Shaw... are people feeling safer now? We have 2 aircraft carriers in the Pacific, 100% out of service, while they were on tour, due to Covid-19. Does anyone think these are our only ships facing this?
This is that existential moment.
We have an informed president in office, with no professionals around him, a global pandemic, our military service certainly regionally compromised and seemingly, no plan. What could go wrong?
You may have disagreed with the politics of past presidents, but not their professionalism and ability to form, with their advisors, a coherent plan to defend us.
But who among us believes Trump has any plan beyond "bomb the hell out of them"?
Dave, RN Did you catch trump's joke about being involved with models today during the briefing. What kind of sicko tells jokes about models when thousands of Americans are dying by the minute?
Trump has jokes: "The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die and you know what I want to do? I want to come way under the model. The professionals did the models and I was never involved in a model. At least this kind of a model."
Jamelle Bouie: "Trump hasn’t just failed to anticipate the way Buchanan did or failed to respond like Hoover or failed to prepare like Bush — he’s done all three. He inherited everything he needed to respond to a pandemic: explicit guidance from the previous administration and a team of experienced experts and intelligence agencies attuned to the threat posed by the quick spread of deadly disease. He even had some sensible advisers who, far from ignoring or making light of the virus, urged him to take it seriously.
The federal government may not have been able to stop coronavirus from reaching the United States — that was impossible to avoid in a globalized, highly-mobile world — but it was well equipped to deal with the problem once it reached our shores.
But as the world knows, Trump ignored, downplayed and dismissed the problem until it became one of the worst crises in our nation’s history.
It was just over a month ago, for example, that Trump told Americans that the virus would vanish of its own accord. “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low,” he said during a news conference at the White House on Feb. 26. He emphasized the small number of cases at the time (“We have a total of 15”) and added that “the fifteen within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
“We have it so well under control,” he continued, “I mean, we really have done a very good job.”
Now, of course, the message is quite different. The White House expects a six-figure death toll — 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, provided most Americans follow federal guidelines for social distancing. This, Trump says, would be a victory, since it could be much worse. “So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this. And so if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000. It’s a horrible number, maybe even less — but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job.” These numbers, it should be said, come from several different projections that use several different models for the disease. The death toll could be lower, or it could be much, much higher.
We should put this death toll in context. At the low end, Covid-19 will have killed roughly as many Americans as died in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. At the high end, it’s that number plus all American deaths in the Spanish-American War and the First World War. The difference is that deaths from Covid-19 will occur in a matter of months versus a number of years. And at that scale, this won’t just afflict the old and infirm — many of the dead will have been in the prime of their lives. And all of this as the economy collapses on itself — as of Thursday, nearly 10 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits, compressing the job losses of the 18-month Great Recession in 2008-9 (and then some) into a two-week period.
Trump is very likely, over the next several months, to preside over the deaths of at least a hundred thousand Americans in a crisis he chose to ignore until there was no choice but to act. He’ll try to say — is already trying to say — that this was the best he could do, but that will be a lie. He’ll make excuses or cite mitigating factors. But Trump wasn’t distracted by an impeachment trial or focused on any other area of concern. In February, as the crisis deepened, he was holding rallies for voters and parties for supporters, as well as golfing at his private club."
I'd love to hear from skudrunner on the above. All facts. And see how skud can blame President Obama or Hillary. It's painfully evident from the facts that trump is colossally incompetent and the absolute worst person to have been POTUS at this devastating time in America's history.
I don't blame the swell guy or the -H- how can I they were not in office. I do think that this shows we were not prepared for something of this magnitude and trump did not do a good job at the onset. What he should have done is shut the borders in early 2019 and not allow anyone from China to enter the country. He could then have stopped illegals at the southern borders. Now he can take the money we spend to take care of illegals and use it for funding to aid in the financial recovery.
It is easy to blame someone for this but the truth is the entire federal government is equally to blame. The incompetent politicians are so engrossed in casting blame that they forget their job is to protect the American people.
Now we have madam botox wanting to start an investigation on how trump failed. She is in such a hurry she can't even wait until we bury the dead. She is not interested in finding a solution but to cast blame and make her pathetic candidate look better. The next president will have to pick up the pieces and she will go through eight years of investigations and impeachment.
skudrunner, you forget that even if trump had closed the borders in 2019, that would not have stopped AMERICANS who had been to China from returning to the US. You are aware that hundred and hundred of Americans travel to China on business (Princess Ivanka has lots of business there) and for tourism. Trump closed the border to Chinese nationals only. Americans could have been bringing the virus back with them.
But they didn't it was a chinese a national who has been identified as ground zero. It looks like the governors of californis and washington are ahead of the curve by promoting social distancing early on. Of course the mayor of NYC was late to the game when as late as mid March he was touting go out to dinner and attend gatherings because this is nothing to worry about. He was praised by the press while cotton was scorned when he said we need to look at china and all their lies. It would be nice to have an honest press but that is to much to ask for.
The media has done a great job of creating panic and P&G thanks them for it. I do wish trump would let his medical team do the updates but he is following in the steps of cuomo, or visa versa. The democrats need to step up and nominate a competent person to run against trump because he is becoming unhinged with his appointment of jarad to do whatever he does. I did hear ivanka is replacing pence as his running mate.
SKUD, let's get one thing straight right now: Trump is the CiC and POTUS and he's responsible for the US's response to the states and to Americans in general during this crisis. Remember his, "I alone can fix it?" He owns this.
Forget about Cuomo, Pelosi, Schumer, and all the other Dems you like to blame. This is an unprecedented crisis for America, and the POTUS is woefully unable to lead.
During yesterday's Covid-19 briefing, just for one disgusting example of Trump's narcissism, he referred to models for predicting the rise in Covid-19 cases, and made a joke, an effing JOKE about him and "models." What is WRONG with this idiot? He made a joke while thousands and thousands of Americans are sick and dying.
This is the incompetent and stupid man the hollowed-out GOP cultists worship. Whatever happens going forward, they, too, share the blame for putting such an ineffective, unqualified, and useless clown in the WH.
This is NOT Pelosi's, Schumer's, Cuomo's, or President Obama's fault.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine (but what do they know, right?), the first U.S. case was a U.S. citizen who returned from visiting family in Wuhan: “On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever. On checking into the clinic, the patient put on a mask in the waiting room. After waiting approximately 20 minutes, he was taken into an examination room and underwent evaluation by a provider. He disclosed that he had returned to Washington State on January 15 after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China. The patient stated that he had seen a health alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China and, because of his symptoms and recent travel, decided to see a health care provider.”
possumlady, thanks for that information. Trump wants credit for closing the border to Chinese nationals coming into the country. Give him credit. But he didn't doe enough, as your post shows.
He wasted valuable months telling the American people that the virus was under control (it wasn't) and that only 15 people had it, and that would soon be none (it wasn't). And even now he's ignoring Dr. Fauci who wants Americans to stay indoors and if they must go out, to wear masks.
During a pandemic, it's not a good idea to have as leaders people who don't believe in science!
Even now, I've read of pastors in states like Florida and South Carolina wanting their congregations to come together to pray! Nuts!
Here's something else our friend, skud, and the WYD trolls who come here daily don't want to read:
"The U.S. government was fatally ill-prepared for the spread of a pandemic that has killed more Americans over the past month than died in Iraq over the past 17 years. "
Somehow skud will blame President Obama for Trump's horrible leadership.
Ms Shaw, I agree with you that we need strong leaders during times of crisis. I thought the same in 2009, 2012 and 2013.
I do have a question how can he have wasted valuable months when it was discovered mid January and one month later a task force was formed. How can that be Months to react. If you recall the democrats said closing the borders the end of January was to soon. Blame goes to both sides and some of us will admit to the fact that congress didn't pay attention and do their jobs, both sides.
Skud... it's hard keeping up with you on this as you struggle to somehow impute blame to President Obama.
The Obama Admin realized they were behind the curve on a US pandemic response as a result of their slow performance in 2009. That's why during the remaining years, they worked hard to admit errors, improve and continue the movement of US admins to respond to this type of threat in a timely, efficient and open manner.
That effort was started in the Bush Admin after he was reading the history of the 1917/18 flu pandemic. The Obama Admin built on the Bush Admin base of information and knowledge. Then their experiences became central to how admins in the future would deal with things like this.
That institutional knowledge was then shared, as the Bush Admin had done with Obama, with the incoming Trump Admin.
The professionals, HHS Azar, Fauci and Birk among them, as well as our intelligence communities were all sounding the alarm in early January and recommending strong action. It took until late January for Trump to rightfully close travel from China. He was late, but at least he did it.
But for almost two months, in his public statements and actions such as rallys and golfing, he never sounded the alarm, or tasked his admin with moving forward. He minimized the threat, mocked ppl who said otherwise and limited the response his admin could have had.
Was Obama perfect? Of course not. Did trump learn from the failures of the Obama admin? Not at all... and we're all paying the price.
It was admitted that we were unprepared for a pandemic in 2015 and it seems nothing has changed. In 2001 we were not prepared for an attack, in 2009 we were not prepared for a pandemic and in 2014 we were not prepared for the flu. As much as we would all like it to be different it isn't because human failure is part of the equation. Did the government take their eye off the ball, yes, did distractions keep congress from seeing anything other than impeachment, no.
It does seem like all the knowledge that bush shared was lost because 12000 people died from swine flu.
16 comments:
Shaw... are people feeling safer now? We have 2 aircraft carriers in the Pacific, 100% out of service, while they were on tour, due to Covid-19. Does anyone think these are our only ships facing this?
This is that existential moment.
We have an informed president in office, with no professionals around him, a global pandemic, our military service certainly regionally compromised and seemingly, no plan. What could go wrong?
You may have disagreed with the politics of past presidents, but not their professionalism and ability to form, with their advisors, a coherent plan to defend us.
But who among us believes Trump has any plan beyond "bomb the hell out of them"?
America's Misinformation Cartel - FAUX NOOZ
Dave, RN Did you catch trump's joke about being involved with models today during the briefing. What kind of sicko tells jokes about models when thousands of Americans are dying by the minute?
Trump has jokes: "The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die and you know what I want to do? I want to come way under the model. The professionals did the models and I was never involved in a model. At least this kind of a model."
Jamelle Bouie: "Trump hasn’t just failed to anticipate the way Buchanan did or failed to respond like Hoover or failed to prepare like Bush — he’s done all three. He inherited everything he needed to respond to a pandemic: explicit guidance from the previous administration and a team of experienced experts and intelligence agencies attuned to the threat posed by the quick spread of deadly disease. He even had some sensible advisers who, far from ignoring or making light of the virus, urged him to take it seriously.
The federal government may not have been able to stop coronavirus from reaching the United States — that was impossible to avoid in a globalized, highly-mobile world — but it was well equipped to deal with the problem once it reached our shores.
But as the world knows, Trump ignored, downplayed and dismissed the problem until it became one of the worst crises in our nation’s history.
It was just over a month ago, for example, that Trump told Americans that the virus would vanish of its own accord. “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low,” he said during a news conference at the White House on Feb. 26. He emphasized the small number of cases at the time (“We have a total of 15”) and added that “the fifteen within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
(cont.)
“We have it so well under control,” he continued, “I mean, we really have done a very good job.”
Now, of course, the message is quite different. The White House expects a six-figure death toll — 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, provided most Americans follow federal guidelines for social distancing. This, Trump says, would be a victory, since it could be much worse. “So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this. And so if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000. It’s a horrible number, maybe even less — but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job.” These numbers, it should be said, come from several different projections that use several different models for the disease. The death toll could be lower, or it could be much, much higher.
We should put this death toll in context. At the low end, Covid-19 will have killed roughly as many Americans as died in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. At the high end, it’s that number plus all American deaths in the Spanish-American War and the First World War. The difference is that deaths from Covid-19 will occur in a matter of months versus a number of years. And at that scale, this won’t just afflict the old and infirm — many of the dead will have been in the prime of their lives. And all of this as the economy collapses on itself — as of Thursday, nearly 10 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits, compressing the job losses of the 18-month Great Recession in 2008-9 (and then some) into a two-week period.
Trump is very likely, over the next several months, to preside over the deaths of at least a hundred thousand Americans in a crisis he chose to ignore until there was no choice but to act. He’ll try to say — is already trying to say — that this was the best he could do, but that will be a lie. He’ll make excuses or cite mitigating factors. But Trump wasn’t distracted by an impeachment trial or focused on any other area of concern. In February, as the crisis deepened, he was holding rallies for voters and parties for supporters, as well as golfing at his private club."
I'd love to hear from skudrunner on the above. All facts. And see how skud can blame President Obama or Hillary. It's painfully evident from the facts that trump is colossally incompetent and the absolute worst person to have been POTUS at this devastating time in America's history.
I hope Americans will remember this in November.
I don't blame the swell guy or the -H- how can I they were not in office. I do think that this shows we were not prepared for something of this magnitude and trump did not do a good job at the onset. What he should have done is shut the borders in early 2019 and not allow anyone from China to enter the country. He could then have stopped illegals at the southern borders. Now he can take the money we spend to take care of illegals and use it for funding to aid in the financial recovery.
It is easy to blame someone for this but the truth is the entire federal government is equally to blame. The incompetent politicians are so engrossed in casting blame that they forget their job is to protect the American people.
Now we have madam botox wanting to start an investigation on how trump failed. She is in such a hurry she can't even wait until we bury the dead. She is not interested in finding a solution but to cast blame and make her pathetic candidate look better. The next president will have to pick up the pieces and she will go through eight years of investigations and impeachment.
Sad that so many people die for political gain.
skudrunner, you forget that even if trump had closed the borders in 2019, that would not have stopped AMERICANS who had been to China from returning to the US. You are aware that hundred and hundred of Americans travel to China on business (Princess Ivanka has lots of business there) and for tourism. Trump closed the border to Chinese nationals only. Americans could have been bringing the virus back with them.
But they didn't it was a chinese a national who has been identified as ground zero. It looks like the governors of californis and washington are ahead of the curve by promoting social distancing early on. Of course the mayor of NYC was late to the game when as late as mid March he was touting go out to dinner and attend gatherings because this is nothing to worry about. He was praised by the press while cotton was scorned when he said we need to look at china and all their lies. It would be nice to have an honest press but that is to much to ask for.
The media has done a great job of creating panic and P&G thanks them for it. I do wish trump would let his medical team do the updates but he is following in the steps of cuomo, or visa versa. The democrats need to step up and nominate a competent person to run against trump because he is becoming unhinged with his appointment of jarad to do whatever he does. I did hear ivanka is replacing pence as his running mate.
SKUD, let's get one thing straight right now: Trump is the CiC and POTUS and he's responsible for the US's response to the states and to Americans in general during this crisis. Remember his, "I alone can fix it?" He owns this.
Forget about Cuomo, Pelosi, Schumer, and all the other Dems you like to blame. This is an unprecedented crisis for America, and the POTUS is woefully unable to lead.
During yesterday's Covid-19 briefing, just for one disgusting example of Trump's narcissism, he referred to models for predicting the rise in Covid-19 cases, and made a joke, an effing JOKE about him and "models." What is WRONG with this idiot? He made a joke while thousands and thousands of Americans are sick and dying.
This is the incompetent and stupid man the hollowed-out GOP cultists worship. Whatever happens going forward, they, too, share the blame for putting such an ineffective, unqualified, and useless clown in the WH.
This is NOT Pelosi's, Schumer's, Cuomo's, or President Obama's fault.
Trump and his cultists own this.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine (but what do they know, right?), the first U.S. case was a U.S. citizen who returned from visiting family in Wuhan:
“On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever. On checking into the clinic, the patient put on a mask in the waiting room. After waiting approximately 20 minutes, he was taken into an examination room and underwent evaluation by a provider. He disclosed that he had returned to Washington State on January 15 after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China. The patient stated that he had seen a health alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China and, because of his symptoms and recent travel, decided to see a health care provider.”
possumlady, thanks for that information. Trump wants credit for closing the border to Chinese nationals coming into the country. Give him credit. But he didn't doe enough, as your post shows.
He wasted valuable months telling the American people that the virus was under control (it wasn't) and that only 15 people had it, and that would soon be none (it wasn't). And even now he's ignoring Dr. Fauci who wants Americans to stay indoors and if they must go out, to wear masks.
During a pandemic, it's not a good idea to have as leaders people who don't believe in science!
Even now, I've read of pastors in states like Florida and South Carolina wanting their congregations to come together to pray! Nuts!
Here's something else our friend, skud, and the WYD trolls who come here daily don't want to read:
"The U.S. government was fatally ill-prepared for the spread of a pandemic that has killed more Americans over the past month than died in Iraq over the past 17 years. "
Somehow skud will blame President Obama for Trump's horrible leadership.
Ms Shaw, I agree with you that we need strong leaders during times of crisis. I thought the same in 2009, 2012 and 2013.
I do have a question how can he have wasted valuable months when it was discovered mid January and one month later a task force was formed. How can that be Months to react. If you recall the democrats said closing the borders the end of January was to soon.
Blame goes to both sides and some of us will admit to the fact that congress didn't pay attention and do their jobs, both sides.
Skud... it's hard keeping up with you on this as you struggle to somehow impute blame to President Obama.
The Obama Admin realized they were behind the curve on a US pandemic response as a result of their slow performance in 2009. That's why during the remaining years, they worked hard to admit errors, improve and continue the movement of US admins to respond to this type of threat in a timely, efficient and open manner.
That effort was started in the Bush Admin after he was reading the history of the 1917/18 flu pandemic. The Obama Admin built on the Bush Admin base of information and knowledge. Then their experiences became central to how admins in the future would deal with things like this.
That institutional knowledge was then shared, as the Bush Admin had done with Obama, with the incoming Trump Admin.
The professionals, HHS Azar, Fauci and Birk among them, as well as our intelligence communities were all sounding the alarm in early January and recommending strong action. It took until late January for Trump to rightfully close travel from China. He was late, but at least he did it.
But for almost two months, in his public statements and actions such as rallys and golfing, he never sounded the alarm, or tasked his admin with moving forward. He minimized the threat, mocked ppl who said otherwise and limited the response his admin could have had.
Was Obama perfect? Of course not. Did trump learn from the failures of the Obama admin? Not at all... and we're all paying the price.
It was admitted that we were unprepared for a pandemic in 2015 and it seems nothing has changed. In 2001 we were not prepared for an attack, in 2009 we were not prepared for a pandemic and in 2014 we were not prepared for the flu. As much as we would all like it to be different it isn't because human failure is part of the equation.
Did the government take their eye off the ball, yes, did distractions keep congress from seeing anything other than impeachment, no.
It does seem like all the knowledge that bush shared was lost because 12000 people died from swine flu.
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