Trump, be a leader, not a blamer.

Trump cannot have it both ways. Either he lets the governors handle the situation and support their efforts OR be a leader and handle it himself. So far, he's done neither, just making a lot of stuffed pig squealing noises. WTF???

Trump downplays worst-case coronavirus scenarios: 'I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators'
By Charles Creitz, Samuel Chamberlain | Fox News

President Trump expressed skepticism Thursday night that the worst-case coronavirus pandemic scenarios would come to pass in the U.S., telling Fox News' "Hannity" that "I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be."

"I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators," Trump told host Sean Hannity, an apparent reference to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's recent claim that the state needed 30,000 ventilators. "You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes and they'll have two ventilators and now all of a sudden they're saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'"

The president also hammered two Democratic governors after they criticized the federal government's response to the pandemic.

"The first line of attack is supposed to be the hospitals and the local government and the states -- the states themselves," Trump said. "We have people like [Washington state] Governor [Jay] Inslee -- he should be doing more."

Trump went on to mock Inslee as a "failed [2020] presidential candidate" who is "always complaining."

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Inslee implored Trump on a private conference call with governors from both parties to use executive authority to ramp up production of necessary medical equipment. But Trump said the federal government is merely the “backup.”

Hannity: New York was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemicVideo
“I don’t want you to be the backup quarterback, we need you to be Tom Brady here,” Inslee reportedly replied, invoking the football star and Trump friend.

Trump also criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, telling host Sean Hannity "she's not stepping up."

"I don't know if she knows what's going on but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government," Trump said. "She doesn't get it done and we send her a lot. Now she wants a declaration of emergency and we have to make a decision on that. But Michigan is a very important state."

Earlier this week, Whitmer demanded "clear directives and guidance from the federal government."

“Frankly, a patchwork strategy of each state doing what they can, we’re going to do it if we need to, but it would be nice to have a national strategy," she said, according to MLive.

Whitmer claimed that if the administration had focused on the pandemic earlier, Michigan and the U.S. would "be in a stronger position right now."

"Lives will be lost because we weren't prepared," she said.

Late Thursday, Whitmer tweeted in response to Trump, saying: "I've asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan - prove it."

Governor Gretchen Whitmer
✔
@GovWhitmer
· 8h
Hi, my name is Gretchen Whitmer, and that governor is me 👋

I've asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan — prove it. https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1243351622509608965 …

Daniel Dale
✔
@ddale8
Trump says he's having a big problem with "the young, a woman governor, you know who I'm talking about, from Michigan."

Governor Gretchen Whitmer
✔
@GovWhitmer
PS: I’m happy to work with the VP! We get along well.

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Trump did praise New York's Cuomo in another regard, saying the two have had constructive talks and correspondence over the past few weeks.

He also discussed his hope that parts of the U.S. economy would begin returning to normal by Easter Sunday.

"The end result is, we've got to get back to work," Trump went on. "And I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country ... certain parts of the Midwest, other places" where the outbreak has been less acute.

Trump also ruled out canceling the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Charlotte, N.C. in August, telling Hannity "no way I'm going to cancel the convention."

In addition, the president dismissed criticism from his likely 2020 opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, who called Trump racist earlier this year after the president issued an order halting the entry of foriegn nationals into the U.S. from China.

"I had Biden calling me xenophobic -- yet he can't define the word," Trump said, joking that Biden called the H1N1 epidemic during the Obama-Biden administration the "N1H1" plague.

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

neptuneblue wrote:

Trump cannot have it both ways. Either he lets the governors handle the situation and support their efforts OR be a leader and handle it himself. So far, he's done neither, just making a lot of stuffed pig squealing noises. WTF???

COVID19 is only part of the threat at this point.

The other threat is that socialists have begun strategizing how to milk fiscal stimulus out of coronaphobia and the prospect of pandemic demand in things like masks and ventilators.

The threat of that, beyond wasting a lot of money; is that the more stimulus happens as a result of a virus, the more incentive there is for terrorists worldwide to engineer viruses with the potential to trigger health-care spending.

In short, we've entered into a phase of history in which entire populations can be held hostage using not nuclear weapons but pandemic viruses, so we have to fight not only the virus threat but also the political-economic motives to create and spread future viruses, which are stimulated by the prospect of big government spending packages.

2 Replies

@livinglava,

Quote:

more incentive there is for terrorists worldwide to engineer viruses with the potential to trigger health-care spending.

I want to point out how Ridiculous LivingLava's theory is. He is suggesting that socialist "terrorists" may engineer viruses in order to pass health bill bills.

In other places he has already suggested that the current Covid19 is engineered.

This is crazy stuff.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
more incentive there is for terrorists worldwide to engineer viruses with the potential to trigger health-care spending.

I want to point out how Ridiculous LivingLava's theory is. He is suggesting that socialist "terrorists" may engineer viruses in order to pass health bill bills.

In other places he has already suggested that the current Covid19 is engineered.

This is crazy stuff.

COVID19 may be natural or artificial. We cannot know for sure.

Either way, we shouldn't shrug off the use of genetic engineering to provoke governmental responses.

Provocation of government spending in order to influence markets is not a silly conspiracy theory.

Military responses to terrorism, invasions, etc. trigger military industrial spending and foreign aid payments, etc. so there are political interest in triggering them in order to control/stimulate international economic relations.

You need to come to terms with the fact that this world is full of corporations and business people who analyze politics and governments worldwide to figure out what policies would be detrimental or beneficial to their bottom-lines in which ways and then lobby or otherwise manipulate politics in their interests.

The power to use genetic engineering to generate pandemic viruses, or at least the threat and thus public response and the corresponding economic/market effects of that, is going to be an ongoing issue now that this corona phenomenon has triggered a major stock market correction and corresponding governmental bailout/stimulus response.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Trump goes on to minimize the seriousness of the corona virus, comparing it to the flu. I believe that undercuts the argument.

Do you actually believe that Trump is handling the virus situation well?

I have posted in the exponential mathematics thread that given the current trend, the number of corona virus deaths in the US could exceed one million. If this is the case, what would you like to see Trump do? (He is the president, this has nothing to do with the Democrats).

His assertion that the American economy should be opened by Easter is infuriating (and this has nothing to do with the fact he is Trump). If he took this seriously, and provided clear leadership based on the scientific facts... I would praise Trump.

Rather than allow you to dilute the discussion with additional false arguments, I will remind you that I was discussing one and only one thing, goldberg's false assertion that Trump said that the virus itself was a hoax. He did not.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

The other threat is that socialists have begun strategizing how to milk fiscal stimulus out of coronaphobia and the prospect of pandemic demand in things like masks and ventilators.

WTF is THAT?

"Socialists."

"Are demanding."

People are dying and you resort to insults and demonization.

Figures. ******* Trumpers are so ******* stupid.

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

neptuneblue wrote:

livinglava wrote:
The other threat is that socialists have begun strategizing how to milk fiscal stimulus out of coronaphobia and the prospect of pandemic demand in things like masks and ventilators.

WTF is THAT?

"Socialists."

"Are demanding."

People are dying and you resort to insults and demonization.

Where did you get the 'Are demanding' quote?

Have you not noticed that coronaphobia has turned into an impetus for fiscal negotiations?

You can't ignore that by saying "people are dying." You have to realize that there are people who see people dying as an opportunity to manipulate government spending and markets.

Doesn't it disturb you that there can't be a public health crisis without it being used to manipulate government spending and market-affecting policies?

Quote:

Figures. ******* Trumpers are so ******* stupid.

Why don't you watch your language?

1 Reply

@livinglava,

From your response.

Yes.

No, I don't.

No.

And that's the last time I'm going to entertain any of your ******* ass stupid ****. It's an insult to my eyes to read the garbage you spew.

Watch your own ******* language.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Here are my arguments.

1. Trump has been consistently minimizing the serious of the Corona Virus and he continues to do so now.

2. The number of US deaths has been growing at a fairly consistent exponential rate for a couple of weeks.

3. If this trend of exponential growth continues, we will reach 10,000 US deaths from the corona virus by April 6th (which I think is likely) and over 1 million US deaths by the end of April (which depends on how we react now). See https://able2know.org/topic/546733-1

4. Yes, it is possible that we will diverge from exponential growth and reach a peak in the short term. But right now there is now sign of this happening in the data.

5. Despite this, Trump is giving a very inconsistent message on what the US response to this pandemic should be.

6. Trump is the president of the United States. His position comes with a unique responsibility to the American public, and a unique ability to set policy. It doesn't matter what the Democrats or the media is doing. We need the president (more than anyone else) to drop politics and to lead.

Which of these arguments do you believe is false?

2 Replies

@neptuneblue,

neptuneblue wrote:

From your response.

I only used the word, "demand," in the context of economics.

Quote:

And that's the last time I'm going to entertain any of your ******* ass stupid ****. It's an insult to my eyes to read the garbage you spew.

Watch your own ******* language.

I hope you realize when you talk like that you are earning the exact same level of disrespect and hostility back toward you.

I hope it will not be me who gets seduced into treating you that way, though, because I don't want to sink to your level.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Here are my arguments.

1. Trump has been consistently minimizing the serious of the Corona Virus and he continues to do so now.

2. The number of US deaths has been growing at a fairly consistent exponential rate for a couple of weeks.

3. If this trend of exponential growth continues, we will reach 10,000 US deaths from the corona virus by April 6th (which I think is likely) and over 1 million US deaths by the end of April (which depends on how we react now). See https://able2know.org/topic/546733-1

4. Yes, it is possible that we will diverge from exponential growth and reach a peak in the short term. But right now there is now sign of this happening in the data.

5. Despite this, Trump is giving a very inconsistent message on what the US response to this pandemic should be.

6. Trump is the president of the United States. His position comes with a unique responsibility to the American public, and a unique ability to set policy. It doesn't matter what the Democrats or the media is doing. We need the president (more than anyone else) to drop politics and to lead.

Which of these arguments do you believe is false?

Don't you think that if the number of infections and deaths is ballooning that much, the opportunities for the virus to spread would be crumbling away as well?

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Don't you think that if the number of infections and deaths is ballooning that much, the opportunities for the virus to spread would be crumbling away as well?

1. I am looking at the current data. The rest is speculation.

2. So let's make the speculation. There are 380 million people in the US. We are assuming that people will gain immunity which will also help, but still a million deaths (as my pure speculation) before reaching a peak seems reasonable. Of course, this is just speculation... and regional effects and weather effects and all other effects will come into play. All I have is the data.

3. The experts have access to historical data, understand previous epidemics, have modeling software and knowledge I don't have. They are estimating the peak number of deaths in the US (assuming no measures are taken) will be 2.2 million. I have no expertise in making these estimates.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
Don't you think that if the number of infections and deaths is ballooning that much, the opportunities for the virus to spread would be crumbling away as well?

1. I am looking at the current data. The rest is speculation.

What is 'speculation,' that opportunities for contamination decrease as more people get sick and die? How can you deem that 'speculation?' Isn't that obvious? Is your mind so consumed with math that you can't see how basic reality works?

And what makes you think that what you are doing with the data isn't a form of speculation? You think using math automatically eliminates the possibility of speculative reasoning?

Quote:

2. So let's make the speculation. There are 380 million people in the US. We are assuming that people will gain immunity which will also help, but still a million deaths (as my pure speculation) before reaching a peak seems reasonable. Of course, this is just speculation... and regional effects and weather effects and all other effects will come into play. All I have is the data.

Obviously all you have is the data, because you're not using any kind of critical reasoning to ground your assumptions about why/how the numbers will progress as you calculate.

Human interactions aren't a computer model. They involve people making decisions and going places or not, depending on their conditions. When they are sick, dead, or dying; they behave differently than when they are healthy viral vectors.

Quote:

3. The experts have access to historical data, understand previous epidemics, have modeling software and knowledge I don't have. They are estimating the peak number of deaths in the US (assuming no measures are taken) will be 2.2 million. I have no expertise in making these estimates.

You should have expertise in observing how humans interact in public, assuming you don't just sit behind a computer all day in a room somewhere.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The Democrats in the House were pushing for preparedness for the virus since early Feburary at least.

By my recollection the whole of January was devoted to the Democrats trying to lynch the President over phony charges.

How different might things be right now if the Democrats cared about something other than abusing the law to harm people who disagree with them?

2 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

How different might things be right now if the Democrats cared about something other than abusing the law to harm people who disagree with them?

You mean if they cared about other things besides manipulating government to get more money?

That would require them thinking about solutions that don't involve getting and spending money.

Is that even possible for them?

0 Replies

@livinglava,

You are being silly, but I will give you a serious answer.

The math obviously can't tell you with any certainty what will happen in the future. However the math can tell you what is happening. And, in cases where there is trend, the math can give insight into what will likely happen in the near future.

The mathematically correct statements are

1. The current data from the past to weeks show a close fit to exponential growth.

2. If this current trend continues, we will pass 10,000 US deaths by April 6th and a million deaths by the end of April.

These two statements I can say with mathematical certainty.

The key phrase, of course, is "if this current trend continues". I am not saying that I am am certain that will happen, although it is my opinion that we will likely top 10,000 deaths by April 6th. I started the exponential mathematics thread to track this.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are being silly, but I will give you a serious answer.

The math obviously can't tell you with any certainty what will happen in the future. However the math can tell you what is happening. And, in cases where there is trend, the math can give insight into what will likely happen in the near future.

All the math does is take quantitative information derived from counting things and apply assumptions to justify performing mathematical operations.

There are too many variables involved for anything involving humans and/or most other biological/ecological systems to be described/predicted accurately using mathematical models.

When I explain something in words, such as the fact that the more people get sick and/or die, the more opportunities for virus-spread will disappear, you need to think about how patterns of social-interaction will change as a result of increasing numbers of people getting sick and dying.

In short, you have to think beyond math.

Quote:

The mathematically correct statements are

1. The current data from the past to weeks show a close fit to exponential growth.

That is no reason to assume the same conditions that caused that pattern to persist.

Again, you need to think more concretely about how human interactions are patterned.

Quote:

2. If this current trend continues, we will pass 10,000 US deaths by April 6th and a million deaths by the end of April.

These two statements I can say with mathematical certainty.

No, all you can say with mathematical certainty is that your calculations are correct. You can't say anything about how well your model fits with reality.

Quote:

The key phrase, of course, is "if this current trend continues". I am not saying that I am am certain that will happen, although it is my opinion that we will likely top 10,000 deaths by April 6th. I started the exponential mathematics thread to track this.

You can't do science with math alone. You need to critically think about the underlying mechanics that generate your data and why your model fits reality or not and how.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

How different might things be right now if the Democrats cared about something other than abusing the law to harm people who disagree with them?

Sunscreen???? Seriously????

Mitch McConnell sneaks provision to boost sunscreen from his home state into stimulus bill: report
The Republican Senate leader put a provision in the stimulus that expedites FDA approval of a product in his state

1.8K
6
3
MATTHEW CHAPMAN
MARCH 27, 2020 7:52AM (UTC)
This article originally appeared on Raw Story

rawlogo
The $2 trillion coronavirus relief stimulus package contains a number of vital provisions to help the American people. But as with most bills of its size and complexity, it is also loaded with small giveaways to help key senators serve special interests in their states.

According to Politico, one of the strangest such provisions, relating to sunscreen, appears to be for the benefit of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

"A provision for the FDA to approve 'innovative' sunscreens — that happen to be made in Florence, Ky., by L'Oreal — appeared in the bill, which was steered in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky," reported Caitlin Emma, Jennifer Scholtes, and Theodoric Meyer.

Donald Shaw
@donnydonny
· Mar 25, 2020
Congratulations to the lobbyists who got provisions related to the Sunscreen Innovation Act tucked into page 470 of the emergency coronavirus bill.

Donald Shaw
@donnydonny
Congrats to Mitch McConnell as well! https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/03/26/stimulus-coronavirus-special-deals-151108?__twitter_impression=true …
7:48 PM - Mar 26, 2020

As the bill's details were wrangled, Republicans frequently went public to argue that Democrats were holding up the bill to try to force through pork-barrel spending — even though many of their demands, including funding for mail-in election ballots, served a genuine purpose in giving Americans more options to practice social distancing

1 Reply

@neptuneblue,

Quote:

Sunscreen???? Seriously????

How much money is it costing the taxpayer? Pelosi got 350 million for refugee resettlement. Does the sunscreen come anywhere close to that? Also this bill is to help business. Refugees are not considered a business, although huge profits are made by some involved. The sunscreen is a business.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

I half agree with coldjoint here.

I do think that refugee resettlement is more related to the coronavirus than sunscreen is, but ...

The important thing is that this important bill made it through congress. This partisan political sniping about who got what is stupid.

1 Reply

Trump, be a leader, not a blamer.

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