Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Hey remember when Trump said more people would die due to lockdowns than COVID itself?

WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

-- March 2020 (heh, 15 days)

"Okay, but what does that say about--"

Fact checking Trump's claim about suicides if the economic shutdown continues
-- also March 2020

"Oh. Of course."

As some in President Donald Trump's inner circle push for loosening social distancing guidelines amid economic fallout from the novel coronavirus outbreak, he has predicted "tremendous death" and "suicide by the thousands" if the country isn't "opened for business" in a matter of weeks.

"You're going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression." Trump said Tuesday in a Fox News town hall. "You're going to lose people. You're going to have suicides by the thousands."

One night before, at a coronavirus task force briefing, the president said, "I'm talking about where people suffer massive depression, where people commit suicide, where tremendous death happens… I mean, definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."

Ah good times...good times...the US suicide rate dropped in 2020.

Specifically, the number of suicides last year was 45,000 and as @Benggaul will surely tell us, the number of COVID deaths in 2020 was, um, just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit higher than that. He might use terms like "not even close" or "order of magnitude" or "Breccia for fuck's sake, Trump being that wrong is hardly news anymore"

[PhaelixWW]

There's a good chance this will be the first week since the beginning of October where we don't break 1k deaths in a day.

Totally jinxed it.

[Breccia]

Our investigation has shown that Trump Administration officials engaged in a persistent pattern of political interference in the nation’s public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, overruling and bullying scientists and making harmful decisions that allowed the virus to spread more rapidly

-- House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis

This committee is now asking for documents for these changes. Considering Team Trump was using personal email addresses for this -- yeyp, that's that hypocrisy again -- trying to alter or block MMWR numbers that made Trump look bad, and to present evidence that opening businesses was actually a good move, such documents exist. I don't know which specific laws you break, when you alter government reports in a way specifically designed to get people killed, but the House committee will, and they have every reason to apply them.

[Edge-]

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1380309798957285376

And Tucker Carlson goes all in on the "great replacement theory".

Fuck this white supremacist piece of shit, cable companies need to start dropping Fox from their packages, because that's where most of Fox's money comes from. Force them to actually rely on advertisers and worry about advertiser boycotts.

[Felya]

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1380309798957285376

And Tucker Carlson goes all in on the "great replacement theory".

Fuck this white supremacist piece of shit, cable companies need to start dropping Fox from their packages, because that's where most of Fox's money comes from. Force them to actually rely on advertisers and worry about advertiser boycotts.

I like how everyone is going crazy if you mention his replacement theory is crazy... It’s bugs bunny logic... can’t call me crazy if I call you crazy first!!! Wahaha!!!

[Howel]

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1380309798957285376

And Tucker Carlson goes all in on the "great replacement theory".

Fuck this white supremacist piece of shit, cable companies need to start dropping Fox from their packages, because that's where most of Fox's money comes from. Force them to actually rely on advertisers and worry about advertiser boycotts.

He really is on a mission to soft legitimizing every single racist dog whistle and conspiracy it seems.

[Benggaul]

Thursday's report:

80,161 new cases, about 3k more than last Thursday.

Top 5:

New York: 8,823 new cases; 57 deaths
Michigan: 8,539 new cases; 77 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Pennsylvania: 4,466 new cases; 38 deaths
Texas: 4,437 new cases; 98 deaths

New York is back on top of the list with a total that's lower than their previous Thursday, but Michigan isn't far behind with a total about 1.5k higher than last week. Michigan's positive test rate is about 16%, so expect things to stay pretty bad there for a while. Meanwhile California has a positive test rate of 1.7% which is the lowest in the nation currently. Texas and New York are both just north of 5%...if you can believe Texas.

1,009 deaths is slightly higher than last Thursday and--

Totally jinxed it.

I said there was a good chance, I didn't say it was a sure thing. Anyway, the total is now 573,856. As more than a third of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, deaths should continue to decline overall. Today's number might be a bit of a correction seeing as:

Declines in U.S. cases and deaths that appear in the Coronavirus Resource Center’s data on Mondays are the result of several states not reporting the information over the weekend. Those states are: Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and Wyoming. (source)

Related news:

Fauci says new Covid-19 cases are at a disturbing level as the US is primed for a surge--I said back at the start of the decline in cases that I was worried about plateauing at a high level--and I guess in this case I'm backed up by an expert as he's basically saying the same thing now. The average new case totals now are about the highs from the Summer wave last year. It used to be bad that we were hitting 40k cases a day. We're around double that now and not decreasing much further.

Stay safe, folks.

[Edge-]

Former speaker John Boehner: A Republican colleague assaulted me and threatened my life by holding a 10-inch knife to my throat outside the House floor and I didn't snitch on him!

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...k-in-politics/

Does he seriously think his "redemption tour" is like, gonna change minds? He was a weak, flaccid, feckless, loser of a Speaker who lost total control of his caucus and spent his days being walked. I genuinely don't think he realizes just how terrible of a person and politician these reveals make him look like.

Edit: Worth noting that former Rep. Don Young admitted that Boehner's account is mostly true.

Anyone know the statue of limitations on assault with a deadly weapon?

[Breccia]

A Republican colleague assaulted me and threatened my life by holding a 10-inch knife to my throat outside the House floor and I didn't snitch on him!

What a cowardly bitch. Also, threaening a legislator with the intent to change policy? That's literal terrorism.

[Edge-]

What a cowardly bitch. Also, threaening a legislator with the intent to change policy? That's literal terrorism.

Seriously, I never figured Boehner and Republicans for being on the, "Snitches get stiches." train.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.tennessean.com/story/new...ns/7122424002/

Tennessee House Republicans want to slash the length of time a person can collect unemployment checks by as much as half, a measure they argue would save tens of millions of dollars in a state that already has one of the lowest jobless benefit rates in the nation.

The idea, championed by House Speaker Cameron Sexton and other members of the chamber's GOP leadership, is to reduce the maximum number of weeks a Tennessean can collect the benefit — which could drop to 12 weeks from the current 26, depending on the state's unemployment rate.

It has stalled in the Senate, however, where the current bill sponsor said he has no intention to move the bill forward, while Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said more work needs to be done on the legislation.

...

As of February, Tennesseans who claim unemployment benefits received an average weekly benefit of $217, federal data shows. They are eligible for up to 26 weeks of regular benefits.

The proposed House amendment would increase the weekly payments by $5 for all qualifying applicants. But under the formula floated by Vaughan and Sexton, benefits could max out at 12 weeks beginning in July 2023 — the lowest length of time in the nation.

The Republican war on poverty continues. But their "mission accomplished" seems less to be about lifting people out of poverty and more about killing poor people.

Republicans do not care about you as a worker, and do not care if you suffer when you are unemployed.

[s_bushido]

Republicans do not care about you as a worker, and do not care if you suffer when you are unemployed.

Yeah, but it could save them millions. That's obviously more important than...I don't know...keeping people alive.

[Omega10]

Former speaker John Boehner: A Republican colleague assaulted me and threatened my life by holding a 10-inch knife to my throat outside the House floor and I didn't snitch on him!

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...k-in-politics/

Does he seriously think his "redemption tour" is like, gonna change minds? He was a weak, flaccid, feckless, loser of a Speaker who lost total control of his caucus and spent his days being walked. I genuinely don't think he realizes just how terrible of a person and politician these reveals make him look like.

Edit: Worth noting that former Rep. Don Young admitted that Boehner's account is mostly true.

Anyone know the statue of limitations on assault with a deadly weapon?

I'm going to have to disagree here. It could be argued that he did his best to clamp down on republican craziness in very difficult times. Look at what has happened since he left.

Let's bold the important sentence:

A Republican colleague assaulted me and threatened my life by holding a 10-inch knife to my throat outside the House floor and I didn't snitch on him!


Snitching would have one set of bad consequences, not snitching had a different set of bad consequences. The fact that he is talking now is nothing short of amazing as a HUGE majority of people in his situation would just keep their mouths shut.

The republican party did not just get bat shit crazy when Trump was elected. They covered up an awful lot of crap. Boehner is starting to expose some of the crap that happened pre-Trump.

[Edge-]

I'm going to have to disagree here. It could be argued that he did his best to clamp down on republican craziness in very difficult times. Look at what has happened since he left.

I'd argue what happened after he left was a direct result of his failure as a Speaker. He let the Freedumb Caucus and Tea Party walk all over him like Ben Shapiro wishes AOC would walk on him.

Snitching would have one set of bad consequences, not snitching had a different set of bad consequences. The fact that he is talking now is nothing short of amazing as a HUGE majority of people in his situation would just keep their mouths shut.

...what bad consequences? Pointing out that a member of his own party threatened his life in the fucking Capitol building? I mean again, I'd argue this was a direct result of him losing total control of the Republican caucus and letting them functionally run wild and do whatever they want.

Boehner is starting to expose some of the crap that happened pre-Trump.

He could have exposed it during his Speakership. He could have exposed it after his Speakership and before Trump was elected. Instead he simped it up like the rest of the Republican cucks and did his best not to say anything mean about Dear Leader during the election "for the party".

Now that I assume his weed bux have dried up he's looking for some kind of political redemption story, hungry for all those liberals that love to buy books from "reasonable/former conservatives" willing to dish out dirt on how terrible the Republican party is and how the writer just kinda was fine with all of it at the time.

He deserves nothing but our disdain and mockery.

[Omega10]

Snip

At the very least, snitching at that time would cost him his Speakership, probably his seat, and he would have to live with death threats for the rest of his life. No doubt his family would also be in danger as well.

He figures it's safe enough to speak out now.

He let the Freedumb Caucus and Tea Party walk all over him

No one else stood up to them either. The US is paying a HUGE price for this Overall they were treated as the good guys by the US media. It took Trump being elected to destroy their reputation as he exposed - championed? - the hateful disgusting horrible parts of who they are.

[Edge-]

At the very least, snitching at that time would cost him his Speakership, probably his seat, and he would have to live with death threats for the rest of his life. No doubt his family would also be in danger as well.

Which is all the reason more to call it out at the time and confront the extremism festering in his party head-on. Silence led to...well...Trumpism. If he was so concerned for the safety of himself and his family, I'm sure he could work with the FBI to ensure their protection from his potentially murderous colleagues and constituents.

No one else stood up to them either.

Because nobody in the Republican caucus has a spine, that's why. And it was on the Speaker to counter that in the House. Democrats can't counter as a minority party, and Republicans aren't gonna take action like that without the Speaker.

Overall they were treated as the good guys by the US media.

The Freedumb Caucus/Tea Party? I mean, by some conservative media maybe, but not US media writ large.

[Benggaul]

Friday's report:

85,368 new cases, about 12k more than last Friday. Not great.

Top 5:

New York: 9,163 new cases; 73 deaths
Michigan: 8,834 new cases; 29 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Pennsylvania: 5,145 new cases; 41 deaths
New Jersey: 4,193 new cases; 43 deaths

Illinois and Minnesota are beginning to make sharper climbs which isn't surprising given their proximity to Michigan and the UK variant of the virus. Florida's heading up. Texas is still trying to deny reality, though I can't tell by how much because the site I was using to see state by state testing no longer works properly for me, but I can't imagine their testing has improved any in the past week given how lax they became after screwing themselves during the freak winter storm. It's still looking like a slow climb in most areas apart from Michigan, but it's still a climb and therefore dangerous.

929 deaths is a bit over 50 fewer than last Friday and brings the total to 574,840. If not for what very well may have been a correction on Thursday we would have gone the whole week under 1k. There's still hope for next week as the vaccinations should help bring those numbers down.

Related news:

Covid cases overwhelm Michigan health system, Gov. Whitmer urges residents to stay home--After doing well in the face of adversity the past year in the fight against COVID-19, Whitmer really screwed the pooch this time around by relaxing restrictions just as cases were starting to climb in her state. As I said before I can't blame her entirely given the enormous amount of pressure she's faced from the more ignorant denizens of Michigan--including plans for her abduction--but her easing off the brakes here is hurting her state and those around it. The GOP will never admit mistakes, but the rest of us need to be better than that. She goofed big time.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

The Associated Press has a timeline of the murderous insurrection, provided by the Pentagon.

Now, a lot of it we mostly knew. Violence started at 1:48, which we know because the head of DC police called the National Guard. Twenty-two minutes later, the doors were breached. DC police and the Capitol's defenses slowly failed over the next hour and a half.

At 3:19 Pelosi and Schumer called the National Guard, and were told they were on the way.

At 3:37 the Pentagon sent in its own defense forces. Reports differ as to why the National Guard hadn't arrived yet.

By 3:44 Schumer just told the Pentagon to ask Trump to tweet.

No, really. I want everyone to read this.

By 3:44 p.m., the congressional leaders escalated their pleas.

“Tell POTUS to tweet everyone should leave,” Schumer implored the officials, using the acronym for the president of the United States.

I get the Pentagon not wanting to send in the military without Trump's approval, even if i disagree with it. It's a chain-of-command thing, they're soldiers, I'm not, my ethics differ from theirs. But let's be clear: things had gotten so bad, Schumer decided that Trump tweeting was the best way to handle this.

And he was right. Trump tweeted at 4:17 and NG didn't get fully mobile till 4:30, arriving 5:20.

So, either the Pentagon was waiting for an order from Trump that never came -- that's Trump's fault -- or, Trump gave the order and his own miiltary didn't act on it -- which is still Trump's fault as Commander in Chief, until a specific person is found breaking those orders. And, since the Pentagon sent its own on-site security forces, I don't think such a break in the chain will be found. And the timeline agrees.

These new details about the deadly riot are contained in a previously undisclosed document prepared by the Pentagon for internal use that was obtained by The Associated Press and vetted by current and former government officials.

The timeline adds another layer of understanding about the state of fear and panic while the insurrection played out, and lays bare the inaction by then-President Donald Trump and how that void contributed to a slowed response by the military and law enforcement. It shows that the intelligence missteps, tactical errors and bureaucratic delays were eclipsed by the government’s failure to comprehend the scale and intensity of a violent uprising by its own citizens.

With Trump not engaged, it fell to Pentagon officials, a handful of senior White House aides, the leaders of Congress and the vice president holed up in a secure bunker to manage the chaos.

While the timeline helps to crystalize the frantic character of the crisis, the document, along with hours of sworn testimony, provides only an incomplete picture about how the insurrection could have advanced with such swift and lethal force, interrupting the congressional certification of Joe Biden as president and delaying the peaceful transfer of power, the hallmark of American democracy.

What else did we learn? The Secretary of the Army McCarthy had already pledged support, but couldn't send anything without acting SecDef Miller, or anyone who outranked him (Trump). In fact, McCarthy left the phone call between DC police and the NG that had started on/before 2:10, kicked in Miller's door during a meeting, and by 2:25 was back on the phone telling the NG to be ready for an order about to arrive.

Oh, and McCarthy left the Pentagon at 3:45 to personally travel to the DC police station to help coordinate. Say what you want about the response, it was not McCarthy's fault. This guy was trying to carry the raid.

The order did not arrive. Either Miller sold out McCarthy, or Trump sold them both out. There is no third option. There were National Guard, over a thousand, already in town. There are zero to negative reasons an order from Miller/Trump at 2:25 did not get implemented for 2 hours, with Pentagon forces already on site.

P.S. Pence called at 4:08 himself. The Pentagon's timetable does not have a timeline for Pence calling Trump, because how could it, they don't have that info. I don't believe Pence had the authority to call the NG himself. That said, I see three possible options.

a) Pence, Miller and McCarthy refused to communicate what, if anything, they were doing with each other. Trump's WH is verifiably disfunctional so I believe this to be the most likely option.

b) Miller was dragging his feet on purpose, probably trying to defend Trump. (We know McCarthy and Pence weren't)

c) Pence, Miller, and McCarthy all agreed the NG should be called, but for some reason it wasn't. Regardless of official chain of command, I'm willing to believe that, if McCarthy and Miller and Pence, all on site, told the National Guard "mobilize now" they would have done it. Unless Trump specifically told them not to, and they listened to that order, and they followed it.

There is no reasonable option in which this plays out well for Trump. At the best for Trump, he trusted Miller who fucked it up on purpose, taking a figurative bullet for the literal fatass. Since Miller was acting that still counts as Trump's mistake, just so we're all clear, like putting your best QB in as your nose guard. Far more likely, Trump sat on his big fat ass and did nothing while his own followers, directed by him, directly attacked democracy and murdered a policeman. while leaders of the House, the Senate, his Army Secretary, his Pentagon, Miller, and Pence were all demanding action.

I have yet to see any evidence Trump took useful action before his tweet, and technically his tweet doesn't even exist anymore which I find highly ironic. But I invite any Trump supporters to post such.

[DarkTZeratul]

In other "Trump's administration massively shit the bed on Coronavirus" news, I'm sure everyone is incredibly surprised that Trump's appointees repeatedly interfered to change CDC and other health reports to make them conform to Trump's message that everything was actually fine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...-interference/

Science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, touting two examples of where he said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had bowed to his pressure and changed language in their reports, according to an email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak.

Pointing to one change — in which CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence of a report about the spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them — Alexander wrote to Caputo, calling it a “small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!”

“Can you help me craft an op-ed,” Alexander wrote to Atlas on Sept. 11, alleging the CDC report was “timed for the election” and an attempt to keep schools closed even as Trump pushed to reopen them. “Let us advise the President and get permission to preempt this please for it will run for the weekend so we need to blunt the edge as it is misleading.”

“I know the President wants us to enumerate the economic cost of not reopening. We need solid estimates to be able to say something like: 50,000 more cancer deaths! 40,000 more heart attacks! 25,000 more suicides!” Caputo wrote to Alexander on May 16 in an email obtained by the subcommittee.

Alexander said he had won changes to the “key opening sentence” of an August report about a coronavirus outbreak at a Georgia summer camp. The draft report’s opening line argued that understanding youth transmission of the coronavirus was “critical for developing guidance for schools and institutes of higher education,” according to Alexander’s email. But that language was removed from the final report and a caveat was inserted to specify that there was “limited data” about spread of the virus among people under the age of 21. The CDC said that the change had been made because of “thoughtful comments” from Alexander and the agency’s leaders.

Beyond just reframing things in a way that made Trump look right, they also at times just straight-up lied:

One email from Alexander to Atlas on Sept. 3 proposed an “op-ed on possible damage to children immune systems with lock downs and masks,” arguing to Atlas that “I do think locking down our kids (and healthy adults) and masking them can dampen their functional immune systems.”

Scientists have said there is no evidence that wearing masks harms the development of children’s immune systems.

[Felya]

With the new Trump rant at RNC big money donors... Can we just establish that if a democrat wins the next election, the expectation will be for GOP to overturn election in favor of a Republican?

There is no longer a pretense... He called McConnell a “dumb mother fucker” and chastised Pence for being stupid, to not go along with his election theft attempt.

Americans need something from the federal government to inhibit this from happening. We saw how they will try it, we should be able to place barriers there.

[Benggaul]

With 11 states not reporting, Saturday's report is becoming about as useless as Sunday and Monday, so I'm keeping it short:

66,780 new cases, 742 deaths bringing the total to 575,595. Not sure why more and more states are thinking that the virus has weekends off, but there you have it.

Related news:

Nearly 40% of Marines decline COVID vaccine, prompting some Democrats to urge Biden to set mandate for military--If these dipshits think going unprepared against an enemy is a good idea then let's send them into combat without arms or armor next time.

COVID-19 hospitalizations dip as New York surge levels off and vaccination push makes progress--The numbers in New York never got to "absolutely terrifying" levels and their increase the past month was very gradual, indicating that the precautions and vaccinations are having an impact. Seeing hospitalizations dip is a fantastic positive.

Stay safe, folks.