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Category: Trumpland
Fact or fiction it’s of no matter to Trump and GOP it will be the center of their 2020 campaign because Covid -19 is bringing the US down and it can’t on any front be seen as Trump’s fault Sinophobia is their weapon of choice. (ODT)
The New Anti-China Campaign Is Built On Lies – The Greanville Post
Should — the gods and statistics forbid — Trump win reelection this November, we’ll have a real-life example of a system that is locally unstable, but globally horribly stable for the next four years. In his case, of course, we’re talking about how a “very stable genius” will be able to spin the chaos he creates into an ever more authoritarian regime.
Herein lies the sobering reassurance of such stories. They remind us that worlds, like people, die all the time, only to be replaced by new worlds. Cities fall and rise again, as do civilizations. Even dystopian places like Idi Amin’s Uganda or the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodian killing fields eventually burn out. The handmaid lives to tell her tale and Gilead, too, crumbles in the end.
Athens survived the plague, though its democracy was compromised by war and disease. America, too, will live on. But it will have lost some further measure of its greatness thanks in no small part to the man who, however cynically, wanted to make it great again.
CHINA GATE The GOP & Trump’s election strategy 2020 (ODT)
Hello ‘Chinagate’: Why blaming Beijing is all the rage this US election cycle — RT Op-ed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trumpism is a form of fascism, of course, but at its core is a whiny rebellion against the achievements of human and civil rights since the 1960s. Do the new norms after the Civil Rights Movement stop people from saying in public that African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and women are inferior? Then by God, Trump and Bob Mercer and Breitbart and Fox would go out of their way to put all those groups down.
” I have a feeling” Trump (ODT)
via Trump Vows to Quickly Reopen Economy, Ignoring Public Health Experts
If Trump could he’d FIRE Bill Gates (ODT)
via Coronavirus: Bill Gates, in rebuke of Trump, calls WHO funding cut ‘as dangerous as it sounds’
![Paramedics taking a patient into an emergency centre at Maimonides Medical Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York, United States [Andrew Kelly/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/4/14/4edc9bba279140fa9fd7ea4fff2fd239_18.jpg "US coronavirus deaths set single-day record as total hits 28,300")
Trump can’t even get the movie he’s starring in right it’s the remake of the Cain Mutiny and Captain Queeg
Trump’s ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ Fantasy Will Not End Well
If Donald Trump thinks he’d enjoy Captain Bligh’s position, and ultimate final fortunes, he’s even dumber than he looks.
via Trump’s ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ Fantasy Will Not End Well | Crooks and Liars
Trump blames the WHO now for his mismanagement (ODT)
US deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 25,400 on Tuesday, doubling in one week, according to a Reuters tally, as officials debated how to reopen the economy without reigniting the outbreak.
via Coronavirus death toll tops 25,000 in the US, cases exceed 600,000
HE’S YOUR PRESIDENT AMERICA
Nearly three million Chinese visitors came to this country in 2018 and 2.5 million Americans, counting only tourists, traveled to China. In fact, we now know that, in the weeks after Covid-19 was disclosed in Wuhan, China, more than 430,000 people flew here from that country, thousands of them from Wuhan itself — and this continued even after Donald Trump put his much-vaunted travel measures in place. (“I do think we were very early, but I also think that we were very smart, because we stopped China,” he nonetheless claimed.)
via The Ultimate Stress Test: America as revealed by the Coronavirus Pandemic
DOES TRUMP CARE?
Trump never wanted to close down the country, and only when his campaign’s polling showed that his reputation couldn’t survive to allow thousands of people to die, such that his reelection would anyway be in doubt, did he order social distancing on March 16. Trump is chafing all through April. He wanted to reopen things, at least in the Republican-governed states, by yesterday, Easter but was warned that such a measure would just start back up the countdown to a really big death toll. With effective social distancing, the deaths can possibly be kept to 60,000 – 100,000. Opening things back up too soon, and in the absence of large scale testing and contact tracing, could push that tally substantially higher.
via If Trump fires Dr. Fauci and installs a Barr-like Toady, what ever will become of us?
What matters is that the Trump administration will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship to keep big corporations alive and profitable. That is, from the GOP’s perspective, the sole legitimate function of the U.S. government. And given their ferocious commitment and the government’s financial firepower, they have a plausible shot at success.
So get ready for further triumphalist tweets from Trump anytime the stock market goes up. You may be reading them while picking up sanitized food containers from a soup kitchen, or auctioning off the wreckage of your bankrupt small business, or attending a funeral via Zoom.
The US is heading for having the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world next week. Admittedly the US is a big country and it still won’t have the highest number of cases per capita. But it won’t even be in the running for the country with the fewest per capita. The United States was once the most advanced country in the world. America put a man on the moon. To have Germany and South Korea outflank us in dealing with the disaster is an enormous disgrace.
![US President Donald Trump reacts during the coronavirus response daily briefing at the White House in Washington, DC on April 10, 2020 [Reuters/Yuri Gripas]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/4/11/b4667d8bab064e3dbfbe5d10b3e38b3a_18.jpg "The coronavirus crisis: How Trump is failing successfully")
From the outset, Trump misled the nation about the imminent danger of a coronavirus outbreak. In February, a month into the epidemic, he was reassuring the public that there was nothing to worry about, that all was under control.
And although he now denies it, Trump is on the record repeatedly underestimating the virus’s contagion, deadliness and disruption.
The question is, why? Why did he insist that the pandemic was under “tremendous control” and that the number of those infected would be brought down to zero?
via The coronavirus crisis: How Trump is failing successfully | USA | Al Jazeera
A Final Comment
COVID-19 is a global issue, falsely called the “Wuhan virus” by Trump and other regime officials. Most likely it originated in the US, not China.
On April 7, UK-based Nature magazine apologized for associating COVID-19 with China, saying:
“That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologize,” adding:
“(W)hen (a viral) outbreak happens, everyone is at risk, regardless of who they are or where they are from.”
“(A)ssociat(ing) a virus and the disease it causes with a specific place is irresponsible and needs to stop.”
Since early COVID-19 outbreaks, “people of Asian descent around the world have been subjected to racist attacks, with untold human costs” — Chinese nationals mostly affected.
“(W)e must all do everything we can to avoid and reduce stigma; not associate COVID-19 with particular groups of people or places; and emphasize that viruses do not discriminate — we are all at risk.”
“Coronavirus stigma must stop — now.”
via Trump Escalates War on China by Other Means – Stephen Lendman
In other words, actions offering greater protection to the majority of the population would restart the economy in a truly sustainable fashion, while bringing back both jobs and confidence. But that, in turn, would involve a bold and courageous political response providing genuine and proportionate stimulus for people. Unfortunately, given Washington’s 1% tilt and Donald Trump’s CEO empathy, that is at present inconceivable.
via Wall Street Wins — Again: Bailouts in the Time of Coronavirus | The Smirking Chimp
When the President takes precedence over a national emergency (ODT)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided less than 10 percent of the N95 masks requested by officials in five states and the District of Columbia, according to documents released Thursday by the House Oversight Committee. FEMA also told the committee that the Strategic National Stockpile had only 9,500 remaining ventilators — far short of what will likely be needed to treat a growing number of coronavirus patients.
Although federal officials have known of the shortages for months, they have not been remedied. Yet every year since 2017, Congress has directed FEMA to set aside $41 million of its budget to offset the extraordinary costs of providing security for President Donald Trump’s properties. The “Presidential Residence Assistant Protection Grants” were most recently funded by Congress in an appropriations package in December.
via Amid Critical Supply Shortage, FEMA Is Spending Millions to Protect Trump Properties
In the time of COVID-19 Your being “Kushnered” rings a bell in the US as once did being “Rackmanised” did in 1950s London. Slum lords cut from the same cloth. (ODT)
Jared Kushner’s family real estate company, which owns and manages thousands of apartment units, continued its aggressive eviction practices and debt collection lawsuits as Americans wait for government relief. Well into the coronavirus crisis, which has led to skyrocketing unemployment, court records show properties owned by Kushner Companies are still filing new eviction lawsuits.
via Jared Kushner’s Real Estate Company Filing Eviction Lawsuits
In Trump Media just Lie and deal with the fallout later. After all it’s a 24/7 cycle (ODT
Donald Trump’s latest campaign rally disguised as a coronavirus task force briefing took a remarkable turn on Wednesday when he was stunned by a tough question from, of all people, John Roberts of Fox News.
Trump was sailing along, singing his own praises (“Did you know I was number one on Facebook?“) and denying any responsibility for the catastrophe when Roberts asked the president about the massive blunder of disbanding the White House pandemic preparedness team set up by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
The 1% impose the intrinsic instability of their system on the entire population, and then get the government to respond with deficits that even further benefit and reward the greed of the very same 1% oligarchs and corporations.
Ironically, we’ve borrowed so much as a nation from the rich, large corporations and some foreign countries that even they now are unsure they want to continue to lending to us because of today’s astronomical debt. To maintain their loan profits, they want us to eliminate/severely reduce programs for poor and sick people with austerity/cuts in all social and public health programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.
The absurdity and danger to our community of such an economic policy is exceeded only by its gross injustice.
via The US Tax System is a vast Ponzi Scheme that only Benefits the Wealthy
Trump’s doing nothing but scapegoating 1) the Chinese, 2) Impeachment,3) the States (ODT)
WIthout federal intervention, states and hospitals may only become more vulnerable to the demands of brokers and speculators outside the normal supply chain, said Chaun Powell, vice president for strategic supplier engagement at the national health care consultant Premier Inc., which helps negotiate contracts for hospitals and health systems.
State data shows that New York is paying enormous markups for vital supplies, including almost $250,000 for an X-ray machine. Laws against price gouging usually don’t apply.
History of America’s failed control of Latin American States has been told over and over again only to make fools of somany American leaders and can anyone make Trump look a bigger fool than he already is? (ODT)
The brazenness of the indictments in attempting to cast Venezuela as a narco-state, the lack of foresight regarding possible repercussions, the attempted sabotage of dialogue and the mixed messaging are all signals that the Trump administration is desperate to ensure its regime change policy shows results. The victims of this policy are the Venezuelan people, who would be much better off with a policy of de-escalation, dialogue and a removal of the deadly sanctions.
via Trump’s Narcoterrorism Indictment of Maduro Already Backfires | The Smirking Chimp
Governor’s getting things done (ODT)
via Coronavirus leadership: New Yorkers love waking up to Governor Andrew Cuomo
Has anyone seen Trump or his family on the front line? Boris Johnson was and he has the virus to show for it. He’s Your President America!!! (ODT)
via Workers Are Warriors in the Fight Against the Coronavirus | The Nation
He’s so predictable
Another advantage is that the briefings have become so predictable, with Trump endlessly repeating the same falsehoods and self-puffery. Indeed, CNN’s wonderful Daniel Dale recently broke them down into their fairly consistent constituent parts, each of which can be anticipated and prepared for:
Inaccurate progress reports
False, dubious or questionable medical claims
False pronouncements that this was all unforeseen
Media-bashing
Vague economic cheerleading
An empathy shortage
Self-promotion, complaints of victimhood
Trump being Trump
Donald Trump’s biographer and Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston investigates the US stimulus plan and finds, unless a lot more is done, the country faces depression.
We ran the numbers and if Congress and Donald Trump act as cheapskates, it will be devastating — a recession rivalling the 30s.
The $1 trillion coronavirus relief package Congress passed won’t come close to making up for the damage caused by COVID-19 and the Trump administration’s lethal dawdling.
We need the government to act or we could fall into a depression rivalling the 1930s.
via Trumped: pandemic to cost America $5 trillion … or more – Michael West
He’s Your President America- Quid Pro Quo Threat
President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the news media for accurately reporting his remarks about New York officials being nice to him as a prerequisite for getting help with the coronavirus pandemic.
During a Fox News town hall on Tuesday, Trump attacked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who earlier in the day sharply criticized the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
“It’s a two-way street,” Trump said of helping out New York during the crisis. “They have to treat us well, too.”
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