Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Vapid whore KellyAnne Conway follows Trump's approach of deflecting a valid question by attacking the press, and refusing to answer.

Conway's comments were made to a gaggle of reporters outside the White House following the announcement of a list of members chosen for the President Trump's coronavirus task force focused on reopening the economy. Conway described the list as "less exhaustive than it is illustrative," adding that there will be other people raising their hands and saying 'How can I help?'"

"We don't pick who the heads of the sports commission leagues or which CEOs of companies want to help," Conway said.

"But you do pick your task force — you could pick small businesses, you could pick other people or groups. Who is this?" Reid asked.

"Paula, I actually don't know what's happened to you, respectfully. I don't know why you've changed," Conway replied. "And you're in the briefing room screaming at Anthony Fauci and the president," Conway continued.

"But that aside, I'll answer the question about how they're going to help America, which is why I'm here."

"I think you're here for a different reason, it seems these days," Conway added. "I'm here and the council has stepped up because they want to help Americans."

Ah ah ah, that's not the question that was asked. Attacking the press is not the same as answering the question. Attacking the press is proof you cannot answer the question.

I've also been looking at this "Trump will dissolve the Senate like Palpatine" thing. There's the obvious hypocrisy of Trump saying "the House and Senate aren't meeting, which is bad, therefore, I will stop them from meeting". Further, there's the added hypocrisy of Trump doing so to ram his appointments through. Trump has an historic level of empty and/or acting seats. Trump is complaining that the Senate -- oh by the way, the House can't nominate his people anyhow, dismissing the House is completely unnecessary -- the Senate isn't voting on the people he's not nominating.

Trump also tried to push this as a scam. Incidentally:

How the Senate Foils Obama Even When It's in Recess

With the Senate on spring break for two weeks, the north side of the Capitol felt pleasantly drowsy Monday morning. A smattering of staffers and journalists wandered the echoing hallways, along with the occasional tour group. Capitol police officers looked a little more relaxed than usual. On the Senate floor, all 100 mahogany desks stood vacant. The visitors’ galleries had only two observers, a gray-haired, pink-faced couple who looked to be dozing off in the stillness. Most senators had long since fled the building, having far better places to spend their down time.

But not everyone was out enjoying the recess. As 10 a.m. neared, the parliamentarian, two clerks, and a couple of other Senate officers took their places at the front of the empty chamber. “Who’s doing this thing?” one asked. “Cornyn,” another answered. Then everyone sat around chatting, as a few more tourists trickled into the upper decks. Just before the hour, Senator John Cornyn of Texas sauntered in. Charcoal suit sharp, white hair gleaming, the Republican whip greeted the assembled few as he made his way to the presiding officer’s chair. At 10 a.m. on the dot, he gaveled the empty room to order, and, per the short script someone had thoughtfully left him, directed the legislative clerk to read “a communication to the Senate” from Senate president pro tempore Orrin Hatch. The lanky, bespectacled clerk rose and delivered a one-sentence order appointing Cornyn chairman for the day. And with that, Cornyn declared the body adjourned until 11 a.m. Thursday, gave the gavel a closing bang, and made for the door.

All told, Monday’s session lasted a whopping 35 seconds. No business was conducted, and no member besides Cornyn bothered showing up. It was, by and large, a scorching waste of time for everyone who had to be on hand to make it happen. Except that, if this tiny pro forma session had not taken place (nor the three more upcoming one like it scheduled for the break), the Senate would be in recess for more than 10 days—which, as any legislator can tell you, is a no-no. A recess of that length opens the door to recess appointments by the president. And with Senate Republicans currently refusing even to consider President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, a recess appointment is something Majority Leader Mitch McConnell simply will not risk. No matter whose vacation it screws up.

OH LOOK. McConnell did the same thing on purpose to block Obama. And it's not like Pelosi can affect Senate nomination schedules. Hell, I don't even think Schumer can.

Trump supporters, you know the drill: you must now call out McConnell for conducting this scam. You have 24 hours to call out McConnell, or to say Trump is wrong and this is not a scam. Pick one. Don't care. Failure means you're a craven coward and I get to pick for you.

[Benggaul]

Daily US COVID19 deaths hit a new high of 2482. I really, really don't think the US has gone through the worst of it yet, sadly. Especially with such shitty leadership pushing the worst governors to reopen.

[Breccia]

Daily US COVID19 deaths hit a new high of 2482.

Yeah...sigh...total deaths now stand at 30,844. Well over double the H1N1 outbreak. Almost double what Trump said the H1N1 outbreak was.

If we hit the inflection point, like, now, those more recent predictions of 60,000 could yet come to pass. Every day we don't, the total keeps getting pushed up.

Stay at home. Please.

[Captain N]

Yeah...sigh...total deaths now stand at 30,844. Well over double the H1N1 outbreak. Almost double what Trump said the H1N1 outbreak was.

If we hit the inflection point, like, now, those more recent predictions of 60,000 could yet come to pass. Every day we don't, the total keeps getting pushed up.

Stay at home. Please.

Gonna be hard to stay at home. We have Republicans in various states trying to override their governors shelter in place mandates.

[Benggaul]

Yeah...sigh...total deaths now stand at 30,844. Well over double the H1N1 outbreak. Almost double what Trump said the H1N1 outbreak was.

If we hit the inflection point, like, now, those more recent predictions of 60,000 could yet come to pass. Every day we don't, the total keeps getting pushed up.

Stay at home. Please.

To add at least a bit of positivity to this, there's a chance that some of the numbers from the past two days have come from adjustments to reporting. Cuomo said that they'll be reporting causes according to new CDC guidelines, whatever that may be. Also, as time goes on, treatment of the worst cases ought to improve (and ICU capacity ought to be expanded), so hopefully that means more lives saved and diminishing totals daily.

[Thepersona]

Gonna be hard to stay at home. We have Republicans in various states trying to override their governors shelter in place mandates.

I may ask, why?

[Orbitus]

I may ask, why?

Cuz they are retarded. Simple as that. They think the people in power, AKA the governors are trampling their rights by forcing them to stay home. There was one guy that was getting interviewed about it, saying he could "take care of himself" after having a stroke and quadruple bypass surgery. Obviously he can't take care of himself if he has that bad of health problems.

[Zan15]

King Obama strikes again...wait...umm, i mean Trump?

remember when republicans swore Obama was going to do all kinds of things to make himself king that turned out to be fake news and conspiracy.
Here we have trump outright saying it....

sigh


https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...rs-of-congress

President Trump on Wednesday threatened to use his executive power to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn if the Senate did not confirm his nominees for vacancies across the administration.

The president, during a coronavirus briefing in the Rose Garden, offered a lengthy diatribe against what he described as congressional obstruction and argued confirming his nominees was more urgent than ever amid the pandemic.

"The Senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so I can make recess appointments," Trump said. "We have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government. And now more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem."

[Stormspellz]

I may ask, why?

the proganda networks got them to believe "social distancing and public safety is some form of tyranny (and besides its a dem hoax)"

[noidentity]

So wait, are you all telling me that Obama had the authority to adjourn Congress and pack the courts with liberal activist judges and didn't take it?

And Trump is threatening to do that very thing, having already successfully packed the hell out of the courts with conservative activist judges?

I keep telling you, Democrats suck at abusing power. They really need to learn from Republicans on how to accomplish their goals by ratfucking everything.

Article 2 of the constitution stops Trump because the Democrats and Republicans already decided on a date to end the current session.

As usual, jackass Barr likely fed Trump what he wanted to hear and Trump just ran with it without knowing what what he is talking about.

This is nothing but saber rattling from the toddler in chief.

[cubby]

Yeah...sigh...total deaths now stand at 30,844. Well over double the H1N1 outbreak. Almost double what Trump said the H1N1 outbreak was.

If we hit the inflection point, like, now, those more recent predictions of 60,000 could yet come to pass. Every day we don't, the total keeps getting pushed up.

Stay at home. Please.

And we still have entire states that aren't in lockdown. Florida and Texas were the worst - and they barely stayed at home before both idiot governors are now talking about a return to work.

[Captain N]

And we still have entire states that aren't in lockdown. Florida and Texas were the worst - and they barely stayed at home before both idiot governors are now talking about a return to work.

If Florida decides to send everyone back to work I could see them being responsible for a spike in cases everywhere in the country. Damn near everyone who has put off a trip to their theme parks is chomping at the bit to reschedule their cancelled vacation. You start getting people flooding Disney or Universal from places like Texas or Michigan who in turn infect others we end up with cases all over the country again.

[Zaydin]

And we still have entire states that aren't in lockdown. Florida and Texas were the worst - and they barely stayed at home before both idiot governors are now talking about a return to work.

And when people start dying in droves they will deny responsibility.

[Kaleredar]

If Florida decides to send everyone back to work I could see them being responsible for a spike in cases everywhere in the country. Damn near everyone who has put off a trip to their theme parks is chomping at the bit to reschedule their cancelled vacation. You start getting people flooding Disney or Universal from places like Texas or Michigan who in turn infect others we end up with cases all over the country again.

I doubt Disney and the other companies would be willing to reopen their theme parks, especially considering they closed them of their own volition, and not under some government order.

Plus, ordering people back to work is one thing; enticing tourists to come is another. I doubt many people will be chomping at the bit to travel to Florida if their infection statistics start skyrocketing.

[Captain N]

I doubt Disney and the other companies would be willing to reopen their theme parks.

Plus, ordering people back to work is one thing; enticing tourists to come is another. I doubt many people will be chomping at the bit to travel to Florida if their infection statistics start skyrocketing.

I'd like to believe you're right but we're already seeing people claiming that we're experiencing some kind of tyranny for taking precautions against the spread of a disease that's killed close to 30,000 people in the US. They're still buying into the propaganda that this pandemic is being artificially inflated by the media and trying to compare numbers against our total population instead of the mortality rate against the number of confirmed cases (It's about 4.4%) even though we haven't tested near enough people yet.

People are stupid.

Hopefully Disney isn't as stupid as those people.

[Kaleredar]

I'd like to believe you're right but we're already seeing people claiming that we're experiencing some kind of tyranny for taking precautions against the spread of a disease that's killed close to 30,000 people in the US. They're still buying into the propaganda that this pandemic is being artificially inflated by the media and trying to compare numbers against our total population instead of the mortality rate against the number of confirmed cases (It's about 4.4%) even though we haven't tested near enough people yet.

People are stupid.

Hopefully Disney isn't as stupid as those people.

Disney shut down their parks of their own volition. I also doubt they want to go through the process of on-boarding hundreds, maybe even thousands, of new workers before this thing is actually settled.

They might be losing money now, but I bet they’d lose a lot more if they spent money trying to wind things back up only to have to shut it all down again.

[Benggaul]

Disney shut down their parks of their own volition. I also doubt they want to go through the process of on-boarding hundreds, maybe even thousands, of new workers before this thing is actually settled.

They might be losing money now, but I bet they’d lose a lot more if they spent money trying to wind things back up only to have to shut it all down again.

The parks are undoubtedly losing money but the Disney empire as a whole is still practically printing it. They can keep the parks closed as long as it takes without feeling it too badly.

[Breccia]

FOX News pushes conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was man-made, or more precisely, created in a Chinese lab.

Incidentally, while FOX News cites unnamed sources -- hey, didn't Trump say something about unnamed sources being Fake News? I remember it like I'm citing a source right now -- other places, like, say, this international study hosted by Scripps that also says it has natural origin.

The head of the NIH has personally cited this study. I hear rumors that he is a doctor, and has common sense.

Or, failing that, you could ask General Miley. He also said the evidence pointed towards it being natural. If that name sounds familiar, it should. He's the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And while he may or may not have read the above-cited study, he did get information from US intelligence.

By the way, Trump has himself spoken on this conspiracy theory. Big surprise, not only did he say in public he liked it, but he also said this:

We’ll see. When you say ‘multiple sources’, now there’s a case where you can use the word ‘sources’. But we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened

That's hypocrisy, of course. Trump said unnamed sources are bullshit, unless of course they say something that is not only something he feels is true, but also, contradicted by both a rigorous scientific study and also his own intelligence departments. Kind of like "And they say the noise causes cancer." The use of "they say" which is, again, not backed up by any scientific study, but cites "multiple sources" and its information he likes, therefore it magically becomes true.

So once again, a shout out to the Trump supporters:

"Multiple sources have told me posting on anonymous forums makes you impotent."

Now many people here will read that and say "What? I can't think of a single study that said this, and also, it doesn't sound true. I am not going to change my behavior."

But if you are a Trump supporter, you must say "Oh, multiple sources? I will follow this advice and stop posting on anonymous forums." Or, you could say "No, just because FOX News and Trump say they have heard multiple sources, that is not enough reason to handwave scientific research." But it's one or the other.

Or, I guess you could say that FOX News is correct, Trump is correct, and by saying so here you are admitting you're impotent.

But those are your three options. If your response takes longer than 24 hours, you might want to see a doctor. Who has common sense.

[Logwyn]

I'd like to believe you're right but we're already seeing people claiming that we're experiencing some kind of tyranny for taking precautions against the spread of a disease that's killed close to 30,000 people in the US. They're still buying into the propaganda that this pandemic is being artificially inflated by the media and trying to compare numbers against our total population instead of the mortality rate against the number of confirmed cases (It's about 4.4%) even though we haven't tested near enough people yet.

People are stupid.

Hopefully Disney isn't as stupid as those people.

They will just remove all the water fountains if they havn't already and make bottle water cost 10 bucks each to make up for the loss. And people will pay it just so they can see a mouse and be a jedi.

[Spectral]

Didn’t see this mentioned yet, but $2000 a month until unemployment returns to pre-Covid-19 levels seems bold. Wonder how many republicans would back it.



https://www.businessinsider.com/amer...ts-plan-2020-4

Seems pretty stingy to me. I propose $5K a month forever. What could possibly be wrong with that?

- - - Updated - - -

FOX News pushes conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was man-made, or more precisely, created in a Chinese lab.

The linked clip doesn't show someone claiming that the virus is man-made. The evidence you linked regarding whether it's man-made or not is completely immaterial to the claim that the origin is a safety mishap in a research lab. The Washington Post reported that the State Department sent cables two years ago indicating safety issues in the Wuhan laboratory. Factually, the lab does indeed house bats and work on coronaviruses in bat models (see this paper, for example) and is ~250 meters from the seafood market where 41 cases were initially identified. From that information, it's pretty easy to come up with models of transmission from lab to market (which is the consensus origin of the outbreak). Pinpointing the correct model would likely prove scientifically impossible and be down to whether there's any intelligence that clearly identifies known mistakes in the lab.