Bullshit is useful

[Seabass]

I think by the end of this he will have the blood of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands on his hands. We're about to blow by Italy and China within the next week or two.

Well, I was wrong. It happened the next day. Turns out, I was being unfair to Trump. This is even worse than I thought it was.

The U.S. now has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world

[pErvinalia]

It's going to get particularly ugly from now on. Particularly if Trump is determined to restart the economy in the next few weeks.

[Seabass]

We mustn't blame Trump, rEv. I blame the spring breakers.

[Sean Hayden]

Spring breakers represent an attitude, nothing more, an indicator of sorts.

[Sean Hayden]

And for the record, no one has said that Trump and Trump alone is solely to blame for this mess. I have stated numerous times that his idiot supporters also share some blame, as do his enablers and sycophants, as well as the entire Republican party and the Republican ideology, and also the whole right-wing media ecosystem.

--crazy

[Seabass]

And for the record, no one has said that Trump and Trump alone is solely to blame for this mess. I have stated numerous times that his idiot supporters also share some blame, as do his enablers and sycophants, as well as the entire Republican party and the Republican ideology, and also the whole right-wing media ecosystem.

--crazy

I agree. The American right is definitely crazy. I'd go so far as to say they're barking mad.

[Sean Hayden]

I'm just going to assume you know better but like 42 see this as a war. You're engaged in a war. That explains your willingness to go to these extremes.

[Seabass]

I'm just going to assume you know better but like 42 see this as a war. You're engaged in a war. That explains your willingness to go to these extremes.

The Republican party declared war on objective reality a long time ago.

[Hermit]

It it's all the GOPs fault then why are the states in the worst shape run by Democrats?

Who said it it's all the GOPs fault?

For the record NO ONE is blaming the President for the virus. Let me repeat. Coronavirus is not Trump’s fault. Here’s a detailed list of what we are blaming him for:

Trump declined to use the World Health Organization’s test like other nations. Back in January, over a month before the first Co-vid19 case, the Chinese posted a new mysterious virus and within a week, Berlin virologists had produced the first diagnostic test. By the end of February, the WHO had shipped out tests to 60 countries. Oh, but not our government. We declined the test even as a temporary bridge until the CDC could create its own test. The question is why? We don’t know but what to look for is which pharmaceutical company eventually manufactures the test and who owns the stock. Keep tuned.

In 2018 Trump fired Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossart, whose job was to coordinate a response to global pandemics. He was not replaced.

In 2018 Dr. Luciana Borio, the NSC director for medical and bio-defense preparedness left the job. Trump did not replace Dr. Borio.

In 2019 the NSC’s Senior Director for Global Health Security and bio-defense, Tim Ziemer, left the position and Trump did not replace the Rear Admiral.

Trump shut down the entire Global Health Security and Bio-defense agency. Yes, he did.

Amid the explosive worldwide outbreak of the virus Trump proposed a 19% cut to the budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention plus a 10% cut to Public Health Services and a 7% cut to Global Health Services. Those happen to be the organizations that responds to public health threats.

In 2018, at Trump’s direction, the CDC stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries including China.

Trump didn’t appoint a doctor to oversee the US response to the pandemic. He appointed Mike Pence.

Trump has on multiple occasions sowed doubt about the severity of the virus even using the word hoax at events and rallies. He even did it at an event where the virus was being spread. Trump has put out zero useful information concerning the health risks of the virus.

Trump pretended the virus had been contained.

Trump left a cruise ship at sea for days, denying them proper hospital care, rather than increase his numbers in America.

Repeat. We do not blame Trump for the virus. We blame him for gutting the nation’s preparations to deal with it. We blame him for bungling testing and allowing it to spread uninhibited. We blame him for wasting taxpayer money on applause lines at his rallies (like The Wall). We blame him for putting his own political life over American human life. I hope this clears things up. -Steve Murdock

[Sean Hayden]

That's a good breakdown of what look like questionable decisions. It will be better if we get answers. I'm curious to know why at least one expert with real experience also backed waiting to test.

I'll also point out again that all these decisions take on a particular meaning today that I don't think explains them or necessarily determines their value.

[Seabass]

That's a good breakdown of what look like questionable decisions.

Say what? Isn't it more or less what I've been saying?

[Sean Hayden]

I've noticed something lately about how many people talk about these things. They'll list decisions like this as though they alone act as evidence for the cause of some condition observed today. But it doesn't work like that.

It might be better to take just one decision and work with it to determine the extent to which it helps explain what's happening today. Otherwise you're really operating more with common sense than science.

[JimC]

That's a good breakdown of what look like questionable decisions.

Say what? Isn't it more or less what I've been saying?

I don't think Sean has been saying that Trump didn't make poor decisions. He is, I think, trying to outline the possibility that the anti-Trump fervour of many Americans, understandable as that may be, is colouring their view of the crisis as a simplistic exercise in blaming the villain-in-chief, rather than a more nuanced view of a range of factors (including Trump) which have lead to a less than optimal US response to the pandemic.

[laklak]

Well, to be honest, Spring breakers are a factor, it's starting to show up in Universities now. But so are New Yorkers, Trump, Cuomo, Biden, White supremacy, racism, capitalism, socialism, stimulus packages. It's a fucking clustershitfuckstorm of factors. But it ain't just Trumpy. It's Creepy Uncle Joe. It's that vicious old cunt Pelosi. It's that bobble headed pedo scout master Schiff. It's fucking McConnell and Schumer. It's all those swamp-dwelling blood suckers playing fucking politics with our lives. They're all of them, bar none, willing to hold the most vulnerable in our society hostage for momentary political advantage and winning a goddamn fucking election. A fucking election, so they and their tribe can root their pork-snuffling snouts in the public trough. How do I know this? Because for the last several days they've BOTH been fucking doing exactly that.

You can dress it up however you like - oh the Dems they're looking out for the unions, oh the Repubs they care about the small business owners - bullshit. They're making people sit there worried out of their minds about how they'll pay their rent or feed their kids while jockeying for position. There's not a fucking one better than the other, they all do exactly the same thing, it's just that everybody buys into a different flavor of Kool-Aid. No matter their reasons for doing it they're fucking wrong. Then ends do not justify the means.

[Cunt]

Add to that the ongoing chiron of 'ANYtime now...THEY are gonna get THEIRS!!'

That scam probably showed up before it was the '2nd coming of jesus' version. It'll probably still work after this crisis is a new normal.