The Trump Presidency

[Peter B]

An old fat man like Trump who is exposed to infected people and refusing to be tested (or has he been tested secretly?) is a recipe for the VP taking over soon.   

Ranb

Hmm, in the same category as doctors who don't bother to disinfect their hands between ward visits: they're doctors and they cure people, they don't infect people.

[MBDK]

I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

[Peter B]

I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

Interesting article, although with its American perspective I can't comment on some parts. Still, I can't resist chucking my hat in the ring...

I find it notable the media — every single network and most newspapers — used the phrase “Wuhan virus” or “Wuhan coronavirus” as this virus started spreading.

Here in Australia I don't remember hearing either term. We call it coronavirus or the coronavirus. And since the WHO gave it its official name, we occasionally use the term COVID-19. I find it notable that the author of the article didn't use the term COVID-19 once.

To claim that we cannot refer to the Wuhan virus by that name is to give special preference to China we have not given to African regions, Connecticut, or many other areas.

Well, I thought it was made pretty clear by the WHO that they'd recently changed their naming conventions for new diseases to not use locations and people in order to prevent stigmatising. I don't know whether it's happening in the USA, but in Australia there has been an unpleasant level of racism directed at people of Asian origin, on the basis that the disease originated in an Asian country.

The disease has an official name - why not use it to minimise confusion?

The truth is that the virus is a far bigger concern than the flu and pneumonia. But it is not some deadly pandemic that will see millions die.

That's pretty much how I see it. For the last week or so my (very inexpert) assessment has been this may end up being perhaps ten times worse than a bad flu season (all the worse in the southern hemisphere as we head into winter and flu time).

Personally, that makes me a little worried. I have a suppressed immune system, and one of my kids is particularly susceptible to lung infections having been born six weeks premature.

In return, can I offer this article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-14/coronavirus-threat-downplayed-by-leaders-over-economic-fears/12054860

International leaders including (but not limited to) China, Iran and the United States, have for weeks either withheld information, spread misinformation or consistently played down the threat of coronavirus...

Then there are leaders peddling misinformation: On Friday, as Akbar Velayati, one of the closest aides to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went into quarantine, Khamenei said the virus could be part of a "biological attack".

[gillianren]

With the problems with the US healthcare system, it's not unlikely that, if the precautions we're taking aren't taken, enormous numbers of people would die simply because there aren't enough ICU beds.  It's a known problem.

My faire boss's website is http://www.redwolfltd.com

The sayings pins in the "virtual booth" are alphabetized; in each section of the alphabet, there's a category called "knowledge base" that's the science stuff and the nerd stuff and so forth.  I can't figure out how to make tags work across pages, and we simply have too many pins not to make separate pages; the site gets confused if you have more than about 200 items on a page.

[jfb]

Cases have been confirmed in Austin, so everything is shutting down.  We haven't been ordered to work from home yet, but I imagine that will change in next week or so.

And that changed.  Which kinda sucks, as I do poorly working from home - my workspace is a bit cramped and uncomfortable, and I'm way too easily distracted by all my toys.  But, both my wife and I are moderate risk - mid-50s, she's diabetic, and when I'm off my meds my blood pressure is ZOMG-why-aren't-you-in-the-hospital high - so we do need to cloister for the next couple of weeks.

And, true to form, Trump takes "no responsibility" for this clusterfuck of a response in the US.  Of course, he takes credit for the stock market crawling up on its knees after that historic faceplant caused by his address.  He'll take all the credit, but blame?  No, that's Obama's fault, or Biden's fault, or the Mexicans, or the Chinese, or the Europeans.  He's pure as the driven snow, only good things happen when he's around. 

He has fostered a toxic environment within his administration, where everyone is knifing each other in the back to win favor that day, and policy suffers as a result.  Azar and Verma are too busy sniping at each other to focus on little things like, oh, public health.  GOP members of Congress were waiting for him to tweet in favor of the relief bill before voting on it. 

It's just nuts.  These aren't good people who happen to be doing bad things, these are bad people.  They all have to be gone in November, not just Trump, but McConnell, Graham, Paul, Nunes, the whole toxic bunch. 

[Jason Thompson]

I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

Any article that begins by stating religious doctrine as fact loses credibility points very early with me. It loses a claim to even-handedness when it dismisses the pandemic response team as 'a bunch of bureaucrats appointed by Obama'. Not bureacrats, experts, advisors, people whose job it is to keep an eye on emerging disease outbreaks and come up with possibe countermeasures. Obviously they weren't a magic shield against COVID-19 but still, a useful resource that was slashed. As with your own comments about them, do you and the authors believe they just sat about waiting for a pandemic to be declared before leaping into action? Putting a few criticisms of Trump at the end of the article doesn't make it even handed, especially when it has a whole swath pf factually incorrect material in the middle.

The complaint that calling the virus Wuhan virus was racist and promoting xenophobia absolutely did not start when Trump and the Republicans started using it. It started very early when it became apparent that it was leading to people of Chinese descent who had never set foot in China, never mind Wuhan specifically, in their lives getting abused in the streets and turned away from places. By the time Trump started using the term the annoyance had become much more significant so people noticed it more.

As to the claim that calling it Wuhan virus is valid because it maintains a long-standing convention, when the most recent example of that naming system they can come up with is over 40 years old it is just possible that the convention has been changed, as indeed it has. This is COVID-19, as officially designated. Even calling it just 'coronavirus' has issues since it is one of many coronaviruses. I've seen people claim it's all a conspiracy because they've seen coronavirus mentioned on old medications, as if they think this is the first coronavirus ever.

It's also stretching a point to say coronaviruses like to mutate in ways that kill people but I won't get into that.

[gillianren]

I'd also note that it's a naming convention that is often factually incorrect.  The example I tend to use is the Spanish flu, which neither originated nor was at its worst in Spain.  It's just that Spain wasn't one of the countries censoring news due to World War I, and active reporting from Spain was accurate, unlike that in, say, Kansas, a place that was a significant disease vector.

[Zakalwe]

I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

"Even-handed" Are you having a laugh or just trolling at this stage? It starts with a load of Bronze Age Christianity BS. It refers to a Chinese website as a "commie site". It's no wonder that you hold the views that you have if you think that this is "even-handed".

In other news, Trump has apparently been tested as negative. There is no justice in this world 

[Zakalwe]

By the way, the virus is not called "the Wuhan virus" or "Wuhan coronavirus". It is called SARS-Cov-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). The condition that it causes is named COVID-19.

[smartcooky]

I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

"Even-handed" Are you having a laugh or just trolling at this stage? It starts with a load of Bronze Age Christianity BS. It refers to a Chinese website as a "commie site".

Why would you expect anything better from an ultra-conservative evangelical blogger

Lets have a quick review of Erickson's track record.

* In a 2013 interview in Fox News, he said that males dominate females in the "natural world" and it was only "science" for men to be the breadwinners for their family.
 
* In 2015, and in true Lindsay Grahamish fashion, he called Donald Trump a racist and a fascist and vowed he would never vote for him, then in 2019, endorsed him for the 2020 election.

* Also in 2015, he posted a picture of a bullet ridden copy of The New York Times that he had shot at, and edition that  contained a front-page editorial in favor of gun control.

* In 2017, he signed "The Nashville Statement", a Christian manifesto that condemned homosexuality and transgender identity as "not according to God's plan".

In 2018 he spread a false story that Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School school shooting survivor David Hogg was not actually at the Parkland school when it was attacked.

In short, Erickson is a misogynistic, homophobic, gun-loving, conspiracy nut-job - in every way, a splendid example of a good, Southern Bible-Basher.

It's no wonder that you hold the views that you have if you think that this is "even-handed".

I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".

[MBDK]

I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".

With the exception of the pro-Trump anti-Obama portion, all posted criticisms of that article and my ignorance on the subject are justified, so far.  A few correct words do not make up for all the incorrect ones.  I do thank the responding posters for any and all information and corrections.  My exception is because those portions of the link, as well as interpretations of it, are predicated on opinion, rather than demonstrable fact.

Now, please excuse me, as I am still in the process of choking down a healthy serving of humble pie...

[Zakalwe]

Why would you expect anything better from an ultra-conservative evangelical blogger

I had never heard of the dude mainly because I avoid the head-banging end of the Internet as much as possible.

I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".

I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, using such an extreme, obnoxious source tells me that not only is the quoter familiar with that type of cesspit of opinion, but also has normalised it to such a level that he feels that is even-handed. It couldn't be further from being even-handed if Alex Jones had spouted it.

As we say in Lancashire, "Nowt as queer as folk"!

[Zakalwe]

stay classy, Donald. Stay classy.....


https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/

[Peter B]

...As to the claim that calling it Wuhan virus is valid because it maintains a long-standing convention, when the most recent example of that naming system they can come up with is over 40 years old it is just possible that the convention has been changed, as indeed it has. This is COVID-19, as officially designated. Even calling it just 'coronavirus' has issues since it is one of many coronaviruses. I've seen people claim it's all a conspiracy because they've seen coronavirus mentioned on old medications, as if they think this is the first coronavirus ever...

To be fair, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was so named in 2013. So the change to more appropriately neutral naming is actually fairly recent.

[Peter B]

stay classy, Donald. Stay classy.....


https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/

Okay, the Administration tried to buy the company. Reading the headline, I thought that Trump tried to buy it personally (but what does it say about me and Trump that I could think such a thing was believable...).