US Politics: coughing for peace is like dying for the economy

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/donald-trump-coronavirus-memos-warning-peter-navarro

Does it even matter at this point?

Now?

For it to matter, people - who are running for reelection at this point - would have to stand up and say something like "Ooops. The madman is in fact mad. Sorry for not noticing four years, three years, two years ... etc ago". 

So no. 

[sologdin]

dunno.  seems like it would be useful in confronting blithe trump voters who say things like but what could've the president done he couldn't've not done nothing better than he did obama left him a mess hillary started coronavirus in her chinese child sex trafficking ring.

[Kalbear]

It isn't about convincing other voters to change. It's about making sure people stay engaged and vote to get him out because if they don't, things will be That Bad. 

[Rorshach]

1 minute ago, sologdin said:

dunno.  seems like it would be useful in confronting blithe trump voters who say things like but what could've the president done he couldn't've not done nothing better than he did obama left him a mess hillary started coronavirus in her chinese child sex trafficking ring.

Sure, but if people confront you like that, you could also learn from the President and start bullsh*tting like no-one has bullsh*tted before. 

Start by accusing Trump for having slain his wives in a Satanic ritual so he could eat their babies and make Ivanka love him. 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

(CNN)President Donald Trump has removed the acting inspector general for the Defense Department, Glenn Fine, from his post -- a decision that means Fine will no longer chair the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee tasked with overseeing $2 trillion in emergency coronavirus funding.

Late last month, a group of independent federal watchdogs tapped Fine, a career official, to lead the group tasked with preventing "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the use of coronavirus relief money.
It's the most recent effort by Trump to undermine federal oversight.

 

Trump removes independent watchdog tasked with overseeing coronavirus emergency funds

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/trump-sidelines-pentagon-watchdog-coronavirus-funds/index.html

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Trump removes independent watchdog tasked with overseeing coronavirus emergency funds

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/trump-sidelines-pentagon-watchdog-coronavirus-funds/index.html

Someone wants a $2 trillion re-election slush fund.

[Paladin of Ice]

The acting Navy Secretary who criticized Captain Crozier has resigned.

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

The acting Navy Secretary who criticized Captain Crozier has resigned.

I admit, I did not expect that.

Huge bloody idiot.

[Zorral]

Does this belong in politics or does it belong in covid-19?

https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2020/04/citing-medical-tyranny-and-parents-rights-colorado-republicans-vote-against-any-vaccination-requirements-despite-virus/22481/

The rethugs are deep in death cult.  But we knew that.

 

[Guest]

Dr. Sanjay Gupta saying on CNN that the few studies that have been done wrt hydroxychloroquine all excluded several high-risk categories, including people with heart disease, high blood pressure, etc., because of fears of negative side effects with these high-risk patients.

Has anyone heard anything about this?

[Mudguard]

7 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/donald-trump-coronavirus-memos-warning-peter-navarro

Does it even matter at this point?

To be fair, Navarro is a trade advisor, and not an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert, so it wouldn't be unexpected for people to discount his predictions regarding the seriousness of COVID-19, much like how people are now discounting his opinion on hydroxychloroquine.  According to the reporting on his memo, he was pretty spot on with many of his predictions and analysis.

What I would like to know is what were Fauci's and Redfield's position in January and early February.  I don't recall.  I know Adams has more or less parroted Trump's position throughout, but I don't remember if Fauci and/or Redfield were publicly sounding the alarm early.  I don't remember them doing so though.

[Fragile Bird]

6 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

To be fair, Navarro is a trade advisor, and not an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert, so it wouldn't be unexpected for people to discount his predictions regarding the seriousness of COVID-19, much like how people are now discounting his opinion on hydroxychloroquine.  According to the reporting on his memo, he was pretty spot on with many of his predictions and analysis.

What I would like to know is what were Fauci's and Redfield's position in January and early February.  I don't recall.  I know Adams has more or less parroted Trump's position throughout, but I don't remember if Fauci and/or Redfield were publicly sounding the alarm early.  I don't remember them doing so though.

Peter Navarro said, basically, on CNN, Fuck you, I am a Ph.D, I know how to read statistics, the test results on hydroxychloroquine are so clear a plumber could read them.

This was in response to a question about his disagreements with Dr. Fauci on the topic.

So I guess he could read numbers coming out of China, Trump just ignored him.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

To be fair, Navarro is a trade advisor, and not an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert, so it wouldn't be unexpected for people to discount his predictions regarding the seriousness of COVID-19, much like how people are now discounting his opinion on hydroxychloroquine.  According to the reporting on his memo, he was pretty spot on with many of his predictions and analysis.

What I would like to know is what were Fauci's and Redfield's position in January and early February.  I don't recall.  I know Adams has more or less parroted Trump's position throughout, but I don't remember if Fauci and/or Redfield were publicly sounding the alarm early.  I don't remember them doing so though.

Iirc, Dr. Fauci pushed for closing travel to China early, or perhaps was at least in agreement with Trump with doing so. Not sure about Redfield.

[ThinkerX]

I am starting to wonder a bit about Trumps hostile attitude towards even casual criticism of the various medical supply shortages.  It's almost like he has a direct hand in some sort of illicit profiteering scheme and is attempting to squelch inquiries that might reveal it.  So, suppose he is up to such a scheme, and persistent journalists unearth it over the next month or two.  Potentially as big as a mess as the Ukraine thing? Congressional investigation or a repeat of the Mueller probe?

[Jaxom 1974]

A late update...not sure where things ended up as the polls closed an hour ago, but in the ward I was working, after 7 hours, we only had 24 voters...so power to the mail in ballot.  I don't think the other ward had more than 40 after seven hours...

 

Do the mail in ballots, damn it!

[Mudguard]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Iirc, Dr. Fauci pushed for closing travel to China early, or perhaps was at least in agreement with Trump with doing so. Not sure about Redfield.

Apparently, Navarro was the one who initially pushed closing travel to China.  According to the New York Times:

Quote

With the subject line “Impose Travel Ban on China?” Mr. Navarro opened the memo by writing, “If the probability of a pandemic is greater than roughly 1%, a game-theoretic analysis of the coronavirus indicates the clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China.”

Mr. Navarro concluded at one point: “Regardless of whether the coronavirus proves to be a pandemic-level outbreak, there are certain costs associated with engaging in policies to contain and mitigate the spread of the disease. The most readily available option to contain the spread of the outbreak is to issue a travel ban to and from the source of the outbreak, namely, mainland China.”

He suggested that under an “aggressive” containment scenario, a travel ban may need to last as long as 12 months for proper containment, a duration of time that at that point some White House aides saw as unsustainable.

The travel limits subsequently imposed by Mr. Trump did not entirely ban travel from China, and many travelers from the country continued to stream into the United States.

Mr. Navarro was at odds with medical experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who had argued that such travel bans only delay the eventual spread.

Mr. Navarro alluded to that debate on Saturday during a separate argument with Dr. Fauci in the Situation Room about whether the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating or preventing the virus, according to two people familiar with the events.

If this reporting is accurate, then Navarro was the driver for closing travel with China, and Fauci appeared to be against it, at least initially.  Fauci wasn't wrong though that the ban only delayed the eventual spread, but that delay may have been helpful in buying us some extra time to prepare (or maybe not, but we'll never know).

I'm not going to lie, I didn't read this piece until after his blowup with Fauci regarding hydroxycloroquine happened, and my initial view was that he was a moron.  But his memos on coronavirus really predicted things to an uncanny degree, like this:

Quote

Among other things, the memo called for an increase funding for the government to purchase personal protective equipment for health care workers, estimating they would need “at least a billion face masks” over a four-to-six-month period.

This was in a memo dated Feb. 23rd, when the US had only 35 confirmed cases.  I have to give the guy credit.  I've been wondering how the US could have wasted so much lead time, and the missing piece is what were Fauci and Redfield saying in January and February.  I remember my initial reaction when I first learned about the testing debacle is that Fauci and Redfield really screwed up, because who else was in charge of our testing?  If they both were saying the same things Navarro was, I would think that we would be much better prepared, unless Trump decided to completely ignore all recommendations from his experts.  If that was the case though, I would have thought by now that we would have heard about it though leaks.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

Apparently, Navarro was the one who initially pushed closing travel to China.  According to the New York Times:

If this reporting is accurate, then Navarro was the driver for closing travel with China, and Fauci appeared to be against it, at least initially.  Fauci wasn't wrong though that the ban only delayed the eventual spread, but that delay may have been helpful in buying us some extra time to prepare (or maybe not, but we'll never know).

I'm not going to lie, I didn't read this piece until after his blowup with Fauci regarding hydroxycloroquine happened, and my initial view was that he was a moron.  But his memos on coronavirus really predicted things to an uncanny degree, like this:

This was in a memo dated Feb. 23rd, when the US had only 35 confirmed cases.  I have to give the guy credit.  I've been wondering how the US could have wasted so much lead time, and the missing piece is what were Fauci and Redfield saying in January and February.  I remember my initial reaction when I first learned about the testing debacle is that Fauci and Redfield really screwed up, because who else was in charge of our testing?  If they both were saying the same things Navarro was, I would think that we would be much better prepared, unless Trump decided to completely ignore all recommendations from his experts.  If that was the case though, I would have thought by now that we would have heard about it though leaks.

I'd be hesitant to assume that Navarro is particularly brighter or quicker on the uptake with this than anyone else. In fact, his memo seems to track fairly closely with intelligence reports out of China about the situation on the ground, which we know the administration was being briefed on as far back as January.

My speculation is that Navarro saw an opportunity to push policy that happened to nicely dovetail with his preferred policy solution, and then when he got what he wanted, he fucked off about the rest of it until things actually blew up on the ground. Also, Fauci has been the face of the administration on this for a while now, which involves different outward-facing responsibilities that Navarro wouldn't need to worry about for an internal memo.

I'll eat the appropriate amount of crow if I end up being incorrect, but I don't think I am.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Peter Navarro said, basically, on CNN, Fuck you, I am a Ph.D, I know how to read statistics, the test results on hydroxychloroquine are so clear a plumber could read them.

LOL, he got his PhD in 1986.  My dad's a fairly prominent physiologist in his field, but when he starts talking to me about statistical methods it's clear he's at, like, a first year grad student's level.  In social science.  Navarro's use of statistics is entirely (staff-) dependent upon his own agenda, which is isolationism and, like everyone that's still with Trump at this point, personal profit.

24 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

If that was the case though, I would have thought by now that we would have heard about it though leaks.

Really, why?  If they want to keep their jobs - which they likely (and rightly) view as a civic duty for, well, the entire human race - why would they leak any early warnings they may have made?  That just makes the orange cushion puff up like a blowfish, then we get incompetent loyalists in their stead.

[Mudguard]

11 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'd be hesitant to assume that Navarro is particularly brighter or quicker on the uptake with this than anyone else. In fact, his memo seems to track fairly closely with intelligence reports out of China about the situation on the ground, which we know the administration was being briefed on as far back as January.

My speculation is that Navarro saw an opportunity to push policy that happened to nicely dovetail with his preferred policy solution, and then when he got what he wanted, he fucked off about the rest of it until things actually blew up on the ground. Also, Fauci has been the face of the administration on this for a while now, which involves different outward-facing responsibilities that Navarro wouldn't need to worry about for an internal memo.

I'll eat the appropriate amount of crow if I end up being incorrect, but I don't think I am.

His second memo on Feb 23rd came after the travel ban on China was already in place, and it focused on things the US needed to be doing, like securing a billion masks, and urging the White House to ask Congress for a whole lot more money to prepare for the outbreak.  I think he genuinely thought and still thinks that SARS-Cov-2 was a huge threat, and wants to help drive the response strategy, despite his academic and professional qualifications not really matching up.

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Really, why?  If they want to keep their jobs - which they likely (and rightly) view as a civic duty for, well, the entire human race - why would they leak any early warnings they may have made?  That just makes the orange cushion puff up like a blowfish, then we get incompetent loyalists in their stead.

There have been plenty of leaks of unfavorable information in Trump's administration.  And it's clear that Fauci has no problem contradicting Trump in public on a regular basis.  So where was he in January and February?  And what was he saying publicly then?  I don't recall him sounding the alarm then like he is doing now.

[DMC]

22 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

There have been plenty of leaks of unfavorable information in Trump's administration. 

Sure.  This is largely dependent upon either people raising fire alarms or people that know they're on the way out.  There's no impetus for that with Fauci, is my point.  Just because we don't know he "wasn't there" in January and February doesn't mean he wasn't.  Again, I suspect the reason we haven't heard anything about that is because Fauci values the role he can play administering policy over being a Captain Hindsight hero for the left.