FEMA guidelines stipulate that states are to be the first line of defense in emergencies and are expected to respond accordingly:
Local governments are the first line of defense against emergencies and disasters and are primarily responsible for managing the response to and recovery from those events. At the local government level, the primary responsibility for protecting citizens belongs to local elected officials such as mayors, city councils, and boards of commissioners. When a local government receives warning that an emergency could be imminent, its first priority is to alert and warn citizens and take whatever actions are needed to minimize damage and protect life and property. If necessary, it may order an evacuation.
When an emergency or disaster does occur, fire and police units, emergency medical personnel, and rescue workers rush to damaged areas to provide aid. After this initial response, the local government must work to ensure public order and security. Vital services such as water, power, communications, transportation, shelter, and medical care must be provided, and debris removal must begin. Public and private utility company crews, along with other emergency teams, must be on the job to restore essential services. The local government coordinates its efforts with voluntary agencies who assist individuals and families in need.
Of course, the Federal government must act in concert when appropriate.
New York City- the current epicenter of COVID 19- proved itself far short of the goal in action and all too successful in the finger pointing exercise- a hapless Governor and a feckless Mayor.
A 2015 Task Force found that New York would be woefully unprepared in terms of ventilators should a Spanish flu type of pandemic strike. Cuomo did not choose to purchase more respirators and instead accepted a triage plan.
That task force came up with rules that will be imposed when ventilators run short. Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst) depending on a “triage officer’s” decision. In truth, a death officer. Let’s not sugarcoat it. It won’t be up to your own doctor.
Cuomo’s defense was “no else did either.”
“There’s no state in the United States that bought ventilators for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The federal government did not buy ventilators for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Nobody in the world bought ventilators in preparation for a 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.”
That’s true, but then blaming Trump is also wrong. Prior to the current crisis a Johns Hopkins study reported that New York did not have the average per capita number of ventilators available. Cuomo is demanding 30,000 ventilators and as of March 21 New York had 7,000 on hand.
This week the Trump administration shipped out 4000 more ventilators to New York. Other steps have been taken, including using one ventilator for two patients.
Right this very moment Cuomo is explaining why he believes he needs 30,000 ventilators and it is dependent on the worst case scenario. Dr. Deborah Brix, on the White House Corona Virus task force, says that number may not be necessary and is not necessary at the moment. The Huffington Post writes
Birx also said there were “over 1,000 to 2,000” available ventilators in the city, though she did not provide details on how and when hospitals were getting access to them.
As of yesterday, after dismissing Trump’s assertion that New York had many more ventilators than is currently needed, Cuomo had 12,000 ventilators on hand.
Watch Cuomo lie through his teeth here
Both Trump and Cuomo are realistically trying to the best they can, Cuomo could do with less posturing, less accusation and less lying. Trump and Cuomo have a relationship based on conflict with both ups and downs. At the moment Trump is moving heaven and earth for New York.
On the other hand, there is Mayor Feckless DeBlasio. I cannot understand how a quasi-intelligent person could vote for this moron. New York has absolutely failed its citizens miserably.
The clown Mayor of NY on March 2:
Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see “The Traitor” @FilmLinc. If “The Wire” was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film.
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) March 3, 2020
The NYC Health Commissioner on Feb. 2:
“The risk to New Yorkers from coronavirus is low and … our preparedness as a city is very high,” Barbot said at a Feb. 2 press conference supporting the Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival. “There is no reason not to take the subway, not to take a bus, not to go out to your favorite restaurant and certainly not to miss the parade next Sunday [Feb. 9].”
This is the NYC Health Commissioner on Feb. 7
NYC “Health Commissioner” Oxiris Barbot on Feb. 7th: “We’re telling New Yorkers, go about your lives, take the subway, go out, enjoy life” pic.twitter.com/28mhwdBCK4
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 27, 2020
Then within four days DeBlasio began screaming about Trump ignoring New York and he finally ordered some COVID supplies on March 6.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has blamed President Trump for the city’s severe shortage of COVID-19 supplies even though City Hall didn’t secure its first order for emergency protective gear until March 6, The Post has learned.
Officials with the city’s Office of Emergency Management tried to purchase nearly 200,000 n95 masks on Feb. 7, but weeks later they learned the vendors had already run out.
It was not until March 6 and March 10 — over two months after the coronavirus outbreak first hit China — that they finally secured the first emergency procurements of masks and hand sanitizer, according to the city comptroller’s office.
Feb. 10
De Blasio on Feb 10th: “We want to encourage” NYers going out. "If you’re under 50 & you’re healthy, which is most NYers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu. And transmission is not that easy." pic.twitter.com/CeGMKbnFtz
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 27, 2020
Lest you still doubt what an idiot DeBlasio is- this from March 17:
De Blasio, a failed 2020 presidential candidate, announced that the city would be shutting down restaurants, bars, and gyms on Monday and urged people not to go to those public spaces to combat potential exposure, but that did not stop him from going to the YMCA that morning for one last workout. A number of people expressed their frustration with the mayor, seeing his actions as an implicit double standard.
And this from Ben Domenech on Twitter
New York City continues to allow the COVID infection to spread. If you examine the lines of infection in the greater New York City region it becomes clear that it is spreading along commuter lines into Connecticut and into Eastern Long Island and is exploding in the city.
It’s all about mass transit.
Neither Cuomo nor DeBlasio has even broached the possibility of doing something with mass transit and that is why the Chinese Wuhan virus continues to rage in the NYC area. There are steps that must be taken to control the virus spread. Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of quarantining the tri-state area and Cuomo went ballistic.
Cuomo, in an interview with CNN, said that preventing people from moving in and out of the tri-state would amount to a federally imposed lockdown, which he believes is illegal.
“A lockdown is what they did in Wuhan, China,” Cuomo said. “We’re not in China, and we’re not in Wuhan. I don’t believe it would be legal. I believe it would be illegal.“
Great, but instead of staying home as recommended, New Yorkers are fleeing the city and smearing infection everywhere they go- Connecticut, Rhode Island and Florida. And that’s not all- they’re having Corona parties:
While most New Yorkers are hunkering in place, others are popping corks and staging parties that defy occupancy and social-distancing edicts.
Lucian Wintrich, a former White House reporter and advertisement hand, is one of them. The 31-year-old contrarian recently hosted a “corona potluck” at his small but chic East Village apartment.
“They can’t diagnose us all,” reads the invite Wintrich sent to a select group for the March 14 gathering. “Don’t wash your hands. … Bring your fav dish!” The tongue-in-cheek advert also included an image of a boy covered in chicken pox and a fork digging into a coronavirus spore.
“The majority of folks I invited, if they got it, would recover fairly quickly and build up an immunity to the present form of COVID19,” he said unapologetically. “It was relatively inspired by the chickenpox parties that were all the rage in the 90s.”
The problem is nothing Cuomo or DeBlasio is doing now is working. They are being entirely reactive and not proactive.
This is what I would do
1. Make everyone wear a mask. There are easily enough once a union admitted it was hoarding 39 million N95 masks coincidentally after AG Bill Barr said he would prosecute hoarders. If it can’t be N95 masks then any mask will do. Anyone not wearing one should be detained and quarantined. Put police in masks and face shields and allow them to hand the masks out.
2. Expand mass transit services – buses, trains and subways- such that social distancing can be observed. Disinfect them repeatedly. Hand out disinfectant wipes on each one.
Shutting down mass transit is the real answer but it could mortally wound the city. Cuomo might want to stop whining and stop ignoring the fact that New Yorkers are ignoring him.
Unless he simply wants to allow the disease to run its course.
And don’t tell me Trump’s the problem.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Don’t be too hard on Nathan. He has some courageous thoughts swirling around inside of his head, something that I rarely see in his usual friends here. Nathan does have a tendency at times to seek the warm comfort of his friends’ familiar dogma, and I can forgive him those occasional indiscretions because this is a difficult time for all of us.
Of COURSE Biden isn’t a “better” candidate than Trump. Only an idiot would suggest that. The suggestion was that Biden might win IN SPITE of Trump being a better candidate. That would be because there are as many voters as there are who are by now thoroughly disgusted with Trump. I know I am. Never mind that Trump’s doing a good job with COVID-19. Never mind that Biden is borderline senile and borderline narcoleptic. A whole lot of people are ready for anything other than Orange-Daddy.
@George Wells: An election is mandated per the Constitution.
@Deplorable Me: Happy April, you can easily confuse the Leftists with big words. they are still trying to figure out why the flu numbers are counting men and women and the other 57 genders seem to be immune.
@kitt: No doubt that stat will make many a dumbass reidentify as immune. By the way, forget Cuomo polishing his star as a candidate; Pence will be a definite force to be reckoned with in 2024. He’s doing a GREAT job.
@Deplorable Me: Up hill climb only 9 vice presidents ever were elected. He is doing a great job with this crisis, Trump taking all the heat from the media. Seems a difficult concept to our media to understand that NY isnt all of America and all resources will not be shoveled to only them.
We do need to begin to plan an exit strategy for the country.
@kitt: It’s funny that all those who totally blame Trump for not being “ready” can’t point to a single city, state or country that was any more ready than we were. Like the question about where all Schiff’s collusion evidence went, no one wants to address it. The one thing liberals excel at is turning a blind eye to their own stupidity.
@Deplorable Me:
Care to explain why all the conservatives aren’t screaming bloody murder over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ refusal to put Floridians under the same sort of stay-at-home lockdown order being used by other hot-spot states? Are blind eyes being turned because DeSantis is Republican?
The Fauci-Birx-Trump projection of 100000 to 240000 deaths is a BEST-CASE estimate that does not consider free-assembly states like Florida.
Care to guess when the “top of the mountain” will be reached with states like Florida tipping the scale?
Since “best-case” keeps slipping further and further out of reach, care to guess what the final… REALLY final number dead will be?
This is so beyond politics, and yet the best you can offer is:
Jesus wept.
@Nathan Blue:
Good for you. And don’t worry, King George has “forgiven” you.
I know it must make you feel so much better about yourself knowing you have King George’s absolution for those “courageous” thoughts “swirling” around inside your head.
You see, King George doesn’t have much use for anyone who is not walking lock step with his opinions. He definitely doesn’t have much use for Catholics, or anyone who subscribes to Scriptures, not much use for conservatives or anyone who might not agree with him on social or political issues. On occasion, he slips and reveals his disdain for most people who he views as far beneath him intellectually (i.e. the “swirling” comment).
I’m sure King George’s dispensation makes your day.
@George Wells: Seriously the President has national guidelines the population in Florida is older and have the capacity to understand. Why do you hate freedom, why do you want the boot of the government on the face of your fellow citizens so badly?
Gods big into freedom of will.
Shouldnt you be driving around to see if you can report any non essential businesses are open?
@kitt:
Florida can do whatever it wishes. I have no objection to suicide, assisted suicide, or mass suicide, the latter being the “effect” following DeSantis’s “cause.” I only asked Deplorable Me what HE thought the effect Florida’s intransigence would be on the Fauci-Birx-Trump death estimate.
All too often my questions about the consequences of certain political decisions and actions are mistaken for my having one specific agenda or another, but that is not the case nor my purpose. I often pose questions as an exercise in the Socratic Method, hoping that IF I can stimulate actual thought, either I or the person I address will learn something. Sadly, that is usually not the outcome.
@George Wells: It is quite simple dont go there. Last photo I saw of the governor of Florida was in front of a large SAFER AT HOME sign. Its weird some the free love and LSD generation now want to crush any glimmer of freedom they see.
Its all about self responsibility. If you like the chicoms want doors welded shut immigrate.
@George Wells:
Biden isn’t my preferred candidate but id’ argue that he’s a better candidate than Trump on multiple fronts. I suppose we need to clarify what a “better candidate” is.
Being politically old school and not buying into the idea that Washington newcomers and “non-politicians” who come in and start pulling the legs out from under the mountain of stacked tables will magically sort out to our advantage, I see a senator of 30 some years and a Vice-President of 8 years to be the better candidate.
Considering Trump is about as partisan and even shows a daily disdain for the opposition party (even refused to invite a single Democrat to the CODIV19 stimulus signing) along with negative treatment of U.S states and territories deemed “liberal” or controlled by Democrats, I’d say Biden is your better candidate.
From a moral perspective, considering Trump is an outright con man, an uncontrollable liar, has a lifelong history of racism, swindling and cheating people, even brags about it, surrounds himself with pedophiles such as Epstein, Casablancas, Arlf, Nader, Cohn, campaigned for pedophile Roy Moore for U.S. Senate, is even an admitted groper himself, appointed a pro-rape judge(Neomi Rao) for a lifetime seat, has over 24 women accusing him of sexual misconduct acts, generally defends male rapist while blaming victims, loves to coddle with and protect brutal murderous dictators (I’m just glad Obama took bin Laden out before Trump had a chance to buddy up with him), suggest there are good Nazis, and of course, promoting violence of his opposition, he certainly fails the test as the better candidate.
Even in light of Biden being an open-mouth-insert-foot guy, that might even be a toss up when it comes to Trump’s rambling and often inability to keep a thought process through a sentence.
Even from an electability perspective, as you say, people are sick of “Orange Daddy”.
Joe’s not my choice and for what it’s worth, I didn’t vote for either Hillary or Trump in 2016 because they both disqualified themselves of any possibility of my vote.
Well, maybe I’m seeing something you aren’t. Here’s what I’ve been seeing:
Jan 23 Trump told CNBC: “We have it totally under control,”It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
Jan 24, Trump posts his first tweet about the coronavirus. He praises the Chinese government for its “transparency” handling the outbreak and says, “it will all work out well.”
Jan 25, WHO confirms 1000 cases worldwide.
Jan 26, Chinese gov announces for the 1st time that it’s viral by people showing no symptoms.
Jan 29 Trump Tweets “the experts are on top of it”.
Jan 31, the top CDC official said: “we are facing an unprecedented health threat”
Feb 1 The WHO says there are more than 10,000 confirmed cases worldwide.
Feb 6 The WHO confirms 25000 cases.
Feb 7 Trump Tweets the end of the virus is near, “especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.” – something
scientists and public health experts quickly rejected.
Feb 10 Trump says: “looks like, by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
Fen 13 CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield contradicts Trump’s predictions in an interview with CNN, saying the coronavirus “is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year.”
Feb 15 WHO confirms 50,000 cases.
Feb 19 SWHO confirms 75,000 cases
Feb 24 Trump tweets, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
Feb 25 CDC official, says it is inevitable that the coronavirus will spread in the US and that Americans need to prepare for disruptions to their daily lives.
Feb 25 Trump tells reporters that the virus is “a problem that’s going to go away.”
Feb 26 Trump disagrees with the CDC and tells reporters: “I don’t think it’s inevitable. I think that there’s a chance that it could get worse, a chance it could get fairly substantially worse, but nothing’s inevitable.”
Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” — Trump at a press conference. “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” “So we’re at the low level. As they get better, we take them off the list, so that we’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.” — Trump at a White House briefing.
Feb 27 WHO confirms 82,000 cases.
Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in SC, Trump likened the Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to the outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying “this is their new hoax.”
Feb. 29: “And I’ve gotten to know these professionals. They’re incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control.” — Trump in a speech at the CPAC conference outside Washington, D.C.
March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”
March 4: “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better.”
March 4: “Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” — Trump in an interview on Fox News, referring to the percentage of diagnosed COVID-19 patients worldwide who had died, as reported by the World Health Organization.
March 5: “I never said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
March 6: “I don’t need to have the numbers double b/c of 1 ship that wasn’t our fault.”
March 7: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it.”
March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful. They are perfect just like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”
March 9: “The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation.”
March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
March 10: “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
March 13: National Emergency Declaration.
March 17 “This is a pandemic, I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
@Ronald J. Ward:
This, Mr. Ward, would have been your strongest argument in favor of Biden, were it not for Orange-Daddy having put four years of even MORE relevant job experience under his formidable belt.
I’ll get back to O-D’s litany of character flaws in a minute.
Still speaking to the experience issue, I will respectfully argue that your long list of O-D’s misstatements (errors in hindsight) from then to now were not as egregious as you might hope. Not that fewer would have died – quite possibly, but who knew? COVID-19 is not something ANYONE was prepared for, or had any reasonable hope of anticipating, or would have known how bad… etc., etc.. Neither can you make an argument that ANY Democratic administration would have done a better job or would have started with a clearer appreciation of what was to come. These are unknowns, and would have been so either way.
What matters might be which political party has a record of doing better in times of extreme trial, or which party would have sufficient focus to marshal our energies to fight the virus AND manage the economy’s recovery. Yes, Orange-Daddy started off not standing firmly on his own two feet but crawling about pathetically on his little hands, but I can’t argue that Hillary would have had a better crystal ball guiding her any differently. To his credit, Trump put together a team of experts clearly better informed than he is, and while he hasn’t followed their every advice, he’s doing essentially what needs to be done. I can certainly say that his deference to big business and the rich will help the economy recover more quickly than would have been the case with any Democratic administration that I can envision – look at the mess Obama managed to… mismanage… after the 2008 credit debacle. And as heartless as it might sound, in War, the numbers of lives lost isn’t really the first concern of leadership. Maybe the loss of critical persons is, but this virus is thinning the herd rather differently than that. I am reluctant… VERY reluctant to second-guess anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves at the helm when the ship is floundering in particularly rough seas. O-D is no stable genius, but I can’t argue that anyone else would be doing a better job.
As for Trump’s moral character, WHAT moral character? He’s a scoundrel. But we’ve had delicate little leaders who had the very best of intentions, and they failed rather miserably in the course of their jobs. JFK was double-dipping females in close proximity, but that didn’t prevent him from standing down Khrushchev, a trick that not every President could have pulled off. Each president faces his own challenges, and each measures up or not in his own way. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass whether a president leads a moral life. If that matters to you, join the priesthood, or at least seek your moral leadership from the pillars of your individual faith. But don’t force it on the rest of us.
@Ronald J. Ward:
This list is a clear exoneration of any “charges” the media/Dem propaganda complex is trying to manufacture…kinda like the call with Ukraine.
All the list shows is snippets of how the crisis unfolded, and proves the President increased concern as concerns increased.
You know, if you want to manufacture a hoax situation that you can damn a President over, don’t offer evidence that gets him off the hook more than it does prove anything.
Once again, in the face of another loser-Dem hoax, Trump is…
…exonerated.
You should work for the Republicans. You’re good at proving they DIDN’T do what the Dems accused them of doing.
@Nathan Blue: Trump was, in fact, taking the spread of the virus very seriously. This is why Democrats and their propaganda ministry were downplaying the threat; to make it look like Trump was overreacting. Imagine how they would have screamed if Trump had enacted quarantines in February!
@Deplorable Me: It’s exactly like the Ukraine call…if they just repeat that “THIS IS PROOOOOOFFFFF!!!” over and over again, when it’s clearly not, than the public will all just line up like Lemmings…like they did for Obama in 2008.
That trick is dead.
@George Wells:
I don’t judge a president by his/her morals anymore than I would a surgeon performing an open heart operation but generally speaking, it can often play a factor to the “better candidate” or perhaps, an electable candidate. Teflon Don seems to be more immune to it than any I’ve seen in history and ironically, it seems to works in his favor.
How another president would have handled the virus is unknown. I’d say any other president would’ve been dealt with harshly had they weakened the safety medical infrastructure as did Trump. I seriously doubt that the day to day lying would have flown either but again, that’s Trump.
I’m not so sure folks see this successful handling you say as his approval had only a slight and short lived bump while others have had huge spikes in times of crises. Now if anyone else was at the helm and screw it up, they would have nose dived in popularity but that can’t happen to Trump because he has around the 40% that would never ever turn on him for any reason. These are the folks he was referring to as not losing if he shot someone. And that theory has actually been repeatedly tested and proven.
As for Obama, I’m not seeing this 2009 failure you speak of. Oh, I was no fan of “trash for cash” and didn’t like bailing out Wall Street and the banks but it ultimately brought the economy back to its feet which I strongly believe wouldn’t have happened had it been left to their own devices. And it was these actions that has place Obama as ranking at 12 to 13 best president on many prominent historians list.
And in all reality, Trump has been riding on the coat tails of Obama’s success. In fact, Trump wasn’t even keeping up with job growth in any of his 1st 3 years vrs any of Obama’s previous years. Trump’s tax scam never produce the jobs he promised but it did spike the deficit tremendously. Manufacturing jobs have been on the decline under Trump and cracks in the economy were appearing prior to the virus.
But I suppose in an argument of the race to the WH, all that’s preaching to the choir. Trump has a roughly 40% cult who think the J in Donald J. Trump stands for Jesus and would stand with him if he raped their mom, shot their dog, and burned their house in broad daylight and on live TV with a promise to do it again. And then there’s a certain % who can’t name the 3 branches of government, think Judge Judy is a Supreme Ct Justice but were sold on Trump’s virus handling because he brought the My Pillow guy to a presser to bible thump.
Trump is a profession con man and he has Fox News and a strong machine helping him sell it. And if that isn’t enough, there’s Russia, Russia, Russia to help him out.
Maybe this is where you were going with Biden not being the better candidate?
@Nathan Blue: Lemmings are philosophers compared to the likes of AJ.
@George Wells:
Oh, I understand what you’re saying now. Fair enough, but I don’t think they are in the majority.
The electorate is equal parts Left/Right loyalists, with a huge bit of independents that decide the elections.
One of the tactics of the Left is to paint the picture “most” people are Left, which isn’t true. That’s my main gripe, and at the heart of most of my posts.
My contention is that those people were disgusted before the 2016 election, and popularity for Trump has actually gone up. I only hear people talking about how pissed they are that the media is attaching him over the hoax of coronavirus response.@George Wells:
I only get a response from Left-leaning people about how “Trump is hated” whenever a new, and somewhat suspect, poll comes out that supports their bias. I never hear about the polls that don’t support their desired outcome.
All I’m saying, and this isn’t at you George, but I’m saying there’s a 4 decade old use of a propaganda tactic that promotes “everyone is Democrat, except the very few who aren’t are dumb white racist rednecks that are the cause of all our problems, and should be marginalized, silenced, and even…neutralized…at all costs.”
It’s not true, and it’s quite evil to suggest.
Thanks man! Right back at you. Forgiven for your tendency to parrot moonbat ideologies, too…lol
And a warning: Ron is not your friend. He has an agenda, and that is to silence conservatives. Careful if you say too many objective things and he labels you as “one of them” like us!
@retire05:
I do!!
Go easy on George, as well. He’s a real guy, and is more objective than most. We disagree, but he’s not here to score points with his own fragile ego/identity, like Ron/AJ.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Lest you forget, Bill Clinton got caught with his pants down, literally, and was impeached for it, but he suffered no lasting effect and went on to handsomely win reelection. Perhaps long ago morality was a differentiating factor, but not today.
I think that your “Teflon Don” comments are on target, but this one misses the mark:
Generally, when people are listed by a grading criterion, those people in more recent memory tend to score higher than people further back in the collective mind. Both Obama and George Bush – and their wives – score high because they are fresh in our memories. Similarly, “Jackie O” used to be the most admired first lady, but has been eclipsed by each successive president’s wife since.
It also fueled an overinflated stock market, but the virus has undone that. There really wasn’t any way for Trump to resuscitate American manufacturing, as every president since Nixon has opened wide our economy’s soft underbelly to Chinese infiltration. From Nixon’s “Most Favored Nation” designation onward, and certainly helped by Clinton’s NAFTA, our manufacturing advantage, our technological superiority and our balance of payments have been ruined.
ALL politicians are con men, or worse. When it comes right down to it, people like me who hate trump’s guts might vote for him all the same simply because they know at least approximately how bad Trump might be for the next four years, and that’s something they DON’T know about Biden.
@Nathan Blue:
Yeah, I kinda took George as a real guy. Interesting choice of labeling you have there.
I’ve been putting those scored “points” you say I’m after in a stack along with those Soros checks you guys (real or otherwise) say I’m getting. Those along with this $1200 socialist chicken in every pot check should set me up nicely.
@Nathan Blue:
I don’t know what tires me faster, parrots or spitters. The parrots never have an interesting new angle, much less an original thought, and the spitters cool their sun-stroked heads like camels do by spitting insults at anyone within range. As if we were all cut from one of two possible molds…
The funny… really laughable thing… is that the whole world is for all intents and purposes quite insane. Religions all start with at least moderately respectable intentions, and the ideas they commit to papyrus or paper or digital media are on the whole reasonable enough, never mind each having more that its own share of uniquely irrational magic-talk. But then they regress – as time passes, curiously enough – to the point that their respective adherents become either intolerant, hostile or violent. At this point, one can begin to dance around the fact that a similar deterioration in human behavior occurs in the political arena. Why? Is there really a difference between religion and politics? Or is the scale tipped in the direction of violence simply because the World is becoming increasingly crowded, and that blindly stresses everyone no matter the excuse?
Just wondering…
@Nathan Blue:
You don’t know King George. He has been here before, shoving his one item agenda down everyone’s throats, insulting those who hold religious beliefs that counter his one item agenda. So far, he’s been fairly mild, but that is subject to change at any time. I told you before, King George is a chameleon…….and an arrogant ass.
@George Wells:
As for how historians grade First Ladies, I couldn’t care less. It’s a funny thing how Michele Obama was so despised by the right while they claimed hatred of Barack due to his “policies”. I don’t recall Michele setting any policies or voting on any legislation. I suppose there was some evil however about her concern of obese and diabetic school kids shoveling down sugar on the tax payer’s dime.
Obama will be viewed favorably due to his resurrection of the crash and burn GWB era. Rhetoric aside, the economy was in free-fall when he walked in and and turned to 7 years of steady job growth.
And I agree manufacturing has been on the decline and out of Trump’s hands. Same thing for coal miner jobs.
Yeah, I know, they’re all crooks, Got it. It’s pretty weak tea to argue Biden “might” be worse. We know what Trump is. Biden, and again, not my choice, is no comparison.
@Ronald J. Ward:
See, R05? Mr. Ward has a reasonable streak. Have any of y’all noticed how CLEAN the air over Beijing and Mumbai has gotten since the burning of fossil fuels has dropped about 90% because of COVID-19? High-sulfur coal and oil may never recover. Wouldn’t that be nice. Maybe we could find something for coal miners to do that doesn’t paint their lungs black…
@retire05:
LOL. Somebody was scarred for life by Linda Lovelace’s “performance”.
@George Wells: Wow when was the last time you were in Bejing to check the air quality, they are in a black out no electricity? The coal fired plants that have no scrubbers? Yes the black lung, maybe doctors shouldnt go where they might get sick. Maybe truckers shouldnt drive where they could crash. Your logic at times the level of a 3 year old.
The mere fact that a mind conjured up the thought of Linda Lovelace with an old, OLD adage (shoving down everyone’s throat) shows just how sick King George is. Talk about singular thought process.
Here’s your sign!
Funny how the libs don’t want to discuss the pitful job DeBlasio is doing. I guess confessing his total lack of preparation would take the edge they think they have with their false accusations of Trump being unprepared.
@Deplorable Me:
How often has New York City had a really great mayor?
I can’t authoritatively answer that question, as NYC politics have never peaked above my personal interest horizon, but I DO recall that several of its Democratic mayors were the subjects of perennial humor. Koch comes to mind in that respect, as does Dinkins. I think Giuliani was what the city needed after 9-11 (again my perspective is unsophisticated and ill-informed) but since then he’s become a bit of a cartoon figure with a loose cannon for a mouth. I was relieved when Trump locked-him-up!
@retire05:
that George posses sufficient memory to connect the dots when you use YOUR old, OLD adage about shoving things down throats. That humor never WAS politically correct, so it CAN’T go out of style. YOU used it, so now wear your righteous indignation with pride, and I don’t mean with rainbow colors.
@Nathan Blue:
Did you like that comeback? I thought it was spot-on!
Good night all – I’m hitting the sack!
@Ronald J. Ward:
Because you’re not a real person. Get it?
Oh, I’m aware we are closer to the Communist vision you’d like to see made real in the United States. If the stimulus fails, it’s just more proof against your silly party and yourself, so don’t cheer for that, too soon. It’s in your ideology’s interest for this to work. Then you can take credit. Easy to be a nobody on the sidelines, instead of real person in the arena. Haters gonna hate.
Funny timing, this virus…isn’t it? I think we should call it the Democratvirus, because it serving you idiots so well..
@George Wells: I agree…post #123.
My opinion is we need to push for the anti-body test that Fauci said isn’t important now. It gives us better numbers of who had it, and also is good for a nurse or doctor to know they have antibodies and can go to work, safely, and help more people.
Read up on it. It’s just assumed that people are getting it and never getting sick, so we need to know how many and who. This is a huge thing, but easy to do. Brix said our university could help.
I’m not sure how I feel about the stimulus anymore. I think the gov was going to pay out the same amount of money anyway, so it might not matter.
@Nathan Blue:
Yes, it IS huge, but not so simple. The antibody test will certainly provide valuable information not yet available, but it isn’t an end in itself.
First, there is good reason to expect to find antibodies in recovered patients, but no certainty that people who were exposed but who developed zero symptoms would nonetheless develop antibodies. It could be that for COVID-19, antibodies are not produced unless symptoms prompt them to be produced. That’s happened before. And a person who didn’t show symptoms and DOESN’T have antibodies is for all intents and purposes a person who HASN’T been infected… yet.
The second problem is that while antibodies might be present, we have no reason to expect them to remain at battle-ready strength levels for the foreseeable future. How long can that recovered nurse expect her antibodies to protect her at work? These are questions that are faced every time a new infectious virus comes to town. Once the answers are discovered, we know what we can and can’t get away with, but COVID-19 is new in town.
As for “stimulus”, It’s another word for wealth redistribution. When wealth gets redistributed there are winners and losers. You can depend on Trump to lend a helping hand to corporations and billionaires, and you can depend on Pelosi to work up some freebees for the less fortunate. Without ruffling anyone’s feathers, I’d guess that Trump’s constituents will make out a bit better on the whole than Pelosi’s, since Trump holds bigger face-cards.
There is ALWAYS some economic stimulation caused by the wholesale printing of money – or by the injection of trillions of new dollars into the economy by whatever slight-of-hand the President and/or Congress and/or the FED chooses to utilize. Obama’s “stimulus” failed to deliver on many of his promises, but without it, many arguably “too-big-to-fail” corporations might well have gone under, and it would have taken longer for the country to have recovered from the “credit crisis”.
Note that does not address the effect that the resulting deficit had on our future financial health. The same can assuredly be said of the Trump/Pelosi stimulus – it will hasten economic recovery at a cost of adding trillions to our already burgeoning deficit. If you can say for sure that it is or isn’t worth the cost, you are a better man than I. The only thing I can say for sure is that Trump Inc. will land squarely on its feet, better off than it was before. Rank has its privileges.