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Oct 2, 2020
COVID-19 Update
The big news today of course is that President Stoopid tested positive for COVID-19 late last night.
‘The virus spares no one’: World reacts to Trump’s positive coronavirus test
LONDON — As the world woke up to the news Friday that President Trump and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, just one month ahead of the November U.S. election, foreign leaders and lawmakers began reacting and expressing their well wishes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to respond Friday, writing on Twitter: “Wishing my friend @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a quick recovery.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also offered support.
“Like millions of Israelis, Sara and I are thinking of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump and wish our friends a full and speedy recovery,” Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, tweeted.
“My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus,” said Johnson, who was diagnosed with the infection in late March and spent a week in a London hospital, where he received oxygen therapy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a tribute to Trump, reportedly writing in a telegram: “I am confident that your vital energy, high spirits, and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus.” The Kremlin said this week that Putin plans to be vaccinated soon against the coronavirus with an experimental Russian vaccine.
Trump has often faced widespread criticism from abroad over his handling of the pandemic. Foreign researchers have repeatedly criticized the Trump administration for failing to adequately take into account scientific advice in the coronavirus response, as the death toll in the United States continues to climb past the 207,000 mark.
In July, Trump donned a mask for the first time in public after months of downplaying their importance in the global effort to slow transmission and previously mocking Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing a face covering.
“Nobody is immune from #COVID19,” the United Nations Office for disaster risk reduction, tweeted Friday, responding to the news of Trump’s positive test.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also sent the president “best wishes” on Friday, despite Trump accusing the body of “severely mismanaging” the coronavirus outbreak and threatening to permanently cut U.S. funding to the WHO.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal wished the president a “swift recovery” but also struck a more critical note. Trump’s positive test result is “a sign that the virus spares no one, including those who are the most skeptical about its reality and gravity,” Attal said.
A senior member of the British government, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, wished the 74-year-old U.S. leader a quick recovery. “Setting aside politics, we all want to see him and his wife get better soon,” Jenrick said on Sky News.
Following this week’s fiery presidential debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, others questioned what the president’s positive diagnosis meant for the future of the U.S. election and the health of others who had recently come into contact with him or the first lady.
“If he infected Biden, then what?” tweeted Tomas Valasek, a Slovak lawmaker and a former ambassador to NATO.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is fourth in the presidential line of succession, is wrapping up a five-day trip to Europe, where he has traveled to Greece, Italy and lastly, Croatia. Pompeo said Friday he and his wife, Susan, had both tested negative for the virus.
Pompeo has more consistently worn a mask when appearing in public than Trump. He said he was last with Trump on Sept. 15.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also joined the growing list of politicians sending their well wishes, saying he hoped the Trumps would “overcome the quarantine period without problems.”
Like Trump, other world leaders have also tested positive for the coronavirus during the global health crisis.
After Johnson’s condition worsened after he was infected with the virus in March, he was moved to an intensive care ward for oxygen treatment. His diagnosis triggered questions about Britain’s government succession plan and who would run the country if Johnson, now 56, did not recover.
When he was discharged from hospital, Johnson thanked health-care staff and his nurses, adding that it “could have gone either way” for him.
Trump’s mockery of wearing masks divides Republicans
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for the virus in July. The 65-year-old populist leader had often dismissed the severity of the virus, referring to the illness as “a little cold” earlier this year.
There's a weird combination of "Gee, I hope he's OK" plus "Serves the prick right" going on.
I'm not the least bit inclined to give that jerk any quarter at all, even though I really don't wish shitty things on anyone, and I don't celebrate the destruction of any human being.
But I'll say this: It won't hurt my feelings if it turns out he's in for a long painful illness that leaves him crippled or dead. I will not mourn his passing if it comes to that.
USA
- New Cases: 47,389
- New Deaths: 920
‘The virus spares no one’: World reacts to Trump’s positive coronavirus test
LONDON — As the world woke up to the news Friday that President Trump and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, just one month ahead of the November U.S. election, foreign leaders and lawmakers began reacting and expressing their well wishes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to respond Friday, writing on Twitter: “Wishing my friend @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS a quick recovery.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also offered support.
“Like millions of Israelis, Sara and I are thinking of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump and wish our friends a full and speedy recovery,” Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, tweeted.
“My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus,” said Johnson, who was diagnosed with the infection in late March and spent a week in a London hospital, where he received oxygen therapy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a tribute to Trump, reportedly writing in a telegram: “I am confident that your vital energy, high spirits, and optimism will help you cope with the dangerous virus.” The Kremlin said this week that Putin plans to be vaccinated soon against the coronavirus with an experimental Russian vaccine.
Trump has often faced widespread criticism from abroad over his handling of the pandemic. Foreign researchers have repeatedly criticized the Trump administration for failing to adequately take into account scientific advice in the coronavirus response, as the death toll in the United States continues to climb past the 207,000 mark.
In July, Trump donned a mask for the first time in public after months of downplaying their importance in the global effort to slow transmission and previously mocking Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing a face covering.
“Nobody is immune from #COVID19,” the United Nations Office for disaster risk reduction, tweeted Friday, responding to the news of Trump’s positive test.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also sent the president “best wishes” on Friday, despite Trump accusing the body of “severely mismanaging” the coronavirus outbreak and threatening to permanently cut U.S. funding to the WHO.
French government spokesman Gabriel Attal wished the president a “swift recovery” but also struck a more critical note. Trump’s positive test result is “a sign that the virus spares no one, including those who are the most skeptical about its reality and gravity,” Attal said.
A senior member of the British government, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, wished the 74-year-old U.S. leader a quick recovery. “Setting aside politics, we all want to see him and his wife get better soon,” Jenrick said on Sky News.
Following this week’s fiery presidential debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, others questioned what the president’s positive diagnosis meant for the future of the U.S. election and the health of others who had recently come into contact with him or the first lady.
“If he infected Biden, then what?” tweeted Tomas Valasek, a Slovak lawmaker and a former ambassador to NATO.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is fourth in the presidential line of succession, is wrapping up a five-day trip to Europe, where he has traveled to Greece, Italy and lastly, Croatia. Pompeo said Friday he and his wife, Susan, had both tested negative for the virus.
Pompeo has more consistently worn a mask when appearing in public than Trump. He said he was last with Trump on Sept. 15.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also joined the growing list of politicians sending their well wishes, saying he hoped the Trumps would “overcome the quarantine period without problems.”
Like Trump, other world leaders have also tested positive for the coronavirus during the global health crisis.
After Johnson’s condition worsened after he was infected with the virus in March, he was moved to an intensive care ward for oxygen treatment. His diagnosis triggered questions about Britain’s government succession plan and who would run the country if Johnson, now 56, did not recover.
When he was discharged from hospital, Johnson thanked health-care staff and his nurses, adding that it “could have gone either way” for him.
Trump’s mockery of wearing masks divides Republicans
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for the virus in July. The 65-year-old populist leader had often dismissed the severity of the virus, referring to the illness as “a little cold” earlier this year.
- Coronavirus maps: Cases and deaths in the U.S. | Cases and deaths worldwide
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- Have you been hospitalized for covid-19? Tell us whether you’ve gotten a bill.
Oct 1, 2020
Today's Tweet
"Conservatives" are so oddly servile - and so totally self-unaware - I'm wondering if you can order this shirt with the Gadsden flag on the back.
Donald Trump isn't just my President. He's my KING! Get your shirt today at https://t.co/vVkPBqW2UX pic.twitter.com/O7DE5Mi2hA
— Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) September 30, 2020
COVID-19 Update
History Snapshot - Dead Americans
WaPo:
Trump will hold weekend rallies in Wisconsin’s coronavirus ‘red zones’
Other Stuff
- MAR 1: 1
- APR 1: 6,465
- MAY 1: 67,077
- JUN 1: 109,612
- JUL 1: 130,985
- AUG 1: 158,238
- SEP 1: 188,991
- OCT 1: 211,849
USA
- New Cases: 40,929
- New Deaths: 955
Trump will hold weekend rallies in Wisconsin’s coronavirus ‘red zones’
President Trump plans to hold large campaign rallies in Wisconsin this weekend, even though his White House coronavirus task force has called for increasing social distancing “to the maximal degree possible” as the state’s caseload surges. La Crosse and Green Bay, where the events will take place, are both considered coronavirus “red zones.”
- More than 7.1 million coronavirus cases and 206,000 fatalities have been reported in the United States since February.
- The NFL will postpone next week’s scheduled game between the Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers after two more Titans organization members tested positive for covid-19.
- Monoclonal antibodies are “a real best chance of being a game changer” for treating the coronavirus, experts say, but there won’t be enough to meet demand if the pandemic keeps raging.
- U.S. airlines will begin furloughing tens of thousands of employees on Thursday but say they may call workers back if congressional leaders and the Trump administration reach a deal on a coronavirus relief package. The prospects for such a deal remained uncertain after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met for talks on Wednesday.
- The economic collapse sparked by the pandemic is triggering the most unequal recession in modern U.S. history, overwhelmingly affecting minority and low-wage workers.
- The NBA “bubble” has worked perfectly for two months, without a single player who cleared quarantine testing positive and without a single game affected by the virus.
Sep 30, 2020
Today's Today
 |
| A few hours after this picture was taken, he'd be dead |
James Dean's death is one of those odd cultural milestones that mark both the ending of something and the beginning of something, both of which are all balled up together.
I don't know how to articulate it properly, but it seemed like we started to wake up a little in the mid-50s, thinking we should be aspiring to something more and better than what we had - that we should put an end to the weirdly rosy attitude that everything's fine as long as we all smile and chit-chat and pretend that nothing could possibly go wrong with this charmed life we're all living just ten years after a 35 year period that saw two World Wars sandwiched around almost 20 years of economic depression.
We were on top of the world, but it just didn't feel right - we needed it to change.
America can be a very strange place.
Call It Off
Shedding all semblance of decency, let alone public civility, a desperate Trump turned Tuesday’s presidential debate not only into a brawl, but also a national embarrassment. Behaving like a petulant teenager, Trump rolled his eyes, constantly interrupted, hectored, tried to pick fights, and generally made a fool of himself as more than 80 million Americans tuned in, most of whom were likely thinking, ‘What have we become as a nation?’
It was clearly the worst presidential debate in American history, as Fox News moderator Chris Wallace got completely steamrolled by Trump’s bullying ways. And it was a debacle that Trump pre-planned. Allergic to debate prep and still seething about the blockbuster revelation about his massive tax evasion practices, Trump arrived with one goal — to make sure the debate was incomprehensible and that viewers learned as little as possible.
That’s why it’s time to call off the next two debates. Tuesday’s car wreck was a complete waste of time.
Months ago, I urged the Biden campaign to not show up for any of the debates this election season because I didn’t see the benefit of sharing the stage with a madman for 90 minutes. There's no upside to normalizing his behavior with a presidential debate and the legitimacy it provides. Now everyone sees the results. Biden held his own last night, there’s no question, telling Trump more than once to “shut up,” which in the past would have been unthinkable for a Democrat to utter on a debate stage. And it was exactly what was called for.
But there’s no need to repeat the fiasco. There’s no need for Biden to show up again so Trump can smear Biden family members, make a mockery out of public discourse, and lie relentlessly about every topic discussed during the forums. Running for president is serious business, and Trump is a child.
And yes, the 2020 debates are already so much worse than the 2016 debates, when, in retrospect, Trump at least pretended to occasionally follow some of the norms of public behavior. But all of that is gone now. Lost in the authoritarian power that he craves in the White House, Trump deems it beneath him to share the stage, and the spotlight, with another politician.
Another reason for Biden to politely bow out is because while the press is going to correctly portray the Tuesday debate as a stunning failure, they’re going to couch it in Both Sides language, suggesting Biden was somehow at all responsible for the national embarrassment, when it was entirely Trump’s doing.
That was apparent in real time last night. From Politico: “The first Trump-Biden debate: A trainwreck.” New York Times: “Sharp Personal Attacks and Name Calling in Chaotic First Debate.” CNN: “Pure Chaos at First Debate.” The Washington Post: “First Trump-Biden meeting marked by constant interruptions by Trump.” Technically those headlines were accurate, but all the news outlets presented the story as if both sides were to blame for the televised disintegration.
There’s also the simple fact that unless the the Commission on Presidential Debates allows moderators to cut off Trump’s mic for the next two forums, it’s not possible for any moderator to keep control of the event. Wallace was completely humiliated by Trump, who ran over the Fox News anchor at every turn, making it impossible for there to be anything remotely resembling a revealing or intelligent debate.
Comically, Wallace told the New York Times he wanted to be “invisible” during the debate, meaning it was up to the candidates to engage each other. Commission officials actually thought Wallace would act as a “facilitator,” gently walking Trump through the evening’s topics. That makes sense if you think Trump is a rational, sane person. But Trump’s a nihilistic actor. And the Beltway’s refusal to knowledge that — to think that protocols like presidential debates could still be adhered to — fueled last night’s disaster.
It also lends credence to canceling the next two debates, because it’s not possible to stage a two-person debate when one of them is a sociopath. The debate Commission can act quickly to try to save this format, by allowing Trump’s mic to be cut. But anything short of that would be a waste of time. It would be a waste of Biden’s time, and a waste of Americans’ time.
Trump has torn up so many norms and traditions with his radical behavior. So let’s add another one to the list — cancel the next two debates. Nobody will miss them.
About Last Night
The big debate was on last night, and I did my usual thing - I checked in once in a while to see if there was anything worth hearing. There was very little.
Frank Luntz:
The first presidential debate left undecided American voters in agreement about at least one thing: President Trump's negativity.
Republican consultant and pollster Frank Luntz asked his focus group to use one word to describe the president and basically "every single word was negative," observed Politico's Tim Alberta. One respondent from Wisconsin called Trump obnoxious and un-presidential, while a Pennsylvania voter said he behaved like a "crackhead." Others described the president as being "un-American" and "arrogant."
In all, from 17 voters in swing states, 15 used negative words and just two used positive words or phrases to describe the president (that is, if you consider "an ass but a confident ass" to be a compliment).
The focus group's opinion of the debate tracks with a CBS poll, which found that 83 percent of debate watchers believed the tone of the evening to be "negative" while 17 percent thought it was "positive." Which raises the question: What debate were those 17 percent watching?
And I'd like to reiterate - these are not debates. A debate is when there's a topic or a question, and each side states their arguments &/or rebuttals.
That mess last night was too fucking typical - especially typical of what 45* does, which is simply to put as much chaff in the air as is necessary so nobody even knows what to think or even what the fucking point was to begin with.
It's a game show, so why not set it up like one. Put both of these guys in a glass booth, and turn their mics off until it's their turn to speak.
I'm betting Biden would do quiet well under those rules - because we'd finally have some fuckin' rules.
Today's Tweet
That was terrible, @realDonaldTrump — and you just collapsed in front of the whole world. pic.twitter.com/Zlk4TdCE2t
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 30, 2020
COVID-19 Update
USA
WaPo:
Seven former FDA commissioners accuse Trump administration of undermining the agency
In a rare and extraordinary rebuke, seven former commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration wrote an op-ed accusing the Trump administration of interfering politically with the agency, with potentially catastrophic effects on public trust in a coronavirus vaccine.
The column, which was published online Tuesday afternoon in The Washington Post, detailed a recent pattern of interference, including President Trump’s threat to reject a proposed FDA guidance detailing the criteria the agency will use to judge a coronavirus vaccine, and decisions by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to revoke the FDA’s authority to regulate lab-developed tests and to sign its own rules.
More stuff:
- New Cases: 44,227
- New Deaths: 977
Seven former FDA commissioners accuse Trump administration of undermining the agency
In a rare and extraordinary rebuke, seven former commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration wrote an op-ed accusing the Trump administration of interfering politically with the agency, with potentially catastrophic effects on public trust in a coronavirus vaccine.
The column, which was published online Tuesday afternoon in The Washington Post, detailed a recent pattern of interference, including President Trump’s threat to reject a proposed FDA guidance detailing the criteria the agency will use to judge a coronavirus vaccine, and decisions by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to revoke the FDA’s authority to regulate lab-developed tests and to sign its own rules.
More stuff:
- President Trump heralded new rapid coronavirus tests on Monday as game changers, but his administration’s deployment of the new tests to nursing homes has been plagued by poor communication, false results and a frustrating lack of planning, state leaders say.
- Disney announced Tuesday that it would lay off 28,000 people across its theme-park division in the U.S., demonstrating the devastating toll the coronavirus has taken on its core business.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows both said Tuesday they’re hopeful they can reach a new economic stimulus agreement.
- Covid-19 cases surged nationally among 18- to 22-year-olds between Aug. 2 and Sept. 5, according to a report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The Tennessee Titans shut down in-person activities Tuesday after a series of positive test results among players and other personnel. It’s the first coronavirus outbreak on an NFL team this season.
- New York City’s daily rate of positive coronavirus tests has seen a significant uptick, officials announced Tuesday The news came at an important juncture for the city, which is welcoming students back for in-person instruction.
- Morale at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is at an all-time low as the agency’s response to the pandemic continues to be blemished by technical blunders, botched messaging and interference from Trump administration appointees.
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