March 31, 2020

Boston Globe: A president unfit for a pandemic

Much of the suffering and death coming was preventable. The president has blood on his hands.

The United States, long a beacon of scientific progress and medical innovation with its world-class research institutions and hospitals, is now the hub of a global pandemic that has infected at least 745,000 people and already claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide. Now that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States — more than 140,000 — has surpassed that of any other nation, Americans are consigned for the coming weeks to watching the illness fell family members and friends, and to fearing for their own fate as they watch death tolls rise.

While the spread of the novel coronavirus has been aggressive around the world, much of the profound impact it will have here in the United States was preventable. As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership.

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What we have instead is a president epically outmatched by a global pandemic. A president who in late January, when the first confirmed coronavirus case was announced in the United States, downplayed the risk and insisted all was under control. A president who, rather than aggressively test all those exposed to the virus, said he’d prefer not to bring ashore passengers on a contaminated cruise ship so as to keep national case numbers (artificially) low. A president who, consistent with his mistrust and undermining of scientific fact, has misled the public about unproven cures for COVID-19, and who baited-and-switched last week about whether the country ought to end social distancing to open up by Easter, and then, on Saturday, about whether he’d impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. A president who has pledged to oversee the doling out of the $500 billion in corporate bailout money in the latest stimulus package, some of which will go to the travel industry in which his family is invested. A president who spent a good chunk of a recent press conference complaining about how hard it is for a rich man to serve in the White House even as Americans had already begun to lose their jobs, their health care, and their lives. A president who has reinforced racial stigma by calling the contagion a “Chinese virus” and failed to collaborate adequately with other countries to contain their outbreaks and study the disease. A president who evades responsibility and refuses to acknowledge, let alone own, the bitter truth of National Institutes of Health scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony: that the country’s testing rollout was “a failing.”

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It’s not too much for Americans to ask of their leaders that they be competent and informed when responding to a crisis of historic proportions. Instead, they have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose mixed messages roil the markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.

Many pivotal decision points in this crisis are past us, but more are still to come. For our own sake, every American should be hoping for a miraculous turnaround — and that the too-little, too-late strategy of the White House task force will henceforth at least prevent contagion and economic ruin of the grandest scale. But come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the president’s watch.

more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/opinion/president-unfit-pandemic/?event=event25

March 24, 2020

As Fox News Played Down the Coronavirus, Its Chief Protected Himself

The cancellation of an 89th birthday party for Rupert Murdoch highlights a disconnect between his family’s behavior and statements made on air by some Fox commentators.

If you were watching some of the commentators on Fox News and Fox Business in the first 10 days of March, you wouldn’t have been too worried about the coronavirus — it would be no worse than the flu, and the real story was the “coronavirus impeachment scam.”

Many of the networks’ elderly, pro-Trump viewers responded to the coverage and the president’s public statements by taking the virus less seriously than, a week later, everyone else had. Public health experts have said that some of them may die as a result, as I reported this week.

But one elderly Fox News viewer, a crucial supporter of President Trump, took the threat seriously: The channel’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, who was to celebrate his 89th birthday on March 11.

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The celebration was to be held at Moraga Vineyards, the sprawling estate in Bel Air, Calif., where the elder Murdoch has been spending most of his time with his wife, the model and actress Jerry Hall. Mr. Murdoch bought the property for $28.8 million in 2013.

The person who told me about the canceled party did so to highlight the disconnect between the family’s prudent private conduct and the reckless words spoken on air at their media company.

The canceled party is perhaps the most glaring instance of the gap I wrote about this week between the elite, globally minded family owners of Fox — who took the crisis seriously as reports emerged in January in their native Australia — and many of their nominal stars, who treated the virus as a political assault on Mr. Trump, before zigzagging, along with the president, toward a focus on the enormity of the public health risk.

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Rupert Murdoch has claimed privately in recent days that he contacted the most powerful of the Fox News hosts, Sean Hannity, to urge him to take the crisis seriously, but Mr. Hannity denied to me that he had heard from Mr. Murdoch on the topic.

more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/business/media/fox-news-coronavirus-rupert-murdoch.html

March 23, 2020

Movie characters that are just like Donald Trump

We should post vids of movie characters that have similar behavioral characteristics as Donald Trump.

I'll start with mega-douche Ellis from 'Die Hard'

March 22, 2020

College students in Florida test positive for coronavirus after spring break trip

TAMPA, Fl. (WFLA) — Five University of Tampa students are recovering after testing positive for COVID-19 during spring break, the school said.

The university said the students were traveling together and with other UT students during spring break before testing positive. The school didn’t say where they went during their break or if they lived on or off campus.

The school did send its well wishes.

“We sincerely wish our students, and any others who may be affected, a full and rapid recovery,” UT posted on Twitter Saturday night.

The university switched to online classes only on March 17.

https://www.wkbn.com/news/coronavirus/college-students-in-florida-test-positive-for-coronavirus-after-spring-break-trip/

Go figure...

March 21, 2020

Woman buys out Dollar Tree of paper products - Cheers Trump.

So this woman not only buys out a local Dollar Tree of every single box of paper towels, napkins, and toilet paper so that no one else can buy any, but caps it off with this:

"Donald Trump! Go Donald Trump!"

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1241485175915048961

March 10, 2020

From Robert Reich:

When you, a Biden supporter, attack Bernie, you’re helping reelect Trump.

When you, a Bernie supporter, attack Biden, you’re helping reelect Trump.

It’s fine to point out differences, but please stop the attacks.

Remember who the real danger is.

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1236449326399762432