A Crucial Waiting Period
Today is a notable day for a number of disjointed reasons. Fifty years ago today, Ohio National Guardsmen killed four Kent State students who were protesting the Vietnam War. For those more future-minded, it's Star Wars Day ("May the fourth be with you!"). However, I'd be willing to bet that one of today's usual yearly traditions has been especially hard-hit, because Corona beer sales are likely not spiking right now as they normally do (in preparation for Cinco de Mayo). It's a bad time for your brand to be "corona," in other words, in this time of the virus. But for most of us, it is a time of waiting. This waiting period will become notable eventually, because whatever happens next -- over the course of the next month, roughly -- may actually determine the outcome of the November election.
We're in the midst of a grand experiment -- one that Donald Trump has essentially bet his chances of being re-elected upon. When should restrictions on everyday life be lifted in an attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy? Should the medical data be the driving force behind such decisions, or should economics be the main focus instead? Lives hang in the balance to the answers of these two questions, and so does the public's view of Donald Trump.
Trump, being Trump, has already tried to have it both ways. He is strongly pushing the states to fully reopen, but at the same time doesn't hesitate to slam a Republican governor for opening things up too fast. In other words, later on, he'll have one or the other to point to in an attempt to prove that he "was right all along." This probably isn't going to work, since it is pretty obvious that he's coming down hardest on the "just reopen and see what happens" side of things.
We're all going to hear a lot of talk about letters and the economy in the next few weeks, that's my guess. Will the economic recovery be "V-shaped" or "W-shaped" or "U-shaped" or even "L-shaped"? Out of those options, the V is the best and the L is the worst. What these letters loosely refer to is a chart of the economy itself. If you look at a chart of any major economic indicator and squint your eyes a bit, it can look somewhat like one of these letters. So far, the economy has shot downward already, giving us the left half of a V, or the left side of the other letters. But what will it do next? Will it shoot right back up again and fully recover very quickly? Then the graph will wind up looking like a V. Will things recover, but on a much slower time scale? Then it'll more resemble a U. Will the coronavirus pandemic come roaring back with a second wave (either right away or later in the year)? Then the economy will have to be shuttered once again, and we'll go through a second sharp dip -- ultimately giving us a W shape. Or will things just stay bad for a very long time to come while the economy doesn't ever snap back? That would be the dreaded L shape.
You could track the same phenomenon by looking at the infections and deaths, but the graph's shape would be upside-down in this case, and we just don't have enough English letters to describe it (the W would become an M, but we just don't have an upside-down V character). Letters aside, though, the medical graphs tracking the pandemic so far have had flatter curves than the worst-case scenarios -- but with flatter curves comes longer duration, and many of the models most in vogue right now have not predicted that the plateau at the top would last so long already. They were more optimistic as to when the curve would actually begin turning down, to put it another way. This is why Trump has already been proven wrong about his estimates for the total number of deaths -- a week or so ago he was predicting "50,000 or maybe 60,000" deaths total by August, but we already passed both of those numbers in April. Now he's predicting 75,000 to 100,000 deaths, but those too may prove to be far too optimistic (we're fast approaching 70,000 deaths already, while adding roughly 2,000 per day).
When looking at the data, it's important not to get sidetracked by any one individual data point, though. Many in the media ignored this basic rule and touted the highest death total "in one 24-hour period" at the end of last week. This may have been true, but it's essentially meaningless unless it is part of a larger trend. The numbers bounce around from day to day and can be affected by other factors. The numbers, for instance, are always down a bit over the weekend. Does this mean fewer people are catching the virus and dying over the weekend? No, what it really means is that a percentage of the people in the data pipeline whose jobs it is to report and track such numbers are at home, because it is the weekend. So the numbers don't get processed quite as fast. This is why you should put little faith in any one day's numbers, whether high or low.
The big unanswered question in all of this is whether the states that reopen first will see a resurgence of the pandemic as a result of more people coming into contact with each other. We simply don't know the answer to this yet, and we likely won't know it for at least another week or two, because there's a lag time involved. If a person gets infected with the virus on the first day of the month, they may not feel any symptoms for over a week. Perhaps by the 10th of the month they enter a hospital and get tested. The test comes back on the 12th, and the data gets entered into the system on the 13th. The numbers get crunched and reported to the public on the 14th -- two full weeks after the infection happened. If the person has a severe case and dies, that death may not appear in the statistics until the third week, or even the fourth. So we will only be able to see the beginnings of the impact of each state's reopening weeks after it happens. If the numbers really do spike upwards, by that point it may be too late to stop a second wave, because it will already have developed. A governor could shut their economy back down, but there would already be a number of weeks of data still in the pipeline that have yet to be reported, so the numbers will continue to spike upwards even while the state shuts down for a second time. This is the real risk these states are now running.
This is why I say that we're in a very important waiting time right now. Nobody knows how it'll all play out, and it's likely to do so in very different ways in different states. Some states may get lucky and not experience a second wave even after reopening early. Some states might not be so lucky and have to shut down a second time, only to see the spike continue to develop as the numbers catch up throughout the lag time. And each state's economy will be tracking closely with whatever happens medically, in the end.
Maybe everything will work out fine. Maybe a second wave won't develop. Maybe the summertime will help squelch a second wave now. Maybe a second wave won't even develop when the weather turns cooler. Those are the political gambles Trump is betting on right now.
If he turns out to be right (or "lucky," take your pick), then he'll use this as the new centerpiece of his campaign: "I reopened the country when the pointy-headed doctors told me not to, and I was right and the economy recovered faster than anyone could have predicted!" Trump knows that the economic numbers for the first and second quarters of the year are going to be devastating, but he's hoping that by the third quarter a clear recovery will have taken shape (preferably, a sharp V shape). He will then campaign on being the leader the economy needs while it continues to recover.
If, however, Trump turns out to be wrong, then he's going to pay a political price whether he likes it or not. He's already tried to insulate himself from any blowback by refusing to take charge of the pandemic response and shoving all possible responsibility onto the governors. This, he hopes, will allow him to cherry-pick the numbers later, bragging about how certain states "did great" while other states "dropped the ball." He'll try to take all the credit for the former while disavowing any possible responsibility for the latter, of course.
The truly interesting thing is going to be what a second pandemic wave looks like, if it does indeed happen. Will all the red states who reopened as quickly as possible see the worst of the resurgence? Will the blue states who are being extra-cautious see a smaller second wave or no resurgence at all? That will make things crystal clear, in terms of laying the blame. But it will likely not be as clear-cut as this (reality is rarely so unequivocal).
If a second wave develops quickly -- in the next month, say -- then Trump is going to look pretty reckless no matter which states it begins in. Politically, it'll be a pretty easy case to make to say that he rushed the reopening for purely political reasons, and gambled with tens of thousands of lives. That's a bad place for any politician to be, obviously.
Democrats have already been waging the war for public opinion on the coronavirus response efforts to date. For the most part, they've been winning this argument. Pretty much all of the governors are seeing record approval ratings, while Trump's had a tiny bump which quickly evaporated. No matter how many times Trump proclaims total success, and no matter how many toadies try to praise his mostly-nonexistent leadership, the public already knows that Trump essentially wasted six weeks or so at the start of the crisis. No amount of blame-shifting to the Chinese government is going to really change that perception, at this point.
But the battle for public perception over the recovery has only barely begun. Trump is going to cheerlead the economy as loudly as possible, but it remains to be seen whether this will even work as designed. States can relax their restrictions, and businesses can reopen, but the big unanswered question is when will the customers return? There are no state regulations that demand that you go out and buy some stuff you've been waiting to buy for the last few weeks, after all. Nobody will force people to suddenly book vacations or spend their money again in any way. It's very likely that even in states that have officially reopened the consumers are still going to be a lot warier about shopping in general, especially when it comes to nonessential spending. "I've waited this long, so I guess I can wait another couple months just to be sure it's safe," is what a lot of consumers may decide. So the economic numbers may lag the reopening effort in a way that Trump and the optimists haven't even realized yet.
If a large second wave of the pandemic does develop, however, and if it develops fairly soon after all these reopenings, then Trump's chances of being re-elected may be toast. If he loses his gamble, a lot of people are going to die and even more of them are going to get sick. Trump's cheerleading the reopening is going to look reckless, in the rear-view mirror, no matter how hard he tries to shift all the blame.
One of the biggest qualifications for president -- one of the main things many voters think about in the voting booth, in other words -- is how each candidate would lead the country in a time of crisis. Most of the time, this is a purely theoretical question, because voters simply don't know. Even when an incumbent president is running, if they haven't faced a big enough crisis in their first term then people are still essentially just guessing how they would react to a genuine emergency.
But when we've already had such an emergency -- indeed, at the start of the election year -- then an incumbent president is going to get graded by the voters on how he handled it. This is pretty much inescapable. Which is why this particular waiting period we find ourselves in now could be crucial come November. If the voters think: "We reopened and it didn't go too badly," then Trump will still have a chance of winning. If, however, the voters are thinking: "Trump reopened too fast, and things got much worse for much longer than was necessary," then he is likely going to lose the election no matter what else happens in the meantime.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
One of the biggest qualifications for president -- one of the main things many voters think about in the voting booth, in other words -- is how each candidate would lead the country in a time of crisis.
If only that will have any discernable impact on who wins in November.
We both know stronger forces are work here.
Damn … dear editor?
i think some folks are buying corona beer on purpose, because f the virus!
Meanwhile Trump holds a Town Hall event where he whines that while historians say President Lincoln was treated extremely badly by people during his presidency, Trump assures us that no president has ever been treated as harshly or badly as he has!
Trump shows that he cannot lead this nation and our citizens in mourning those lost to this epidemic. How does Trump respond to former President George W. Bush message of hope and calling on all Americans to unite in this time of hardship? Trump complains that Bush did not defend his actions that led to Trump being impeached... because that is what truly matters to Americans right now!
Trump has tanked our nation’s economy with his mishandling of this pandemic! Trump killed thousands of Americans with his incompetence and his refusal to put the well-being of our country ahead of Trump’s re-election bid.
I hope everyone knows that when you get caught in a vicious cycle of lock down, release, poor control, increasing number of cases and death and, then, more lock down that the economy suffers far more than if efforts to suppress the virus are kept in place long enough, until it is safe to remove them. This is what history teaches us.
I hope this lesson doesn't have to be learned the hard way.
But, while we're waiting, here is some fodder for thought and action:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/trump-coronavirus-emergency-powers.html
The virus is unlikely to go on vacation all summer long just because school is out. The deaths will continue to pile up between now and November, slowly or quickly, and voters will have reason to remember just how badly Trump botched things.
What good will that do?
the virus doesn't give a you know what, joshua
Because, president Trump is this novel coronavirus's new best friend.
And, what's the matter with Utah?
Don't forget this, the beginning of the end …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkg-bzTHeAk
And, while we're in the mood to share important songs,
here's one from PRiSM, featuring their only real frontman, Ron Tabak …
an ode to the planet …
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=prism+take+me+to+the+kaptin&view=detail&mid=C042EEE24C12301D1EE0C042EEE24C12301D1EE0&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dprism%2btake%2bme%2bto%2bthe%2bkaptin%26form%3dEDGEAR%26qs%3dPF%26cvid%3dfa965cc88dba45c0aea1dd9e925d7289%26cc%3dUS%26setlang%3den-US%26elv%3dAQj93OAhDTi*HzTv1paQdnjdUHuuKXZhE%2521n8RIVJ*cCxZnFoDlJZsJUhaUZkO1aDJTmKP4C4Vs6VI3cRrR1x*OXb6ov5ksdSYBMdaoKUgCbq%26plvar%3d0
That's from 1977, for anyone who cares ...
I'm assuming that a certain contributor here has been banned during the early morning hours, and that is a good thing.
FPC
JL
well it's certainly not the sort of confession that would hold up in criminal court. civil court, possibly...
It's not any sort of confession, period...
but in the court of public opinion
Seems to me that all ya'all care about is the court of public opinion.. When it goes your way.. :D
COPO was against the Russia Collusion delusion..
COPO was against the Faux Impeachment Coup..
:D
But regardless, Trump's boorish locker room braggadocio was not a confession in any way, shape or form...
Damn.
No, Michale, it was just a window into the kind of man Trump is ...
Trump and Biden are at opposite ends of the spectrum, any spectrum.
Should the medical data be the driving force behind such decisions, or should economics be the main focus instead?
Both..
They should both be weighed..
The medical data proves that, beyond a small group, the chances of surviving covid-19 are up to 99.03%...
We also know for a fact the devastating effect the shutdowns have on the American economy...
When one balances the two, logically and rationally, the way forward is clear..
However, I readily concede that, when one wants to destroy Americans and their lives and livelihoods out of hate and bigotry, as Democrats want to do.....
The way forward is considerably more murky and unclear..
Democrats have already been waging the war for public opinion on the coronavirus response efforts to date. For the most part, they've been winning this argument.
HA!! :D
"Yea.. In your bra!!"
-Jim Carrey, LIAR LIAR
The American people know what Democrats were doing when President Trump's focus SHOULD have been on this pandemic..
Democrats were trying to nullify a free, fair, legal, duly, democratic and CONSTITUTIONAL election...
Americans won't forget that come Nov...
While this country faced it's most dire threat to date, Democrats were trying to assassinate President Trump..
But when we've already had such an emergency -- indeed, at the start of the election year -- then an incumbent president is going to get graded by the voters on how he handled it. This is pretty much inescapable. Which is why this particular waiting period we find ourselves in now could be crucial come November. If the voters think: "We reopened and it didn't go too badly," then Trump will still have a chance of winning. If, however, the voters are thinking: "Trump reopened too fast, and things got much worse for much longer than was necessary," then he is likely going to lose the election no matter what else happens in the meantime.
We will be past this (except for some Democrat holdouts who LOVE martial law et al) by June.. And President Trump is going to be lauded by patriotic Americans for the awesome job he has done..
Come Nov, he will win re-election...
I will make ANY wager on that anyone has to balls to challenge me with.. :D
That is how sure I am of my facts.. :D
And if anyone does want to challenge me??? Keep in mind.. When it comes to President Trump.. I have **NEVER** been wrong... :D
andygaus,
The virus is unlikely to go on vacation all summer long just because school is out. The deaths will continue to pile up between now and November, slowly or quickly, and voters will have reason to remember just how badly Trump botched things.
You wanna bet??? I know, I know.. That's how you and the other Democrats WANT it to be.. Ya'all WANT to see Americans suffer and die, just so you can attack President Trump..
How yer able to sleep at night is truly one of life's greatest mysteries..
No, Michale, it was just a window into the kind of man Trump is ...
It's likely a window to how rich men are...
Shall we talk about Bill Clinton???
I am sure he said things much worse of Jeffery Epstein's LOLITA EXPRESS...
Funny how you don't want to talk about THAT, eh??
It's ALL about Trump.. Every Democrat is perfect.. :eyeroll:
Trump and Biden are at opposite ends of the spectrum, any spectrum.
Tara Reade proves beyond ANY doubt that, according to you, Trump and Biden operate at the same end of the spectrum...
Speaking of which...
I Believe Tara Reade. And You Should, Too.
We already knew that Biden is the type. Had we as voters, and had the Democratic Party, taken this seriously, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.
ne evening in the mid-nineties, Lynda LaCasse was smoking a cigarette on the front stoop of her apartment in Morro Bay, Calif., when she was joined by her neighbor and friend Tara Reade. It was an emotional conversation, encompassing custody battles and violence. According to LaCasse, Reade disclosed an incident that occurred when Reade worked for then-Senator Joe Biden in 1993: After she brought him his gym bag, he backed her up against a wall, kissed her neck and hair, put his hand under her clothes, and penetrated her digitally. “I remember the skirt. I remember the fingers. I remember she was devastated.” Reade had wept at the memory; LaCasse urged her to file a police report.
On April 27, Business Insider published this account, corroborating Reade’s prior testimony. LaCasse made it plausible, moreover, that she has no axe to grind: She is a longtime Democrat, with a history of anti-Trump posts on social media, together with recent praise for Biden as well as Bernie Sanders. She even said she still plans to vote for Biden. She also believes her friend Tara Reade should be heard; she believes her, period. “I have to support her just because that’s what happened,” said LaCasse, who added that she came forward without Reade having asked her to: “We need to stand up and tell the truth.”
Such evidence supplements several other accounts that corroborate elements of Reade’s story—from her brother, two anonymous friends, a former colleague, and footage from Reade’s late mother, who called into Larry King Live a few months after the alleged incident in 1993 to seek advice on behalf of her daughter.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/tara-reade-biden-allegations/
How is Joe Biden any different than what accuse Trump of doing??
President Trump talked about it..
Joe Biden DID it...
And yet, it's President Trump is the bad guy...
Tara Reade is your penance for believing Blasey-Ford and Swetnick without so much a a scintilla of fact....
What goes around comes around..
And just keep in mind..
Joe Biden has a rape criminal complaint hanging over him like the Sword Of Damocles...
There is not a single solitary sexual criminal complaint hanging over President Trump...
Given this strong evidence, why are many people still refusing to believe Tara Reade? Among the primary reasons: an unwillingness to believe that Biden is “the type” and sheer political inconvenience.
We know, alas, that Biden is the type. He has sniffed and kissed the hair of the politician Lucy Flores. Six other women have testified to his touching and kissing them in ways that made them uncomfortable. We also have relevant footage. This is a man with a demonstrated history of handsiness—and a man who so does not understand boundaries that he made jokes last year about having permission to hug and touch people onstage after being confronted about his problem.
Yet Maureen Dowd wrote in The New York Times: “I’ve covered Biden my entire political career, and he is known for being sometimes warmly, sometimes inappropriately, hands-on with men and women. What Reade accuses him of is a crime and seems completely out of character.” Such sentiments betray a failure to understand that Biden’s demonstrably “inappropriate” behavior emanates from the same sense of privileged male entitlement that often underlies more serious sexual breaches, including sexual assault of the kind Reade alleges. The reporters for the New York Times article on April 12 first exploring Reade’s allegations in that venue made a similar mistake, when they initially wrote that they “found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” This is sexual misconduct, as was repeatedly pointed out on Twitter. (The paper subsequently deleted the “beyond” addendum—though without issuing a correction notice—leaving the sentence more coherent but less accurate.)
What's really scary about Joe Biden is that this handsy touchy feely, rapey actions extend to little girls as well..
https://cdn-0.reformationcharlotte.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/biden.jpg
Joe Biden will not be President Of The United States... He will likely not even be the Dumbocrat nominee...
You heard it here first...
The firm conviction that Biden wouldn’t push boundaries in more serious ways, notwithstanding Reade’s corroborated testimony, rests partly on a misguided faith in his “good guy” persona, and a wrongheaded belief that only veritable monsters commit sexual assault. But as the Me Too movement has shown, many women’s monsters can seem like nice guys to the rest of us. And the number of true monsters—amoral, unrepentant psychopaths who do nothing but evil—is vastly outstripped by the entitled men who commit sexual assault with the blithe, deluded sense that she’s enjoying it, somehow.
According to Reade, when Biden assaulted her, he asked her softly: “Do you want to go somewhere else?” After she rebuffed him, he expressed disappointment and frustration: “Come on, man, I heard you liked me.” Then he pointed his trademark finger at her: “You’re nothing to me. Nothing.” Before walking away, he clapped her on the shoulders: “You’re OK, you’re fine.” Except, of course, she wasn’t.
For anyone who shares the widespread conviction that ousting Trump from office in November is a political imperative, admitting the credibility of Reade’s claims at this moment is painful and inconvenient indeed. There is nevertheless a moral obligation that we do so. If the Me Too movement means anything, it is that victims must not be swept aside and ignored, impugned, erased, and silenced when their claims are difficult to countenance—most notably, when the person they are accusing is someone we want to believe in.
And that is why the #MeToo movement is meaningless.. As I said at the time, the FIRST time a prominent Democrat is accused, #MeToo will rush to the defense of that prominent Democrat and lead the charge to sweep aside, ignore, impugn, erase and silence the accuser, the victim of rape..
And THAT is what #MeToo... And ya'all have done... Sweep aside... Ignore... Impugn... Erase... and silence the victim of rape..
Once again, I called it dead on ballz accurate...
It's tough being factually accurate all the time..
But it's a bear I must cross....
Biden, of course, has denied Reade’s claims—though not in a way that inspired much confidence. (He said on Morning Joe on May 1, “I am absolutely positive that no one that I am aware of ever was been made aware of any complaint—a formal complaint—made by or a complaint by Tara Reade against me at the time this allegedly happened 27 years ago or until the—I announced for president well I guess it was in April or May of this year. I know of no one who was aware that any complaint was made. Nor has… No, no, that’s it.”) At the same time, he refused point blank to release records containing Tara Reade’s name from his University of Delaware Senate records—claiming, to interviewer Mika Brzezinski, that Reade’s alleged complaint about sexual harassment would instead be filed in the National Archives. This claim has subsequently been denied by an archives spokesperson. And even if Biden sincerely believed it at the time, why not permit the relevant University of Delaware papers to at least be looked at?
And THERE is the $64,000 question..
If those Delaware papers will PROVE that Tara Reade is lying, why won't Joe release them???
Joe Biden has the means to end this once and for all..
The fact that he doesn't... The fact that he refuses transparency... The fact that he still hides crucial evidence....
Is de-facto proof he is guilty..
This is indisputable...
And I confess I am deeply angry that we are in this position. We did not have to be. We have known all along that Biden was sexually inappropriate, lecherous, and handsy. Had we as voters, and had the Democratic Party, taken this as seriously as we all ought to, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. It is not too much to ask that the next president of the United States adhere to the highest moral standards when it comes to his treatment of women. And if we don’t give the supposedly small things the weight they deserve, then the big things will often loom large in precisely this way. They are part of a pattern we simply can’t afford to ignore any longer.
You people have your own Trump in Biden now... :D
You come to understand how Americans can support President Trump now...
And you'll support Biden no matter how many nasty crimes he has committed because your Party bigotry is the biggest part of ya'all...
Biden could rape someone on 5th Ave in broad daylight with 1000 witnesses and ya'all would STILL vote for Biden for President..
THAT is the depth of your hatred and bigotry towards President Trump..
Must be tough looking in a mirror, eh? :D
OK On to the next article...
:D
Joe Biden, Tara Reade, and the Democrats’ Unasked-for Dilemma
To all the Democratic voters who decided that they couldn’t vote for a woman in the Presidential primaries because other people wouldn’t, may this moment be a reckoning. Elizabeth Warren might have been the presumptive Democratic candidate right now. Moderates might prefer to imagine Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris in the role. But none of the women in the race were likely to be accused of sexual harassment. Instead, here we are, having to parse and assess and judge, with inevitably limited knowledge, another allegation of sexual misconduct against another older male politician. Democrats are struggling with the unasked-for moral dilemma of whether it is hypocritical to question the veracity of Joe Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, when so many of them had fully embraced the #MeToo movement’s (always too simplistic) exhortation to “believe women.” Maybe some of those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Bernie Sanders, because they worried that he was too radical for general-election voters, might want to reappraise their choice, too. Medicare for All sounds better than ever in a pandemic that every day exposes the brutal inequities in our health-care system. And Sanders, although he is of the same generation as Biden, never seems to have had his retro pol’s reputation for handsiness and gaffes.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/joe-biden-tara-reade-and-the-democrats-unasked-for-dilemma
Yunno... It's funny..
During the Blasey-Ford bullshit accusations, ALL WOMEN ARE TO BE BELIEVED was sacrosanct.. NO ONE questioned it... It was politically, the supreme law of the land.. EVERYONE, including ya'all here in Weigantia, jumped on the ALL WOMEN ARE TO BE BELIEVED bandwagon.. It was unquestionable...
Now that it's Biden being accused, ALL of the sudden, the mantra is questioned.. suspect... label'ed as too simple... not realistic..
Even here in Weigantia, the complete and utter 180 is palpable...
And yet, it's the EXACT same saying..
ALL WOMEN ARE TO BE BELIEVED...
The saying itself hasn't changed one iota..
Before.... ya'all (and Trump/America haters everywhere) fell all over themselves and issued blood oaths in support of ALL WOMEN ARE TO BE BELIEVED... It was the last thing ya'all intoned to yerselves before ya'all went to bed and it was the first thing ya'all swore to when you woke in the morning..
Now ya'all (and Trump/America haters everywhere) can't distance yerselves FAR enough from it.. NOW, it's toxic and blase and totally false...
I mean, think about it people.. When it comes to integrity and credibility..
Ya'all (and Trump/America haters everywhere) just failed..
Completely.. Utterly... EPIC-LY...
Failed..
I mean, if we're talking credibility here.. Ya'all's taken a HUGE hit...
What blood oath, what absolute truth will ya'all toss away next in the interests of Party agenda???
What's the next belief or principle that will be too inconvenient to adhere to??
Hmmmmm???
Joe Biden has addressed Tara Reade's sexual assault allegation. Will voters care?
But it's unclear whether the presumptive Democratic nominee's interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe did enough to extinguish the controversy as allies of President Donald Trump seized on the allegation.
By opposing the release of records stored at the University of Delaware – Biden says the school's collection doesn't contain personnel records – he might have provided more fuel for Republicans to keep the issue alive, experts said.
"We’ve seen him really be challenged for the first time in five weeks on allegations that many in the media have ignored, and finally, those are coming to light," Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, told Raddatz.
McDaniel argued that the assault allegation – combined with what she called a "far-left" policy shift – revealed the veteran politician, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, was actually an unknown commodity.
"He hasn’t been vetted. People haven’t seen the 2020 version of Joe Biden," McDaniel said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/05/03/joe-biden-addresses-tara-reade-assault-allegation-voter-reaction-still-unknown/3064417001/
That interview did much more harm than good.. That nearly 10-second DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS action totally exposed Joe Biden as a rapist and a liar..
If Joe Biden wants *ANY* chance of making it thru this with his skin intact he will commit to full transparency and release all the Delaware papers..
Failure to do so will be an admission of guilt..
https://twitter.com/i/status/1256201866666541057
In Joe's own words..
He doesn't want his position papers released because they can be used against him in a campaign..
Hmmmmmm
So, Biden himself is confessing to wrong-doing....
FPC,
There are no other accounts of women accusing Biden of sexual assault. The Senate has no records of anyone filing complaints against him for sexual harassment or sexual assault for all of his time in Congress.
Dance, Russ!!! DANCE!!! :D
First of all, that is not factually accurate.. The SecSenate has stated they cannot release records.. She is NOT saying there are no records of Biden's sexual assaults...
Biden was thoroughly vetted before becoming Obama’s pick to be his VP.
And Kavanaugh was ALSO thoroughly vetted before his ascension to a lesser court..
That didn't stop you from calling for Kavanaugh's lynching..
Face the facts, Russ..
Yer in the wrong here... Just like you ALWAYS have been in the wrong..
But, by all means.. Continue to dance to my tune.. I love it!! :D
And, once again, I am constrained to point out..
Ya'all were wrong on the Russia Collusion Delusion.. I was dead on ballz accurate..
Ya'all were wrong on the Faux Impeachment Coup.. I was dead on ballz accurate..
Ya'all were wrong on the Tara Reade going away issue.. I was dead on ballz accurate..
You see the pattern?? :D
Take a break, Michale, you don't have to be a prick everyday of your like, you know.
Take a break, Michale, you don't have to be a prick everyday of your like, you know.
Just the facts, ma'am...
Just the facts...
If it weren't for me, we would have no facts here at all.. :D
Feel free to address any of the facts.. Any facts at all.. :D
TAKE A BREAK!!!
Sorry, Liz... But this is too important to just move on...
But I'll make a deal with ya..
Ya'all "take a break" from bashing President Trump day in and day out, 24/7....
Ya'all do that and I'll take a break about commenting on the facts about Joe Biden..
Say til the Friday FTP, no Trump bashing, no Biden bashing..
Deal???
yes, there's a lot of wishful thinking where tara reade is concerned, on both the left AND the right. biden is a moderate, which means the left resents him because he's not pure enough, and the right fears him because he might win. that's a condition rife with opportunities for imaginary scenarios where tara reade's allegations are proven and bernie sanders becomes the nominee. unless some sort of smoking gun shows up, that's just not realistic.
I'm NOT the idiot that you obviously think I am.
While everyone here knows that I can't stay away from here, I can say with certainty that I will not be conversing with you anymore, Michale, because you are no longer worth the time or effort.
JL,
unless some sort of smoking gun shows up, that's just not realistic.
Bernie being the nominee is not realistic, I agree... But not because of any lack of validity of Tara Reade's rape criminal complaint..
But it IS an interesting dynamic to contemplate.. If the DNC/Democrats DO force Joe Biden to step aside because of Tara Reade and does NOT endorse Sanders...???
Bernie Bros will vote Trump en masse... Right MC???
Regardless, it's become apparent that the Tara Reade accusation is far far FAR beyond simply me pushing Liz's buttons..
Wouldn't you agree???
I'm NOT the idiot that you obviously think I am.
Never thought that at all..
But you *ARE* one of the very few people here who can actually be reasoned with.. Who CAN step back and see the logic and rational thought behind a certain course of action..
You demonstrated that when you joined me in calling for full and complete transparency from Joe Biden..
I can say with certainty that I will not be conversing with you anymore, Michale, because you are no longer worth the time or effort.
Hokay... :D
See ya tomorrow.. :D
If my comments were meaningless, they wouldn't get you so uptight... :D
Regardless, it's become apparent that the Tara Reade accusation is far far FAR beyond simply me pushing Liz's buttons..
Wouldn't you agree???
not at the moment. there's always the potential for something more to materialize in the future, but as of right now there's no there there.
JL
not at the moment. there's always the potential for something more to materialize in the future, but as of right now there's no there there.
Not what I asked..
I asked if Tara Reade became more than just me pushing Liz's buttons.. It obviously has based on all the facts I have laid it..
The NY GRIME would not be calling for Biden to release the Delaware papers if this was just a case of me pushing Liz's buttons..
If it will become MORE from this point that is a question..
But it's undeniable it's moved beyond just me pushing Liz's buttons.
You just HAVE to know that there is another complaint out there waiting to happen..
The only question is, will it come before Biden is the official nominee or afterwards, when Democrats are stuck with Biden..
While we're waiting, we should be demanding that our leaders at all levels are focused on what to replace the lockdowns with.
As lockdowns are eased and fully removed, what is suppressing transmission of the virus.
AS the WHO has repeated advised, the answer is a massive investment in public health architecture - the ability to test, isolate, contact trace and quarantine.
This piece from Dr. Frieden, which most have already seen, lays it out in great detail. I hope president Trump will finally understand what he should do.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=prism+take+me+to+the+kaptin&view=detail&mid=C042EEE24C12301D1EE0C042EEE24C12301D1EE0&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dprism%2btake%2bme%2bto%2bthe%2bkaptin%26form%3dEDGEAR%26qs%3dPF%26cvid%3dfa965cc88dba45c0aea1dd9e925d7289%26cc%3dUS%26setlang%3den-US%26elv%3dAQj93OAhDTi*HzTv1paQdnjdUHuuKXZhE%2521n8RIVJ*cCxZnFoDlJZsJUhaUZkO1aDJTmKP4C4Vs6VI3cRrR1x*OXb6ov5ksdSYBMdaoKUgCbq%26plvar%3d0
While that is a good link, it is the WRONG link.
Here's the right one!
https://preventepidemics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/BoxItInBriefingDoc.pdf
Wouldn't it be nice if we could put Trump on a spaceship and send him off to another world?
S the WHO has repeated advised, the answer is a massive investment in public health architecture - the ability to test, isolate, contact trace and quarantine.
The WHO is a tainted and unreliable source of information..
That was proven beyond ANY doubt when they touted the China company line that there was no evidence of HUMAN TO HUMAN transmission..
The WHO simply cannot be trusted..
Just pretend Trump = WHO and you'll see my point..
Wouldn't it be nice if we could put Trump on a spaceship and send him off to another world?
It would also be nice to do that to Biden..
But I am not sure that sending another world our rapist would be a way to engender good will for First Contact..
Biden records on total lockdown, despite request to unseal purported Reade complaint
Four days after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made a public request for the secretary of the Senate to search through records from 1993 for a purported complaint by the woman accusing him of sexual assault, the official has made clear that nothing short of a change in the law can allow the public -- or anyone -- to access them.
Biden denies the alleged assault and has challenged whether the complaint Tara Reade says she filed even exists.
SECRETARY OF SENATE SAYS SHE CANNOT COMPLY WITH BIDEN REQUEST TO RELEASE RECORDS ON PURPORTED READE COMPLAINT
His call for records to be released was an apparent attempt to clear the air -- but the situation remains as murky as ever.
After Senate Secretary Julie Adams issued a statement Monday saying that "the Secretary has no discretion to disclose" the information or records that Biden asked for -- specifically a complaint Reade says she filed with what at the time would have most likely have been the Office of Fair Employment Practices -- she responded to further queries from Biden.
In short, she said she can't even confirm if the records exist, and not even those involved in original complaints from the time can see them.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-records-on-total-lockdown-despite-request-to-unseal-purported-reade-complaint
Russ tried to claim that the Senate stated there were NO RECORDS...
That was a bullshit claim..
While Biden has no authority over the Senate records, he CAN authorize the release of records held by Delaware University..
To date, Biden has refused to fully transparent as he claimed he would..
What is Joe Biden hiding???
There are no other accounts of women accusing Biden of sexual assault. The Senate has no records of anyone filing complaints against him for sexual harassment or sexual assault for all of his time in Congress.
-Russ
Adams has not denied that the complaint might exist or that it could be at the National Archives, as Biden has previously said. She has said that she legally would not be able to release the complaint or acknowledge its existence
-Senate Secretary
Once again.. The FACTS prove that Russ is full of kaa kaa.... :D
Cal Thomas: Could Biden’s biggest threat come from fellow Democrats?
Even if the sexual assault allegations by former Joe Biden staff member Tara Reade turn out to be false there are still problems the former vice president faces.
The first and most important of these is whether he can win his party’s nomination.
I’m generally suspicious when it comes to politics. Why has Reade waited until now to come forward? Biden has run for president before and several times for senator. He was vetted before Barack Obama picked him as his running mate. The timing seems too convenient.
Are there forces within the Democratic Party – supporters of Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for example – who don’t believe Biden has the mental capacity to endure what will be a brutal campaign? Are they undermining him by canceling or delaying party primaries? Will he show up at his party’s convention (if there is one) with an insufficient number of delegates to clinch the nomination, setting off a “trade war” among delegates won by Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and others?
Then there’s the question of how Biden presents himself. In the controlled environment of his home, Biden has had difficulty stringing together coherent sentences during online interviews and often seems confused. Trump is no great orator either, but the president comes off as Daniel Webster to Biden’s Porky Pig.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-biggest-threat-fellow-democrats-cal-thomas
Reade *IS* a Bernie supporter... It would not surprise me if this was a Bernie supporter Op...
There are many lessons to be learned in the aftermath of the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.
One concerns when to act.
Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the Health Emergencies Programme at WHO, has already learned the lesson of when to act, as he explained at a recent press briefing as follows.
"In an epidemic or pandemic, if you need to be right before you move, you will never win; perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to health emergency management. Speed trumps perfection; and, the problem we have in society at the moment is everyone is afraid of making a mistake. Everyone is afraid of the consequences of error.
"But, the greatest error is not to move; the greatest error is to be paralyzed by the fear of failure. That is the single biggest lesson learned by the Ebola responses. What we've learned from the Ebola outbreaks is that we have to move quickly. You need to go after the virus; you have to stop the chains of transmission; you need to engage with communities very deeply; community acceptance is hugely important.
"You need to be coordinated and coherent; you need to look at other sectoral impacts - schools, security, economic - be fast, have no regrets, be the first mover against the virus; the virus will always get you if you don't move fast.
"When speaking of the most vulnerable in our societies - that vulnerability is very important to deal with - but we cannot forget migrants, undocumented workers and prisoner in prisons; we must leave no one behind because the only way we beat this is by not leaving anyone out and working together."
I hope president Trump is listening to these WHO press briefings because they are very informative, especially for political and community leaders who must make sound decisions based on science and past experience.
So what does that say about Democrats who's response to the pandemic was to try and nullify a free, fair, legal, duly, democratic and Constitutional election via a faux impeachment coup???
Funny how you only want to concentrate on President Trump's mistakes and ignore the WHO's mistakes, the CDC's mistakes and the Democrat's mistakes.
Which is exactly why you have no credibility and it's obvious that your attacks are SOLELY and COMPLETELY politically and ideologically based...
Or is it your contention that *ONLY* President Trump made mistakes..
That everyone else was perfect and mistake free...
Hmmmmm????
Human to Human Transmission and Actions Taken By the WHO
Because there is a lot of bad information floating around - and this place is no exception - a recap of a recent WHO press briefing on the subject of respiratory pathogens and their ability to transmit effectively and efficiently at the community level is, once again, in order, as described by Dr. Michael Ryan:
"In the first weeks of January, WHO was very, very clear - they alerted the world on 5 January; countries around the world, including the US, began to activate their incident management systems on 6 January.
"Through the next number of weeks we've produced multiple guidance and updates to countries including briefing multiple governments and scientists around the world on the developing situation and that is what it was - a developing situation. The virus was identified on 7 January and the sequence was shared with the world on 12 January.
"We're dealing with a completely new virus; in the initial reports in which there were no mentions of human-to-human transmission but rather a cluster of atypical pneumonia or pneumonia of unknown origin.
"There are literally millions and millions of cases of atypical pneumonia reported around the world every year. And, in the middle of an influenza season, sometimes it's very difficult to pick out a signal of a cluster of cases. In fact, it's quite remarkable that such a cluster was picked out - 41 confirmed cases ultimately in a cluster in Wuhan.
"There is always a risk with a respiratory pathogen that it can move from person to person. We've seen with MERS, for example, it can spread from person to person but in very particular environments - in an occupational environment and in healthcare environments.
And, when WHO issued its first guidance to countries on 10 January, it was extremely clear that respiratory precautions should be taken in dealing with patients with this disease; that labs needed to be careful in terms of their precautions when taking samples because there was a risk that the disease could spread from person to person in these environments.
"There is a difference between viruses in the potential for human to human transmission. For example, avian influenza H5N1, can spread from person to person but, it doesn't spread efficiently in community settings. It can spread in specific settings like in family, occupational and healthcare environments but it doesn't tend to spread efficiently at the community level.
"The determination was NOT whether human to human transmission was occurring. The determination was whether the virus was spreading efficiently at community level outside those environments. And, that is not an easy determination to make and one has to make that very carefully."
The WHO has provided countries with in-depth guidance throughout this outbreak beginning on 10 January with numerous updates. Up against all of this is a poorly worded tweet - imprecise and not concise - as most tweets are found lacking - bandied about throughout the comments sections of this blog at every opportunity. The WHO social media department has already learned that particular lesson!
There are few countries where the response to this novel coronavirus has been anywhere near perfect. There have been mistakes made at the global, national and sub-national levels, to be sure. Hence, many lessons to be learned.
The WHO is not immune from making mistakes in its response. As Dr. Ryan has said, the WHO will be reviewing its response in an after action review as it has done will all outbreaks and he is looking forward to that engagement to look and see where they can do better in responding to future epidemics and pandemics.
I'd like to think that the US federal government plans to do the same along with state governments to see how their response can be improved.
“They are documents that existed and that for example when I go, when I met with Putin or when I met with whomever. And all of that to be fodder in a campaign at this time.”
-Joe Biden's justification for NOT releasing the Delaware papers..
So, let me get this straight..
Biden doesn't want the American people to know how he dealt with Putin and other enemies of America..
Hmmmmmmm....
And ya'all claim President Trump is a Russian stooge???
All of what you claimed about the WHO doesn't negate that they toed the China line and said there was no evidence that there was HUMAN TO HUMAN transmission of covid-19...
If you don't want to talk about the FACTS, if you just want to dodge and deflect to further your HATE PRESIDENT TRUMP agenda...
Why are you here???
I'll ask again.. Did ANYONE besides President Trump make any mistakes??? It's a simple YES or NO question..
I asked if Tara Reade became more than just me pushing Liz's buttons.. It obviously has based on all the facts I have laid it..
ah, now i see what you mean. in that respect the answer depends how one defines "more" - if you mean that reade has found more media traction then yes. if you mean that there is now more substance to the allegation then no.
JL
ah, now i see what you mean. in that respect the answer depends how one defines "more" - if you mean that reade has found more media traction then yes. if you mean that there is now more substance to the allegation then no.
The NY Grime would disagree with you...
Every Democrat that called for more transparency from Joe Biden would disagree with you.. :D
um, was that an ad hominem name-call against the source you're citing in support of your argument?
[149] of previous thread
ListenWhenYouHear wrote:
Fact is, he knows Biden is innocent
No one knows whether Biden is innocent, except Biden himself. We don't have The Truth. We have the evidence.
[197] of previous thread
nypoet22 wrote:
that's getting consent after the fact
Not even close. Letting someone do something because they've got a gun to your head is the opposite of consent. No matter whether the gun is literal or metaphorical, the significance is the same, as long as it's effective.
@dan,
a "metaphorical" gun to your head? like donald threatened to destroy a girl's career and that's why they let him touch them? i'm not saying it doesn't happen, but that doesn't seem to be his thing. donald's probably just so into himself that he can't conceive of a reality in which every woman alive doesn't desperately want to jump into bed with "a star"
[64]
Heh.
Dan,
No one knows whether Biden is innocent, except Biden himself. We don't have The Truth. We have the evidence.
I'd have to disagree with that assessment. I have more evidence than most here if not all here. The evidence I have comes from 40+ years of following Biden's career fairly closely. I know he didn't do this or anything like this. I trust him and I believe him.
But, I fully understand why you can't know or say the same.
All of what you claimed about the WHO doesn't negate that they toed the China line and said there was no evidence that there was HUMAN TO HUMAN transmission of covid-19...
Evidence of poor reading and comprehension skills. Improvement is required.
but we just don't have an upside-down V character
Unless we're math nerds, who run out of regular letters to use as variables and need to use Greek. Here's capital lambda: ?.
For the upside-down L, it's capital gamma: ?.
And upside-down U isn't a letter, but still a math thing, intersection: ?.
we should be demanding that our leaders at all levels are focused on what to replace the lockdowns with.
We need to accomplish two things: get the current number of contagious people very low, and get the effective reproduction number permanently below one. We haven't done either, yet.
There are credible experts who think diagnosis and contact-tracing can work, when combined with a sustainable level of social distancing. I think we'll need to come up with some innovative stuff.
That means checking out a large number of options that are each very unlikely to be worthwhile, to find a few that are. Maybe we can dilute dish soap down to a level where it's harmless to spray it the way some municipalities spray for mosquito control, and have that decrease the viability of the virus on surfaces. Maybe blacklight bulbs like people sometimes use for novelty party lighting will turn out to produce enough UV to shorten virus viability in aerosol droplets, while still being at a level of UV exposure that's safe for people. Maybe HVAC systems can be reconfigured to decrease transmission via aerosol. Maybe it's worthwhile to use infrared cameras to detect fever. Maybe we should all wash our hands with jalapeño juice a few times, to train ourselves not to touch our faces. Maybe there's something we can take via inhaler to decrease the chances of catching the virus if we're exposed to it while the chemical is still in our respiratory mucus. Maybe one of the coronaviruses that cause common cold will turn out to be protective, and we can inoculate ourselves with it.
Even if some of these turn out to be useful (or more likely, if some of the other thousands of similarly hare-brained ideas that one can come up with do), we can't reopen until we find and implement them, and have done so on a pilot scale long enough to know they're ok.
It's really not that complicated, Dan.
It's like this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/opinion/coronavirus-contact-tracing.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
This is what WHO leaders meant when they said that countries need massive investments in public health infrastructure.
The lockdowns were supposed to provide precious time to get this infrastructure in place.
like donald threatened to destroy a girl's career and that's why they let him touch them?
A threat can be effective without being explicit, or even overt. If someone has tantrums whenever he perceives a subordinate as insufficiently loyal, his catchphrase is "you're fired", and he routinely gropes without waiting for any indication of consent, a woman who needs to keep her job would be well-advised to infer the threat. Likewise, in the case of Miss Teen USA, for a girl who wants to avoid fallout from a tantrum. But in that case he merely bragged about being "allowed to go in" because he was "the owner of the pageant", and "inspect" their "everything" while "they're standing there with no clothes", not about actually grabbing the "everything".
I trust him and I believe him.
Trust and belief aren't the same as knowledge.
We don't need knowledge. Well-justified trust is good enough. But we need to be able to justify it with the level of study that a normal voter can put in during the course of a campaign.
It's really not that complicated, Dan.
It's a new disease, and people in the US are awful about cooperating with anything. We have political demonstrations where people go and cough on the police. We have anti-vaxxers. I'm pretty sure that article is one I had already read. If not, it's close enough that I couldn't tell the difference. So yes, I acknowledge that there are experts who are optimistic. I'm not optimistic. I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see Americans having the level of compliance by the public that the article is calling for.
Trust and belief aren't the same as knowledge.
I know. And, I know he didn't do it, too. :)
I also know that I am rather unique, that way. Sigh.
We have political demonstrations where people go and cough on the police. We have anti-vaxxers.
Yeah, well, as problems go, I'd agree you've got one or more there. Yikes.
Dan, you make a very good point about inferring threats.
It reminds of the time when Bill boarded a plane on the tarmac in Phoenix ... and set in motion the events that helped sabotage his wife's presidential campaign.
You see, the inference could even be implied and in the eyes of the beholder. It just didn't look good. :)
Let me see if I understand what's happening here. The Trump administration shut down the pandemic office within the NSA before the pandemic. And, now, he's shutting down the pandemic task force DURING a pandemic.
HA!
Dan, I'm notoriously slow on the uptake but, I am finally beginning to understand what you've been trying to tell me about things :(
Drat. I would have been happier if you'd given a convincing explanation of why I was wrong, and the Box-It-In approach was likely to work here.
Mike
19
We will be past this (except for some Democrat holdouts who LOVE martial law et al) by June.. And President Trump is going to be lauded by patriotic Americans for the awesome job he has done..
Thank you for yet another look into the mind of a bona fide effing moron still downplaying the seriousness of SARS-CoV-2 and unable to grasp reality.
EM
49
Wouldn't it be nice if we could put Trump on a spaceship and send him off to another world?
Trump and the trumplickers are already living on another world we refer to as Earth 2... where their heads reside firmly and permanently up inside each others' bigly fat asses.