1%, not 3%, it poses fewer risks to groups ordinarily hurt more by flu, such as children, and the actual excess mortality is still not clear, though likely to be lower than reporting on "deaths" suggests, in light of the high median age of "victims." Similarly, the need for hospital capacity was overstated, and many actions taken to preserve it therefore an overreaction. On that score, I cut the modelers and politicians some slack, though a targeted effort to expand capacity directly was the obvious alternative to the indirect approach adopted.
Of course, the overreaction has been the central issue all along: the panicky demand for actions to be taken, to do something, anything, led to the disastrous carpetbombing of the economy. Since economic ruin and lower growth will have some negative public health effects down the line, the net benefit of the actions taken will be less than the "lives saved" politicians will tout. I have seen no models even attempt to account for the health costs of economic ruin--and why is that, you wonder--but a full assessment of The Panic of 2020 will have to do that.
1. For those "experts" who are now proposing/hinting that we might need some type of medical "certification" to return to their vision of the "new normal"-
a. So, how many sub-certifications will we "need" - given that we now apparently have to rule out ALL risk? (a) Never had COVID; (b) Had COVID and showing "high" levels of antibodies; (c) Had COVID and showing "low" levels of antibodies; (d) Has underlying condition x; (e) Has underlying condition y; (f) Has underlying condition x and y; (g) 60+ years old (h) c + d (i) etc. ad nauseum
2. Why not "flatten the curve" at the on-ramps to all major U.S. highways by having drive-through intoxication testing? Hey, could even go for a two-fer and do a COVID nasal swab at the same time... Could even drop off your ballot for the November election ...
Elsewhere, in far away places like Czarist Russia, doctors were often the first victims of epidemics. People even plundered and attacked hospitals with epidemic patients.
We're not that far gone, but it doesn't help that most of our doctors are either foreign born or the idiot beneficiaries of nepotism and affirmative action.
Stupid snowflakes hearts are stopping in NYC at an astonishing rate compared to normal due to mindless panic. Not even COVID deaths, these are probably deaths from the shutdown.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/fdny-sees-huge-uptick-in-doa-ambulance-cases-as-covid-ravages-city
Shouting Thomas @ 7:50. “...go fuck themselves...”. Getting into that mood myself.
It’s the snowflakes vs the sociopaths. Fun all around.
FAUCI!
Good God
What is he gooood for?
Absolutely nothing
say it again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk
Immunity certifications are impossible. Consider a report from the MIT Technology Review:
But the truth is, a test that is 95% accurate isn’t much use at all. Even the smallest errors can blow up over a large population. Let’s say coronavirus has infected 5% of the population. If you test a million people at random, you ought to find 50,000 positive results and 950,000 negative results. But if the test is 95% sensitive and specific, it will correctly identify only 47,500 positive results and 902,500 negative results. That leaves 50,000 people who have a false result. That’s 2,500 people who are actually positive—immune—but are not getting an immunity passport and must stay home. That’s bad enough. But even worse is that a whopping 47,500 people who are actually negative—not immune—could incorrectly test positive. Half of the 95,000 people who are told they are immune and free to go about their business might never have been infected yet.
The antibody tests need to get a whole lot better before we can even try "immunity passports." There is no easy way out.
> but he also downplayed the threat and should have taken more actions earlier.
Like what?
People who speak truth to power don’t last long in the Trump administration—remember Azar?
This comment is not only stupid, it’s emblematic of the deliberate viciousness that Trump’s had to deal with.
Truth to power is something for people outside the administration to do, that is objective journalists (if we had any) and private citizens.
This constant demand that Trump should harbor dissenters and enemies within his administration is deliberate, underhanded treachery. No CEO in his right mind does this.
Sorry, moron, Trump’s too smart to sow the seeds of losing within his own administration. You’ll have to find another way to undermine him. You “concern” is poorly concealed back stabbing.
That isn't Monday morning quarterbacking.
Actually, that's exactly what Monday morning quarterbacking is. The fact that you're saying this now makes it so.
Unless you can point to comments you made back then that suggest Trump respond like he's in the first group you describe.
tim in vermont said...
Remember that SARS was not that contagious. This was thought to be like SARS.
True here. But in parts of the world it was quite contagious. One patient got transferred to 3 hospitals in China and infected 200 people. The story is the doctor who brought it to Hong Kong threw up in the hallway of the Sofitel(?) and everyone who walked by got it- infecting 12 people who brought it all over. One woman brought it back to Singapore and infected 100 people.
Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong- a housing estate (high-rise apartment complex) had hundreds of cases.
But you had to be really sick I think to be contagious. And of course, there was no widespread testing.
In the US, it never really took off. Although at the time, there was a ton of scare mongering for Americans on American tv.
Oso Negro nailed it- time to declare victory and go back to work.
We have flattened the curve- or it was never high enough to cause a problem. Either way, we are trading a certain economic disaster for a conjectural medical one. All the experts were wrong about the height of the curve, even in NYC, nobody died for lack of a ventilator (not to mention the emerging medical consensus that ventilators are often the wrong treatment). We are now hearing reports of impending food shortages due to the breakdown in the food supply chain.
Vulnerable folks should be quarantined and supported by communities and government.
The rest of us should get back to work.
Let me repeat.
This panic is bullshit. You’re fucking cowards for putting up with being under house arrest.
Refuse to submit. Commit civil disobedience. Tell the authorities to go fuck themselves.
Go to work on the black market. Fuck the government tax collectors while you’re at it.
Looks like Texas is moving forward with getting back to work. Gov is releasing his executive order this week so we will soon know what restarting the economy looks like, in Texas at least.
Thomas is exactly right. The battle against the pandemic is all about Trump winning face within his administration. Trump is too smart to listen to experts.
Fauci is the new Michael Avenatti. He relishes the praise of his “expertise” on CNN and MSNBC. Love’s the TV time. His first real 15 minutes of fame. He’s the new “other” president of the moment. They guy that will finally prove Trump incompetent and take him down.
Fauci - Late Jan – Don’t worry. Feb 29th – Don’t worry. March 9th – Take a cruise. Then...we're all gonna die? I'll take my chances with a Magic 8-Ball.
Deep State Actor. His resistance to Hydroxychloroquine and Z-Packs was malpractice. His praise of the W.H.O…ridiculous. Napoleon Complex??
Right, SARS was only contagious after you got really sick, kind of the opposite of this one.
I am going to fire my Financial Advisor because he failed to predict the 2008 and 2020 market collapses. He should have taken action sooner to sell off equities and then buy when prices were low.
In the long run, I did not really lose, but he still should have known better.
So then no doubt your people will be in support of closing the border with Texas
What does “flatten the curve” mean?
Flattening the curve can help slow the spread of disease and help our health systems from becoming overwhelmed.
Having too many people sick at once can prevent critical care from getting to those who need it most.
The goal of flattening the curve is to slow down COVID-19 infections, rather than having the cases all peak at once.
Dr. Qualls, who was involved in creating the original pandemic graph illustrated above, notes that it is “Important to remember that #Covid-19 epidemic control measures may only delay cases, not prevent. However, this helps limit surge and gives hospitals time to prepare and manage.”
which leads, DIRECTLY to :Integris Baptist Medical Center is temporarily closing most of its Portland Avenue campus and furloughing a number of employees systemwide
The actions announced late Wednesday are being taken as hospital officials seek to adjust to a 50% drop in revenues attributable to the mandatory postponement of elective and non-emergency surgeries,
https://www.flattenthecurve.com/covid-19/
https://blog.providence.org/blog-2/covid-19-what-does-it-mean-to-flatten-the-curve
@Unknown:
If only Trump had listened to...Tucker Carlson.
I appreciate the attempt at snark, but I am afraid (though not surprised) you completely. Carlson met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on March 7th, that was only six days before Trump declared a national emergency. Concern over the threat and the actions the president ended up endorsing were being recommended for weeks before that. The point was that by the time of their face-to-face meeting, a Fox News pundit believed the president should take the threat more seriously.
Monday Morning QB'ing is really, really easy.
So if I tell you that a threat is serious and to institute a set of mitigating procedures, and three weeks later you go on TV and announce the threat is serious and are instituting a set of mitigating procedures, how exactly is that Monday morning quarterbacking?
"Go to work on the black market. Fuck the government tax collectors while you’re at it.”
What’s stopping you?
Breitbart.com gave Fauci's comments more of an anti-Trump spin than was in them. Fauci was trying to sidestep a "gotcha" question and wasn't as rah-rah Trump as Breitbart wanted. He wasn't attacking Trump. My take is that he was trying to answer the underlying non-gotcha question, "If we had shut down the country earlier would it have saved lives?" and he forgot the disclaimer "I don't want to talk about personalities here." Fauci could have emphasized that everybody got things wrong early on and the proper course of action wasn't clear, but he didn't. Maybe what people interpreted as attacking the president was actually Fauci trying to defend himself.
It's common in the media - mainstream or alternative - to pick out details and give things a spin to arouse controversy or support the writer's or editor's own agenda. The president isn't saying #firefauci either, just retweeting something that caught his eye. Tweets do provide a lot more opportunity for "Kremlinological" analysis of what's going on in the White House. Hostility, division, rivalries are always there, whoever is president, but the tweets give more data for speculation.
What’s stopping you?
Nothing, idiot. You think I’m going to tell you what I’m doing?
just as nobody learns from the Dept of Education
nobody is saved by the NIH
Hospitals are now 'so prepared', that they are EMPTY; and laying people off
to paraphrase what Moses said (during another time of plagues)
Let My People GO back to Work!
There are apparently only two possible views of any decision on this matter. “Too late” and “Wasn’t necessary.”
tim in vermont said...
Right, SARS was only contagious after you got really sick, kind of the opposite of this one.
Yes. It was also more deadly....there were no mild cases of SARS. That we know of. Although here it just never even became that deadly. But at the time, people were so scared. I remember being back in Hong Kong, kids going to school, and Berkeley (or Stanford?) were banning students from China from coming to summer school.
In the middle of it in Hong Kong, though, it felt just like here now. The rumors and the death and the rumors of death and the fear of airports shutting down and the runs on food. Everyone thought nothing would ever be be the same. And then it was.
There is a distinct pattern and trend about how deplorables make arguments against those who disagree with sir Donald by ascribing all of the obnoxious and disgusting characteristics of Trump onto them. Not only do the sane people of this country have to battle coronavirus weather the economic storm we also have to battle the cultists who will do or say anything to save Trump's face.
you people better hope and pray that the atheists are right otherwise you will all burn in hell
Trump is to smart to listen to experts.
Precisely.
After all, the experts lied their asses off for three years over the Russia collusion hoax.
Our finest investigative journalists at The New Yorker, The NY Times and the Associated Press deliberately and maliciously lied to us that they knew that Trump was a traitor who conspired with Russia.
You’re just about the last dumbass out there, Howard, who still assumes the experts are on the level.
"Nothing, idiot. You think I’m going to tell you what I’m doing?”
All righty then! Are you setting up a dance club in your barn, performing at kind of a speakeasy for touchy feelies? Secret knock and you can get in and mingle like in the old days? Or are you delivering services over the internet? My sister is a church organist, and that’s how she is doing her job now.
I see incredible fear in people- people I adore on Facebook are saying things like "How dare you complain about your precious *freedom* when people are dying in the hallways! How dare you want to go to your second home in Michigan when doctors are working to save lives"". Yes, I want lives saved and I know this is a bad bad virus, but liberal people criticizing others for worrying about freedom is a really bad sign.
And that really scares me. Americans are very susceptible to health panics-- maybe even more than terrorism fears ever were. And I think that's got to be getting noticed by...someone.
"It’s the snowflakes vs the sociopaths. Fun all around."
See my 6:37 am comment.
Care to put any answers to it, or are you content to call people sociopaths?
You made a comment a few days back about being a 'pariah'.
I do not see you as such; I do think, however, that you have avoided adding much to discussions about how to land the plane, instead lobbing blanket aspersions when the topic comes up.
Remember: your seat can be a flotation device.
I am Laslo.
"And then it was.”
Just like magic, somebody said.
"You’re just about the last dumbass out there, Howard, who still assumes the experts are on the level”
We can always agree on something.
"Experts" "Science" - the new platitudes
This is horrible. I was hoping he wouldn't have one of these public shakeups with his health team.
"There are apparently only two possible views of any decision on this matter. “Too late” and “Wasn’t necessary.”
So which one is yours?
Or are you in the middle, where people are asking questions about how to evaluate going forward?
Option Four: insults from the cheap seats is also available.
I am Laslo.
@I Callahan:
Actually, that's exactly what Monday morning quarterbacking is. The fact that you're saying this now makes it so.
I am not talking about myself. I am talking about the seriousness of the threat and the recommended actions that were being presented to Trump. The recommendations Trump ultimately ended up endorsing were recommended weeks before he agreed to implement them. Recommendations to close the border with Europe were made weeks before it was agreed to, initially rejected over concerns on the economy. The CDC publicly released its concerns about community spread the need for social distancing in late February, and it caused anger in the White House because of its perceived negative impact on stock prices. On the same day as the CDC's report, Trump said, "We’re going very substantially down, not up."
Unless you can point to comments you made back then that suggest Trump respond like he's in the first group you describe.
Again, I wasn't talking about myself. But for what it's worth, I did comment here that the coronavirus was going to be a much more serious problem than people were anticipating. And I was practicing social distancing before the president ever endorsed it.
CJinPA- I'm hoping the hashtag is not why he retweeted.
Tim, you do not express concern in the same way I and others have for those who are suffering from or at risk for economic ruin, child abuse, partner abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, and untreated medical conditions, all of which are real and harmful and directly tied to the shutdowns, but none of us is calling you a sociopath.
Good faith.
Farmer can’t back up his words. He can’t show you the Cassandra warning Trump of doom because there were none. Tom Cotton was early. He was shouted down. Not only is Farmer unable to show us the Early Warning he is sure Trump had, he can’t even articulate what the threat was “earlier.” So I’ll make it easy. Just show me ONE prominent voice who agreed with Trump when he closed off China. Just one. If you can point to an earlier tangible action I’d love to see it.
Someone had that tape of Fauci actually saying that the virus was not big deal.
where is it?
That someone took all the correct actions in a unique situation but could have taken them earlier is Loserthink.
Even moreso when these same people initially ridiculed those actions.
"you people better hope and pray that the atheists are right otherwise you will all burn in hell"
Atheists talking about selections for hell are the vegans at the barbeque.
You are free to heat up your veggie hot dog in the microwave.
I am Laslo.
Reminder:
The Democrats and our "expert" press were calling Trump a xenophobe and racist in late January to trying to restrict inbound flights from Africa and China.
Fauci should be replaced with Jared Kushner. Kushner is doing a heck of a job. And, his wife created 10 billion jobs.
Listen to and obey without question are two different actions dumbass or should I say dumb asses. the job isn't to ignore the experts it's to weight all of the advise, data and conjecture (models) from all of the different experts and try to make the best decision based on the totality advice. In science we call this approach multiple lines of evidence.
Also I’m still waiting to hear about any president prior to trump who took ANY drastic actions to stop a pandemic. Surely if trump is slow and dumb somebody else has done it better and we would know. Right?
Or, what was the other guy running for president recommending at the time trump was not reacting fast enough what was Joe’s plan?
Cut Tony some slack. The man has been rich on the payroll of the Gates Foundation's Pandemics R Us team for many years. Just be nice and take your Bill Gates Special Mandatory Vaccine. You cannot really want the surplus population not to go down.
Trump should fire anyone who undermines him, or whose opposition crosses a line. A team of rivals is a good thing, but the dumbass Dems expect him to keep a team of enemies.
The problem with Facui - is he goes on CNN. That should not be allowed. CNN is Clinton "newz" Network which is Chi-com.
Reminder:
House democrats held rare legislative session, and passed a bill out of committee making Trump's recent travel ban on China illegal.
At one point, Fauci said the virus wasn't that bad.
"MayBee said...
CJinPA- I'm hoping the hashtag is not why he retweeted."
I hope so, MayBee. Until I see what Fauci actually said, it's hard to get context.
I would hope the good doctor knows how to turn away questions aimed at undermining faith in the government while in the midst of a public health emergency. But I know they've prodded him relentlessly.
And that really scares me. Americans are very susceptible to health panics-- maybe even more than terrorism fears ever were. And I think that's got to be getting noticed by...someone.
Yes. All you have to do to take control is scare people and tell them they are on the side of right and good if they stay home, do what they're told, and sew something. And if they ask questions, they want people to die. Linking social pressure to conform to keeping Grandma alive is very very effective.
It's astonishingly easy!
I was going to answer you Laslo, I was going to tell you to watch the Trump briefings. Trump pretty much gives the same answers I would. That the economy needs to be re-opened soon. That it’s not without risk and people are gonna die. That the virus is deadly, but so is keeping the economy closed, stuff like that. That after we open the economy, hotspots are gonna show up that need to be addressed regionally. For instance in Michigan, almost all of the state is fine except for Detroit, and these one size fits all lockdowns have to stop.
I am 100% behind Trump on this, and I am glad he is making the important decisions, not Fauci. What I don’t buy is that it would have all been fine if it weren’t for “snowflakes” panicking, which is why I posted that story about the huge rise in DOA ambulance calls in NYC that correspond to the outbreak there. I don’t buy that the numbers are overstated in terms of death. They are likely understated, look at all cause death statistics out of Italy and NYC. I don’t buy that we should just allow the vulnerable to die already so the rest of us can get on with our lives. I don’t buy that without some real effort, it’s possible to protect the at risk by telling them to hole up.
I am at risk, heat conditions, asthma, I am holed up. I can afford it, it’s no problem for me. In Sweden they told them to avoid the elderly, but the elderly are dying in huge numbers, now they are trying to think of a way to protect them. My mom is 93, and in hospice, and it will be sad when she dies, but not untimely, but 20 years ago she was 73 and still a vital part of our family. Those would have been years not just lost to her, but to the rest of the family, to her grandchildren. So count me as a snowflake when it comes to the elderly.
Hind sight is always 20/20.
https://necsi.edu/corona-virus-pandemic
Gradually, then suddenly — four concepts that may help us think clearly about the coronavirus epidemic
Best way to combat coronavirus is to agree on norms to create safe spaces for families/groups
Don't be too quick to dismiss travel restrictions
@Howard
You don’t seem to have a clue about the actual responsibilities and powers of the presidency.
He’s chief executive officer. His powers are constitutionally limited, mostly to enforcement and foreign policy. Setting policy is not really his job.
You should watch one of Trump’s pressers. I did. One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen is a president explaining to reporters demanding that he engage in draconian, unilateral actions that the actions they’re recommending are reserved by law to the states.
Watch one of the pressers and learn. Maybe read the constitution?
The president is not a commanding officer in the Marines. You work on that model by default, it seems, because that’s all you know.
yes fauci not only on tape, but in a peer reviewed journal, said the opposite of what he's claiming now, I hate when people straight up lie to be, to feed the media and their own egos, Haberman, who swallowed so much of that ouvno that got us to this point, and lets not forget how fauci mishandled the aids epidemic, Michael fumento will remind us,
Exactly Bob the game is all about moving forward by objectively using the conclusions based on 20/20 hindsight
The problem with Facui - is he goes on CNN. That should not be allowed. CNN is Clinton "newz" Network which is Chi-com.
He went on Al Sharpton's show on MSNBC too.
To me, that crosses the line. He's clearly engaged in anti-Trump activism.
those that were at risk, should have quarantined, what about everyone else, as we stare in a Great Depression, inflicted by government policy, we don't know if we can restart this bird, before it hits the mountain, or how many pieces of the fuselage are recoverable,
I think Howard is on Ann's payroll for click bait.
And here comes ARM doing more GOTV for Trump. This is where Democrats minds are at right now, the politics of it. How can we not let this crisis go to waste? How can we wrest control to put China Joe Biden in power and get rid of Trump who started that troublesome trade war with China. We can call the guy who threw all of those tariffs on Chinese steel “Xi’s cockholster.” That will work!
Let’s forget about the billion dollars plus that Zi “invested” with novice fund manager Hunter BIden as he showed up with dad on Air Force Two!
Listen, I’m a Trump supporter.
Trump got stampeded into this panic. That’s a mistake. First time I’ve substantially disagreed with him.
I understand how he got stampeded into playing along with this panic. He didn’t want to be portrayed as a cold hearted bastard who killed grandma and grandpa.
Now, he’s got the political problem of finding a way out. Too late to disavow the panic. It will be interesting to watch his next move.
Reminder:
Everything the democrats say and do is with any eye towards the November election.
Young Americans are sheep and don't think for themselves. My niece yesterday, on a conference call, asked me if we had hand sanitizing stations at my job since I am still going to work. I work in an office with 5 other people in a two story building and two of five are now working at home. So there are now 3 of us here- each has his own office and own bathroom. That is information she did not have but she should have asked about before posing an idiotic question.
MayBee said...
Americans are very susceptible to health panics
I am unconvinced of this. For starters the average body weight would be 80lbs less if this were true. Where I live, which currently has one of the highest infection rates in the country, a significant subset of people ignored the requests for social distancing. Guess who is now getting hit hard with infections? It's all fun and games until your wife can't breathe and is taken to the ICU.
he game is all about moving forward by objectively using the conclusions based on 20/20 hindsight
Well that's a lie.
The game is all about furthering the narrative.
The church ladies’ clits are all throbbing over Cuomo.
“He saved us!”
They’re all pulling out their Kennedy/Camelot stories. Gushing vaginas. He’s the new JFK!
So, there’s that.
"those that were at risk, should have quarantined,”
This here. Just show me an effective method that has worked in a western culture, or a new idea that hasn’t already been tried and failed. I am not saying that we need to hold up the economy waiting for this to happen, but good intentions don’t take away responsibility for bad results.
one tries to be cynical, but I just can't keep up
Worth 6 minutes of your time:
I am a physician who has been working at the bedside of COVID+ patients in NYC. I believe we are treating the wrong disease and that we must change what we are doing if we want to save as many lives as possible. I welcome any feedback, especially from those bedside: doctors, nurses, xray techs, pharmacists, anyone and everyone. Does this sound wrong or right, is something more right? Please let me know."
So you think furthering The narrative is what we should be doing Bob? I'm sorry I mistook you for an American problem solver. The president's job is to ignore the noise and act on the signal.
you people really don't know the true meaning of the poem If by Rudyard Kipling
Yes, ARM, this virus primarily strikes the elderly obese. Inadvertently, you pointed out reality. You only do unintentionally, it seems.
And, certainly, we should expend millions of dollars and shut down the country to save morbidly obese old wives with diabetes, heart disease and liver failure from a virus.
Or else, we’re killers, right? Granny and wife killers at that!
some have done better than others, it's not a perfect system, it's a savage rithmetic, as kipling might have said, bannon was ridiculed as a tool of gui the dissident billionaire, Navarro, has been painted in darth vader type cloak, for holding the line again china,
@Mike (MJB Wolf):
Just show me ONE prominent voice who agreed with Trump when he closed off China. Just one. If you can point to an earlier tangible action I’d love to see it.
The White House's coronavirus task force made the recommendation to close the border with China, and Trump agreed to it. There was already debate within the administration about the potential such a move would have on its negotiations with Beijing. Anyone publicly opposing the move was foolish. The task force was also pushing for travel restrictions from Italy and other EU nations, but others, led by Mnuchin, were concerned with the economic impact such a move would have. The decision was made not to restrict travel from Europe, a decision that was reversed a month later.
So long as we're going to deride "experts" for getting things wrong, then surely we should deride Trump for saying on February 26th, "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done." That was the same day the CDC was saying that community spread was a matter of if and not when.
Tim,
Thank you for the reply.
Regarding " I don’t buy that we should just allow the vulnerable to die already so the rest of us can get on with our lives" -- obviously it''s more nuanced than that. But to even have a conversation about it gets one called COVIDiots, unserious, etc.
How small does the risk group have to get to enable the current efforts to be relaxed?
The elderly ARE at risk, but some more than others.
And they CAN shelter in place for longer than others might require (at least when they're not out bicycling in the woods).
To drill down: will there ever be a time when the elderly are NOT at more risk? Short of a vaccine, I don't see how that happens.
So are we then having everything 'on hold' until the vaccine, or are we going to assess other possibilities?
You seem to be saying you believe that you are occupying a middle ground, yet seem to then cast others who share many of the approximate concerns as 'thought lepers'.
Will the last elderly person please turn back on the lights?
I am Laslo.
"Don't be too quick to dismiss travel restrictions”
The more I think about it, after looking at the actual data, the more I think that the Michigan governor was right to tell the people of Detroit to not bring the contagion to their U.P. vacation homes. The level of infection their is low enough that it can be handled without flooding the area with new infected people. Until there is a way to enforce quarantines on new arrivals, it’s hard to see how travel is a great idea right now.
am unconvinced of this. For starters the average body weight would be 80lbs less if this were true. Where I live, which currently has one of the highest infection rates in the country,
A health panic is different than an actual health concern. With obesity, the current messaging is as far away from panic as you can get. It's all about embracing diversity.
Fernandistein: thanks for posting that video that was very interesting everything the doctor was saying seem to make logical sense to me. it also provides another reason why we need to flatten the curve the help the doctors and health Care experts figure out how to deal with the effects of covid-19.
A positive to take out of this...
America is so fucking rich that even bizarre Ponzi schemes like the liar's mortgage plot that triggered the 2008 financial collapse and this ridiculous panic over a 10 year peak viral infection can't stop our accumulation of wealth and power.
No matter how we try to fuck everything up, we seem to have arrived at a point that even our own deliberate sabotage out of stupidity, malice and greed can't undermine the system. We keep getting richer and powerful, no matter how hard we try to deep six everything.
Maybe the computers are running everything in the background and we idiot humans are superflous.
yes but she's shuttering the whole state down, with the accountrements of a jonathan swift character, ferguson still hasn't adjusted his models or furnished this code, and one has to admit this further many prog objectives, shuttering the economy, banishing evil king carbon,
the first case to new York, as pointed out last week, came from iran, why is anyone traveling to iran, and back again, the last time we had an unwelcome visitor via iran, two towers burned,
Never Trust Hillary, CNN or Chi-Coms
Dr. Fauci: Coronavirus Erupted in December While China Lied About Human-to-Human Spread
@BleachBit-and-Hammers:
At one point, Fauci said the virus wasn't that bad.
That was January 21st. The key event that kicked the administration into overdrive was China's lockdown of Hubei province on January 23rd. The travel restrictions (supported by Fauci) were announced January 31st.
But here's a question, if we can discount Fauci for getting it wrong on January 21st, then why can't we discount Trump for saying on February 26th, "I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up."
"You seem to be saying you believe that you are occupying a middle ground, yet seem to then cast others who share many of the approximate concerns as 'thought lepers’.”
The people whom I view as “thought lepers” (fair enough) are those who say it is all a panic about nothing. That re-opening the economy is without a real cost in lives. I’m not going to name check commenters here, but we have had lots of the say things like it’s only affecting the old and fat, that there aren’t really and shortened lives coming out of this, or that the numbers are being cooked on COVID dead.
Those are the people I call out. People who want one side of the equation to go away because it makes it easier to say that it’s not even a hard decision. I can’t remember every comment, but that’s my point of view. This isn’t mindless panic on one side and clear eyed realism on the other, because the case could be made that it’s the other way around in terms of panic. I have lost everything financially in the past, as I have said, and you know what? It was kind of empowering.
J Farmer: you are arguing with a generation of people who were raised on the notion do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do.
Regarding Trump's tweet, he is obviously refuting the RT and calling it fake news. He knows what Fauci has said in private and in public. Thus is another lane MSM attempt to drive a wedge between Trump and the doctors. So obvious and easy to refute.
Let's remember the big, huge overwhelming news story on February 5, 2020—
The House voted to impeach the President.
The House Judiciary Committee approved its Articles of Impeachment on December 13, 2019.
The first public impeachment hearings were held on November 13, 2019.
How different our world might be today if the Democrats had not been obsessed with a their show trial and the President had not been distracted.
Imagine if Trump had tried to take some stern action against the virus, say, in early January...All the smart people would have said he was wagging the dog, trying to distract everyone from his imminent demise.
I hope your people click on going Ferdinandsteins link to the New York ER doc video.
he's talking about what we need to do now and in the future. Lamenting about what we coulda shoulda woulda done in the past just enhances the disease
J. Farmer said...
if we can discount Fauci for getting it wrong on January 21st, then why can't we discount Trump for saying on February 26th, "I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up."
Because that is not what we do here. Holding public officials accountable for their incompetence only goes one way.
"I have lost everything financially in the past, as I have said, and you know what? It was kind of empowering."
That's nice. Did the government do it to you?
I am Laslo.
@Shouting Thomas:
No matter how we try to fuck everything up, we seem to have arrived at a point that even our own deliberate sabotage out of stupidity, malice and greed can't undermine the system. We keep getting richer and powerful, no matter how hard we try to deep six everything.
Maybe if you only count assets, but how much non-financial private debt is there? How much public debt is there? If you take a credit card and go buy $50,000 worth of assets, you haven't increased your net worth by $50,000.
What is your metric for saying we are getting more powerful? We certainly aren't as powerful as we were in, say, the late 1940s.
(I lost just about everything in a divorce; it took quite a while to claw my way back -- I'm really not wanting to do it again. That does not mean I want old people to die.But unless there is a way to treat the elderly differently there is not going to be a way out of this before it all goes to hell)
I am Laslo.
Did somebody switch everybody's regular for decaf this AM?
In all the back-and-forth an important point that Farmer made early on got lost: "That Trump's critics are asinine and that Trump dropped the ball are not mutually exclusive propositions."
'Dropped' might even be too severe - it's probably more accurate to say Trump fumbled the ball early on but caught it before it hit the ground and has been going strong ever since. Many of his critics are so desperate to apply the Katrina template that they are, indeed, saying some incredibly asinine things that serve to undermine us as a country. But ignoring the first part and embracing the second does not serve us well. Embrace the power of the AND.
the handling of this has made us objectively weaker <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/is_maoist_america_here_to_stay.html> without any real objective improvement </a>
J Farmer: the Eric Weinstein Peter Thiel podcast dove a little bit into that I believe they put the change point at sometime in the early 70s where men's wages no longer kept pace with GDP.
It's on YouTube. Like I said before I'm sure glad Trump listens to people like Peter Thiel
RichAndSceptical said...
Fauci's ego is bigger than his brain. Why is it we shouldn't wear a mask?
If everyone was told to wear a mask in February, we could have prevented much of this.
We didn't have enough masks after China hid the seriousness of it's problems while it went on a PPE hoarding spree.
Again: To drill down: will there ever be a time when the elderly are NOT at more risk? Short of a vaccine, I don't see how that happens.
Perhaps we can send all the elderly to a nice six-month vacation in Hawaii. They are then isolated, can be monitored more closely, and it would probably be a hell of a lot cheaper than the shutdown over months.
Then we figure out the volcano/sacrifice thing.
I am Laslo.
We need a new term for totalitarian government based on the principle that health fear overrides all Constitutional rights forever ("if it only saves one life"): Faucism?
Here's how Farmer responds:
@Bay Area Guy:
Which camp predicted 2.2 Million US deaths?
Farmer ignores, pretends I won't point this out.
Which camp is responsible for shuttering a big chunk of the economy, causing massive unemployment?
If I'm not mistaken, the administration is on board with that policy.
Wow, what a chickenshit response. It's not just the administration -- it's clueless scaredy-cat arm-chair theoreticians like you pushing for it.
Which camp argued from the beginning that California (population 39 Million) didn't have a significant problem because the death numbers were relatively low, much lower than an average flu season?
On the same day that New Yorkers were advised to ignore concerns about coronavirus and attend a festival in Chinatown, Californians were being cautioned about the threat and encouraged to practice social distancing. There's also questions of population density and how many cases were imported into the east coast from Europe.
I asked you about California, and you run to New York? Typical.
At ease, private.
Farmer, you are not the problem here. So, there's need to get into the typical-Farmer pissing contest. You're a nice fellow and a smart fellow.
But, on this issue, you are a sheep. You don't understand a thing, you simply side with the power structure -- the "camp" that has all the money and power.
Indeed, you are like the folks who bought Dick Cheney's argument about invading Iraq. He EXAGGERATED the risk of weapons of mass destruction, and used the EXAGGERATION to set a policy (invasion) that cost tons of lives and money down the road. And a lotta sheep followed him.
Same thing here - the WHO exaggerated the CFR (3.4%) to scare the shit out of fragile people, and the IMHE EXAGGERATED the future deaths (2.2 Million) to further scare the shit out of fragile people. Having scared the fragile people, the lockdown came naturally, the trillions of gov't dollars came naturally, the destruction of blue collar jobs (restaurants, bars, hotels, airlines, movie theaters) came naturally.
Again, I'm not directing this to YOU. You're not the problem. I'm directing it at the people with power and influence who should know better.
We're not out of the woods yet people. When you destabilize a $20 Trillion economy, there's a lot of harm, and the potential for more.
So, deep breath, if Texas is reopening and other like-minded states follow suit, and Trump, makes the speech on Tuesday, that I think he will, well, harmony will be restored in the universe.
Happy Monday!
"Uhh...the ones Trump ended up taking. They needed to be started weeks earlier they were...""
Typical Farmer to me. Knit-picking criticism that misses the totality and quality of the man's actions.
Zero wisdom.
Mr. Farmer : Perfection is the enemy of good.
@Unknown:
How different our world might be today if the Democrats had not been obsessed with a their show trial and the President had not been distracted.
Okay, but then you can't have it both ways. Either he took the appropriate steps at the appropriate actions or he was "distracted." It can't be both. If you claim he was "distracted," then you're tacitly admitting that there were steps to be taken during that time.
Imagine if Trump had tried to take some stern action against the virus, say, in early January...All the smart people would have said he was wagging the dog, trying to distract everyone from his imminent demise.
That's very true. It wouldn't make Trump wrong. But then again, there are people who are ready to attack Trump for any decision he makes. Closing the border with China was the right move, despite the criticism he got for it.
Then we figure out the volcano/sacrifice thing.
That only works for maiden Aunts!
Here's the deal - if a Democrat were in power, and they did and said the exact same things as Fauci and Trump - there would be no scandal.
Where is the discussion of the failure of Europe's leaders on this? After all, Wuhan virus probably spread there first.
Where are the whining, moaning, Monday morning QB on EU's leaders?
In late February I was in New Zealand and reading the press, trying to decide if I should come home or if my wife should still come meet me March 1 as planned. I read a piece in the NYT by a physician who said not to worry, and that he intended to keep his plans of traveling to Europe soon. A lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on now.
Where are the videos of Dems or Journos or "experts" screaming for Trump to do more in January? Maybe such videos exist. If so, link them up.
China caused this. China lied to cover it up. They're still lying and covering up.
But Progs are all, Let's get Trump out office so we can creep back into bed with China, our sugar daddy.
I actually approve of firing people who have screwed up. We need more of that. But Fauci probably does not sink to that level and firing him would be a big political negative, so I don't see it happening. He's actually rather old, so he may retire when the crisis passes. I'd not blame him, working for Trump is probably stressful.
Trump had a choice of which role to play earlier this year.
- Gerald Ford. Over reacts to Swine Flu. What an idiot! Elect a Democrat
- George Bush Under reacts to Katrina. What an idiot! Elect a Democrat
Various other Presidents of both flavors have gotten lucky with exactly the sort of imponderables that make Jan/Feb pronouncements on Covid difficult. SARS, MERS, anthrax bioweapons, H1N1 any of these could have been this bad....but were not.
Look back studies on how long it has been circulating and look ahead studies to places where we have warm Spring weather (or in the Southern Hem where it turns to fall again) will make us all smarter.
Ah heck, lots of commentators here are already smarter than the Talkin' Heads, so that's a pretty low bar.
TW
Bush should have fired Fauci in 2001. During the Clinton years he was an obvious fraud liar and hysteric. Everything he said about AIDs was obviously wrong and a lie meant to scare the bejesus out of normal people while leaving the gays and junkies alone to keep infecting each other. Why is anyone listening to this moron?
@rightguy:
Typical Farmer to me. Knit-picking criticism that misses the totality and quality of the man's actions.
Zero wisdom.
Mr. Farmer : Perfection is the enemy of good.
That is nothing to do with what I am saying. It is very clear that Trump did not believe the virus posed a significant threat and was resistant to taking aggressive measures. He then reversed course. But it's hardly nitpicking to go, within a matter of a few weeks, from we expect the numbers to be zero soon to it'll be a success if 100,000 people die.
Trump made a bad call. Will his political opponents try to make use of? Sure, that's politics. Will people exaggerate the effects of his bad call? Of course. But that doesn't mean he didn't make a bad call. It's not my role to defend Trump from his political opponents.
BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
Where is the discussion of the failure of Europe's leaders on this?
So the fall-back position is that Trump is no more incompetent than the socialist ghouls of Europe? And even that is debatable.
If you read the actual transcript of what Fauci said, it's not confrontational at all.
I think it's terrible that the media is trying to create a fight between Trump and Fauci. Trump needs good advice and the NYT and others seem intent on making it seem like his advisors are betraying him thereby denying him the help he needs and in the process hurting the country's ability to get through this crisis.
It's disgusting. The media should ask themselves more often if what they are doing is helping.
If Trump fires Fauci we'll all know about it. Until that happens, IF it happens, he hasn't fired Fauci.
People keep trying to make big things out of nothing, which I understand (it's their job to get eyeballs and clicks), but I just do not get why we are all like Pavlov's dogs and salivate when someone whom we KNOW has an agenda, rings a bell they have rung a million times before without ever being right.
@BleachBit-and-Hammers:
Here's the deal - if a Democrat were in power, and they did and said the exact same things as Fauci and Trump - there would be no scandal.
Again with the media criticism. Even if that were true, so what? "Democrats are bad" isn't an answer to a critique of Trump.
Where are the whining, moaning, Monday morning QB on EU's leaders?
Well, since we are Americans, I imagine our energy is primarily directed at our leadership, as opposed to the leadership of countries we have no say in.
No ARM - not at all. Just wondering how come your blind-faith hatred and loathing and Monday morning quarter-backing is only a one-way directional focus on one man.
Don't be such a hack.
Here's the way I see it:
None of us knows what exactly Trump or any of these "experts" knew or discussed and when. We see reports, but we don't really have any idea. Any many of these reports are contradictory. I believe there was one report of Fauci in late February saying "it was not something we need to be concerned with."
So to sit here and say "He was TOLD on March 6, blah blah blah" how do you know what he was told and when? Honestly, what reports do you trust?
It's a ridiculously difficult thing to manage, and I don't think there is any way to know specifically what opportunities were missed or capitalized on.
If we had simply infected everyone with this back in early March, the living would be living, the dead would still be dead, we would have avoided economic ruin, and culled a few useless eaters. There. How's that for a lack of compassion?
Kind of amusing to come in after this long thread of people shouting at each other.
Blogger Howard said...
So then no doubt your people will be in support of closing the border with Texas
Actually, Howard, I'm in favor of closing the border with New York.
Farmer is angry that Trump doesn't agree with him that America is doomed and we should give up.
The usual leftists like ARM are pissingn into the tent.
Have a nice day.
J Farmer- Missing my point. My point is not what you say it is, My point is what I say it is, and it is patently true against any measure.
If ANY democrat were president, and they did exactly the same things as Trump and Fauci, there would be no scandal. That stands alone as a basic truth.
You can criticize Trump all you want - that is a separate issue. Knock yourself out.
It is very clear that Trump did not believe the virus posed a significant threat and was resistant to taking aggressive measures. He then reversed course.
Show me where he was going and what direction that became when he "reversed course" because that is the exact nit I am picking at here. Trump's ACTIONS were oriented toward controlling the spread while his RHETORIC was still skeptical of the overall threat. His team of experts was also leaning toward SARS-like expectations when he closed travel to/from China. Where is his "reversal" you speak of? At that time no one was calling for a shut down of the economy and "everyone" was saying we couldn't do lockdowns like the ChiComs. Show me some facts to help convince me you are correct.
Howard said...
Trump is too smart to listen to experts
Once again Howard you seem to be confused. "listen to" is noy synonymous with "do whatever the experts say"
There doesn't seem to be any evidence that PDJT doesn't listen to experts. Quite a bit that he does listen , in fact.
Somebody has to take all the expert, sometimes divergent, opinion, synthesize and make sense of it and make and implement a decision
Right now that person, for good or ill, is pdjt.
Perhaps you need to go back and read or reread Roosevelt's "the man in the arena" speech.
Perhaps we all should, including me.
John Henry
BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
Don't be such a hack.
You apparently have no idea how ridiculous you sound. Trump failed in his primary role, to protect the nation, and he takes no responsibility. Fine, but people should feel free to call him on his lack of performance and willingness to accept the burdens of his role. It's all fun and games until the stock market tanks and the people start dying.
"That's nice. Did the government do it to you?”
It was a regional economic collapse. My only point is that once it was over, it turned out to be like the song. “Is that all there is?” People are catastrophizing on both sides, there is plenty of panic to go around. I was not suggesting that beggaring large numbers of people is without serious social costs. There are costs on both sides of this decision. It’s not an easy one. Pretending that this is a "no brainer” one way or the other is stupid.
Calvin and Hobbes had it pegged years ago.
https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/872454646932979712
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
John Henry
@Bob Boyd:
China caused this. China lied to cover it up. They're still lying and covering up.
But Progs are all, Let's get Trump out office so we can creep back into bed with China, our sugar daddy.
"Caused" is probably a bit of an overstatement, but they certain exasperated the problem and hampered successful containment procedure. Concerns about China's mendacity were already being raised in the administration in January, but these concerns were not made publicly out of concern that they would anger Beijing and disrupt trade negotiations. The same concerns were raised during the deliberations about restricting travel.
Steven said...
I think it's terrible that the media is trying to create a fight between Trump and Fauci.
They wave a red flag at the crazy old bull and he charges at it every time. Who's to blame in that scenario? The bull could always act like a statesman for once, there will always be critics.
Again ARM - if any Democrat had said and done exactly as Trump and Fauci - WE ALL KNOW you'd have no problem with it.
"Actually, Howard, I'm in favor of closing the border with New York.”
The problem with that is that it completely isolates New England, which is why the Hudson Valley was seen as the best place to attack the US during the Revolution and probably the War of 1812. Plus, the Adirondacks are doing pretty well. But yeah, wall in NYC, encircle it, starting with places like Kingston.
If Obama had played golf and partied for three weeks during this crisis, pretty sure there would have been some push back.
immunity passports
The next great leap forward! Though "passport papers" is too nilly-willy. They can get left at home, losts. Maybe what we need to do is get everyone to sew something on to their cloths? Maybe a blue star if you are "good to go" and [I don't know] a yellow star if you are infected or not yet infected? Nah, too much work to do that sewing. How about a tattoo? If you have the antibodies, you get to sport a neat tattoo but it needs to be somewhere convenient. No tramp-stamp here and too many young girls already used up that spot. I know, how about the wrist? That is the ticket! All "immunity passport" folks get a neat wrist tattoo! But how do you stop those without a legitimate "immunity passport" from just faking the tattoo? It would need to be serial-numbered or some/such. A GUID, maybe as a nice bar-code? Then all stores/shops/businesses can install nice small bar-code readers to scan everyone as they enter? Pleasant beep and a green light if you are good to go and a red light, siren, and death-ray if you are not?
From memory I do recall the reactions to Trump's shutting down travel to China:
JOE BIDEN called him a xenophobic racist.
BERNIE went farther and said he'd open up the other borders closed by the racist and xenophobic Trump (and US law)
CHUCK and NANCY prepared legislation prohibiting Trump from closing any more borders.
FAUCI said there was no need to hunker down or do anything beyond "what you normally do for flu season."
VOX ran an explainer saying "this will NOT be a deadly pandemic"
THE WHO said "no worries about human transmission!"
MORNING JOE said they couldn't wait for the final impeachment vote.
This is known here as "Trump reversed course."
@Mike (MJB Wolf):
On February 26th, the CDC announced that community spread was inevitable and that locales would need to start implementing social distancing, cancelling schools, banning mass gatherings, etc. On the same day, Trump said at a press conference that in a few days the numbers would be down to zero.
Also in late February, the stock markets began to crash over concern for the coronavirus. The administration started work to reassure the markets and downplay fears of the virus. Jared Kushner was sent out to tell people to buy during the dip. Getting the market back up was a primary concern.
A few weeks later, Trump was saying that the threat was serious, that we needed to do social distancing, that the Fed needed to intervene, that we needed trillions of dollars in stimulus spending, and that if 100,000 people died it would be a success. So it turns out that in February, the CDC and the markets were right, and Trump was wrong. A few weeks later, he acknowledged that. If that isn't a reversal, then what is?
Leftist proggy hack hard at work
ARM - sure - but not from you.
"Caused" is probably a bit of an overstatement
Nope. This virus didn't come from the wet market. It came from one of the labs. Not saying it was a bio-weapon or that it was deliberate. They were working on these viruses and somebody fucked up. There's really no doubt of that anymore. Negligence caused this. Trying to cover it up made it much, much worse. If Xi had a shred of self respect he'd have himself shot.
Why in world do they have these kinds of research centers in the middle of huge population center in the first place?
Fauci doesn't make the news over what he says about the virus. He only makes news when he seemingly contradicts Trump. He's in the news a lot.
I'm not saying Fauci should be fired, or even a bad actor. Just sayin'..
@Mike (MJB Wolf):
From memory I do recall the reactions to Trump's shutting down travel to China:
As best I can tell, everyone here supported the travel restrictions and laugh at the racism accusations. So if we want to argue that point, go find someone who disagrees with you.
Pointing out that other people got other things wrong isn't a defense of Trump.
It'd be nice if the "panic crowd" would explain -- with data -- the following findings:
1. California (39 Million): 660 deaths
2. Texas (28 Million): 280 deaths
3. New York (19 Million): 9,400 deaths
A curious scientist would ask, Why the huge discrepancy between the top 2 populated states and the 3rd?
A curious scientist would call this a "paradox"
A curious scientist would then think, hmm, paradoxes rarely exist in science.
A curious scientist would have a nagging feeling in his tummy, that two different "things" are happening in California and New York (the effect), by supposedly the same virus (the cause)
A final note:
Many strawmen arguments above. Nobody ever said, viral hoax, do nothing. But I will speak for myself. I thought, a BLANKET lockdown was a terrible mistake, which would hurt thousands, if not millions, of blue collar workers. I thought (and still think) a targeted lockdown (keeping elderly and sick and folks with symptoms home) and allowing healthy folks to return to work with extra precautions (gloves, masks, washing hands, smaller groups) is the saner approach.
Happy Monday!
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