The Trump Presidency: Part 20

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SezMe said:
Boilerplate legal jargon. Trump didn't write that.

I wonder what percent of his tweets he actually put his tiny fingers to work typing them.
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Agreed.
In the law of evidence, the phrase information and belief identifies a statement that is made, not from firsthand knowledge, but "based on secondhand information that the declarant believes is true". The phrase is often used in legal pleadings, declarations under penalty of perjury, and affidavits under oath.
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Did you have to disable adblock?
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No. I'm a subscriber and I've got my ad blocker set to 11 and I can read all the articles with no problem.

I think Cain had a bit of tongue-in-cheek when (s)he wrote that post. They once had a offer for a year subscription at $40 but I never saw an offer for $1 for half a year.
 
Meadmaker said:
A little aside to our few Republican friends here.


This is the man you voted for. Some states "don't have much of a problem". We've watched the virus spread. We know how it happens. We know that first there are a few, then a lot more, then a really big number. He said the 15 would go to zero. Even today, he is ignoring that the places that don't have much of a problem today will be places that have a really big problem by next week.

And still he says there are places that "don't have much of a problem."

Stunning. I had to look it up just to be sure that it wasn't an old, out of context, quote, but no. It was from today. Stunning.
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He also said that maybe we'll see the light at the end of the tunnel after two very bad weeks. The experts, like him who have studied it very hard . . . it gives me the creepy feeling he might try and "open the country up for business."
 
Trump Retweeted

The White House
@WhiteHouse
“We're at war with COVID-19, we're at war with terrorists, and we are at war with the drug cartels . . . We're the United States military and we will defend our country." —General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

We are fighting the Coronavirus on every possible front—and we will achieve total victory with the help of the American people.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Retweeted

The White House
@WhiteHouse
“We're at war with COVID-19, we're at war with terrorists, and we are at war with the drug cartels . . . We're the United States military and we will defend our country." —General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

We are fighting the Coronavirus on every possible front—and we will achieve total victory with the help of the American people.
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Booyah.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Retweeted

The White House
@WhiteHouse
“We're at war with COVID-19, we're at war with terrorists, and we are at war with the drug cartels . . . We're the United States military and we will defend our country." —General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

We are fighting the Coronavirus on every possible front— and we will achieve total victory with the help of the American people.
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That is in the running for falsest Trump statement in the past 30 days.
 
Umm...

Prosecutors: Engineer deliberately ran train off tracks in attempt to smash the USNS Mercy

SAN PEDRO, LOS ANGELES -- An engineer deliberately ran a train off the tracks at high speed near the Port of Los Angeles in an attempt to crash into and damage the USNS Mercy hospital ship, prosecutors say.

The Pacific Harbor Line train derailed Tuesday, running through the end of the track and crashing through barriers, finally coming to rest about 250 yards from the docked naval ship.

Federal prosecutors allege train engineer Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro intended to hit the ship, saying he thought it was "suspicious" and did not believe "the ship is what they say it's for.'"
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WTF?


There is incidental good news there in that the Mercy is offering about a 1000 hospital beds for non-coronavirus issues, which should take some pressure off the local hospitals. I actually wasn't really expecting them to actually get either of the ships running in a timely manner, so that is good news. Hopefully, the maintenance was done properly, though, regardless, rather than the Trump Administration just working to override it.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
200k dead is a total victory?
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Any death number will be continually revised up as necessary. If it looks like the death toll is going to get anywhere near 100k, much less 200k then President Trump will revert to the 2.2 million number instead and declare victory if the death toll is any less than that.

If in the wash-up it turns out that the US death numbers were proportionately much higher than other developed countries then it'll be asserted that the US faced unique challenges and that, in fact, the US did far better than any other country.
 
The Don said:
If in the wash-up it turns out that the US death numbers were proportionately much higher than other developed countries then it'll be asserted that the US faced unique challenges and that, in fact, the US did far better than any other country.
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Trump is only President of the US, after all. That's a unique challenge there.

With that said, of course, he's actually not the worst leader on the planet when it comes to dealing with COVID, abysmal as he's been. Cold comfort, that.

Incidentally, looks like the USPS is in trouble again - and the Republicans went out of their way to remove any funds going to them from the stimulus package. As a reminder, the primary reason why the USPS is in financial trouble in the first place is because Republicans sabotaged them under the Bush Administration. In the great "generosity" of the Republicans, though, the USPS has been allowed to take out $10 billion more in loans.
 
The Don said:
Any death number will be continually revised up as necessary. If it looks like the death toll is going to get anywhere near 100k, much less 200k then President Trump will revert to the 2.2 million number instead and declare victory if the death toll is any less than that.
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Incidentally, with regards to those numbers being pushed, it's worth seriously looking at the assumptions in play to see how trustworthy they are.

Here is a quick summary of some of the important assumptions and caveats mentioned in the paper and in the FAQ section of the website, which do not get much air-time —

1 The model assumes Wuhan-like shutdown and lockdown measures for 2-3 months until early June (actually the authors use social distancing measures described in the New Zealand Government alert system Level 4, which pretty much shuts down everything).
2 The model assumes a nationwide shutdown, all states, no exceptions.
3 The plot is for the best case scenario with maximum mitigation and suppression measures in place. The range values shown in shade are not for best vs worst case scenarios, they are caused by errors and uncertainties in the model parameters.
4 To calculate the death rate, the model assumes that adequate ICUs and hospital resources will be available/created to meet demand, even though the model calculates beds and ICU shortage values.
5 The model recommends mass screening, contact tracing, and selective quarantine to be in place before we lift the mitigation measures.
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After taking a peek at that... I can only call trotting it out on a national stage to be wildly irresponsible, given the current real conditions.
 
Aridas said:
Trump is only President of the US, after all. That's a unique challenge there.

With that said, of course, he's actually not the worst leader on the planet when it comes to dealing with COVID, abysmal as he's been. Cold comfort, that.

Incidentally, looks like the USPS is in trouble again - and the Republicans went out of their way to remove any funds going to them from the stimulus package. As a reminder, the primary reason why the USPS is in financial trouble in the first place is because Republicans sabotaged them under the Bush Administration. In the great "generosity" of the Republicans, though, the USPS has been allowed to take out $10 billion more in loans.
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I wonder what the interest rates are on those.

The whole "stimulus" is just another giveaway to the corporations and super-rich. Anything else is an afterthought at best, and most of that will benefit its intended recipients in some way anyway.
 
Aridas said:
Incidentally, looks like the USPS is in trouble again - and the Republicans went out of their way to remove any funds going to them from the stimulus package. As a reminder, the primary reason why the USPS is in financial trouble in the first place is because Republicans sabotaged them under the Bush Administration. In the great "generosity" of the Republicans, though, the USPS has been allowed to take out $10 billion more in loans.
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Why?

Right now folks in Outhouse Flats, Nebraska can send a birthday card to folks in Dingleberry Holler, North Carolina for 55¢. No private carrier is going to do that for less than 3 or 4 dollars. How does bankrupting the USPS help all those folks out in Gerrymander country?
 
Polaris said:
I wonder what the interest rates are on those.

The whole "stimulus" is just another giveaway to the corporations and super-rich. Anything else is an afterthought at best, and most of that will benefit its intended recipients in some way anyway.
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Not entirely. The lion's share may be, but the Democrats did manage to get a lot more diverted to directly helping the people who need it most and added strings to that lion's share that should very significantly help the normal people working at the businesses that get aid.
 
Ladewig said:
Why?

Right now folks in Outhouse Flats, Nebraska can send a birthday card to folks in Dingleberry Holler, North Carolina for 55¢. No private carrier is going to do that for less than 3 or 4 dollars. How does bankrupting the USPS help all those folks out in Gerrymander country?
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Why? There's a couple questions there. To take it back to the root, though, there are a few Republican donors that see lots of opportunity for profit and have lobbied hard to privatize the USPS for the sake of filling their pockets. Because the Republicans didn't want to look bad by doing it directly to something as very successful as the USPS, they've sabotaged it to create an excuse to do so. Fairly standard Republican tactic, really.

That's pretty much what it comes down to. Much like the rest of the Republican (or rather, Libertarian in Republican clothing) push to sell off as much basic infrastructure to their donors as they can. It's all about profits for a very few at cost to pretty much everyone else, even if it significantly undermines the public good.
 
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Aridas said:
Incidentally, with regards to those numbers being pushed, it's worth seriously looking at the assumptions in play to see how trustworthy they are.

Here is a quick summary of some of the important assumptions and caveats mentioned in the paper and in the FAQ section of the website, which do not get much air-time —

1 The model assumes Wuhan-like shutdown and lockdown measures for 2-3 months until early June (actually the authors use social distancing measures described in the New Zealand Government alert system Level 4, which pretty much shuts down everything).
2 The model assumes a nationwide shutdown, all states, no exceptions.
3 The plot is for the best case scenario with maximum mitigation and suppression measures in place. The range values shown in shade are not for best vs worst case scenarios, they are caused by errors and uncertainties in the model parameters.
4 To calculate the death rate, the model assumes that adequate ICUs and hospital resources will be available/created to meet demand, even though the model calculates beds and ICU shortage values.
5 The model recommends mass screening, contact tracing, and selective quarantine to be in place before we lift the mitigation measures.
Click to expand...

After taking a peek at that... I can only call trotting it out on a national stage to be wildly irresponsible, given the current real conditions.
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Good point, and with respect to those:

  1. Hasn't happened yet, will never happen to that degree and I reckon President Trump will be pressuring states to loosen the lockdown such as it is in a couple of weeks
  2. Will not happen. President Trump wants the state governors to be responsible for the lockdowns (boo!) while he is responsible for the repeal (yay!). Like Mom's in charge of broccoli while Dad doles out the chocolate
  3. Mitigation will not be perfect
  4. Hospitals will be under immense stress
  5. That won't happen either

So, yeah, those numbers are likely to be high but then again a lack of testing or mitigation will mean that a high proportion of Coronavirus deaths will go unrecorded IMO.
 
Meadmaker said:
I'm watching today's press conference. The lead item is that Mexican drug cartels are planning on taking advantage of COVID-19 to smuggle drugs.
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It's as if criminals realize they can exploit the current chaos.

Art Thieves Steal Three Masterpieces Worth $12 Million From Gallery Shut Down Because Of COVID-19

Van Gogh Masterpiece Stolen From Dutch Museum Shuttered by COVID-19
 
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