Media, Politics

“Shut The Door”: Speaker Pelosi Changes Position On Trump Travel Ban Once Called Racist

220px-nancy_pelosiThis weekend, CNN’s Jake Tapper did an excellent interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where he drilled down on one of the most glaring contradictions in the Democratic narrative against President Donald Trump.  Pelosi and other Democrats excoriated Trump for his order to block travel from China on January 30th.  Pelosi was also in late February calling for people to mass in Chinatown in San Francisco to protest Trump’s comments and actions on China.  Now, however, Pelosi is saying the problem was that the travel ban did not go far enough?

The Democrats have been struggling to negate the fact that Trump’s action in January counteracts the criticism that he did nothing, particularly when even that action was opposed by Democrats. Interviews on Sunday were damaging in a number of ways for that effort.  In a different interview on Face the Nation, Mayor London Breed also tried to downplay the value of the travel ban by suggesting that she and other were already acting in December and declared an emergency in February. She then added that it is good that Chinatown “basically was a ghost town” in January.” While she referenced the “zenophobia” cited by Pelosi, she appeared to say that it was fortunate that no one was gathering in Chinatown. However in late February, Pelosi was encouraging people to mass in Chinatown.

Tapper’s interview pressed the point.  When the order was imposed, Pelosi was publicly and vehemently opposed to even the notion of a ban: ‘‘The Trump Administration’s expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law.”

Now however the order was not racist, but too little too late: “Tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China. It wasn’t as it is described as this great moment. … If you’re going to shut the door because you have an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door”

CNN Politics

✔@CNNPolitics

Speaker Pelosi on Trump’s China travel restriction: “Tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China. It wasn’t as it is described as this great moment. … If you’re going to shut the door because you have an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door”

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Tapper is one of the few to press the contraction in the position of the Democrats and notably few media outlets even mentioned Pelosi’s bizarre pivot on the question.  As with “conspiracy theories,” it seems like contradictions are not viewed as a plausible point of coverage for Democrats.
That brings us back to Breed’s interview.  There is an obvious disconnect in saying that San Francisco was aware in December and taking emergency actions in January. However, they did little to impose social distancing as evidenced by Pelosi’s call to rally in Chinatown.  Likewise, in Michigan, I covered the huge Sanders rally as Biden and others were continuing such events.
The fact is that, in January and February, there were highly conflicting reports coming the WHO, China, and even the CDC. I do not blame officials like Breed in not ordering more significant measures even though she admits that they were alarmed in December and closely following the developments.  This proved far more contagious than anticipated and China cost the world critical weeks by suppressing information as the virus became to spread globally.  It is inevitable that both parties will engage in the blame game but the role of the media is more important than ever in supplying balanced and fair coverage of this issue. Instead, much of the coverage seems to be transparently one-sided and willfully blind to the full record.  If the issue is not just malfeasance but nonfeasance, the media should (as Tapper did) look at the record of both parties.  After all public health in our federalism system remains primarily a state and local issue (a point recently rediscovered by many Democratic leaders and the media).  That does not get the federal government off-the-hook.  States rely on groups like the CDC for its expertise and data. However, as Breed admitted, the danger was already apparent to her and her colleagues in December.
The point is not to cast blame but to question the lack of balance in the coverage on how the Administration responded in February and March.  If the media is confused about why Trump’s core still support him, it likely has something to do with the overtly distorted and biased coverage on such issues.  I have joined the mainstream media in slamming President Trump when he has contradicted himself or the record.  My only complaint is how contractions from the other side are routinely ignored or buried in the coverage.  This long-standing pattern erodes trust in the media and denies citizens any reliable source for news.

187 thoughts on ““Shut The Door”: Speaker Pelosi Changes Position On Trump Travel Ban Once Called Racist”

  2. “A whip-smart neurologist, a social worker who sang Broadway: US health workers who died from Covid-19”

    “We are documenting the lives of every US medical worker who dies helping patients during the pandemic. These are some of the first tragic cases”

    “Help us document the US healthcare workers who die fighting coronavirus”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/nurses-surgeons-janitors-first-us-health-workers-to-die-covid-19

    1. Anonymous the Stupid, why send people over there when you can repeat what was said over here. Let me show you.

      Anonymous the Stupid we will consider nominating you for the Anonymous the Stupid award next time. You didn’t win the award the first time not because of your Stupidity. You are among the most Stupid but the first award went to someone who had at least done something. Here is the announcement of the award.
      —

      Governor Andrew Cuomo wins the first Anonymous the Stupid award ever given. I have no number for the final death toll due to Cuomo’s Stupid and ideologic act. Overnight without warning the Cuomo administration ordered that Covid 19 patients be admitted to Nursing Homes even though the nursing homes weren’t prepared. We all know what follows a Stupid order like that. Death of many seniors that instead of getting care were essentially killed.

      25% of NY’s death rate comes from Nursing Homes. 3,448 residents in NY Nursing Homes died.

      The Anonymous the Stupid award was unanimous though some of the voters formerly living in nursing homes were unable to vote. They are dead.

        1. No Anonymous the Stupid I am not in an armchair, but Obama might have been…
          —–
          How Obama’s failure to resupply respirators in federal stockpile created a 2020 crisis
          The stockpile’s 100 million supply of N95 respirator masks was never fully replenished after 2009 swine flu pandemic, experts say.

          The Strategic National Stockpile, America’s giant medical storage closet for a terrorist or biological crisis, once boasted more than 100 million respirator masks to protect doctors, nurses and other frontline health care workers in case of a contagion.

          But when the COVID-19 pandemic started a few months ago, the supply had dwindled down to just 12 million fitted masks, known as N95 respirators, and 30 million surgical masks, a supply deemed to be less than 2 percent of what the nation would need for full-blown pandemic.

          The tale of how such a critical supply lapsed, leading the Trump administration to scramble for 500 million new masks in the midst of pandemic, is one of government neglect and competing priorities that began in 2009.

          That’s when the Obama administration drew down nearly 97 million of the masks to deal with the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, effectively protecting frontline medical workers from a virus that infected more than 60 million Americans.

          But when it was over, the administration decided not to fully restock the respirators, choosing to spend its $600 million annual budget for the stockpile on other priorities such as key drugs and vaccines to deal with smallpox, anthrax and the like, experts said.

          There is really “no answer why the supplies were not replenished because the N95 masks are invaluable tools for preparedness and it was important that they be restocked,” said Charles Johnson, President of International Safety Equipment Association, whose members make supplies for the stockpile.

          In the end, Johnson said, the Obama administration chose to use its “limited funds” in other ways and “made the best choices at the time even though his association and others periodically restated their calls to replenish” the N95 masks. That trend continued in the early Trump years as well.

          The Clinton administration first began to examine a national plan to respond to pandemics and create the federal stockpile in 1990s. But the formal National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza was not officially published until 2005 during the George W. Bush administration, following the anthrax scare in 2001 and the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002.

          The 2005 plan created the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies and equipment under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services and called for the distribution of supplies from six highly secured sites to state and local sites after a pandemic “surge.” This Strategic National Stockpile is totally separate from the site in Dubai that the U.S. government uses for international distribution under the Foreign Assistance Act.

          According to a Center for Disease Control report published after the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, 39 million N95 masks were initially distributed from the stockpile, followed by 59.5 million more in second wave. According to Johnson, the stockpile originally was about 100 million masks.

          From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, there were over 60 million cases of H1N1 requiring 274,304 hospitalizations and resulting in 12,469 deaths in the United States.

          After the H1N1 virus slowed down in 2010, according to Johnson, “it was important to restock.” That did not happen as the national stockpile budget focused on other priorities deemed higher.

          A recent summary of how HHS planned to spend its stockpile budget shows nearly half of the annual budget was spent on antibiotics and vaccines for an anthrax outbreak, a nerve agent antidote and an antiviral medication for the flu.

          Greg Burel, the official who oversaw the stockpile for years before his recent retirement, told the Washington Post recently that officials made decisions based on risk analysis that prioritized the drugs, which expire every few years, over supplies like the masks.

          “If there is a drug product that we must have or else people would die and a commercial product we can buy in a time of need, then we’re going to invest in that drug product,” Burel explained to the newspaper. “Those are the kind of hard decisions you have to make.”

          Such explanation is little solace now for health care workers scrambling to find respirators on the frontlines of the pandemic who feel like they are victims of rationing.

          One Massachusetts nurse interviewed by Just the News said she sent a mask to her daughter who is also a nurse administering to COVID-19 patients in New York. “I’m terrified my daughter is going to get COVID-19. Her hospital had no mask to give her,” the nurse told us.

          Another nurse in St. Louis told Just the News that she is “mad as hell” learning her hospital has N95 masks but is not distributing them to all the staff, particularly those on non-COVID-19 floors.

    1. Well, well, well….look who it is—Mr. David, or should I call you Monsieur Ping?

  6. There are runes:
    ⛎
    but as I don’t know what such signify, I shan’t use the same.

    😕

  8. This is Democratic leadership at its finest. Throw grandma off a cliff? Nah, let’s just force her to live in a nursing home in New York that the state mandates they accept stable new residents without confirmation they’ve been tested for Covid-19. What could possibly go wrong?

    No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19prior to admission or readmission.
    https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/03/doh_covid19-_nhadmissionsreadmissions_-032520.pdf

    “My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the executive told the Post. “The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

    The Post reported that within days, “three of the bags were filled with the first of 30 residents who would die there.” The nursing facility continued to receive shipments of five body bags per week since those first two patients arrived – and they have been needed.
    https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-required-nursing-homes-to-admit-medically-stable-coronavirus-patients-the-results-were-deadly

    1. Olly, thanks for finding the NYState Department of Health report that proves what I stated earlier. I just told a friend earlier and my friend couldn’t believe it and said I was mistaken. Then I got your information.

      1. You’re welcome Allan. Of course it’s being widely reported that Gov. Cuomo now has blood on his hands. 🙄😴😤

    2. Olly, tell us, ‘where’ should older patients go after recovery from the virus?

      I realize it seems crass to dump them on nursing homes. But ‘where’ should they go??

      That ‘where’ must be a dilemma for NY and NJ. Should these seniors be sent to live with relatives? What if that’s not possible?

      It’s probably one of those issues where no one has a good answer.

      1. Crass? Sending potentially infected people, into an innocent and confined population, without permitting the NH to know the health status of who is being thrust upon them, is criminal. If they don’t have the wisdom to know where they should go, at least have enough sense to know where they should not. Start there .

        1. Olly, amid your outrage and bluster I noticed you cant say. That’s the problem here. In New York City there are probably thousands of seniors with no where to go but Assisted Living.

          1. Are you seriously defending the decision to force them on nursing homes? Damn, you do realize sending them directly into the nursing homes had to have been only slightly better than a neonatal ward or cancer treatment center.

            1. Yeah, Olly, the crisis is bad in New York. They’re probably dealing with realities on the ground that make every choice a bad one.

              1. They’ve been making bad choices for 20 years leading up to this pandemic. There is no defense for this most recent and egregious choice.

                The Empire State had 73,931 licensed hospital beds in 2000 before years of cuts and closures shrank the number to just 53,000 in 2020, according to records obtained by the New York State Nurses Association from the state Health Department and stats provided by officials.
                https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/03/17/new-york-has-thrown-away-20000-hospital-beds-complicating-coronavirus-fight/amp/

              2. Paint Chips your attitude is criminal and stupid. All that needed to be done was to give these Covid+ seniors a bed and some assistance until they were not a threat to entire nursing home populations. Hotel rooms could have been used for a week or so. You have said it over and over again, death and destruction of families is fine with you as long as it might help to push Socialism/ Communism onto the American people. That is the nature of Socialism/ Communism, it has to be forced and once imposed it is hard to get rid of because the elite not the people control the type of government they have.

                1. Allan,
                  Not only did they force nursing homes to take in these residents, they prohibited them from knowing whether they were bringing in residents infected with the virus. If the reporting is true, sending nursing homes a supply of body bags in the process is tantamount to an admission of guilt in the deaths of these senior citizens.

                  1. Yes, I am well aware. I doubt you missed the awards I posted earlier so I will repeat here.

                    Governor Andrew Cuomo wins the first Anonymous the Stupid award ever given. I have no number for the final death toll due to Cuomo’s Stupid and ideologic act. Overnight without warning the Cuomo administration ordered that Covid 19 patients be admitted to Nursing Homes even though the nursing homes weren’t prepared. We all know what follows a Stupid order like that. Death of many seniors that instead of getting care were essentially killed.

                    25% of NY’s death rate comes from Nursing Homes. 3,448 residents in NY Nursing Homes died.

                    The Anonymous the Stupid award was unanimous though some of the voters formerly living in nursing homes were unable to vote. They are dead.

                    1. I doubt you missed the awards I posted earlier

                      I did miss it. I was watching the Dan Bongino show and caught the report. That’s how I found the state order. I’ve tried to find some rationale for this order, but I can’t. At least not by what was written.

                      – What was the thought process that ever made them believe a nursing home wouldn’t put the current residents at risk?
                      – What other options were considered and dismissed in favor of the choice they made? Why were they dismissed?
                      – Why would they assert the rights of the new residents to be placed in these facilities are superior to those existing residents?
                      – Why would they deny the facilities the ability to protect existing residents?
                      – Lastly, and I’m having a difficult time reconciling this one; why did they deliver these patients with body bags? WTF?

                  2. Olly, for the third time I notice you cant answer the question of ‘where’ to send this people. You want to be outraged with no answer.

                    1. You want to be outraged with no answer.

                      And you want to defend the indefensible. I would welcome the opportunity to brainstorm options, if that is what you need. Let’s begin with the state’s order:

                      – I would never prevent nursing homes or any other facility from requiring prospective residents be tested for the virus.
                      – I would remove from consideration any facility that houses at-risk groups.
                      – If the state must remove stable, asymptomatic patients to free up bed space, I would identify and convert motels/hotels/gymnasiums and/or other facilities as necessary into makeshift quarantine sites to ensure these patients are confirmed to be virus-free. Once cleared, they may be transported for residence in cleared facilities.

                      That’s a start. Now what would you do besides panic. Give it a go.

                    2. “‘where’ to send this people. ”

                      That apparently represents the attitudes of Governor Cuomo. I need 40,000 ventilators. It was quite awhile before he looked for the unused ventilators in his state and ventilators sent to NYState’s warehouse in NJ.. Not one patient was denied a ventilator even though Cuomo wanted to take all of them from the federal reserves leaving none for any other state. [He never bougt the almost 16,000 ventilators he was told he needed]

                      Governor Cuomo said the hospitals are overflowing and some hospitals were. He had reduced the bed population even though NY has had a chronic problem of not enough beds.”‘where’ to send this people” was asked and Donald J Trump built beds at the Javitz Center in record time and built three other facilities along with sending a huge hospital ship. Beds were near empty and the hospital ship near empty based considering the massive requestss. Then he said he needed to put Covid patients on the hospital ship and that was almost immediately done. The hospital ship was essentially full of empty beds.

                      Then Governor Cuomo said they didn’t have enough staff to care for patients and he was immediately provided with hospital workers.

                      Now dumber than a brick Paint Chips says they had no choice but to send Covid + sick and ill back to nursing homes without even permitting the staff to know which ones could transmit disease. They figured body bags were sufficient to carry out the dead This dumb brick said it would take too long, not enough beds, and not enough staff yet all of that was provided in record time.

                      Pant Chips doesn’t concern himself with life and his attitudes lead to the death of those in their second childhood and those appraching their first childhood. He is a disgrace.

                      [Take note only some hospitals ended up totally overloaded but in some areas there were beds that could have been made available but Paint Chips will say there weren’t enough ambulances, cars or drivers to get those patients there. Awful, absolutely awful.]

                2. Diaper man, if these people were in Assisted Living in the first place, that means they needed care. So you cant just take a 20 story hotel and convert it into a giant Assisted Living facility. You’re stupid if you think that’s practical!

                  1. if these people were in Assisted Living in the first place, that means they needed care.

                    So did the current residents of the facility. Yet you ignorantly believe innocent people living in a virus-free facility don’t have any right to protect themselves from a virus proven to be deadly to their demographic. The federal government helped build make-shift hospitals quickly in the state, why do you believe they wouldn’t be able to convert a hotel or motel or some other facility? Why are you working so hard to defend what is easily the most idiotic order imaginable? This makes the Governor of Michigan appear as an amateur tyrant compared with this ruthless decision in New York.

                    1. Olly, I worked in hotels for many years. They’re not built for seniors. Converting a major hotel to Assisted Living use could take weeks of construction. Then ‘where’ do you get the staff amid pandemic conditions?? It’s ridiculous to think that’s possible in any brief time frame.

                    2. It’s ridiculous to think that’s possible in any brief time frame.

                      Your honor, there is no way possible for us to relocate these untested elderly patients safely in any reasonable amount of time. Therefore, if we have to put any of our healthy citizens in danger, our recommendation would be selecting the high-risk elderly population. Most of them are on their way out anyway and most won’t likely have any idea what happened to them. We’ll do the nursing homes a solid though and provide them a surplus of body bags.

                      Yeah Paint Chips, you’ve got quite the winnable defense going there.

                    3. ” Why are you working so hard to defend what is easily the most idiotic order imaginable?”

                      Paint Chips hero is Josef Stalin who got the job done by killing millions of people.

                  2. “Diaper man, if these people were in Assisted Living in the first place, that means they needed care. So you cant just take a 20 story hotel ”

                    What a dummy. Yes you can just like you can build hospitals and staff them like was done in record time. One can’t get any stupider.

        1. Elin:
          Oh they did use it — as a prop to “prop up” the panic. After it served it’s “no use” purpose, they sent it away.

  9. There’s a certain amount of pushback about a claim that Pelosi did a 180 on the China travel ban. Taking the Speaker literally, she never took any position on it at all — until yesterday. Wasn’t worth her time. I am certainly open to that line of defense. Better to be an empty suit than do a 180. Put me down for either one.

  10. The correct pronounciation for her last name is Pea lot ski. Italiano. With Papers, not WOP.

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