All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Cunt]

The president has wide executive powers. He chose a leader in each cabinet position to make those departments look ridiculous and to be block their actions on business.

It's all Trump, aided by Bannon and pals. Read the book:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk

Read the terrain.

The presumptive nominee is Biden.

[Sean Hayden]

Yeah okay Tero, you've got a book that proves you're right.

I'm aware of the Republican desire to limit government. Unfortunately your half-assed attempt to connect the dots so that they've succeeded, and have somehow engineered the perfect storm, is full of holes and relies on ignoring inconvenient details all over the place e.g. testing protocols.

[Tero]

You can prepare for these things. You can have WHO supplies on hand. Trump wants nothing to do with World Anything.

You can also quarantine travelers and provide housing for the 2 weeks. Chris Christie quarantined some poor ebola aid worker in a tent in a parking garage 2 weeks. She was one of the first to return from Africa. The plane landed in Newark so he detained her.

[Sean Hayden]

There you go ignoring details and basically just pretending. WHO tests weren't offered, and aren't. We sent tons of supplies to help China contain the virus there. That they lied to us about both human to human transmission and when they first discovered it couldn't have helped. Finally WA began closing shop almost immediately...

[L'Emmerdeur]

The discussion that won't die!

As I understand it, and according to the Snopes piece on this that I believe you posted previously, other countries used the WHO test. The US did not, because it's standard US policy to develop their own tests. The US could have used the WHO test like other countries did--there was nothing but US policy preventing that. Now, President Trump's presidency has been characterised by a scorn for established norms and policies, when he sees a benefit to himself. This was a chance for him to toss aside established policy to benefit the country as a whole. It didn't happen.

I can hypothesise regarding this, but that's all it would be. Perhaps nobody suggested it to him. Perhaps they did, but he believed that adopting the WHO test would run counter to the 'America First' ideology that has carried him this far. The bald explanation, 'that's not how we normally do things' doesn't really hold a lot of water in view of the fact that 'how we normally do things' has never been much of an impediment to Trump before.

[Cunt]

The discussion that won't die!

As I understand it, and according to the Snopes piece on this that I believe you posted previously, other countries used the WHO test. The US did not, because it's standard US policy to develop their own tests. The US could have used the WHO test like other countries did--there was nothing but US policy preventing that. Now, President Trump's presidency has been characterised by a scorn for established norms and policies, when he sees a benefit to himself. This was a chance for him to toss aside established policy to benefit the country as a whole. It didn't happen.

I can hypothesise regarding this, but that's all it would be. Perhaps nobody suggested it to him. Perhaps they did, but he believed that adopting the WHO test would run counter to the 'America First' ideology that has carried him this far. The bald explanation, 'that's not how we normally do things' doesn't really hold a lot of water in view of the fact that 'how we normally do things' has never been much of an impediment to Trump before.

The WHO has shown themselves to be in thrall to China's Communist government.

The US sees that government as an enemy or adversary.

So why are you surprised that they were rejected?

Have other countries, who are clear adversaries of China's Communsts, used the W.H.O. tests? (I haven't checked, but Taiwan doesn't trust China in this issue)

[Sean Hayden]

They weren't rejected. It's standard protocol. It's what the CDC does.

[Cunt]

They weren't rejected. It's standard protocol. It's what the CDC does.

Testing seems to be advancing in the US more rapidly than in other areas. It's possible that WHO offered, or had a standing offer (or M.O.U.) but my point is that it doesn't matter, if neither US party in power trusts them.
From one who is critical of Trump and Republicans.

We can’t rely I think on the numbers that China’s giving out — both because I think the Chinese leadership probably wants to present their model as the successful model and given all the problems the United States is having, this is among other things, a propaganda coup for China to be sending medical equipment to the United States instead of the other way around, but also because historically when there have been viruses or other health or other problems in China, there are people that lie to the Chinese government, lie to their own government, lie to their own people because they are afraid of retribution by the officials higher up,

He blathers on about why he thinks China is lying, and he is an idiot. The fact that they are lying is enough without speculating or attributing motive to them. Enough to consider their data as rotten by default, and treat their test kits the same way.

[Brian Peacock]

The Chinese numbers are one thing, but casting around to play the blame game is a distraction from addressing the situation on the ground in the US as elsewhere. We start from 'here' everyday with this thing - pointing a finger to past and saying, "Oh, but China..." is unhelpful at this time.

[Seabass]

Wrong, Brian. Wrongness is mutually exclusive. If the Chinese government did something wrong, then that means Trump couldn't have done something wrong. That's Republican logic.

[Cunt]

Wrong, Brian. Wrongness is mutually exclusive. If the Chinese government did something wrong, then that means Trump couldn't have done something wrong. That's Republican logic.

Dems complain about Trump being slow to respond, but they 'led by example' focused on impeachment instead of backing his decision to stop traffic from China.

Next, they'll completely fail to put forward a plan to 'unlock' the country economy, but will absolutely blame Trump for stuff when HE does.

Like they are ineffective gnats...it sure would be good to find a few of his opponents who were more productive.

[Seabass]

Wrong, Brian. Wrongness is mutually exclusive. If the Chinese government did something wrong, then that means Trump couldn't have done something wrong. That's Republican logic.

Dems complain about Trump being slow to respond, but they 'led by example' focused on impeachment instead of backing his decision to stop traffic from China.

Next, they'll completely fail to put forward a plan to 'unlock' the country economy, but will absolutely blame Trump for stuff when HE does.

Like they are ineffective gnats...it sure would be good to find a few of his opponents who were more productive.

[Cunt]

Joe Biden is looking younger all the time. He's a GREAT choice to run against Trump!

[Brian Peacock]

Wrong, Brian. Wrongness is mutually exclusive. If the Chinese government did something wrong, then that means Trump couldn't have done something wrong. That's Republican logic.

Yeah, sure is, and you'll no doubt see the lickspittles of neo-liberal dogma pretending that the entire administration was distracted or hamstrung by the Senate impeachment proceedings while forgetting that Trump was actually making public statements about the infection, saying that covid-19 wasn't going to be a problem, coz the numbers were small and going down, that people were getting better, that it was a hoax. What the corporatist lapdogs never pay attention to is who wants them to believe the Chinese are to blame, or some dude who got caught doing a fraud, or that Democrats somehow had a mysterious hold over the ordered operation of the administration, and the interests these 'informed opinions' generally represent.

What sticks in my craw are those in positions of power and responsibility who are trying to get their excuses in now. That, by my lights, speaks to an impulse to only view this event in personal and/or political rather than in human terms.

[Sean Hayden]

Looking at China is important to understanding what happened. Everything doesn't fit neatly into our struggles for political dominance.

Sometimes we're just interested in understanding how shit happens.

edited for accuracy