Trump Declares National Emergency To Speed Coronavirus Response (bloomberg.com) 533
President Trump declared a national emergency on Friday afternoon, a move that would give him authority to use $40 billion allocated by Congress for disaster relief to address the coronavirus crisis. From a report: Cases in the U.S. have climbed past 1,700, even with sporadic and spare testing, and the death toll has risen to 41. Mr. Trump, according to a senior administration official, is expected to invoke the Stafford Act, a law that empowers the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster response and aid state and local governments. The president had indicated in recent days that he had been briefed on the law and could use it to address the pandemic, and Democratic lawmakers like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, have been pressing him to invoke it. "We have very strong emergency powers under the Stafford Act," Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "I have it memorized, practically, as to the powers in that act. And if I need to do something, I'll do it. I have the right to do a lot of things that people don't even know about." Mr. Trump further said that he is waiving off the interest on student loan debt until further notice.
Interesting Reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an interesting reaction for someone who's been claiming that it's all a conspiracy by the "liberal media" to make him look bad.
The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the number one problem in the United States. You guys are always polarized about everything because you only have two political parties, you tend to see everything as being black/white, with us/against us. There's never a middle ground, because from your point of view that would mean giving up and making compromises to the other side.
All the other countries on the planet can't help but shake their head in disappointment when looking at any news that comes out of the USA. So many great people, so much wasted potential because of your political bullshit.
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of us who live here feel the same.
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This is the number one problem in the United States. You guys are always polarized about everything because you only have two political parties, you tend to see everything as being black/white
You might want to take a look at one of those color blindness tests, because that's some serious black and white thinking you've got going on there yourself.
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Left leaning media??? Other than local newspapers actual liberals have been effectively banned by the US press since the 1970s. Maybe you're referring to their tendency to attempt to report facts as though they were real things, rather than religious-based opinions? Facts do have a generally liberal bias, I suppose that might be offensive to some.
I don't even see the media doing fact reporting (Score:2)
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:5, Insightful)
We have multiple parties we just haven't had a president from any party other than republican or democratic for over a century.
That's because the democrats and the republicans worked together to give themselves built in advantages over the other parties. People are starting to fight back. Ross Perot tried and failed to mount a 3rd party ticket but since then Trump, Bernie, Ron Paul, and even Bloomberg to some extent showed that it's easier to just take over a party than start your own party. Of course the two major parties are attempting to block them. The other solution would be if we changed to run off voting so people don't feel like they are wasting their vote when they vote for a third party candidate.
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The other solution would be if we changed to run off voting so people don't feel like they are wasting their vote when they vote for a third party candidate.
That is the only real solution. Regardless of whatever else the two major parties may be doing to boost their own advantages, in any first-past-the-post electoral system, the spoiler effect will result in a two-party system, always.
But if we're going to change the electoral system, instant runoff is really the least of improvements, as it's still vulnerable to another form of the spoiler effect itself. We may as well go to a full Condorcet method [wikipedia.org], which is older than this entire country and frankly I'm asha
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:5, Informative)
When the speaker of the House (opposition party member) crams Abortion funding into a COVID-19 response bill
And here's the real problem: The ease at which lying about the opposition spreads.
Democrats did not propose any abortion funding in the COVID-19 response bill. In fact, there's nothing about abortion in the bill.
What Republicans are upset about is Democrats did not forbid abortion funding in the bill: https://www.salon.com/2020/03/... [salon.com]
Yet here you are, claiming the opposite. Because lying to you pays very well, and you just repeat what you hear. And it gives the lazy centrists a "both sides!!!" when Democrats won't add yet more tax cuts to the bill.
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:4, Insightful)
By not including the standard Hyde Amendment compromise; this they know exactly to which "healthcare" providers the money will flow.
There is literally no funding in the bill for abortion. So no, someone can't get a check from this bill and run over to Planned Parenthood.
But you are quite well indoctrinated.
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:5, Insightful)
This bill as written sets up path pay federal dollars to basically any health care provider that is capable of lab work.
For lab work. And even then, only for running specific lab work.
It is already illegal to use any of this funding for abortion, because you'd have to falsely bill it as "lab work".
You are being played by your indoctrinators to be upset about something that is already illegal.
Re:The USA needs more than two political parties (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, so I haven't heard of one person making this claim when the travel ban happened. It's almost as if it is a figment in the conservative imagination of what them crazy liberals must be like.
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You'll get higher quality results from your search engine if you just call it the "1918 Flu".
If the numbers out of China are to be believed, it's really not a Chinese problem anymore. They've contained the epidemic; the rest of the world hasn't. So referring to Covid-19 as the Chinese Coronavirus highlights an epidemiologically irrelevant detail.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone on another forum noted that he's not banning travel to countries where he has golf courses, like England.
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:4, Informative)
... and Ireland
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
... and Ireland
This is an instance where I see ridiculous emphasis on shit that doesn't matter coming from the opposition media. Yes, he exempted countries where he owns golf courses from his travel ban, but that's hardly relevant. The fact that Americans returning from Italy aren't even being screened when they land is the failure here. The travel ban itself is nothing but lip service when there are such gaping holes in it. Their insistence on construing one of those holes as personally benefiting Trump is overplaying their hand. A travel ban that fails to prevent the spread of the virus is the actual failure here.
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Basically every few days he bans travel from an arbitrary set of countries he knows his supporters hate, and ensures that it doesn't affect the ones his supporters are OK with like Britain.
He really needs to do Ohio next:
https://www.foxnews.com/health... [foxnews.com]
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"Then he was causing a panic when he banned travel to Europe" - again, a criticism I literally cannot find anywhere like the first. The complaint is that he created a very weak travel ban, giving one arbitrary country an exception that doesn't make sense, and allowing Americans visiting the countries that are banned back in without being screened.
The EU's complaint was that he acted unilaterally, without consultation. It obviously would make a lot more sense to coordinate action; we're all in the same boat here.
I think the UK exception actually did make sense, though you had to read the DHS documentation to find out why. The exception was added to provide an access point back to the US through a small number of airports where US and UK officials would cooperate to screen passengers carefully. Of course, the same thing could, and should, have be
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Informative)
The day of Trump's travel restrictions, an hour before they were announced, Joe Biden said that while criticizing Trump's defunding of health programs [starting at 8:28] [youtube.com].
Just after 3PM CDT [wgem.com] is still before 4:40 PM EDT [npr.org] in the real world. These facts were widely reported as well. They just don't support your attempted retconning of history.
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Then he was causing a panic when he banned travel to Europe.
First, it's not a complete ban on travel from/to Europe. It's only a ban on foreign nationals traveling from Europe. Spouses, parents or siblings of American citizens or permanent residents will be exempt, as will members of the U.S. military and their spouses and children. Permanent residents of the United States will not subjected to the restrictions either. [whitehouse.gov]
Second, the ban doesn't apply to the UK or Ireland [politico.com]... where Trump owns property.
What's the point of a travel ban when there are many exceptions and lo
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Returning Americans can't possibly have coronavirus, that would be unpatriotic.
It makes Trump look strong (Score:2)
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
The travel ban to China in late January was too late. Few people outside the Chinabots called it xenophobic.
Yes, he was not doing enough. We needed to be ramping up our ability to test, like South Korea did. And preparing our health care infrastructure for the inevitable influx, like almost all other countries did.
The travel ban to Europe was WAY too late, and did not include countries where he has hotels or golf resorts. In his speech, he intitially claimed it would ban all goods as well as people. This was untrue, and a large part what caused a panic.
And he's still not doing nearly enough.
He is the single most inept president in US history and his supporters will never live down their association with him.
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Funny)
What supporters? What association? Clearly you haven't been paying attention- let me give you a quote from December 2020:
Republicans: "We never supported the failed presidency of Donald Trump, and this is just another attempt by liberal Democrats and their corrupt mainstream media to smear us with coordinated lies."
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So Xenophobia is good ? (Score:2)
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By accident, I suppose.
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These are not self-contradictory positions if you actually look at context.
Yes, but claiming he's doing too much one day, then not enough a month later is kind of contradictory.
SO, I got to ask you. Who was out in front of this back in January, claiming Trump was screwing up this issue by not doing enough then? NOBODY... They where saying he was doing too much back in January, but now they say he didn't do enough..
Thank God he's not listening to these folks. He didn't in January, he's not going to now, but he's going to do what he thinks is right.
Now, if you have a suggesti
Trump is the President of the United States (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not a big fan of her right wing economic policy, but at least she knows what the hell she's doing. She at least listens to experts.
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Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
These are not self-contradictory positions if you actually look at context.
Yes, but claiming he's doing too much one day, then not enough a month later is kind of contradictory.
SO, I got to ask you. Who was out in front of this back in January, claiming Trump was screwing up this issue by not doing enough then? NOBODY... They where saying he was doing too much back in January, but now they say he didn't do enough..
Thank God he's not listening to these folks. He didn't in January, he's not going to now, but he's going to do what he thinks is right.
Now, if you have a suggestion about something more he could be doing NOW, please toss your ideas out there. If you have a good idea, I'll bet that it will be taken seriously. Until then though, using hindsight to bash the guy just doesn't wash unless you are bashing him for not following your advice, that it would have been better if he did what you wanted. AND CLEARLY, had he followed your side's advice in January, we'd be much worse off now..
I don't understand half of what you are saying. Maybe because I didn't read the posts you seem to be referring to.
What I want to know is simple - why is he declaring a national emergency over a hoax? (HIS WORDS)
And why do his supporters tolerate his constant lies? There is some serious cognitive dissonance going on there.
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He called the media response a hoax, not the virus itself. In that same statement he recognized that there is a threat and prudent measures should be taken to limit the spread and put Pence in charge of the response team.
Stop listening to both him directly and the media and evaluate his actions objectively. You may find that the narratives put out by both sides are misleading.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you need to look up the word "hoax". Pretty much all the media I've seen was reporting on what what going on in China, Italy, Iran, Australia, Japan, etc., informing rates of infection and mortality, giving advice on how the virus spreads and how to avoid getting it, etc. Definitely not a hoax. Criticism about Trump dismantling the pandemic team put in place by Obama to address SARS and Ebola is both factual and relevant - not a hoax. The only hoax I've seen is the trash coming from Limbaugh, Ha
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:4, Informative)
"claiming he's doing too much one day, then not enough a month later is kind of contradictory."
It's perfectly rational to complain that he's doing too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things. You're mischaracterising the argument, I suspect deliberately.
Am I?
The very folks who declared his China Travel Ban in January to be racist and overreacting are now trying to say he didn't do enough? Where were these folks and their suggestions about preparation work that was ignored?
I think you are trying to spin out of this by holding up your hands and saying "hey, that's not my argument!" when it really is and was. IF these folks who thought the travel ban was bogus had been making constructive suggestions about things we should have been doing instead of the travel ban you'd have an argument. But they called it an "overreaction" of all things and acted like Trump was on some power trip. Where were the news stories about "We need TESTING kits now!" back in January? Humm?
But the reality here is Trump HAS been doing a LOT of stuff to get us prepared. He's been on top of this from the moment he first found out and he's been taking advice from some very competent medical experts, guarding the health and security of this country first, and preparing for the worst. What more could he have done that would have made any difference? The only thing I've heard folks harping on was the lack of testing, but how does a test kit make anybody better?
Trump restricted travel while Dems impeached (Score:4, Insightful)
The very folks who declared his China Travel Ban in January to be racist and overreacting are now trying to say he didn't do enough? Where were these folks and their suggestions about preparation work that was ignored?
While Trump was restricting travel with China to slow the spread of the disease in the US, i.e. flattening the curve as the medical professions say will save lives, giving infrastructure and industry more time to get ready ...
... the dems were busy working on impeachment. That was their priority in January.
Turn medical necessity into a SJW faux issue (Score:4, Informative)
Get rid of Pence as the response leader and put a qualified non-partisan professional in charge.
That is an ignorant partisan comment. Pence has experience with dealing with a middle eastern strain of corona virus - MERS - from his Governor of Indiana days. When he took on the the current role regarding the wuhan strain of corona virus he mentioned this experience and how it taught him how important the coordination between federal and state agencies were.
Stop describing it as a foreign virus, there's community spread in the US.
Another partisan talking point trying to manufacture bigotry. Strains are often named by their origin. It is foreign, that is why restricting travel from China has flattened the curve and restricting travel from Europe will flatten it more.
The flattening of the curve that Trump has and continues to do is how lives will be saved. The same number of people will be infected in the end but the infections will be spread out over time and the medical infrastructure will not be overwhelmed.
This is what all the medical experts and scientists are saying we need to do. Stop trying to turn medical necessity into a SJW faux issue.
The government needs to make testing freely available.
Trump did this, he negotiated with insurance companies and health care providers so people will not be charged for tests, and possibly treatments (making sure its covered under medicade and existing insurance).
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WBush was flogged in the media 24/7 for several weeks about Hurricane Katrina.
Yes he was; while the locals who really were directly responsible for the severity of the flooding (decades of ignoring army core of engineers advice about levy height) and utter failure to leverage assets like school buses etc to evacuate GWD was harangued for weeks not somehow being able to sail in with a crack-team of federal disaster relief workers to do something magical and make everything all right.
Obama was similarly flogged in the media 24/7 for several weeks over Deepwater Horizon.
Funny I don't remember that; citations please if you got'em. Yes I am sure you can find an arti
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Informative)
The rightwing victims of TDS are far too brain damaged to recognize what is being done to Trump has been done to every president in recent decades -- that he, in particular, cannot stand the heat is not a surprise to any honest and mentally competent observer of the man.
Right we don't recognize it because its patently false! No president received 90% negative coverage in the press before now. Exchanges like that between Don Lemon and John Kasich (who isnt exactly a Trump apologist) just did not happen.
So let me get this straight. You're mad that when someone does something corrupt, incompetent, against constitutional principles, against norms of good governance, the press gives them negative coverage?
Obama and Bush and most presidents before them were largely scandal free. The current administration has just been a huge series of blunders and scandals! Of course they'll get negative coverage for that!
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Definitely. I didn't mean to claim that past presidents were in any way perfect. I mean all presidents have had their blunders/scandals to one degree or another, which they've been rightly taken to task for in the press, sooner or later. The difference now (and why Trump receives so much negative press) is because there have been so many negative things being done by Trump and his administration from day one.
Re: Interesting Reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
We've also never had a president and administration so utterly underqualified for the job than we do now.
Re:Interesting Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
One more time... YES, the over reaction of the media and his political opponents
There is no overreaction taking place. There is ONLY extreme under-reaction. The media was uncharacteristically constrained for months right up until a day or two before the market started crashing then coverage really started taking off as reality started hitting closer to home.
saying he didn't handle this situation correctly is a "hoax"
I'm sorry relative to the rest of the world the United States has utterly provably failed in a number of objective metrics. There is no way to spin or excuse these failures.
The US government has failed to prioritize testing and make sure tests were available. There were numerous labs around the country capable of developing tests that sat idle or were actively hamstrung due to the absence of leadership. Other countries with much lower GDPs and access to technology were able to more rapidly deploy tests to the population. The US has objectively failed and continues to fail to this day.
The government has completely failed to provide accurate and timely information to the public. Trump's constant lies and bullshit about basic facts are no longer amusing. Trump has publically made false statements about impact, vaccination timeline, testing regimes (both availability of tests and testing of those returning from other countries) . This is both dangerous and completely inexcusable. The government failed to provide actionable guidance and recommendations to the public.
The government failed to sufficiently coordinate and lead global efforts to help all countries develop testing capacity and address the problem. There is no way to spin these failures of LEADERSHIP. There is no possible excuse for lack of testing capability. The US government lead by the POTUS has FAILED. It's a provable undeniable fact.
he took it very seriously and took steps way back in January to protect the citizens of the USA. IN FACT, he took heat for his actions over a month ago, being called racist (among other things) for instituting the China travel ban
In grade school if you are taking a test and get one question out of many right it doesn't itself mean you are either passing or failing the overall test. For the sake of argument lets stipulate this action was prudent. The notion because a leader did one thing right therefore he took it seriously is on its face idiotic. Leaders are judged on the TOTALITY of their response (or lack thereof) not cherry picked aspects.
by the very same folks who today are lying and saying he has been incompetent for his handling of this problem.
So stop lying about this.. It really makes you look bad.
Trump's leadership on this issue has been as feckless and disastrous. His governments own domain experts publically testified to critical failures yesterday in open hearings.
Sure, OK (Score:5, Interesting)
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If we can't even do basic things like administer tests, and instead do silly things, like a 1-way travel restriction from Europe, then exercising emergency powers is likely to do more harm than good.
I'm curious.. How do you think having a widely available test is going to help?
The facts here are that the virus is not something we can prevent or treat. It's spreading widely, testing would not prevent this. There is no specific treatment for this virus, so knowing what it is doesn't help. The treatment is exactly the same as the Flu.. Stay home, isolate yourself, and wait for it to run it's course, if it gets really bad or morphs into a serious lung infection where it's impacting your PulseOx numbers
Re:Sure, OK (Score:4, Informative)
If we can't even do basic things like administer tests, and instead do silly things, like a 1-way travel restriction from Europe, then exercising emergency powers is likely to do more harm than good.
I'm curious.. How do you think having a widely available test is going to help?
The facts here are that the virus is not something we can prevent or treat. It's spreading widely, testing would not prevent this. There is no specific treatment for this virus, so knowing what it is doesn't help. The treatment is exactly the same as the Flu.. Stay home, isolate yourself, and wait for it to run it's course, if it gets really bad or morphs into a serious lung infection where it's impacting your PulseOx numbers too much, call you doctor.
Testing doesn't help any of this and at this point why are we all hyped up over it? Sure, it's nice to know what ails you sometimes for emotional reasons, but nothing really changes if you know it's the flu, COVID-19 or a bad cold.
Seriously? You can slow the spread by isolating the infected from the rest of the population by catching the virus before it the patient shows symptoms. Worst case, you can slow it enough to avoid it peaking and overwhelming available medical care. Best case, you stop the spread entirely. Check out South Korea for an example of how this can be done well.
Also has the advantage that if someone does get really bad the person is already where the medical care is available.
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With a wider availability of tests, more people who are infected can become aware that they have it sooner than they otherwise would, and can self-isolate from that point, reducing its chance of spreading.
Re:Sure, OK (Score:4, Informative)
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Most tests look for antibodies against a virus rather than for the virus itself, and tend to be very reliable since the body attempts to defend itself at the first sign of infection.
The only virus that you're going to see under a microscope are the largest macrophages, which attack bacteria. Under a scanning electron microscope there are hundreds if not thousands of viruses which have identical-appearing exterior sheaths but which are completely different from each other because the DNA or RNA inside.
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There's probably no reliable test.
Why do clueless people always feel it's so necessary to tell everyone else how clueless they are?
Of course there are reliable tests.
Re:Sure, OK (Score:5, Informative)
Alright... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yesterday there was like $1.5 trillion dollars pumped into the stock market that did cause a spike in the middle of the day. Didn't help terribly much.
$42 billion in distributed response is lovely - but without a top level strategy that is based on science and reason - it's just another drop int he bucket of the scope of this series of events.
The overall game of this: There's currently limited ability for our healthcare to respond to this. It's a classic triage scenario - too many people get sick too quickly at once, and many of them will die from a lack of available trained medical response.
That's what the isolation response is about - and that does mean a rather large concerted action that essentially shuts down much of the economy except select supply chain stuff.
The act to minimize this from a marketing perspective, instead of calling for Americans to come together for shared response is a crucial miscalculation.
With a fully coordinated response, you'd shut things down, stretch out the infection process, care for people in waves - and minimize the isolation time to a month. You also minimize the chance of the mutations this virus is capable of from repeating a 1918 scenario.
With a random and marketing-focused response, you have to restart the isolation process over between regions over and over - you never build up a proper national response, you allow the medical sector to be overwhelmed, and you stretch the process out into years instead of just a solid month or two of overabundant caution.
Look to Italy, China and Iran if you want to see how these scenarios pan out in these initial stages. Either way, they are some form of us in a week or so.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Alright... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Alright... (Score:4, Informative)
Now he's splitting his efforts between the stock market, and trying to whip up fear and anger at China to deflect accountability.
You wan't the economy to tank? (Score:2)
If the economy tanks, people can't pay taxes either.
Yea maybe don't lead with that one.
Try to downplay it now it's out there.
Re:Alright... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look to Italy, China and Iran if you want to see how these scenarios pan out in these initial stages. Either way, they are some form of us in a week or so.
And look at South Korea for how this should have been handled. Unfortunately the US doesn't have the testing capabilities that SK has built up over the course of the past roughly 5 years. It's interesting how the US is using tactics similar to Italy (shuttering public gatherings, closing schools, isolating, etc) while SK has done none of these and managed to stop the spread all because they test about as many patients in a single day as the US has in the entirety of this outbreak.
Hospitals have been avoiding hiring (Score:2)
That's great for short term profits, not so much for health and well being.
Re:Alright... (Score:5, Informative)
Look to Italy, China and Iran if you want to see how these scenarios pan out in these initial stages. Either way, they are some form of us in a week or so.
Ryan Fenton
Unfortunately, that's probably accurate. Some more context:
After the Ebola crisis in 2014, president Obama created something called the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. This was basically responsible for pandemic preparedness. In 2018 Trump got rid of it. Fired the guy who ran it, fired the whole team, never replaced them. He got rid of the whole Global Health Security Unit at the National Council, at Homeland Security and even at the Pentagon.
Then just recently, Trump blamed Obama for the unpreparedness of CDC and the whole country.This is how deranged he is.
As it stands now, the USA has been sitting on its ass for months, with zero preparation. There has been 10000 and some change tests done so far in TOTAL, while South Korea can do the same amount in ONE DAY. The virus has been doing its rounds in the country for weeks now, and once widespread testing starts, the number of infections will skyrocket.
Re:Alright... (Score:5, Informative)
South Korea can test up to 20,000 per day, test results are ready 6h - 24h after testing.
They do so called "drive through testing", people just come with the car and drive through the testing spot and they take a spit probe. Costs per test are about $40, obviously: payed by the health system.
Re:So far, response has been reason and science ba (Score:5, Informative)
None of that is accurate. [factcheck.org]
On top of that:
Re:So far, response has been reason and science ba (Score:5, Informative)
Well your link sure isn't accurate.
It's FACTCHECK.ORG. What about it isn't accurate?
The CDC is getting more funding now then during Obama's term.
Only because of the pandemic. His 2021 budget still includes cuts to the CDC.
The head of the CDC pandemic response team quit, and in turn the CDC didn't appoint new people. In terms of budgetary concerns they weren't refilled.
He fired them! [snopes.com]
The testing kids from the WHO are the same ones China was using which only have a 30% success rate on a first use, and it can require upwards of 5 tests to get to a 70% successful positive.
Great! So we had a choice of testing people with a kit that is 30% effective, or not testing anyone immediately, which is 0% effective. He chose the 0% route. Very presidential and perfect.
The two weeks of calling it a democrat hoax didn't happen, and only exists if you selectively quote mine an original statement to make it a truth.
He spent 2 weeks claiming the dems and the "fake new" were blowing it all out of proportion, but here we are, about to declare a national emergency, in the midst of travel restrictions, grocery stores with nothing in them, and a WHO declared pandemic.
https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]
https://www.factcheck.org/2020... [factcheck.org]
https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
Need I go on?
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U.S. in a pretty good place so far (Score:2)
Declaring a national emergency is the right thing to do, so that states can start preparing an increase in care facilities.
But fundamentally, the U.S. population has already taken a lot of steps to help. Most people are staying away from work or travel, most large events cancelled.
It's still early days but it seems like the U.S. is on track to fare better than Italy or Germany, because they are taking the problem more seriously here at an earlier stage.
The thing to really watch in coming weeks is, how does
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Only took 3 months (Score:5, Insightful)
Point being his re-election is more important that people's lives. I seem to remember a quote from Alan Dershowitz where he said anything Trump did in pursuit of wining the election was OK because Trump benefits America and ergo his re-election is for the benefit of America, or something.
Trump banned travel from China long ago (Score:3)
there was an NPR article that mentioned he's been aware of this since since January and held off because he was hoping it would blow over
Gee, I'm sure NPR would never lie about Trump...
Trump already took this seriously months ago when he banned travel from China. Just what would YOU have done that Trump didn't do? Shut down everything earlier before we knew the spread was worse, and wreck the U.S. economy on the basis of nothing?
Point being his re-election is more important that people's lives
That's not
Re:Only took 3 months (Score:5, Insightful)
Bernie Sanders saying that he would not close US borders to prevent contagion spread, Joe Biden referring to Trump's travel restrictions as Xenophobia, and congressional Democrats holding up coronavirus aid by trying to tie it into abortion funding.
Wow! Three lies in one sentence. Nice density.
Sanders said that travel restrictions would not help because the virus was already here. Which, coincidentally, is what epidemiologists also say.
The Biden claim is similar - that the travel ban is not helpful for the reason above, and being put in place out of xenophobia. Citing the places that aren't part of the ban despite there being no logic to exclude those places.
On abortion funding, there's nothing in the bill about abortion. Republicans are upset because the bill doesn't have something in it to ban abortion funding.
Re:Only took 3 months (Score:5, Informative)
The video is still available which proves you are lying
Oh, that clip. See, I thought it couldn't possibly be that clip because the question wasn't about the coronavirus. It was "Would you close the borders if you had to".
The travel restrictions were not arbitrary or political, and stemmed from recommendations made from career public health officials
Do you always include links that refute your own claims?
On the day Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Biden did criticize Trump for his “record of hysteria and xenophobia,” but it is unclear whether Biden was referring to Trump’s travel restrictions, or Trump’s overall qualifications to deal with the epidemic.
Golly....wonder why people have trust issues with Republicans...
More precisely it was reported by a number of sources that the Democrats did try to include a loophole in the stimulus bill which would bypass hyde protections.
Which is called "lying".
There's zero abortion spending in the bill. Therefore, Hyde amendment language does nothing. It's already not legal to spend any money from the bill on abortion But what it does do is get people like you to get angry and more locked-in to the media that's lying to you.
He said it is a hoax and everyone should go work, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Watching him, I realized the cost of a president having pissed away his authority these past three years, with his daily juvenile tweets and schoolyard rhetoric. The country needs a president now who can inspire, galvanize, and lead. Tonight I saw a president who looked tired, afraid, and completely unconvincing. He ended by calling for an end to partisanship, and the nation coming together to fight this threat. That’s what any president should do in his position, in a moment of great national crisis. It is difficult to imagine a president with less credibility to make that ask.
“State of Emergency” - sounds scary (Score:2)
But, whether it’s Trump doing it today or Governor Inslee doing it a short while ago, it’s largely just a mechanism to speed government procurement and distribution by suspending certain rules - such as competitive bidding requirements.
That’s a necessary and important thing when dealing with a crisis, but I have to wonder if psychologically it would be better to use a different term.
Thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say:
Perhaps the Government response is somewhat muted because, as people have already demonstrated, if you let the truth reach the wrong ears, the whole place will devolve into mass chaos.
Go to any grocery store near you to see the mere hints of this in action.
Or take a look at the stock market.
If he jumps the gun and declares an emergency too early, he catches shit for " causing a panic ".
If he waits and declares the emergency too late, he catches shit for " not doing enough ".
Now imagine wtf is going to happen if they decide to put Martial Law into place. The panic we see today will pale in comparison to the stupidity that will be.
Hell, had we simply closed off the borders to all incoming traffic when this thing got started, we would get called racists. :| )
( Because, apparently, it's racist to take precautions about letting an already known infected region openly travel to your country
It really wouldn't matter who was President as the above rules still apply.
It's kind of like programming.
When you are forced to factor in the Idiot Variable, things get complicated in a hurry.
The bigger the group of idiots, the more complex it becomes.
Re:Thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
That response comes from the incompetence shown.
For example, there was no similar panic over SARS, MERS or Ebola. Because the people running the show had demonstrated competence, and deferred to professionals to plan the response.
And then there's the Trump administration. Who fired the NSC officials who plan for pandemics and proposed cutting CDC pandemic response funding in every budget. Who've also got a history of firing or muzzling those professionals for political reasons (google Sharpie hurricane map). And also choosing to harm people so that "the numbers" look better.
That's gonna cause a panic, because people will not believe the administration is capable of handling the situation. And the administration has done nothing but help amplify that in the past two weeks.
I guess all hope of a rational response is over (Score:4, Insightful)
What's really going on here is that media is force feeding this event into a shit storm of profits for themselves. They needed something (at least in the US) to make up for the post impeachment viewer decline and this is tailor made for it.
The only good that will come from this is that working remotely has gotten a shot in the arm.
Re:I guess all hope of a rational response is over (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand people like you that are saying we did not went crazy about the flu and traffic casualties. We have virtually engineered our society around these problems.
To fight the flu, we have a flu vaccination industry that is worth about $4B annually. We have paid sick leave to make sure people stay home when sick. We have developed bathroom protocols that enable us to wash our hand without having to turn a faucet on and ways to exit the bathrooms without having to touch the door.
To fight traffic casualties, we have revamped our car manufacturing processes to make them safer in cases of collisions, we have traffic regulations and cops to enforce them, we have created an industry to teach people how to drive. We have transformed our landscape to minimize congestion and the number of flow cross points.
We are doing LOTS of things to fight the flu and traffic casualties.
Coronavirus is running exponentially in the world. Look at all countries, the spread rate is approximately "double every three days". We could be looking at 100,000s of infected by the end of March and millions by the middle of April.
For the flu, we have developed herd immunity. But we don't have it for this strain of coronavirus. If we let this strain of coronavirus run unchecked, we may be looking at half the US population infected. That's probably in the tens of millions of death. If you think that is an unlikely scenario, the number of death is grew in Italy by about 20% in the last 24 hours. And Iran is digging mass graves that can be seen from space.
We may be overreacting and hindsight is 20/20. But so far, I would say we, in the US, have not done enough.
Re:I guess all hope of a rational response is over (Score:5, Informative)
So, you're not familiar with the concept of "exponential growth" then.
Box of farts (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Box of farts (Score:4, Funny)
If Trump is in the title, summary or article, the comment section here at Slashdot will be a big box of farts.
Don't be silly. You don't need Trump in the title for that to happen.
What's the point? (Score:3)
So it isn't a Democrat hoax after all? (Score:5, Funny)
We really should be testing everyone, that is only way to gather adequate data. Thankfully we have the ACA to ensure everyone is has the coverage to pay for the cost. Remember years ago when millions were uninsured?
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:5, Funny)
What makes you think that Donald Trump isn't going to run off with the money?
He's too fat to get very far, especially if he's trying to carry a couple of money bags. But man, would that make for some great reality television. Let's pay a Chinese guy to put on a coronavirus costume and chase him around too until he's out of breath and collapses.
If we make it PPV we could probably fund his latest payroll tax cut idea.
Re: (Score:2)
He's not gonna be able to carry much with those tiny hands.
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:4, Funny)
Play the Benny Hill music to that.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think that Donald Trump isn't going to run off with the money?
Uh, it's a global pandemic that has managed to spread to over 100 countries in less than 2 months.
Unless he considers the local college campus cry closet a "safe space" from COVID, I'd say he's got nowhere to run.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's a foreign virus and he's just banned any more foreigners from entering the country.
Problem solved, methinks.
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:4, Insightful)
TDS in full effect here.
You were trolled.
This man, love him or hate him, has: deferred all of his POTUS salary, will leave the office with less wealth than when he entered
On what have you based this claim? He won't even release his tax returns, how could you possibly know the state of his wealth before, during, or after his presidency?
will lose status and power in his personal life.
What status and power will he lose that he didn't have before he became president, other than presidential power?
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:5, Informative)
Just look around here. He's made a lot of people irrationally angry at him, who were perhaps only mildly annoyed at him before.
There's nothing irrational about it.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I'm just spitballin' here (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I can sit here and list his disastrous policies all day. Killing that general wrecked 2 decades of careful work in Iraq (they want us out). That tax cut was used for Mergers & Acquisitions, leading to layoffs that always follow M&As. He's actively trying to kill the ACA in the courts with no plan to replace it. He implemented most of TPP in several bills (the centrist Dems helped here too, BTW). He signed into law legislation that gutted Dodd/Frank and the post 2008 reforms. We've got hundreds of billions of business loans that have been leveraged into 2008 style Credit Default Swaps...
You can google all this, so don't you tell me I'm being spoon fed. The outlets you lists are mostly Establishment rags when it comes to economics, and economics is all that matters (Huffpo is a little left in their opinion section).
Google "Manufactured Consent" and look up how many Bernie Sanders hit pieces each has run, or watch how they moderated the debates with Bernie.
Christ, I feel like the man with sight in the land of the blind. I keep pointing this shit out and pointing to facts and people keep yelling "orange man bad!" and "TDS!TDS!" at me.
This is where "OK Boomer" came from. Look, I'm sorry, but it's exhausting to have to spend so much time and energy explaining why you're so very wrong. And everytime I start to get guys like you to acknowledge reality you drive home with Rush on the radio and undo hours of work explaining reality... Netflix had a special about it, "Brainwashing of my Dad"...
Re:I'm just spitballin' here (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Huffpo is about as ridiculously far left as it gets. They're the definition of that guy in your feed who CAN'T STOP TALKING IN ALL CAPS ABOUT TRUMP. They're laughably extreme and the only context they should be quoted in is a mocking one.
No comment on most of what you wrote aside from that. I'm not a fan of Trump either, but I tend to disagree with your takes as to why he's a bad idea. I will speak to the Iraq point, though, because it's probably the one I feel strongest about. I don't think we should have gone there to begin with. The "careful work" would not have been required if we hadn't invaded them for weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, or if we didn't install Saddam into power to begin with decades ago. I do think violating their sovereignty was a horrible thing to do to a supposed ally, though. That's the main issue I had with that action. You don't disrespect your ally's sovereignty, that's not how you treat friends.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
will leave the office with less wealth than when he entered
[Citation Needed]
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:5, Funny)
This man, love him or hate him, has: differed all of his POTUS salary, will leave the office with less wealth than when he entered,
Have you seen the stock market lately?
The majority of people will end up with less wealth than when he entered.
Steve Mnuchin just made the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Haven't you ever wondered why the 1% don't take measures to stop the economy from crashing every 10 years? It's not that they aren't touched by it, they're enriched by it. Think of all the folk who lost homes in 2008. They didn't just lose their homes, they lost their equity. That wealth didn't disappear, somebody else pocketed it.
Re:Do you trust him? (Score:5, Informative)
His salary wouldn't pay for one of his taxpayer-funded golf outings. He's taken 264 golf outings since he's been president as of March 8.
https://thegolfnewsnet.com/gol... [thegolfnewsnet.com]
If you look at the emoluments lawsuits against him, he's taken in hundreds of times more income directly attributable to his being president than his salary would have been. Not taken a salary doesn't even put a dent in his corrupt income from being president. And that doesn't even count the millions he's made from foreign leaders funneling money to him by booking rooms in his hotels and then not using them or the pure profit he's made by requiring Secret Service and White House staff to stay at his resorts when he's golfing.
Re:OMG It's an emergency! (Score:4, Insightful)
Viruses don't care about your political ideology. The Universe doesn't like you or hate you, you're just simply irrelevant.
Or, to put it another way, fuck off.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if everything you say here is 100% correct, it doesn't negate the fact that declaring this emergency was the right thing to do, and that he had experts there to share their advice to the public.
I don't like Trump and I didn't vote for him, but don't let your TDS get in the way of facts please.
Re: Do you trust him? (Score:2)
you can charge the various arms of the Government like the Secret Service and other aids for staying at those places
Are you sure he's not stealing aluminum cans from the White House recycling bin?? You're a small-minded peabrain if you think that's his angle.