US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[em2nought]

At least Trump has already bought us some time to find out some things that will help us from those that are going first, the French for example.


Opting to use Tylenol for instance because aspirin, Motrin, or Advil seem to intensify the virus. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...irus-infection


Sure, he blurts out every thought that crosses his mind. I sort of do that now too by recording it as a text message to myself. He on the other hand tweets it out for everyone to see. He should text message himself first, and then just tweet the good ones. LOL

[Rockstar]

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

That's just bunk. Trump hasn't bungled anything. He's been doing a fine job getting the right people working on the issue. The crashing economy is not his fault and it would certainly have crashed with anyone else in office.

We'll see where we are in a few months. If this virus turns out not to be as bad for us here in the US as opposed to other countries will you change your mind?

Well that's your opinion and there's no way to ever know, however, he is the one in office, and the one that kept telling everybody there's nothing to worry about so just business as usual until now when he does an about face. Gee, who could have guessed he was talking out of his ample ass then? For a man who knows more about everything than anybody else he really dropped the ball and then ran the wrong way for a touchback.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Remember this genius?

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by em2nought

-

Opting to use Tylenol for instance because aspirin, Motrin, or Advil seem to intensify the virus. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...irus-infection

I've been using Advil for five weeks now for the flu ... so I must not have Covid-19 cause it works on the cough ... Now it's on back order. I never use Tylenol it's just for fever and headaches, right?

As for Trump as bad as he is he still has his followers even the democrats choosing Joe Biden are not going to give up their guns and if Joe picks a woman for a running mate he's lost already, but then again I'm a redneck and I have to admit that I was wrong on McCain and Obama

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Well that's your opinion and there's no way to ever know, however, he is the one in office, and the one that kept telling everybody there's nothing to worry about so just business as usual until now when he does an about face. Gee, who could have guessed he was talking out of his ample ass then? For a man who knows more about everything than anybody else he really dropped the ball and then ran the wrong way for a touchback.

Yeah we'll see. I'm betting our death rate doesn't come close to Europe by the time this is all over.


In the meantime who wasn't taking this seriously?

[August]

NYT again spreading misinformation trying to make the administration look bad. Fake News.

he New York Times’s Mara Gay tweeted Monday afternoon, “Trump told governors this morning they are on their own: ‘Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,’ Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times.”
....

The note that Gay shared with her more than 72,000 followers includes a link to the New York Times’s collection of live updates on the COVID-19 virus. That collection includes the relevant portion of Trump’s remarks to governors.
It reads: “Mr. Trump told a group of governors that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to help people diagnosed with coronavirus.”
Trump told them specifically, “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves.”
“We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves,” he said, according to the New York Times. “Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”
This is nowhere near what Gay’s tweet suggested the president had said to the governors. There is no other way to characterize her tweet than to call it "fake news." It is intentionally false information, disseminated broadly on social media with the explicit intent of misleading people. The only real difference between Gay's tweet and the sort of stuff the Russians pumped onto social media during the 2016 presidential election is that Gay is an American citizen.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...se-to-covid-19

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

***[/IMG]

I'd feel much more comfortable if the genius who created the poster knew how to spell "squirrel".

As for the main topic, "Coronavirus" seems to be just a fancy name for the latest strain of flu. A lot of cases will be reported, a few deaths, and it will pass until the next one comes along. Remember the '70s and Swine Flu? How about 1919 and the Spanish Flu, which killed something like 30 million people worldwide? Get your shots, do what they tell you to and don't panic. I went to the grocery store yesterday...no toilet paper and, believe it or not, no alcohol! It sees people are stocking up for the next fifty years.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by August

That's just bunk. Trump hasn't bungled anything. He's been doing a fine job getting the right people working on the issue. The crashing economy is not his fault and it would certainly have crashed with anyone else in office.

Hey, he was happy to take credit for the booming market, so now it's still his baby. Can't have it both ways. Heck, while I watched him give himself a 10 out of 10 for his handling of the crisis in the press conference today, the market ticker in the corner of the screen was bombing. Best thing he could do is keep his mouth shut and his finger off the twitter button.

Yeah, he bungled this, big time. Trump made his first public comments about the virus on Jan. 22, CNBC’s Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”

Trump responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”

Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true. Far from it, as we now know.

Just last week he was spouting goofy stuff about how this was no big deal. “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

You could tell when he began to take it seriously, he started blaming Obama.

We'll see where we are in a few months. If this virus turns out not to be as bad for us here in the US as opposed to other countries will you change your mind?

Yeah, true, and I'll be happy to say so.

[Onkel Neal]

PS: I agree with you completely about the early action of halting people from China. Good move, but wasn't enough. Probably no way the President could have stopped all flights inbound, that would have been the best play, but yeah, the left would have exploded.

[Onkel Neal]

Been hearing this about John Bolton disbanding the pandemic response team, appears this may not be true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...sponse-office/

President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.

It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.

When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.

It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.

[vienna]

Comparing the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 with Covid-19, or any other current contagions, is rather inaccurate; the state of medical science, the state of general hygienics, the ability to travel between nations, and more are very, very different between the two eras, 1918 and 2020; consider what sort of impact the Spanish flu would have had if today's conditions were prevalent in 1918: The Spanish Flu's severity and impact was undoubtedly heightened by, what to our time, would appear to be grossly primitive measures used in 1918 to fight the epidemic; the comparison should not be one of quantity (How many deaths, cases, etc.), rather it should be 'quality' over 'quantity'; given the advanced state of modern medicine and communications, even what would tend to seem to be 'small' mortality rates are still very significant, particularly when, as in the case of Covid-19, there is no modern medical solution; isolation and quarantine are still the best means to deter and mitigate contagions for which there are no immediate efficacious treatments or cures...

Comparing the two episodes is akin to comparing early open heart, open chest, surgery to the current state of arthroscopic coronary procedures; early surgery had a relatively high mortality rate, either during or shortly after surgery, while, in comparison, today's procedures have a markedly lower mortality rate: the underlying conditions that required the surgeries is fundamentally the same, the only difference is the efficacy of the treatments. Honestly, what do you think would be the current state of the Covid-19 virus if we were still using 1918 medical standards and technology?...


To get a better idea of the Spanish Flu's effects on the US in 1918, here is a link to the CDC webpage on the epidemic:

1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) --

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-res...emic-h1n1.html

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Hey, he was happy to take credit for the booming market, so now it's still his baby. Can't have it both ways. Heck, while I watched him give himself a 10 out of 10 for his handling of the crisis in the press conference today, the market ticker in the corner of the screen was bombing. Best thing he could do is keep his mouth shut and his finger off the twitter button.

Yeah, he bungled this, big time. Trump made his first public comments about the virus on Jan. 22, CNBC’s Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”

Trump responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”

Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”

On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true. Far from it, as we now know.

Just last week he was spouting goofy stuff about how this was no big deal. “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

You could tell when he began to take it seriously, he started blaming Obama.

Yes, indeed, Trump is going to have to own this mess he's made...


When Trump, made his formal prime time address last week, it was interesting how haggard he appeared, not to mention how stilted and wooden his delivery was; then there was last Saturday's press conference where he also appeared a bit worse for wear; I noted a few things about those recent appearances; on Saturday, Trump didn't have his usual phalanx of business-suited, white male lackeys and sycophants around and behind him; instead there were only four person and, notably, two were Black, two were female and one was what could be referred to as 'ethnic'; also Trump was not wearing his usual, self-promoting campaign MAGA hat, just a hat with USA on its front; Trump has also seemingly deferred to actual experts on the matter and kept his self-laudatory and aggrandizing to a minimum, although he still attempts to assert his "genius" and "knowledge" and, as usual, only further illustrates what an ignorant ass he is how severely ill-equipped he was and is to be holding the office of president; from what I've observed it appears the reports of the White House advisors and staff having had an 'intervention' with Trump may be true, particularly since Pence has been doing a lot more of/in the presentations of late; yes. know it would make sense given Pence was charged with the Task Force's coordination, but, really prying the podium, the spotlight, and overall impression of control from a narcissist like Trump (and Trump's track record to prove the truth of this remark) is a major feat and indicates Trump may have really met his match in this crisis...

Another thing that was irritating was how Trump, after campaigning on being the most transparent president "in all history", he continues to obfuscate, conceal, block, and resist any efforts to actually let the US public see and know exactly what is going on in this crisis; the most blatant cases were the elevating to "Highly Classified" all matters regarding his administration;s handling of the crisis; this occurred the same day when Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the NIH, was testifying before Congress on the nature, conduct and progress of efforts to deal with the Covid-19 virus; Dr. Fauci's testimony was cut short by a sudden summons to the White House for the Dr. and others who were with him at the Congressional hearing; the main and apparent purpose of the recall and reclassification appears to have been to prevent anyone from openly contradicting Trump, particularly while they were testifying under oath; it is further interesting that the very same statements made by Dr. Fauci in Congress that Trump found so disagreeable have been not only borne out as being factual, they are now form the bulk of the effort now being made against the virus...

There are times when I think Trump is akin to Pope Paul V who famously persecuted Galileo and Galileo's contention Earth and the planets revolved around the Sun, not the Sun, planets, and other 'heavenly bodies' revolving around the Earth; Paul V issued a Papal declaration making the Earth-centricity the official 'God-sanctioned' truth and launched the Inquisition to get and imprision Galileo in order to keep him silent; Galileo was proven to have, of course, been right, but the Church, due to the "infallibility" of Papal declarations still has not formally rescinded its false declaration; likewise, with Trump, he makes false statements (OK, downright lies), and, when so very often proven wrong, refuses to acknowledge and correct his errors, misstatements and/or lies, opting instead to denigrate and demean those who dare to question him. It takes a big man to admit when he is obviously wrong or untruthful; in this, Trump is a dwarf. There have been those who have opposed Trump and said the US doesn't need a new king; it also doesn't need an infallible Pope...


I am not inclined to vote for Biden, much as I did not vote for either Party's candidate in 2016, but I am very certain now that if the only means to keep the Human Sphincter that is Trump out of the Oval Office and prevent him for and his lackey minions doing further damage to the USA, I will gladly vote for Biden; I may not like Biden, but at his worst, he's a damn sight better than the current Chump-In-Chief...

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

I've been using Advil for five weeks now for the flu ... so I must not have Covid-19 cause it works on the cough ... Now it's on back order. I never use Tylenol it's just for fever and headaches, right?

...

Five weeks of flu? You must have gotten hit by whatever it was that laid me low for all of January, and there still is no definitive answer for what that was. Tylenol is good for general pain, in addition to fever and headaches; following my last surgery, I was given a big bottle of Vicodin to take home from hospital, but I really don't like narcotics of any kind, so, instead, I made do with Extra Strength Tylenol; seemed to handle dulling the postoperative pain pretty well. A couple of things about Tylenol: read the label carefully and try not to take consecutive doses over a prolonged period because Tylenol can cause liver damage if it stays too long in the system; if I take it, unless the pain is too much to bear, I lengthen the period between doses from the suggested 6 hours to 8 hours apart; also, Tylenol is known as a medium for increasing the absorption of any chemical substance ingested at or near the time of the dose(s), sometimes with detrimental effect(s) e.g., taking Tylenol with an alcoholic drink or some other medications could cause the overly rapid absorption of the substance(s) putting a further stress on the liver and other organs, so be careful...

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

...

As for Trump as bad as he is he still has his followers even the democrats choosing Joe Biden are not going to give up their guns and if Joe picks a woman for a running mate he's lost already, but then again I'm a redneck and I have to admit that I was wrong on McCain and Obama

You already know I consider the guns to be a non-issue and I don't think Democrats are going to vote for Trump just to keep the NRA happy; as far as a woman on the DEM ticket, well, the last woman they had on a ticket was a truly bad choice, and, still, she whupped Trump in the popular vote, so Trump's track record against DEM women, (such as C;Clinton and Pelosi) is not making it look good for him in November...









<O>

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Been hearing this about John Bolton disbanding the pandemic response team, appears this may not be true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...sponse-office/

The really big issue is how Trump has populated so many vital government positions with highly unqualified, often totally inexperienced, appointees with the prime criteria for their appointment either being sheer cronyism and/or blind allegiance to Trump; it is even worse when those failures-in-waiting are made the administrators of Cabinet positions or Departments; bad departmental leadership, put in place by a woefully bad leader, is the reason so many of Trump's actions have failed so miserably; added to this is Trump's inability to hold on to appointees or to even fill critical vacancies at all; the revolving door that has become Trump's Cabinet, in particular, and his higher level advisors and administrators does not lend to stability in decision-making, the carrying out of objectives, nor the sense of continuity and direction necessary for good governance; a government structure that is dependent on the whims and petulance of someone who is, himself, ill-equipped, meandering, and ignorant without wanting to be informed or corrected is why we have the mess we have now...









<O>

[Catfish]

It is not only Trump. So it is maybe wrong to post this here, but it of course fits.
From the Manager magazine, which is pro right-wing usually, certainly with business interests in focus (translation by Google):

"Unfortunately, bulls...t has a huge advantage over the truth: it is often the better story.

The bulls...tter regularly wins in the tough competition for attention, especially when it comes to complex issues that most citizens cannot judge for themselves.

This explains the rise of populists in many countries: the bulls...tter have a competitive advantage over their serious competition. Their stories are easy to understand and sometimes even entertaining. Look at Farage. As long as populist bulls...tters are in the opposition, their content-related emptiness may not be particularly noticeable.
Even in the government, they may be able to wash their way through in relatively quiet times. Look at Johnson.

But times are far from calm. The corona crisis will overshadow everything that the western world has experienced in peacetime."

[Rockstar]

https://apnews.com/7527e051bd8c4be1beef9d7c37c8290e

The Justice Department is moving to drop charges against two Russian companies that were accused of funding a social media campaign to sway American public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Concord was the sole defendant in the case to enter an appearance in Washington’s federal court and contest the allegations. The case had been set for trial next month, making the government’s filing all the more abrupt.