In the last three years, various experts have made what they called dispositive cases for crimes by President Donald Trump ranging from hate crimes to treason to inciting violence. Now Yale University Professor of Epidemiology Dr. Gregg Gonsalves is adding genocide. Gonsalves is upset with what he views as the “delayed” response by the Trump Administration to the pandemic. That is certainly a legitimate viewpoint that is shared by many and people of good faith can disagree on when the Administration should have acted. However Gonsalves insists that such a failure to respond a couple weeks earlier is “awfully close to genocide.” It is is neither genocide nor close to genocide, but Gonsalves later doubled down to make sure that people understood that this is not just hyperbole but he was “being serious here.” He further suggests that this genocidal strategy could be tied to killing minority voters before the election. Gonsalves has appeared widely as an expert in coverage by CNN, NBC, Politico, Foreign Policy magazine, The Washington Post, and other media outlets.
Gonsalves tweeted “How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy?”
He then added:
“So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?
And I am being serious here: what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders. Can they be held responsible under international law?”
Gonsalves teaches on microbial diseases and law at Yale but seems a bit more informed on the microbial than the genocidal.
First, Gonsalves is not the first to espouse the conspiracy theory that this is all part of scheme to kill “African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color” before election day. A Rutgers Professor also recently claimed that this was all part of a “gross necropolitical calculus” by the Trump Administration to kill minorities. Such conspiracy theories are largely brushed over by the mainstream media. Indeed, as we have seen, even a bizarre conspiracy theory by former Joe Biden was largely shrugged off by the media. The Yale faculty in particular seems to have taken a deep dive into the intellectually unsound, as shown by another professor who teaches in both the medical and law schools, Dr. Bandy Lee.
Now, let’s focus on his question of whether Trump and the Administration can “be held responsible under international law.” The most used definition of genocide is found in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide , which requires an “intent [by the accused] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” What Gonsalves is describing is negligence, not intent. Moreover, we are discussing a matter of a couple weeks in January or February. That would be a curious way of conducting an intentional genocidal campaign. Indeed, it was not until much later that we saw the growing differential among minority groups in the lethality of the virus.
For three years, I have been critical of utter abandon shown by Trump critics in distorting the criminal code and even defending prosecutorial abuses (as is the case with the recent commentary on the Flynn case). Not only are these unhinged interpretations not challenged in the media, they are replicated in an effort to satisfy the demand of viewers in the age of echo journalism. Even the clearly false legal statements recently made by President Obama were left unchallenged because such fact checking are largely reserved for Trump and his supporters.
This is a case in point. Imagine if a Yale professor had accused President Barack Obama of genocide. The response of not just the media, but the faculty and students at Yale would have been overwhelming. Yet, any attack — no matter how untethered to reality or the law — is considered fair game if it is directed in the right direction.
I see there’s some discussion about the travel ban elsewhere in this thread. Italy restricted travel before the U.S.
“Italy Banned Flights From China Before America – It Didn’t Work”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2020/03/12/italy-banned-flights-from-china-before-americait-didnt-work/#88e787c481ba
Excerpt:
Mar 12, 2020 –
Speaking to the nation last night, U.S. President Donald Trump said a ban on Europeans entering the United States is necessary because Europe hadn’t banned flights from China early as the U.S. had done.
“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots as a result a large number of new clusters were seeded by travellers from Europe,” he said.
But virtually every part of this statement is untrue.
Italy imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, immediately after a Chinese couple in Rome tested positive for the virus. The U.S. began to restrict flights from China four days later. But while Italy enacted a full ban, the U.S. policy was only a restriction, with wide exemptions.
On February 4 the U.S. State Department issued a level 4 travel advisory mandating that foreign citizens who had been to China be turned away, and Americans who had been to China must undergo screening and possibly be put in quarantine for 14 days. But the restrictions contained wide exemptions, largely because of fears over the economic impacts of a full ban. Flight routes between the U.S. and China have been steadily cancelled over the past month, but in a piecemeal fashion and at the discretion of airlines.
By contrast, the Italian ban four days earlier was complete, with no exemptions. Italy was the first and only EU country to have a flight ban from China, and yet the country is now the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak in Europe with the highest number of cases –Dave Keating, Forbes
“Fauci is wrong: Italy did close its border to China”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/20/dr-fauci-is-wrong-italy-did-close-its-border-china/
“In any case, despite the Italian government’s fast action, health officials now believe the virus has been circulating for weeks unnoticed in northern Italy, probably since mid-January. So the horse was already out of the barn by the time the flights were halted. Northern Italy became the epicenter of the deadly outbreak in the country.
“Fauci has had long experience in this field and is widely respected. But his framing in the interview is misleading. Italy took faster and more sweeping steps than the United States, and yet still got slammed by the virus. Italy’s borders with the rest of Europe did remain open, but the U.S. borders with Europe were open for many more weeks as well — as Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the pandemic.”
on the contrary there is an analysis out in a public health journal which indicates countries that closed borders faster had lower rates of infection. as one might expect. Trump was not sufficiently strong on this initiative.
China lied and hid the fact the virus was on legs for 2 months. It had all that time to spread.
Obviously, a travel ban to China, Europe, et al would reduce the number of carriers of the disease coming to the United States. The ban also stopped some Americans from going there, because they did not want to get stuck. Anecdotally, people told me that if Disneyland hadn’t closed, they would have gone there during the pandemic. They are in their 20s and don’t take it seriously. Without a travel ban, not only would sick travelers come here, but Americans would have traveled abroad to hot spots, gotten infected, and come back.
Are you saying we’d be better off if more sick people traveled here? Why compare Trump’s travel ban with Italy’s? The WHO, from China’s pocket, claimed the ban was racist. Was Italy’s ban racist as well?
Do you remember all the intense pushback on Trump’s travel restrictions? Democrats called it racist, etc. The usual mudslinging. Now the same people who fought him at ever turn claim he should have done more. Hindsight’s 20/20, isn’t it? I guess that could be the theme of the year 2020.
Yes, if Trump shut down the border in November 2019, he might have prevented Covid-19 from arriving. That would require ESP, as China had hidden it at that time. Yes, a total travel ban would have been the most helpful. If you have not suffered amnesia, that would have been a hard sell at the time. Yes, if the lockdown was begun in January, this could have been slowed way down in the US. Again, that would have been a near impossible sell at the time.
There is much to learn about this pandemic, including what to do differently next time. The more strictly people follow shutdown rules, the faster everything can open back up.
Again, zero of this indicates that Trump wanted to use a virus to murder black people. I mean, it’s insane. And it’s coming from a Yale professor.
Professor Turley’s blog post linked to his bio at Yale. I point this out because there is an effort to get elites in charge of running everything. There is very much a class war going on, which rears its ugly head often in political quarrels. If you don’t agree with a particular scientist, you’re anti-science, if you vote for Trump, you’re ignorant, and so on. The idea of the Left is to empower elites in a strong central government, disenfranchise the individual, but it will be a benevolent rule for the greater good. That is what the entire push of socialism is working towards. Create a strong central government, take away rights from the individual, especially if they are rich, and that government will ensure everyone is cared for like children.
Professor Gonsalves’ comments illustrate how someone can have a lengthy CV, and yet be howling mad politically, making embarrassingly ludicrous statements. His education does not make him an authority on Trump’s motivation. Rather, he’s made a complete fool of himself.
“Gregg Gonsalves is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases as well as an Associate (Adjunct) Professor of Law and Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School, co-director of the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health Global Health Justice Partnership and the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health/Yale Medical School Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency. His research focuses on the use of quantitative models for improving the response to epidemic diseases. For more than 30 years, he worked on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues with several organizations, including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Treatment Action Group, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. He was also a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2011-2012. He is a 2011 graduate of Yale College and received his PhD from Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences/School of Public Health in 2017. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.”
https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/gregg_gonsalves/
“the Left” is not some homogeneous entity, and people on the left have diverse views, just like people on the right do.
It’s nonsense to suggest that liberals generally believe “If you don’t agree with a particular scientist, you’re anti-science.” In fact, it’s central to the work of science for a scientists to be able to disagree with other scientists. The main issue is that the disagreement should be informed and honest (e.g., not involve cherrypicked evidence).
The hyperbole in your argument is counterproductive.
To call such comments “hyberbole” is disingenuous.
How is it disingenuous?
Do you believe that “If you don’t agree with a particular scientist, you’re anti-science.” is true rather than hyperbole, and if so, why?
It is hyperbole, but it’s also the case that there are people who take this position. One could be charitable and refer to such comments as extrapolation, if you prefer.
While it is of course true that Democrats and Republicans have diverse views, the defining principle of the Left requires a strong government at the expense of individual rights. While Democrats fall on the spectrum of the Left, to be considered a true Leftist, rather than only a Democrat, one has to believe in a very strong central government.
Socialism is an example of Leftism.
If anyone believes in strong individual rights, and a limited government, then they cannot be a Leftist.
Karen, as in the Civil Rights Act, a strong federal government insured the individual rights of all Americans.
bythebullsh!t / committidishonestdiscussion means he supports the Federal government when a Leftwing Marxist is Executive like Obama and Bill Clintax, but cry like the dickens when a Republican is Executive
no wonder Americans dont take the news media seriously
Anonymous, right now the U.S. has an unemployment rate of close to 20%. And you’re concerned about ‘Marxists’..??
How do you get phone reception in your cave?
It depends Paint Chips on whether Uranus is blocking reception on top of your dozen multiple personalities all jumping in the way to do what you do: seek attention
Anonymous said that a commenter supported a strong government as long as someone he wanted was in power. All of a sudden, he opposes strengthening the government because Trump is at the helm.
The next time a Democrat wins the White House, once again an uber presidency would be just grand.
One of the (multitude) of existential threats facing the country today is which direction to go in come November.
The Democrat presidential campaign didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. The entire platform was reduced to dangling money, and promising to cut out fossil fuels. This would of course make surviving even more expensive, as raising the cost of fuel raises the cost of everything. There are also no electric harvesting machines that I know of. And every tractor trailer that I’m aware of runs on diesel. Any heavy duty electric motors are not as strong.
Now that the pandemic hit, and so many are out of work and suffering, it may be tempting to elect someone who promises lots of free stuff, and to really sock it to the rich.
The question is, do you want the platform that broke records for putting minorities on food stamps during the Obama years, or do you want someone who oversaw a booming economy breaking records?
Karen, the food stamps were a legacy of the great recession which began in 2008.
Obama’s last 3 years had better job growth and approx equal GNP numbers as Trump’s first 3, and without the stimulus rich guys tax cut which our kids and grand kids will be paying for and which lasted about 1 year as an economic booster. Yeah, I’d like to soak the rich to pay that off instead of our kids and grandkids.
Obama’s last 3 years had better job growth and approx equal GNP numbers as Trump’s first 3,
They didn’t. The IRS better check your work on those tax forms you’re so proud of filling out.
https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/1-jobs-768×643.png
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-chance-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/
Oh…, facts!
There’s no room for those in here!
Are you still trying to claim that Trump reversed most of Obama’s policies, the market boomed in response to his election, and it was all due to Obama?
If it was, then reversing his policies would have killed the economy. Instead, we broke records for minority employment. It took a global pandemic that cut the legs out of every economy on Earth to deal us a blow.
But you go on thinking that reversing Obama’s policies somehow made the resulting boom Obama’s accomplishment.
Karen:
https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/1-jobs-768×643.png
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-chance-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/
bythebook – when all you can do is repeat yourself, you have no argument.
Trump accurately predicted the GDP growth of his first year in the White House, in his 2017 budget.
Obama never fulfilled his economic forecasts in any of his 8 years as president.
https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/trump-just-did-something-obama-never-could-deliver-on-promised-gdp-growth/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/year-3-trumps-economy-better-than-obamas-jobs-highest-in-decades
Here is an excerpt from an article that does not hesitate to criticize Trump and Obama, both. In order to judge whether a president was responsible for the economy, it has to be determined if their policies were pro- or against competition. Pro-growth or anti-growth. Sustainable, or not.
If there is any doubt as to which side of the political spectrum benefits jobs and employment, look at Deep Blue CA. It is now a super majority Democrat state, so Democrats don’t even need to speak to Republican lawmakers on any issue. It routinely ranks as the worst state in the union to do business. If there is ever a Democrat super majority in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, this would be what the entire country looks like.
“In order to render economic judgment on any president, it is necessary to look beyond aggregate statistics to make some independent evaluation of the discrete policies that mark a presidency. That task requires some time to decide which particular policies were pro-growth or pro-employment. And it is there that Klein falls flat, because he fails to identify any Obama policies whose positive momentum sparked the economy.
On the first issue, the key measure is whether a president promotes or frustrates competitive behavior. Under this standard, any protection of monopoly institutions is presumptively bad, while deregulation or tax reduction is presumptively good. Unsound Obama policies help explain the abnormally low rate of economic growth during his eight-year tenure.
Take this bill of particulars. Obama’s first innovation was the 2009 stimulus package, contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which was at best a mixed blessing. The stimulus program could work, if at all, only in the short-term. But the legislation also left a long-term legacy of protectionist legislation for key businesses and labor unions. The task now is to unwind the one-time stimulus spending from ARRA’s other entrenched provisions. Today’s economic successes come in the face of ARRA, not because of it.
Obama pushed through three other major pieces of legislation during his first term, all net negatives. The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) created an immense tangle because it incorporated into health-care insurance many unsustainable features—a rich package of mandatory minimum benefits, community rating, mandatory coverage of preexisting conditions, and poor integration of federal and state programs. In 2017, the Republicans muffed the chance to implement major reforms of the ACA. Today the ACA is still in distress, but the Trump administration has resisted all efforts by insurers to find some alternative means which will slim down benefits to make the overall program affordable. No positive Obama legacy here.
In 2010, the Obama administration also passed the Dodd-Frank legislation to stabilize the financial markets after the 2008 debacle. On balance the legislation did more harm than good by concentrating too many assets in banks deemed too big to fail. It invited regulators to pursue an extended definition of a Systematically Important Financial Institution (SIFI) and with it the opportunity to expand the regulatory scope of Dodd-Frank. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer rightly ripped to shreds the Obama administration’s decision to designate MetLife as a SIFI, and the Trump administration rightly dropped any efforts to overturn her decision. The Trump administration also eased regulatory burdens on mid-sized banks through Senate Bill 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, by raising from $50 billion to $250 billion the minimum amount of assets needed for a bank to be subject to SIFI oversight. No positive Obama legacy here either.
The third major piece of Obama reform legislation was the America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA), which again counts as a negative. The AIA was fiercely opposed by small inventors on the ground that it weakened patent rights and would make it harder for them to pursue patent protection, including injunctive relief. But wholly apart from some dubious substantive provisions, the AIA broadly expanded the process known as inter partes review, which anointed the highly political Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) with the largest say over patent policy. The Supreme Court unwisely sustained this process in Oil States Energy Group v. Greene Energy Services (2018). Fortunately, the Trump administration kicked upstairs David Ruschke, the highly politicized chief of the PTAB, though problematic structural risks remain. Verdict: no positive Obama legacy.
The Obama record on labor and employment law has been abysmal. Strong and cozy relationships with union leaders and efforts to make franchisors like McDonalds liable for the unfair practices of their franchisees willfully upended years of precedent. In addition, then-Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez sought to double the weekly salaries needed to exempt workers from the overtime provisions of the FLSA, an action that threatened to subject graduate research assistants, young employees at start-ups, and workers in the gig economy, none of whom are paid by the hour, to impossible regulations. The move was squelched by a federal judge and the Trump administration decided not to appeal. No positive Obama legacy.
Speaking more generally, I cannot think of a single mid-level Obama policy that counts as a pro-growth initiative. The same bad rap cannot be leveled against Trump, for, as the economists Edward C. Prescott and Lee E. Ohanian point out in the Wall Street Journal, the deregulatory cornerstones of the Trump administration are economically sustainable. Deregulation of labor and capital markets are not just a short-term shot in the arm, and the lower taxation of corporate income has worked to repatriate capital from overseas and to expand overall levels of investment. So long as these remain permanent features of the economy—a big “if” with an election coming up—private firms have the necessary time horizons to make much-needed long-term investments. That activity will in turn–as has begun to happen–rejuvenate labor markets. Youth unemployment hit a 50-year low, and the pace of hiring continues to rise. The stock market, always a leading indicator of future fortune, rose by about one-third in Trump’s first year in office and continues to hit all-time highs.
This stock market performance is all the more impressive because it has occurred in the face of serious Trump-created obstacles. President Trump is no fan of small domestic budgets, and he has run a perverse rearguard campaign to reverse the declining fortunes of the coal industry. Most importantly, he has waged a series of foolish trade wars against our long-term trading partners. His astounding ignorance on the principles of comparative advantage led Trump to unwisely pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, thereby giving China—a friend to no one but itself—an invitation to take the lead across the Pacific Rim. His negotiation stance put NAFTA into unnecessary jeopardy: even at the eleventh hour when a deal seems likely with Mexico, the corresponding deal with Canada still hangs by a thread. And why? Trump insists in securing large American content in automobiles, but that industry loudly protests his protectionist policies.
Here is the bottom line: the gains from Trump’s (imperfect) domestic program look enormous, given the large economic drag of his trade policies. From this assessment it’s clear that classical liberalism with strong property rights, freedom of contract, and free trade is the only engine to economic prosperity.”
https://www.hoover.org/research/not-obamas-economy
Karen, during Obama’s second term the economy was strong by any historical standard. To say the economy only took off after Trump is blatantly untrue.
Absolutely concerned about the marxist democrats who want to drag on the death of Trump’s economy indefinitely.
One preceded the other, Lochart. High unemployment (AKA more lockdowns) is the left’s ONLY chance at power.
Karen, as in the Civil Rights Act, a strong federal government insured the individual rights of all Americans.
It did nothing of the kind. It took away the freedom of contract and freedom of association of others. In many loci, state governments had already abridged both and in many loci ordinary people were treated rudely by service personnel. Saying you have an enforceable entitlement to not be treated rudely is manifestly silly, but that’s been the law.
The ink was hardly dry on the act before administrative agencies and courts began applying it in ways the promoters of it (e.g. Hubert Humphrey) explicitly denied it would be applied ex ante. And, in the intervening years, we’ve seen the multiplication of ‘protected categories’, the sectarian application of enforcement principles, and practices in the public sector that are wholly unjustifiable. We’ve also seen the infiltration in the culture that people’s freedom of association may only be exercised with the permission of gentry liberals in the bar and the educational apparat. The reductio ad absurdam is some deputy dean of students telling an evangelical student club that they have to permit non-evangelicals to hold positions in the club, otherwise it’s ‘discrimination’. No, the black students union doesn’t get this kind of treatment.
Everything you advocate is unjust.
TIA, your desire to return to racial segregation is duly noted.
btb:
Yeah, forced legal integration has been a rousing success giving way to defacto segregation which is, of course, where we started.
More voices for segregation. What an embarrassment this group is.
Mespo, blacks couldn’t eat in the “white” restaurants in my town before the CRAct, couldn’t stay in the hotels, entered public facilities from the back door, couldn’t get jobs unless menial or in the employ of other blacks, etc.
Yeah, great days for white crackers.
Please spare me the spiel of the know-nothing ideologue. Humans naturally associate with other humans whose traits they find advantageous. Integration coupled with the welfare state has destroyed black families and black communities, ushered in a thug, anti-education culture and neutered historically black colleges. The worst part is that it splintered the black community.
Here’s just a few facts about Black America’s Economic State from the 2019 Report from the Joint Economic Committee:
After more than 50 years this is the report card on forced desegregation:
The typical Black households earns a fraction of White households—just 59 cents for
every dollar. The gap between Black and White annual household incomes is about
$29,000 per year.
Black Americans are over twice as likely to live in poverty as White Americans.
Black children are three times as likely to live in poverty as White children.
The median wealth of Black families ($17,000)—is less than one-tenth that of White
families ($171,000).
The wealth gap between Black and White households increases with education.
Much less than half (42%) of Black families own their homes, compared to almost
three-quarters (73%) of White families.
The share of Blacks who are college graduates has more than doubled since 1990,
from 11% to 25%—but still lags far behind Whites.
Bottom line is that when you destroy community support in your ethnic neighborhood you lessen the chances of economic advancement. Unlike Irish, Italian and other European communities that were defacto segregated and thrived as a result, the black community was unable to support black businesses in terms of financing and foot traffic because our government decreed that communities had to be diverse which meant everything from bussing school kids out of their neighborhoods to denying landlords the right to rent to whomever they chose not the government. As a consequence, community cohesion dissolved into Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” phenomenon where diverse groups interacted less not just with other groups but with themselves, too. Less interaction, less support, meant less economic progress. And opening up the geography made intra-ethnic support even more problematic with federal Fair Housing Acts. Bottom line is that to thrive in America requires a support system. Back when courts were lawyers and not social engineers, we understood that and left communities to find ways to pull out of poverty. Our efforts to aid black communities have failed miserably because we omitted considerations of human nature and ethnic economic history from the analysis. Supporting in situ black communities is the only way to go and if that means some level of defacto segregation — not de jure, mind you — I’m all for it.
Gee, I’m really surprised that are so many advocates for segregation and the good old days down south on this site.
Not really.
They weren’t good old days, they were an outrage fortunately gone for good. I was there.
Even if blacks weren’t better off economically and educationally now than then – and they are by far – they had no dignity, were half citizens, and could not fully partake in the life and economy of their towns and cities. None of them would go back to that, and neither would you if you are a man.
This is misconceived and not entirely accurate. Blacks have and in 1948 had lower levels of human capital. That in turn affects their income stream. There are other influences than just that, but that was and is the main reason for income differentials. Various measures over the period running from 1941 to about 1971 did not affect this accept to the extent that they removed impediments to the acquisition of human capital. Some things may have. Not familiar with any econometric studies on the point.
Some things did improve on that front. For example, in the Southern United States, ca. 1928, blacks spent about 1/4 fewer days in school than did whites. By 1959, the number of days in school was about equal. Some of the controversy around James Coleman’s work has made reference to efforts in the South in that era to promote schooling among the black population and how that might have concealed certain things in his data. There were also some efforts at expanding the range of programs offered at the public colleges set aside for blacks. Then in 1948 you had a court decision of interest to the bourgeois minority among Southern blacks: it was ruled impermissible to comprehensively segregate state university systems. Prior to that date, blacks seeking to attend certain professional schools had to go out of state, because their state’s unique program was not open to black students. (Recall that Alex Haley’s father did his graduate work at Cornell and not the University of Tennessee).
The problems we have to day concern terrible malinvestment in schooling, which have its most severe effects at inner city schools. Whether students are under a regime of de jure segregation, de facto segregation or integration, there is deadweight loss if instructional time is squandered and students are channeled into the wrong programs (which they are today, at all levels).
One thing I might point out: per capita income among blacks is about 63% of that of the rest of the population; it was about 50% of that of the rest of the population in 1960. There has been a slow improvement over 60 years in the relative standard of living among blacks and they’ve fully partaken of the improvement in real incomes over that time (real per capita income has doubled since 1973). Someone located at the 50th percentile of the general population would be at the 75th percentile of the black population. Blacks-in-general are not poor on any international or historical scale. They do however suffer an abnormal level of discomfort and insecurity. Close to half have ill-compensated service jobs, a similar % live in high crime neighborhoods (which are often denuded of retail trade and quite shabby), and a similar population of youths are enrolled in disorderly schools with weak academic standards. Also, a great many are dependent on Medicaid. It’s the security issues you need to address. You have security issues because of (1) cultural factors you cannot do much about and (2) negligence in public policy. You’re never going to make the quality of life in slum neighborhoods the equal to that in suburban enclaves, but there is massive slack right now and great room for improvement making use of conventional policy tools.
Welfare dependency among blacks is much less pronounced than it was a generation ago and, again, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that hasn’t been picked there by policy-makers. Up until a few weeks ago, the employment-to-population ratio for blacks had pulled almost even with that of the rest of the population (it’s usually about 10% lower). I need to object to one metric you offered: there’s nothing wrong with rental housing. Homeownership just does not fit into a great many people’s lives. We saw during the period running from 2003 to 2007 what happens when you promote homeownership among populations ill-adapted to it.
The advance of certain sorts of social pathology among blacks cannot be reliably attributable to changes in the legal regime governing race relations because the same catastrophe occurred in the larger society. The end state was more disagreeable among blacks, but then again the metrics to begin with were more disagreeable as well. The differential between the black population and the rest in 1980 wasn’t much different than it had been 20 years earlier.
I’d refer you to Flannery O’Connor’s lectures in Mystery and Manners, especially those on race relations (which she also alludes to in “Everything that Rises Must Converge”. A cultural reconstruction in the South was something that should have happened. The problem arose when various actors took it upon themselves to engage in social engineering projects that made everyone worse off.
In re innovations in welfare policy over the period running fro 1956 to 1980, SSI and Social Security Disability suffered from administrative problems which have never been properly corrected, Medicare and Medicaid were not constructed in an actuarially sound manner and distorted the market for medical services, and just about everything else was a bad idea that caused social injury. There were other bad ideas instituted in earlier eras, e.g. public housing and contentious / adversarial models of labor relations.
Gainesville’s babbling about everyone’s ‘rights’, but that wasn’t at issue in 1964 or 1968. The problem in the Southern legal regime was the contrived and imposed abridgement of freedom of contract (manifest in commercial law and in real estate law). Instead of eliminating that, Congress imposed a different set of abridgements. It was about status, not liberty. Well, the material progress of black Americans has been inhibited by a fixation on status as opposed to skill development and quality of life. Gainesville hasn’t a clue.
Gee, I’m really surprised that are so many advocates for segregation and the good old days down south on this site.
Gee, it really surprises me that you and Paint Chips think in templates and cannot read and evaluate what people tell you.
That you have concentrations of blacks in metropolitan settlements is not a problem. (The concentration is less intense than it was 40 years ago, FWIW). Those concentrations emerge naturally when people are free to live where they can afford to buy and where people are willing to sell to them. To some extent it is derived from the distribution of income in the black population and how that differs from that of the larger society and to some extent from the effect of a modest preference for familiar neighbors (on both sides of the color bar) played out over several iterations of decision-making. This has been understood by urban geographers for decades. You don’t need much racial antagonism to have a lot of segregation. Mild alienation and irritation does the trick.
And it doesn’t matter. You need public policies which address quality of life issues in slums, but progtrash are dead set against that on principle and suburban voters commonly bit** about any proposal to cross subsidize certain public services. Quit being a part of the problem.
btb:
“they had no dignity, were half citizens, and could not fully partake in the life and economy of their towns and cities.”
*****************************
I was there,too, and you overstate the problem. There was systemic racism but there were social mechanisms like families and churches to fight it. Now the social welfare system has destroyed those institutions and blacks are only marginally better off in some categories and woefully worse off in others.
Oh and they had the dignity of Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, and George Washington Carver. What they didn’t have was money as I’ve explained. They fully partook in the lives in their communities to the same extent the denizens of Little Italy took part in the lives of scores of Northern and Western cities. Then handwringers like you came around to patronize them and cripple their self-reliance. That’s the death knell for any people’s self-respect.
Then handwringers like you came around to patronize them and cripple their self-reliance.
You have identified one of the three root causes of why our self-government experiment is failing. The other two are ignorance of U.S. civics and apathy towards governance.
Book simply views the purpose of government differently than the founders intended. A strong federal government was intended to be used to secure everyone’s natural rights equally. That was the vision, not the reality at the time of our founding. Of course the 13th and 14th amendments were proper steps towards that vision. The 19th amendment was the proper step. But every step our government has made through social engineering, that fails to secure those rights equally is a wrong step, regardless of the intent.
The same engineering mindset that lead to the Jim Crow era, is the same one that has been at work in this country since the 1960’s. That force of law has infringed rights to correct the infringement of rights. Anyone that understands the founder’s intentions would see that as illegitimate. But if the people are ignorant of those intentions, they will not know they’re being manipulated towards a dependence on a charitable government, and increasingly apathetic towards engagement. Just keep the charity flowing.
mespo, just saw this comment. Since you are regularly mocking my age, one assumes you were pretty young and obviously not in a position to witness the humility and closed society all blacks faced in the south before the CRA of 64 and the VRA of 65. Remember they weren’t allowed in most restaurants or motels, sat in the balcony in movies, entered retail establishments from separate entrances, has separate water fountains and rest rooms, etc.? That and worse had been going on for 100 years. You’d be cool with that? I don’t think so, and pretending there wasn’t much wrong with it is moral and physical blindness.
Fortunately the radicals like you and TIA are a dying breed – younger than me or not – and this is not an issue except at rear guard Trump sites like this one. You lost. The country is not going back. Get used to it.
Anon – I remember all of those horrible things were at the behest of the Democratic Party and the KKK, which were one and the same. And I am old enough to remember those days.
” all blacks faced in the south before the CRA of 64 and the VRA of 65. Remember they weren’t allowed in most restaurants or motels, sat in the balcony in movies, entered retail establishments from separate entrances, has separate water fountains and rest rooms, etc.?”
Stop! Virtually all on this blog know all about that. Racism sucks and some of us have a lot of dead family due to racism and have been faced with discrimination for a multiplicity of reasons. Some of us have even lost family who died in war hoping to preserve the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. What happened was a non-eraseable stain on America one that cost America about 600,000 lives along with years of war. Lee surendered and despite the fact he was ‘the enemy’ the powers to be didn’t poke a finger in his eye. That worked out well for the nation, but we still had lingering problems because many were brought up in one world and had to live in another.
For the most part it was Republicans that freed the slaves and Democrats that wanted to enslave blacks in other ways. All of those people are dead so instead of playing politics we should be working to protect the DOI and the Constitution.
Poking your finger in a man’s eye because he might have bias towards any race or religion isn’t effective. Racism climbed under Obama. For political reasons you will argue differently but that doesn’t solve the problem. All of a sudden placing color and other human characteristics in special classes only increases the friction and causes more harm to those we would like to protect along with harm to the nation itself. The truth is if anyone is a racist it is you, not the others you accuse of racist tendencies. There will always be some sort of racism and bias, something we have to learn to live with, because people have a tendency to self segregate so the best we can do is have laws that do not discriminate based on color not laws that inflame passions.
I want to stop now with one anecdote. A black doctor, who I know very well, and I discussed how he felt about things like affirmative action. Neither of us have racist tendencies. He so happens to be brilliant, much smarter than you or I, and is an individual of character. He said affirmative action hurt him because too many people believe he was a phyisican because he was permitted in with inferior standards. I don’t know if affirmative action was or wasn’t used in his case but it doesn’t matter because he was great. This thought of inferiority in the medical profession and elsewhere where affirmative action existed (down to clerks in certain government jobs) has deprived blacks of the dignity they deserve. Those that think like you are creating a tribal type nation divided not united. Did the disadvantaged need help? Yes, but not the type of help you advocate. You are the reason we have cities where black youths are killing one another. You are definitely not the answer to our problems.
Paul, then you should remember they became the solid GOP south where they remain to this day. Voting in Congress for the CRA and VRA were all Democratic reps and senators from above the Mason-Dixon line. Most Republicans too with a few states rights type no votes.
Anon – 75 day filibuster w/Byrd speaking for 14 hours straight. Former head of the KKK in WV.
It’s funny how the Fair Housing act has been with us since 1965. that was um 55 years ago right? nearly 3 generations. and yet “the stubborn persistence of racial segregation in housing”
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/housing-discrimination-today-and-persistence-residential-segregation
is this because of evil whitey or because of the natural tendency of ethnic groups to seek residential proximity?
only utopian minded tyrants would try and eradicate the natural tendency of ethnics to live together. but that’s precisely what the Fair Housing act and all the busybodies who fuss over it are trying to do.
I’m a voice for freedom of contract and freedom of association.
Amen for me! Plus, I am sure you believe in segregation too. I bet you live in a predominantly white area, and if you have kids or grandkids, they are not going to school with all those little black monsters-in-training.
From what I have seen, most Liberals and Democrats love them some black folks – from a distance.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Leave it to your ilk to believe force is better than freedom.
Your dullness and malice duly noted, again.
What I want should be of no consequence to any vendor, landlord, employer, or club member. Nor to any aspirant customer or vendor. What should matter is what free people are willing to agree to in the market, uncoerced. Natural monopolies, situational monopolies, and oligopolistic common carriers encompass only a modest fraction of the economic activity in this country. It is only these sorts of enterprises that should see their right to define their custom abridged. I don’t care whether the abridging party is the federal Congress, the state legislature, or local councils. And I don’t care for whose benefit they’re abridging it.
As for public services, there should be a strong bias against allocating employment in or enjoyment of according to ascribed traits, allowing for some age-grading (differentiating juveniles from working-aged persons from the old) and allowing some segregation of men and women (in protective service occupations and in nursing). But that means actual neutrality. Not pseudo-neutrality such as you find in the regime judges have imposed in the civil service. Actual neutrality means careers open to talents measured in impersonal examinations which actually screen applicants.
Primary and secondary schooling is provided through public agency. This is quite unnecessary except in remote areas or in regard to niche clientele or in regard to problem children no school wants on the premises. About 85% of all youths should be enrolled in schools run by philanthropies and funded by vouchers issued by county governments, or enrolled in schools run by philanthropies and funded by unsubsidized tuition, or home schooled. As long as the vouchers all have the same redemption value and the youngsters take the same regents’ examinations, it hardly matters what the racial composition of a given school is. Supplementary vouchers can be supplied by state governments to youths who have to board for one reason or another.
Even within the constraints of provision via public agency, federal judges (and, later, the Office for Civil Rights at the federal Department of Education) were perfectly cack-handed in supervising desegregation programs. Desegregating a local school system is a simple matter if all you’re attempting to do is remove a caste-barrier and end systemic differences in expenditures across the color bar. It’s when judges (e.g. Arthur Garrity) career into social engineering projects of dubious utility (and of no interest to parents) that you have disasters.
I’m sorry TIA, were you talking to me? I don’t pay attention to segregationists.
IOW, you haven’t a clue what anyone is talking about, can think of no responses of your own, and haven’t received talking points from headquarters.
TIA:
That’s a fair summary of the twit work of bookworm.
Book, Absurd is one of those Bork zombies who believe everything wrong with this country came about in the 1960’s. He even said so in a comment on yesterday’s column.
OMG! Don’t get me started!
Close but no cigar! You’re precisely 100 years off. The Destroyer of American Freedom and Free Enterprise was none other than “Crazy Abe” Lincoln who paved the way for his anti-constitutional, globalist, one-world, communist, U.N. successors, the Progressives. The only reason the Lincoln Memorial exists is that the winners write and impose the false history. “Crazy Abe” was called “Honest” as mockery employed to reveal and showcase his actual dishonesty. Lincoln fraternized with communists who had been run out of Germany and ended up in Illinois. Comrade Lincoln was consumed with eliminating classes from American society a la Marx, his ideological mentor and Dear Leader. Secession was/is fully constitutional. War, confiscation of private property and the suspension of Habeas Corpus were fully unconstitutional. And slavery should have been eliminated in the free markets of a free society through the deployment of the economic tools: Advocacy, boycotts, divestiture, etc. “Crazy Abe” backed into the presidency with only 38.9%, seized power, stole 1864 through the liberal and corrupt application of brute military force and American freedom and free enterprise were killed, along with 1 million of its finest.
Epilogue: The “Reconstruction Amendments” were illegal as the law required citizens to be “…free white person(s)…” requiring the immediate deportation of black freed slaves having experienced a change in legal status from “property” to “illegal alien,” illegitimate as “injurious to the Constitution” itself, and preposterously and improperly ratified under the duress of brutal, post-war military occupation.
That would be the Constitution, bythebook. The government has its purview. Leftism wants a strong government at the expense of individual rights. Example: socialism. Example II: AOC forbidding air travel.
Karen, that was the Civil Rights Act, not the Constitution, but in either case those rights had to be enforced by the federal government. I lived through this period in the segregated south and played a very small part in it’s overturning.
Translation: Anon cussed and threatened people when they got onto his lawn 60 yrs ago and hasnt changed much today: still cussing and threatening people on the internet
bythebook: You are not understanding me. The Constitution protects the individual rights of all Americans.
Jim Crow Laws violated the Constitution. Back in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment.
While I am supremely happy that the Civil Rights Act put the nail in Jim Crow, there are some interesting consequences. As you are aware, there have been strong movements to add all sorts of protected classes, such as gender fluidity. Under that guise, preventing biological males from competing in female sports divisions was viewed discriminatory. Now women cannot compete in their own division, which has essentially been made co-ed. Men who could not place in men’s divisions could do a clean sweep in the women’s. The list could end up quite exhaustive.
Jim Crow Laws tried to get around the 14th Amendment with the separate but equal approach. In 1896, Homer Plessy sued the state of Louisiana for violating his Constitutional rights when he was kicked off the whites section of the railroad car. The Supreme Court ruled against him because they did not acknowledge that the black sections were always of inferior value.
What is interesting in the Civil Rights Act is that it does not only address Jim Crow Laws. Under this law, you cannot have a woman’s night at a club. In 1985, the CA Supreme Court ruled that ladies’ car washes and ladies’ night at dance clubs violated the Civil Rights Act. You can’t have a law prohibiting gender discrimination, and then discriminate against a gender. Everyone always assumes discrimination is always bad. But if a woman advertises for a roommate, she’s probably going to want a female one, which discriminates against men. Again, in CA, the Fair Housing Council of San Fernando sued, taking the position that gender discrimination in roommate ads must violate the Civil Rights Act. Luckily, the court decided that the government should not intrude into private dwellings. I wonder if that will change at some point.
Don’t bother with your usual style of rejoinder, accusing me of wanting Jim Crow laws back. Read my comment before you type. Of course I don’t.
It was the Constitution that protects individual rights, and the 14th Amendment ended the global practice of slavery on United States soil, at least.
Karen, you are not understanding history. A strong federal government passed and enforced the CR Act which enforced equal access to public accommodations on southern states against their will. Good.
Somehow, until Brown – now being challenged by some rear guard modern Republicans – the SC did not find this Constitutional right you speak of until Brown, and it took a strong federal government to cram it down the throats of the crackers in the south. I lived there, experienced it – too young to remember Brown – and I know what I am talking about.
Bythebook – you are simply ignoring every point I, and the other respondents have made, reduced to repeating yourself.
You either don’t understand, or cannot respond.
Do we say that laws that infringe upon our rights are unconstitutional, or not? The entire point of the Civil Rights Act was supposed to be to ensure the constitutional rights of black people in the Jim Crow era. It didn’t spring out of the ether. It was an extension of the 14th Amendment, designed to address the separate but equal foundation of segregation. Now women compete against men in their own sports division. Boy Scouts of America was deemed discriminatory against girls. No boys clubs allowed. Ladies nights at clubs and ladies car washes are technically illegal, and the club owner will lose if challenged in court. I wonder when strip clubs and hooters will be required to hire males. A local government tried to force people not to discriminate when choosing roommates. That was knocked down, but I’ll bet they’ll try again, with the gender fluidity approach.
Perhaps a more targeted approach to legally fight Jim Crow would have been better, but hindsight is 20/20. The Supreme Court had the chance to overturn racial segregation, but the justices were the product of their times. They refused to acknowledge that separate did not grant equal access.
I find it interesting that the Civil Rights Act is ignored in some scenarios. For example, there is a shocking trend in college campuses to have black only housing, and graduations. There is a sort of tribalism, with victim groups demanding special accommodations, and above all, the right to discriminate against other groups. Many hiring actions, quotas, and even the application process to university also is in violation of the Civil Rights Act. Even artists and writers’ submissions are discriminatory, with minorities preferred. The CRA is selectively applied.
The very premise of identity politics is discriminatory. Your worth is decided on the sum of your persecuted victim hood. Female, trans, minority, religion, gay, disability. I’m trying to remember what got the most points. I think it was a trans Muslim lesbian woman in a wheelchair who is black and identifies as Native American. Did I get them all?
Need to interject, Karen. Securing the constitutional rights of blacks was at issue in regard to the voting rights legislation instituted in 1960 and 1965. (The provisions of the latter were subsequently misused by progtrash lawfare artists). Measures enacted in 1964 and 1965 in re commercial transactions, employment, and housing do not advance anyone’s specifically constitutional rights or anyone’s liberty. While they countermand (with dubious warrant) abusive state legislation, they add federal coercion (albeit for different ends).
1964 and 1968
Karen, your utterances on this subject are decaying into stream of consciousness. Don’t think out loud.
Karen, your rants on the effects of the CRA Act aside – I don’t agree with you on most – this discussion began with your statement that bigger governments were in opposition to individual rights. I brought up the CR Act which – with the federal Voting Rights Act – factually made a large segment of the population full citizens for the 1st time ever, and that change is still in effect today, making your statement false. Whether it was an extension of the Constitution or not is another argument, though it too relies on the federal government for enforcement.
TIA did not likely experience or suffer from segregation and his statement that “Measures enacted in 1964 and 1965 in re commercial transactions, employment, and housing do not advance anyone’s specifically constitutional rights or anyone’s liberty. ” couldn’t be further from the reality of blacks in the segregationist south.
Back in the 80’s I was talking to a guy I cut hay with in an informal partnership and asked him whether he liked it currently or “in the good old days”. He was an older black farmer in his early 70’s but wiry and active, He did go up north briefly when he was a “gambler” – probably in the 30s – but otherwise, born on a small farm that he still owned with a hand dug open well. He looked at me like I had 2 heads and laughed. “Now!” and as soon as he said it I knew the absurdity of that question for a black person who had lived segregation most of his life. If I asked my mother that same question, she’d joke about the outhouse, but otherwise wax sentimental about the “old days”. Many older whites would give you a similar answer. Black in the south? Are you f…g kidding me?
Let’s be honest. The Fair Housing act restricts freedom and so does the Civil Rights act of 1964. The freedom of whites to associate with their own kind in employment and housing matters. Now if you think it’s peachy keen great for whites to be forced by government not to associate only with their own kind, just say so. Because racist.
But we all know these laws are not on the books to benefit white people. Or anybody else besides black folks. Oh and maybe all those agency bureaucrats enforcing such laws too of course. But sure, I can understand why good hearted people like Book feel sad about the legacy of slavery. I have a cold heart and I don’t worry about that for my own part. But some bleeding hearts do. That is fine, that is perhaps compassionate. Perhaps. Or maybe there are ulterior motives involved in all those kinds of laws too. Just maybe. What motive? Um, crushing the “white working class” or “lower income whites” down to size as a legacy political group that stood in the way of “progress” for the Democrat party, ie, winning elections. LBJ decided it was time to toss his former segregationist allies overboard and he sure did.
But the remedies here were and are all about forcing white people to associate with those they don’t want to. That is not freedom it is a restriction of freedom. And it’s almost always aimed at white folks and no other ethnic groups. So Call a spade a spade!
Kurtz again demonstrates the limits of his zero-sum thinking. We all benefit from an interracial and fair society, just like we all benefit from a global economy. Fortunately he doesn’t really have a choice about the latter – it’s a done deal – and the former only if he wants to move to some backwater, which he’s free to do.
No Kurtz just called a spade a spade. White crackers down south did not benefit from Democrats throwing them overboard in 1964. Black folks maybe did, or, maybe not. But lower income whites down south certainly did not benefit. Nor the white working class up north either.
Only the “reformed” segregationist LBJ could have got it done. he was more suitable to accomplish this than JFK, who was a Yankee, and lacked the skill at legislative wrangling that LBJ did. Surely there were powerful forces who were pleased that one lone nut with a magic bullet accomplished what he did in Texas.
Wait did you say “we all benefit from a global economy?”
LOL — sure we do! A lot of the 1% who work in investment banks do,. and then, there’s the Chinese slaves benefit, or not, and the Chinese communists definitely benefit, they make 90% of the global supply of PPEs and then use their inside information held back from the WHO for 1-3 critical months, to corner the market on the overseas existing supply by sending their lackeys out to buy up all the overseas inventory while the world remains ignorant of the emergent outbreak!
Sure, that’s how we all benefit from globalism. Sure we do!
Kurtz, your small time thinking is just wrong, and you know nothing of the south and especially it’s economy. To this day whites have preferential hiring from smaller businesses, which is most of them. The businesses which were forced by law to be non-discriminatory meant blacks who got those jobs had their wages go up, which created upward pressure for all working class wages. How does having virtual slaves in competition for jobs help the white working class. It doesn’t. It helps white businessmen.
Equal rights for all regardless of race is not identity politics and forcing equal accommodations is not throwing anyone under the bus except racist a….les
Kurtz, check the price of your 4th flat screen, your automobile, clothes, and tools. Check what markets your midwestern farmers depend on and who Buick sells most of their cars to (hugely popular in China). As I’m sure you know as a Yang fan. most lost jobs here are from automation, not foreign competition. By trying to close our doors, you and Trump are leaving an open field for China. You’re their best buddy.
oh i may have lived my life up north, but i have my sources for my interpretation of southern politics and economy. you’re free to have your opinion and i have mine.
Book relishes how federal overlords forced his less wealthy neighbors to associate with those who probably could not afford to live next to Book anyhow
This is more the proof of why white racism doesn’t work than anything. Not because people can’t or shouldn’t have a sense of ethnic or racial solidarity; but because there are so many fakers inside the ranks who don’t deserve the solidarity!
Oh, if they get shipped off to jail, they seek it quickly enough. But so long as they have their money which buys the real freedom of economic opportunity– , they are ok to keep sneering at the po white trash, etc etc, crackers, whatever.
This is what I call the “atticus finch” mentality– white southernors who seek to prove their own upwardly mobile bona fides by insulting the crackers! you know the book by harper lee, it too has a subtext of enmity towards the poor white folks in the South.
And these guys are often Democrats is the funny thing, who claim to speak for the workers!
Now you know why so many down on their luck white folks voted for Trump. Tired of being called racists, bigots, deplorables, etc., they decided to get off the couch and turn out in 2016
They better decide to turn out even more in 2020 or the Dem leadership will be taking scalps with all the vengeance and bitter hatred of native born deplorables, clinging to guns and the Bible, the poor white folks that’s apparent in the tone of remarks above. . You can see why he loved Hillary so much! Birds of a feather.
This is the single clearest reason why I don’t want to get sucked into white racism. Because there are so many white people who sneer at their own kind, and they’re not worth one drop of sweat to help.
Let them eat cake. Soon enough with 36 million unemployed, and more coming later, people who only put their trust in money are going to be in for a terrible comeuppance.
book said “As I’m sure you know as a Yang fan. most lost jobs here are from automation, not foreign competition”
Yang was running for Dem leader so he was pandering to people like you. Automation is a big factor you’ve oversimplified a multivariate situation for the sake of the usual short, false, dichotomy aimed at scoring points on Trump.
a) “right to work laws” which is how Northern Industry lost out to Southern States a few decades back. I may be a Republican but Im a friend of organized labor and I support the right to organize and to charge members of the bargaining unit for the benefits they receive from representation. Guys like book may not have that on their radar screens, how busy they are sneering at poor white workers, but guys like me have friends in the Teamsters and so forth and I have it on mine
Democrat leadership has betrayed organized labor a hundred ways, and the captive and corrupt leadership of many unions takes the payoffs and keeps the workers quiet. But people can see and understand how the Dems have thrown them overboard. Well, at least Republicans are not fake friends. Im not saying Trump is against right to work laws, he isnt’, but ask yourself why so many Democrat aren’t against it either? Show me if Yang mentioned this one single time. I know I am staking out a “leftists” position here but sorry that’s how I roll sometimes. The key thing for people to understand is that the whole “representing the workers” act of Democrat current day leadership is a big fat lie.
b) offshoring. this was back in Clinton’s time, well underway already, many American industries had moved to Taiwan even before PRC opened up, the Japanese currency manipulation, the maquiladora region, many stories that were little explored outside finance and economics. Then NAFTA accellerated it. China’s joining the WTO, etc etc, you can fake like you don’t know about that book but people get it now. Hillary and Bill Clinton’s big support from Wall Street financiers was thanks for helping them make a min on this. Not until Trump was there a voice for those who lost out in the process.
c) finanacialization versus industrial policy. Michael Hudson. Robert Kuttner. There is a wing of the Democrat party that seeks to make America a great industrial power again, and Hillary isn’t part of it. She’s the Wall Street faction. I was pleased to see the wise Steve Bannon interviewing Robert Kuttner the other day on the “pandemic broadcast” below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIeuTFtJgxE
e) currency manipulation. again a complex subject but one that book will ignore so I’ll just mention it. Lightheiser and Trump are on the job, nobody else did anything more than complain.
Back to Yang. The farther out issue that he illuminated, which is presently forgotten, is the role that emergent srong AI will have on sidelining many more sectors of workers than previously expected, including skilled professionals. Many of whom make up the Dem managerial ranks. And those things may come online even faster now due to all this distancing and shutdown. This is a technological trend that is beyond party politics but it will effect all our existences. It is a trend that will be unstoppable, the only question is one of containment and adaptation. In this dimension, Yang is a prophet.
Democrat primary got him on board and they mostly misused him. but, the primary is over, you can see they chose Joe, a demented corrupt old fool, so that tells you how much the Dems appreciated Yang or that other bright light they dimmed, Tulsi Gabbard.
I certainly accept that you believe all of that. The question is: is it **true**? I suspect it’s just your opinion. You certainly haven’t presented any evidence for your claim that “the defining principle of the Left requires a strong government at the expense of individual rights,” and fascism is a counter-example: there’s a strong government at the expense of individual rights, but it’s a right-wing ideology.
Are you coyly implying that Leftists believe in Limited Government, not conservatives? Because that’s absurd. Liberals try to tax America into a “better country.” They use those taxes to try to equalize wealth by redistribution. They tax and tax people to fund an ever expanding list of social programs. They want vacation trains to San Francisco paid for by every CA taxpayer, even though they won’t help the environment and they are plums to big Democrat donors like unions. Free bike helmets. Free yoga classes. Free public restrooms with showers put in homeless encampments to be used to shoot up. There is no end to their imagination on what they could better spend your money on than you could, and you’re selfish if you say enough. It’s too much. They can designate a social class that is “bad”, like the rich, and then punish their success. Progressives try to better the world through government fiat. They enact ever more restrictive laws trying to govern social behavior. Both of these approaches require a strong government at the expense of the individual. A “Leftist” takes this approach and goes to the extreme, such as socialism. Bernie Bros are Leftists. They want to tear down Capitalism. Capitalism, operating under laws that guarantee individual liberty, is the most fair system. If you have an idea for a good or service, you sell it. If it is a reasonable price for the value, people voluntarily buy it. Good ideas and work are financially rewarded. You own the product of your mind and labor. You are free to find another job, open, or shut down a business. Under socialism, the state owns the product of your mind and labor. It is a system of slavery.
https://youtu.be/tlIjMJBSnRE
https://youtu.be/MphnM5zoOow
Let’s say you take the opinion that a Leftist is just anyone on the Left, a regular Democrat, for example. Even in the moderate version, which person is more likely to believe in a limited government, strong individual rights, and believes in the Constitutional rights of free speech (no matter what is said, even on a college campus), the 2nd Amendment, freedom of religion (even if it’s a Christian handing out pro-life pamphlets), a Leftist or a conservative?
I’ll bet you know the answer.
there’s a strong government at the expense of individual rights, but it’s a right-wing ideology.
Thanks for begging the question. Always helpful.
Fascism is neither right nor left. It is only considered not-left because it almost always has had a strong anti-marxist and solidarist narrative bringing it to power. but it usually incorporates many principles that some right wingers consider “socialist.’ If you associate one name with fascism it should be Mussolini and he was originally a socialist. if you want one academic worth reading about fascism it is Roger Eatwell.
https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-History-Roger-Eatwell/dp/0140257004
I just ordered a copy. Thanks for the tip!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The defining principles of the left require lawfare to harass and injure their fancied class enemies. Otherwise, the state is expected to be too disorganized and weak to impose community standards on the left’s mascot groups. It also requires taxation to re-allocate income from class enemies to people on the client list, especially those employed in the education and social services apparat.
What they want has nothing to do with order, justice, or decency.
““the Left” is not some homogeneous entity, and people on the left have diverse views, just like people on the right do.”
We can see that in how the left responded to a Hillary supporter, Alan Dershowitz, when he did nothing more than provide his opinion on the law. His friends on the left no longer talk to him. Tolerence doesn’t exist on the left.
Allan wrote: “His friends on the left no longer talk to him.”
There was the Jeffrey Epstein business, so it’s more complicated than Allan would have us believe. Maybe Allan would like to provide some proof.
“Tolerence [sic] doesn’t exist on the left.”
Rubbish, but Allan and Karen (and some of the others who regularly post comments to Jonathan Turley’s blog) frequently make these sorts of sweeping statements, without foundation. It’s called Broad-Brush Syndrome.
“There was the Jeffrey Epstein business, so it’s more complicated than Allan would have us believe. ”
That is a pretty stupid statement indicating a tremendous lack of knowledge.
Here I am on this list listening to a bunch of crazy and ignorant leftists whose tolerance is so low they insult the provider of this blog over and over again. It’s OK to criticize Turley’s opinion but most of you guys don’t bother with the opinion rather you go after him personally. That is your definition of tolerance.
I don’t know how much more stupid you could get.
Rubbish, nonsense and…yep, stupidity, from Allan. Psychological projection is one of his strengths.
You remain in your cocoon, ignorant as ever. Dershowitz was abandoned by many of his friends and that had little or nothing to do with Epstein. You just like to talk to make yourself feel smart but you aren’t. You remain Anonymous the Stupid.
“Alan Dershowitz, marred by ties to Jeffrey Epstein, will defend Trump at impeachment trial” –LA Times, 1.17.2020
Allan doesn’t understand complexity; he has trouble with it. Ah, well, the whole “simple minds” thing. He frequently calls other commenters “stupid” because, in the main, it’s how he feels about himself.
Excerpt from the LA Times article:
Dershowitz’s defense of Trump isn’t the only thing that has generated concern. There’s also his association with Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
In 2008, Dershowitz helped the wealthy financier secure a cushy plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida while Epstein was under investigation on suspicion of sexually abusing underage girls.
A decade later, a Miami Herald investigation disclosed details of the deal for the first time, spurring outrage among Epstein’s victims.
Federal prosecutors in New York opened their own investigation, leading to Epstein’s arrest last July on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiring to commit sex trafficking of minors.
Epstein died by suicide the following month while awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail, but the investigation continues to reverberate through the court system.
One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Dershowitz of abusing her. He’s denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit against her for defamation.
Dershowitz’s most recent tweets urged his critics to pick up his book where he lays out his defense.
“To all my Twitter detractors who presume, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that I engaged in sexual misconduct, I’ve made my new book — Guilt by Accusation — available on kindle for $1.98 (no royalties for me). I challenge you to read it then Tweet,” he wrote.
You are a typical slimeball. Dershowitz has represented disliked people his entire career and that never caused this type of problem.
This, “In 2008, Dershowitz helped the wealthy financier secure a cushy plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida while Epstein was under investigation on suspicion of sexually abusing underage girls.” didn’t cause a problem either.
There wasn’t personal blowback in 2008. There is one reason that all of a sudden the left turned on Dershowitz and that was when he defended Trump. The LA Times slanders a lot of people including some of those that used to be his friends.
You can believe what you wish but the sudden dislike of Dershowitz by his former friends only appeared after Dershowitz started to be a legal advisor to Trump.
Your response is the typical response I have been talking about. You know nothing and act like a slimeball.
Allan is trying with all his might to be right:
“There wasn’t personal blowback in 2008.”
We’ve seen the blowback within the past few years. Try to keep up, buddy.
“We’ve seen the blowback within the past few years.”
That is right. We saw the blowback when Dershowitz decided to legally side with Trump despite the fact that he said he openly supported Biden. That is what demonstrates that you were wrong which is what almost all of us expected. After all, you are Anonymous the Stupid.
Allan wrote, somewhere in this mess:
“This, “In 2008, Dershowitz helped the wealthy financier secure a cushy plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida while Epstein was under investigation on suspicion of sexually abusing underage girls.” didn’t cause a problem either.
There wasn’t personal blowback in 2008. There is one reason that all of a sudden the left turned on Dershowitz and that was when he defended Trump. The LA Times slanders a lot of people including some of those that used to be his friends.
You can believe what you wish but the sudden dislike of Dershowitz by his former friends only appeared after Dershowitz started to be a legal advisor to Trump.”
******************************
Again, “the blowback” from D’s Epstein connections came later with the revelations by the Miami Herald that resulted in Epstein’s arrest in NY in 2019. D’s relationship with Trump, as I indicated earlier, is not the only problem for D’s “former friends” and others.
“Alan Dershowitz Has Wasted His Life Doing Terrible Things”
BY
LIZA FEATHERSTONE
“Celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz has done so many bad things during his life, joining Donald Trump’s impeachment legal team doesn’t even rank among the worst of them.”
https://.com/jacobinmag2019/12/alan-dershowitz-donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-israel-palestine
(Bone up, Buddy, and clean your glasses. You’re viewing the world through dirty lenses.)
“Again, “the blowback” from D’s Epstein connections ”
Anonymous the Stupid follow the discussion. The discussion had to do with his personal friends. That blowback with his friends came when he advocated for the law which so happened to be in Trump’s favor. It is then that he lost friends even though he said he wouldn’t vote for Trump. Epstein had little to do with that. The Epstein entanglements where sex is concerned are almost certainly lies and I believe there is substantial proof.
Allan wrote: “You remain Anonymous the Stupid.”
LOL. So says some rando dude who calls himself “Allan.” I certainly don’t care what he thinks of me — and I’m guessing that other anonymous posters don’t either. It’s would appear to be his favorite (and meaningless) retort. SMH.
“I certainly don’t care what he thinks of me ”
Anonymous the Stupid, it’s obvious that you have to prove yourself because deep down you recognize that you are Stupid and too lazy to do something about it.
Allan behaves like his hero DJT. SMH.
Allan, pivoting:
“Here I am on this list listening to a bunch of crazy and ignorant leftists whose tolerance is so low they insult the provider of this blog over and over again. It’s OK to criticize Turley’s opinion but most of you guys don’t bother with the opinion rather you go after him personally. That is your definition of tolerance.
“I don’t know how much more stupid you could get.”
What???? I didn’t go after Jonathan Turley “personally.” SMH. This guy “Allan” clearly has his problems.
that you bait Allan to boost your own insecurities and feed your psychological problems make Allan look like a rose
and I am new here
“and I am new here”
sure you are
…but let’s say you are.
You don’t know Allan like some of us know Allan.
You should have said that this new Anonymous didn’t know you like most of us know you. That is why you were named Anonymous the Stupid.
Refer to the following comment at 8:47:
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/05/12/i-am-being-serious-here-yale-professor-denounces-trump-for-genocide-in-response-to-the-pandemic/comment-page-2/#comment-1950864
…and more blah, blah, blah from the not-so-new Anonymous @ 7:23.
And we know that Cundy loves to play the sycophant.
I’ll refer you to a recent reply by another commenter:
https://jonathanturley.org/2020/05/12/i-am-being-serious-here-yale-professor-denounces-trump-for-genocide-in-response-to-the-pandemic/comment-page-2/#comment-1950864
CommitToHonestDiscussion says:May 12, 2020 at 8:47 PM about Allan:
“Sorry, I responded to you by mistake, thinking that your comment was from StevveJ. If the commenting system here allowed people to delete their comments, I would have deleted it as soon as I realized and before you took time to respond.
“I have no desire to invest time in an exchange with you. You insult other commenters here too often, and my experience is that exchanges with people who choose not to be civil just aren’t worth it.”
Are you dumb? I was demonstrating leftist intolerance to those that deviate from leftist dogma.
Anonymous says, ” I didn’t go after Jonathan Turley “personally.”. I have seen your name attached to personal insults of Jonathan Turley. It’s absolutely true and anyone can check the blog. Are you saying it never happened?
Blah, blah, blah…
Allan just can’t get over the fact that people are able to post anonymously. Get over it Allan. And get over yourself.
I just can’t get over the fact that Anonymous the Stupid is that stupid. No, the use of the Anonymous alias permits one to say what he wants without worrying about someone remembering what he said. In your case Anonymous the Stupid it’s easy to pick you out because you seldom say anything that isn’t Stupid.
We laugh at you, Allan old buddy.
Even hyena’s can laugh, but they have more intelligence than Anonymous the Stupid.
“…they [hyenas] have more intelligence than Anonymous the Stupid.”
…and most certainly more intelligence than Allan.
…and it isn’t the “right” assaulting people over a hat, harassing people in restaurants, putting on masks and beating up reporters, shutting down speakers they disagree with on campus…..ITS THE LEFT.
The far end of the Left spectrum did not believe Dershowitz had the right to speak his opinion unmolested. Leftists are the ones mobbing and threatening invited conservative speakers at college campuses across America.
It is amusing how often Democrats deny this trend.
If anyone thinks they can convince me that it is the Left that strives for limited government, strong constitutional protections including of the 2nd amendment, decries the harassment of opposing political opinions (such as when conservatives are invited to speak at college campuses), and strong individual rights, including property rights, then they can go for it. Try to convince me that the party’s goal is a limited government.
Karen, every protest, activity and lecture from the right that I have been to has been peaceful and respectful. The only problems have been leftists that attended to get their pictures in the paper or pretended to be “violent” right wingers. When the rally was over the place was always clean even when there was food. I have seen the most peaceful people being intimidated and threatened by leftists and had one episode myself. Coming up the elevator from the subway in NYC another couple followed us when we went down to go up so that we could have a space in the elevator going to street level. They made a comment about Trump and we didn’t trash him so they got annoyed. On the street they were ahead of us stopping everyone apparently to tell them we were Trumpers. We suppose they were hoping to start a fight.
In NYC the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” was at Lincoln center. It was antisemitic. Many people not just Jews were protesting. Lincoln Center is a very large area sometimes used for outdoor art shows and is always filled with people. The city is Democratic. The protestors were guided off the common plaza by the police. Alan Dershowitz was there protesting as well and they tried to push him as well but he said he had a right to be there as he had a ticket to the opera. They still didn’t want him there but he stands up for his rights.
I spoke to Glenn Beck before he moved from the West Side of NYC to Texas and asked him why. He told me he was used to being pushed around but he couldn’t live there when people would yell and scream at his young daughters when in Central Park. Things aren’t always pleasant.
I agree with what you wrote, Karen. I might add an anecdote that seems to fit a general take of many elitists who are vacuous in what many would consider ordinary knowledge or insight.
I knew a doctor who at one point in a conversation about how frustrating it was to deal foolish people told me she joined Mensa years ago for a social outlet but later discovered that there were unfortunately several individuals who were members that were just as equally foolish and stupid as there were among the general population.
It seems there is a market value society assigns to knowledge, and from a biological perspective it is essentially the same neurons occupying a different region of the brain, such as for dancing skill versus recollection to spatial ability. Society might value a person who is gifted in event recall and utilization greater than another person having the neural density or processing ability in making pottery or mechanical ability, the former being further divided and valued according to the particular set of facts or working knowledge depending on the subject or ideas possessed. Society for example places esteem on individuals who profess great knowledge of ancient Greek writers and opera but less so in a person who knows an equal number of facts and working knowledge of a master mechanic with thirty years of experience and training. So the system encourages members seeking to maintain or better their social strata to seek expertise in what society believes has a higher commodity value. We value the ancient Greek professor as a higher value than the master mechanic at face value, but practically speaking who provides greater utility in society. I would say the master mechanic does since most people in the West own cars and require competence in repairing them and let’s face it, few people outside academia have any need for what a Greek orator debated two thousand years ago. But it’s a way for some to wear intellectual baubles and medals to bring them prestige. I am not entirely dismissive since nearly all knowledge has its benefit or use, but as a commodity some of it is definitely over-priced.
Probably one of my criticisms of academia is that some members find themselves continually flaunting their accolades–which they wrote four papers in 1978 were a keynote speaker before the xyz organization, received an honorary degree from a university, etc. It seems to be a word where one’s name is to be identified as being the result of as many jobs and titles as possible to elevate the person into a higher stratum. Sure these events enumerated are achievements, but academic achievement does not always translate into ability or credibility in all and other realms and can project a false facade of effectiveness or wisdom. Again I’m not trying to infer that academic pursuits are without merit, but it is certainly not all encompassing.
Yet if a person such as who you mention places all of their value into academic accolades, there exists the probability they will have voids in other areas they find unnecessary, especially if they subscribe to the belief that maintaining their mores and position through narrow channels is the only way to maintain appearances. And this can be the progenitor of foolish thinking and behavior. Simply put, they might believe that since they are an expert in social statistical analysis they know everything concerning life as say being a member of an Indian tribe in a particular census region. They could be totally clueless in the latter, but when they’ve been told for years (by others and perhaps themselves) they are an expert so they have ability in tangential areas sometimes they believe they unquestionably are. And when you’ve been told from all sides you are the best, you tend not to listen to or value anyone else’s input or criticism.
I believe people would be better served if they applied a more objective approach in how they value knowledge or ability. It is better valued as a function of its applicability to the subject or task required, not solely on the person who possesses it.
Good thoughts, but, for some people it’s just all about power
Chicom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army
they pay people to swarm the internet with Chicom praising garbage, like we see being vomited forth here today from certain voices.
Darren Smith, you should block the unproductive “Ping-Backs,” whatever they are. There’s no good reason for them to appear on the Turley blog.
“Ping-Backs”
You obviously have too much time on your hands, George.
George,
The website can be configured to block pingbacks, and I can see why many such as you question their necessity. That would be something to bring up to Professor Turley for his consideration since it is his decision as to whether or not to allow these. There is some interest from an author’s perspective to learn of where one’s works are hyperlinked or used yet I can understand why some readers find them to be an annoyance. I am neutral either way on whether these should be displayed, though I believe your point has merit. I’ll bring your suggestion to his attention, certainly there are others share your views on this.
Hi Darren!
I wish I knew how to use this site & my PC’s resourches better to find things people.
Anyway I saw this good cop a week or so ago, now they’re threatening to fire him but people a rallying around him. As They Should!
He’s out your way.
If people don’t stand up for what’s right they’ll fall for anything.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/seattle-cop-placed-leave-after-refusing-remove-viral-video-reminding-officers-not-obey
Thanks, Karen. I enjoyed this comment post.
Karen s, enjoyed your comments, it is better late reading than not.
“… the Trump administration still has no plan for dealing with the global pandemic or its fallout. The president has cast doubt on the need for a vaccine or expanded testing. He has no evident plan for contact tracing. He has no treatment ideas beyond the drug remdesivir, since Trump’s marketing campaign for hydroxychloroquine ended in disaster. And, facing the worst economy since the Great Depression, the White House has no plan for that, either, beyond a quixotic hope that consumer demand will snap back as soon as businesses reopen.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/donald-trump-has-no-plan/611506/
” the Trump administration still has no plan for dealing with the global pandemic or its fallout. The president has cast doubt on the need for a vaccine or expanded testing. He has no evident plan for contact tracing. He has no treatment ideas beyond the drug remdesivir,”
Intellectual deficients who believe in this type of garbage really need a lot of our help and sympathy.
The Atlantic is an opinion journal. Did the article include an opinion about what the President and/or world leaders could/should do?
It’s not a mystery Samantha:
1. Quit f….g lying every day and tell it straight. We need to be able to trust what our leader says.
2. Establish national guidelines – the WH did that – encourage governors to stick with them and don’t have the president undercut them.
3. Allocate resources nationally where needed.
3. GET THE F……G TESTS AND TESTING SYSTEMS WHATEVER IT TAKES and establish contract tracing
4. Work with other nations and international organizations on vaccines and any other areas where we can help each other. Quit starting stupid fights about what to name the virus. We can do that later.
That isn’t an answer to the question. It’s another opinion.
Any answer is an opinion since it regards the future. I think you’re looking for the Gypsy Forum.
By the way, you specifically asked for an opinion of what to do, and I gave the one most experts agree to – TESTING!!!!! with contact tracing.
No, I asked you for substantive recommendations included in The Atlantic article.
Not at all. The Obama Administration white paper, the subsequent studies and the Trump Adminstration pandemic response ‘war game’ all offered discrete actions. That is, they took actual situations and identified appropriate responses. That’s very different to the coulda-shoulda-woulda observations salted with profanity, vulgarity and/or vituperative personal comments.
book wants to join the Chicom Water Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army
he’s trying out for a spot, auditioning by tossing dung on Trump every day here
Comrade Xi would be impressed! In his honor, you may take the name Whoo Flung Poo
https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/winnie_Xi_jinping-1-1038×692.png
Yes, The Atlantic is an editorial magazine. I assume that you don’t object to such entities (Turley’s site also consists of editorials).
If you want an answer to your question, you can read the article; the link is above. If you’re looking for a more general answer to your question, a widespread “test and trace” program is just one of the things that Trump and other leaders could/should make possible. Some countries are already doing this; for example, it’s a key reason that South Korea was able to significantly limit the number of infections and deaths.
It’s inexcusable that many people *still* cannot be tested and get a prompt and accurate result, months after Trump falsely claimed “Anybody that wants a [COVID-19] test can get a test.” It’s sad but not surprising that Trump has been relying on regular testing of WH staff to keep him safe, but he doesn’t think widespread testing is important for the country as a whole.
Well, again, it’s an opinion – and, an opinion more about the President’s style than the substance of the Administration’s actions. I don’t subscribe to The Atlantic, so, I’ll go with no, the author of that article didn’t offer substantive recommendations.
I find Mr. Turley’s columns, even if they are opinions, which many are not, to be on point and well-referenced – whether I agree with his position or not.
You explicitly asked for an opinion:
“Did the article include __an opinion__ about what the President and/or world leaders could/should do?”
And no, my opinion was not “an opinion more about the President’s style than the substance of the Administration’s actions.” A test and trace program is not a matter of “style.” It’s an set of actions designed to limit spread of the illness. My quote of Trump’s false claim isn’t a matter of “style” either. He lied.
I suppose you could call the difference between the level of testing he expects for WH staff and his own exposure vs. for average Americans a matter of “style,” though I consider it more a matter of his psychology (e.g., narcissism, lack of empathy, dismissiveness towards expertise and learning).
“I don’t subscribe to The Atlantic”
I don’t either. Non-subscribers can access a few free articles every month.
“ Non-subscribers can access a few free articles every month.”
your abusive tirades laced with vulgarities on here prove the Atlantic hitpieces are having their yellow journalistic effect on you
ROFL. You must have me confused with someone else.
If you want to give me another laugh, you’ll quote what I wrote that you consider “abusive tirades laced with vulgarities.”
Thanks for the laugh. 🙂
Commit, the absurdity of this failure is that massive testing capability with contact tracing is the most important step we can take to reopen the country economically without a boomerang – he alone has the power to achieve that and he won’t do it. Apparently he lacks the brains, balls, and the focus beyond his daily needs to do it. Polls show that what is causing most of our economic stagnation isn’t forced stay at home rules, but public fear. We can do this god dammit, it’s not like building 10 aircraft carriers, 10 battleships, 30 destroyers and training and equipping 500,000 troops in 6 months.
I agree.
Convincing everyone to wear masks is another very easy step. If everyone wore them, it would reduce (not eliminate) transmission, as it reduces emission of infected respiratory droplets from asymptomatic carriers and helps remind people not to touch their nose/mouth with unwashed hands. But Trump can’t bring himself to model this, apparently because he thinks it isn’t manly.
“But Trump can’t bring himself to model this, apparently because he thinks it isn’t manly.”
First you thought you were a numbers guy but you were wrong. Now you think you can read people’s minds. You are wrong again.
If Professor Gonsalves seriously thinks that Trump tried to kill minorities before an election, then he needs to have a psychological evaluation. The man sounds delusional.
For one, China lied that this virus was on legs for 2 months. They lied that it could pass person to person. The entire world thought it was still containable to China, with a few outliers to put out. For another, no one knew this pandemic affected African Americans worse than other ethnic groups until the data came out in the US. I doubt Trump had already read the published articles that African Americans don’t react as well to steroid asthma treatments as Caucasians, and predicted this outcome. Considering Trump’s proudest accomplishment was our booming economy, it is insanity to think that Trump would deliberately scuttle it in order to kill black people. What kind of unthinking hatred must live in Gonsalves’ heart to make such a spurious accusation? And he’s a professor at a university? How low are their hiring standards? Yale’s reputation has slowly declined into just another SJW madrasa.
If we knew then what we know now, yes we would have acted differently.
Trump stopped air travel to China, and was condemned by the WHO and prominent Democrats for racism. Now they claim he didn’t do enough.
The shut down has been very difficult. People are resisting, and cracks are already showing. Having seen this, I don’t think Trump could have sold a shutdown earlier, and shut off immigration and travel to Europe.
If he knew China was pants-on-fire lying, Trump would not have donated millions of masks to them to try to keep the epidemic from spreading. He would not have allowed China to buy up as much of the world’s supplies of masks as possible.
Hindsight is 20/20. Armchair quarterbacks.
Instead of hysterically screaming stupid things like Trump tried to kill black people, how about people put their heads together and learn from this, in the spirit of preparing for the next pandemic? Because there is going to be one. There are so many gaps in preparedness that we are seeing globally. There is an opportunity to learn her.
But all I see are sound bites, grandstanding, and political warfare. How tiresome. Find a shred of patriotism and put together improvements for pandemic readiness.
Karen: you’re saying if Trump ‘knew then what we know now’ and you go on to reference ‘arm chair quarterbacks’. So you obviously think Trump could not have known how big this emergency would be.
But here’s a brief timeline from Poli-Fact:
On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern over the coronavirus outbreak.
On Jan. 31, the Trump administration announced the United States would temporarily ban the admission of people who were in China 14 days prior to their attempted travel to the United States. The restriction took effect Feb. 2, and it exempted U.S. citizens, green card holders, and certain other people.
…………………………………………….
Here one can see that on January 31 Trump felt the pandemic was serious enough to ban flights from China, a major trading partner. Yet all through February, Trump publicly dismissed the pandemic threat while doing very little to prepare the country. And all during February, rightwing media echoed Trump’s dismissal of the threat.
Something doesnt make sense here.
The truth is that the pandemic threat was well-established by the time Trump banned flights from China.
As it happens, the Trump Administration officials directly concerned reviewed the draft pandemic response white paper produced by the Obama Administration, a number of more current studies and operational recommendations, held a pandemic ‘war game’ (in late 2018, I think), and were in the process of acting on the related lessons learned. As anyone who has participated in such a process knows (and former Obama Administration officials acknowledged), it doesn’t happen overnight. To suggest no one was doing anything is simply inaccurate – and wrongs the hundreds of people in the interagency contributing to the endeavor. That the emergency occurs in the middle of standing up a response is everyone’s worst nightmare.
Samantha, we have extensive video clips of Trump poo-pooing the pandemic throughout February with rightwing media parroting those dismissals. It wasn’t until the second week of March, when the stock market crashed, that Trump really took notice.
When Trump banned Chinese travelers the WHO and Fauci both of whom represeted the scientific community said not to do so. At the same time all the Democrats were focused on was the impeachment of Trump. In fact they called Trump a xenophobe and all sorts of names and wanted to stop the travel ban. They continued hammering at the President though now we know Trump did the right thing. Paint Chips thinks nothing was done, but what does he know? He was part of the crowd calling Trump names for the travel ban, Pelosi was encouraging large group interactions in China Town and the mayor of NY was doing the same in NY Chinatown. People were encouraged to show their utter disdain to Trump by coming into close contact. They even refused to close the restaurants where we had a deadly combination of lots of people in an enclosed space. Not only that but our Democratic mayor didn’t bother to clean the subway trains where people were packed together like sardines again in an enclosed space. Of course the Democratic governor did no better forcing Nursing homes to take Covid+ cases into the nursing homes causing the deaths of countless of NH patients despite the fact that there were beds at the Javitz and on the Comfort.
Paint Chips says Trump did nothing but we can all remember what he was saying while doing his nails. He’s a hypocrit. When we look at the havoc created and the bad decisions NY is the prime example of stupid leaders who so happened to be Democrats. Remember almost half the total deaths in the US come from this Democratically controlled metropolitan area.
Where was Fauci in early January.
While Health officials in Taiwan
And Singapore were busy preparing
Their respective countries to counter
The Wuhan virus which they successfully
Accomplished.
Did you catch this? Dr. Fauci emailed NYT night before his senate testimony indicating that he will testify that there will be “needless suffering and death” if we open the country back up prematurely. Dr. Fauci knew his words “needless suffering and death” would be trending in the news on twitter shortly after he gave the NYT reporter a heads-up on his planned testimony.
Does anyone really believe Fauci – who sent Hillary numerous fawning “love” notes via email while she was at state dept – is out to “help” Trump? The dude is a genuine, and documented, Hillary-loving sycophant. And so is Fauci’s wife.
Figure it out people.
Yeah, Estovir, you’re saying ‘Fauci is the enemy’. That makes sense.. only to Trumpers.
I suppose it’s useless to point out that any state governor could have intervened at any point s/he determined there was an extraordinary threat to the state’s citizens. Because, state sovereignty.
I think many of the Yale faculty forget that Yale has a law school, that teaches Constitutional Law. Or maybe the faculty at the law school do not teach it anymore, as the constitution is a “racist instrument of oppression”. LOL 😂
No, it’s not useless, as long as one understands that the President and governors have different tools at their disposal, and suggesting that governors could do better (and to be clear, there have been a range of responses, with some better than others) does nothing to excuse Trump for doing such a sh*tty job protecting Americans using tools that are available to him as President which are not available to governors.
I hope you’ve written to the White House to share what you think should have been done, agency by agency, and what you would do, going forward.
You said Trump should have followed expert advice. Trump banned Chinese travellers when the experts like Fauci and the WHO said not to. In other words if Trump followed your advice we might have double the number of deaths. I think your advice to not ban Chinese travellers was pretty sh*tty.
Trump did it anyhow with the tools available to him. You don’t know squat of what you are talking about.
Samantha, ‘yes’, it would be useless to point that out. The United States is dealing with the biggest global emergency since WW II. Yet we have no cohesive national strategy. It was be like fighting WWII with no central command.
Sadly, no. Governors also control significant resources and can take independent action – as they have done in other circumstances. To equate this set of circumstances with WWII is inaccurate.
Samantha, what you’re saying is we could have fought WWII with 48 different governors commanding their own National Guard units; an utterly ridiculous scenario. Yet our current approach to this global emergency is essentially just that: ‘every state for themselves’.
No, I’m not. What I’m saying is the exact opposite. Governors control state resources – they can develop plans and responses (e.g.,stockpiling medical supplies) appropriate to their respective jurisdictions. They may at some point support a global response, sure, and may, indeed, request needed help from the federal government, but they can almost certainly deal with local, even regional, circumstances better than outsiders or federal bureaucrats.
No, Samantha, that’s nonsense!
We need a COHESIVE NATIONAL STRATEGY.
We haven’t won this fight yet. If you compare this to WW II, we haven’t even invaded North Africa yet. This crisis could continue for another 3 years.
Every state’s strategy, combined, constitutes a national strategy. It’s a bottom-up vs. a top-down solution. In my experience, Washington bureaucrats, with the best will in the world, are considerably less effective dealing with issues at the state, or county or municipal level than are the people on the ground.
So then DDay should have been done by the governors with FDR just checking in to pump sunshine, point fingers, and give himself back rubs on camera.
It’s nice to have a philosophy to live by but it’s not working, nor does it make any sense with a serious life and death national and international problem. The governors have been begging for leadership and help getting PPEs and tests since only the president has the power to command production and the feds the ability to allocate resources where needed nationally. Absent that you have the chaos governors have complained about with them bidding up prices against each other and random shortages.
This is a very serious crisis, not a philosophy forum. Do what it takes and do it quick.
Equating response to COVID-19 with WWII is a false analogy, is the point.
Samantha, so far this pandemic has caused more American deaths than either the Korean or Vietnam wars. Not since WW II has one single event threatened the entire world. But for some reason you want to minimize this crisis like it’s really ‘not’ that big of a deal.
It’s more like WWII than it may seem Samantha. Like the Chicoms deliberately failed to warn the world for 1, 2, maybe 3 months of the outbreak. By which they planned to either try and cover it up, or corner the market on PPEs, and gain financial and strategic advantage over all their rivals.
Which they have accomplished. Maybe worse than Pearl Harbor>?
And yet for such an act of war, the US press pillories Donald Trump and lets Comrade Xi and the evil bureaucrats of the CCP off the hook! Why?
Are they quislings, running dogs, or useful idiots? Well it’s got to be one of the three in any given case. But they’re not patriots I tell you that much. And this is coming to a posture very much like war. People will have to pick sides. For CCP or against it?
You’ve changed the subject to the threat posed, generally, by the ChiComs – and, there, we are in agreement.
For Mr. Kurtz re the future: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/05/13/sowing-a-new-global-garden/
In Today’s Senate Hearing, Dr Fauci Warns Against Reopening Too Quickly
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, warned of avoidable “suffering and death” and of further economic damage if states reopen too quickly and said the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus is probably higher than the 80,000 reported.
His comments came during highly anticipated Senate testimony Tuesday as he and other leading federal health officials were pressed on whether the country is ready to reopen. The panel’s chairman and witnesses appeared remotely in an unusual session that includes the first congressional testimony from Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, since President Trump declared the coronavirus crisis a national emergency March 13.
Edited from: “Fauci Warns Senate That Reopening Too Wuickly Could Lead To A Avoidable Suffering And Death”
Today’s Washington Post
Trump also warns against opening too quickly.
The funny thing is Trump and Fauci also warn against opening too slowly.
The article is lame. It exists to provide a headline for political reasons.
Paint Chips is driving business to her new men only nail salon in west Hollywood. Why else would she use the name July in May when June would be more catchy in September? Such an august strategy.
March on, mmmmanly nails by Paint Chips
Maybe she plans an October surprise!
Boom!
Ouch!
REGARDING ABOVE:
The Puppet Stooges want to remind readers that liberal commenters will only be tolerated in brief spurts.
Interestingly the Puppet Stooges presume that even new readers will appreciate the importance of these warnings. Trump supporters, as we know, cannot possibly win debates based on facts and science.
Jonathan: Whether Trump is guilty of “genocide” under international law I will leave to the legal experts. This could be difficult to prove in Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But certainly he could be charged with gross negligence in his response to the crisis. Trump was told in January that COVID-19 could strike hard in the US but he ignored the warnings until March 16. Medical experts say 90% of the deaths from the virus could have been prevented had social distancing been in place on March 2. Last month Trump ordered a trial of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychoroquine in Detroit where 80% of the population is black and represent a majority of the COVID-19 patients. Trump has promoted hydroxychoroquine as a “magic bullet” to treat the virus even though medical experts, including Dr. Fauci, say it is ineffective and can cause adverse consequences for patients with other underlining medical conditions–like black people in Detroit. In the Michigan study the results so far indicate that patients taking the drug died at a higher rate and some hospitals have pulled the drug for treatment. Did Trump “intend” to test hydroxychoroquine in Detroit to reduce the number of Democratic voters there? Difficult to prove without knowing Trump’s state of mind. Trump has also told COVID-19 patients to inject household disinfectants, like Lysol, which if injected will cause death. If a person engages in conduct he knows, or should know, will result in serious injury or death he can be charged with a crime under US domestic law–forget international law. And finally Trump has pushed for the re-opening of the economy despite warnings from Dr. Fauci and other medical experts that this will result in a spike in new COVID-19 cases–something that is already happening in states where pandemic restrictions have been lifted. So no wonder “conspiracy” theories are rampant in the age of the coronovirus and Donald Trump.
The only conspiracy is that of the Chicom officials who concealed the outbreak which happened as far back as October 2019, and failed to warn the world
You blame Trump then you are protecting Xi. This is a binary choice. Pick your side McIntyre. Take the chicom soup if you like. but it’s time to quit pretending this is not war, this was Trump’s fault, and that your carrying water for Comrade Xi isn’t being a bootlicker.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
“Medical experts say 90% of the deaths from the virus could have been prevented had social distancing been in place..”?
Not provable and a lie.
“Last month Trump ordered a trial of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychoroquine in Detroit where 80% of the population is black..”?
Trump ordered no such trial. Another lie.
“Trump has also told COVID-19 patients to inject household disinfectants, like Lysol, which if injected will cause death.”
Trump said no such thing. He asked a rhetorical question as is his typical rambling style. Another lie.
“And finally Trump has pushed for the re-opening of the economy despite warnings from Dr. Fauci and other medical experts..”
Experts? The ‘experts’, including the weasely Fauci, have blown every prediction made on this Wuhan virus. Another lie.
Lone Star, you have no credibility whatsoever. We all saw the tape of Trump musing about injections of bleach or whatever. No responsible president would have ventured such an idiotic idea in a live news conference.
Just so happens I also saw Trump’s little aside about lighting up our innards with a little UV. And my immediate take away was the understanding that Trump was having a little fun with you people. And it is truly funny.
Richard, explain why a responsible president would ‘joke’ about such a thing during a global emergency when people are actually dying by the thousands.
To trigger idiots who rant and rave, generating him and his Campaign more free press! Very entertaining. 😂 LOL
Yeah tRump is a 3-D chess master in your feeble minds, now I see what kurtzie sees in tRump.
Well Ms July, had Trump suggested shots of hormones we all know what you would have done considering your PERPetual transition from male to female to whataboutism to Bottomboy to ….wait for it….CUM-it tohonestdiscussion
Mmmannnnly nails, by Paint Chips
Who the heck keeps posting this gay stuff? What king of blog is this?? Seems like Turley needs to clean out his barn.
+100
Judy, get a grip.
The funniest thing, is that the TDS liberals have no idea they have been effectively triggered. Particularly, with modern day fillings in teeth, UV light devices are already put in the mouth to cure the sealants or composite fillings, or nerve caps.
EF Douglas, with these comments you essentially disqualify yourself as a serious commenter.
You would have us believe that Trump shoulders a noble interest in ‘triggering’ liberals. Like that interest is so important he has to utter crazy sh#t in news conferences. Only a deluded idiot would see any logic there.
Thanks for proving my point further. I guess you got triggered too. LOL 😂
Paint Chips is always triggered…..always
In my county here in Texas, where there is a large number of blacks as well as Hispanics and Asians, the difference between the number of whites and blacks who died with the virus is three cases. There have been 12 whites who died and 15 blacks. The percentage of blacks is higher but the numbers are close enough. The real discrepancy is between men and women. If there’s a conspiracy, it’s to kill of the male population. https://covid-19-fort-bend-county-response-fbcgis.hub.arcgis.com/
One of the founders of Planned Parenethood Margaret Sanger, stated on multiple occasions that abortion would serve to help eliminate “inferior races”.
I quote from this article:
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/11/27/margaret-sanger-was-eugenicist-why-are-we-still-celebrating-her
Sanger’s eugenics project carried its own racial preoccupation. In a letter of Dec. 10, 1939, to Clarence Gamble (cited here), she explains the nature of her organization’s outreach to the African-American community: “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” In her autobiography she proudly recounts her address to the women of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, N.J., in 1926.
Who are the real racists??
E F Douglas, apparently you think Dr Martin Luther King was so stupid he didn’t know that Sanger was a ‘Nazi’, or whatever you’re trying to call her.
Because in 1966 King had his wife, Corretta, accept the first ever Margaret Sanger Award For Human Rights
No, Martin Luther King Jr, was deceived by many who claimed to agree with his positions on Civil rights.
https://www.priestsforlife.org/library/3716-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-had-pro-life-view-opposing-abortion
On the other hand, MLK Jr was hardily a moral giant, as his many adulterous affairs loses him having any credibility on things moral or right.
King was careless about a mess of things. Associating with Sanger was one instance of it. (Of course, given King’s off-stage hobbies, maybe he was congenial to her. Wouldn’t go there Chips).
Absurd if you want to call King a moral low-life, go right ahead. But King was as brave as any war hero. And his eventual murder proved how brave King really was. He knew a bullet was waiting and that may have influenced his sexual adventures.
One should always be wary about reading quotes out of context, especially if you can’t verify that the quote is accurate. Here’s one discussion of the quote in question: https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/articles/bc_or_race_control.php
As for “Who are the real racists??,” lots of people have been in the past and lots of people are now. We can acknowledge all of them.
And we can also acknowledge that some racists have more power to do harm than others. As President, Trump has great power to do harm.
Chicoms using their US media assets ie their running dogs in the newspapers and academia to brainwash Americans against Trump
“Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles.” — Xi Jinping, February 2016
https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/beijings-global-megaphone
1A widely used digital television service in Kenya includes Chinese state television in its most affordable package while omitting international news outlets.2 Portuguese television launches a prime-time “China Hour” featuring content from Chinese state media.3 Chinese diplomats intimidate a cable executive in Washington, DC, to keep New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), a station founded by Chinese Americans who practice Falun Gong, off the air.4 And a partly Chinese-owned South African newspaper abruptly ends a writer’s column after he discusses repression in China’s Xinjiang region.5
These examples, which have come to light over the past three years, illustrate the various ways in which Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media influence—in the form of censorship, propaganda, and control over content-delivery systems—extend beyond the borders of mainland China to reach countries and audiences around the globe.
The report below updates and expands on a 2013 study by the same author, The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets around the World, published by the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy.6 Drawing on recent scholarly research, media reports, interviews, Chinese government documents, and official speeches, the present report addresses the following questions:
What are the goals of the CCP’s efforts to influence media outlets and news reporting globally?
How does the CCP promote state media content and desired narratives internationally, while deploying various tactics to suppress critical news reporting?
How have these dynamics evolved over the past three years under the consolidated CCP leadership of Xi Jinping?
To what extent do the CCP’s efforts appear to be achieving the desired effect?
How are governmental and nongovernmental actors responding to the challenges to press freedom and democratic governance posed by the covert, corrupt, and coercive aspects of the CCP’s transnational media influence?
The CCP and various Chinese government entities have long sought to influence public debate and media coverage about China outside the country, particularly among Chinese- language communities and through obstruction of foreign correspondents within China. However, over the past decade, top CCP officials have overseen a dramatic expansion in efforts to shape media content and narratives around the world, affecting every region and multiple languages.
The emerging result is a multifaceted, adaptive, and complex set of tactics that are deployed across varied environments. They combine widely accepted forms of public diplomacy with more covert, corrupt, and coercive activities that undermine democratic norms, reduce national sovereignty, weaken the financial sustainability of independent media, and violate the laws of some countries. 7
Some of these dynamics can be traced back to the 1990s, but certain features have broadened and deepened in recent years. The trend is fueled by the paradoxical insecurity of the CCP, whose leaders feel threatened domestically even as they grow more emboldened internationally.
The global expansion of CCP media influence began in earnest during the tenure of former Chinese president Hu Jintao, and as current president Xi Jinping has tightened ideological controls at home, he has also been especially focused on intensifying propaganda efforts abroad. Under his direction, Beijing’s representatives and proxies have adopted a more aggressive and comprehensive approach to foreign media influence operations. In an October 2015 article, media studies professor Anne-Marie Brady found that Xi has used his highly concentrated political power to personally initiate this change, raising China’s foreign propaganda efforts to “a new level of assertiveness, confidence, and ambition.”8 Indeed, Chinese state media, government officials, and affiliated companies are achieving increased influence over key nodes in the global information flow, exploiting the more sophisticated technological environment, and showing a readiness to meddle in the internal political debates and electoral contests of other countries.
Key trends since 2017
The past three years have been marked by an acceleration of this process and the emergence of more new tactics. It is notable that during the same period, Xi further consolidated his power at the 19th Communist Party Congress in October 2017 and won approval for constitutional amendments that removed presidential term limits in March 2018. The following changes in Beijing’s overseas media activities since early 2017 deserve special scrutiny:
Russian-style social media disinformation campaigns and efforts to manipulate search results on global online platforms have been attributed to China-based perpetrators.
Tactics that were once used primarily to co-opt Chinese diaspora media and suppress critical coverage in overseas Chinese-language publications are now being applied—with some effect—to local mainstream media in various countries.
Beijing is gaining influence over crucial parts of some countries’ information infrastructure, as Chinese technology firms with close ties to the CCP build or acquire content-dissemination platforms used by tens of millions of foreign news consumers.
There is evidence that Chinese-owned social media platforms and digital television providers in multiple regions have engaged in politicized content manipulation to favor pro-Beijing narratives.
Chinese officials are making a more explicit effort to present China as a model for other countries, and they are taking concrete steps to encourage emulation through trainings for foreign personnel and technology transfers to foreign state-owned media outlets.
The CCP’s efforts have had a clear impact on the ground…..
They only learn from the best…
Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China
By Anne-Marie Brady
https://books.google.com/books?id=ClVo0rZvE6EC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=bernays+china+regimenting+public+mind&source=bl&ots=umjSpgcpMv&sig=ACfU3U2QJL8LnNHozO3OwWR6q-DmENNw0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikhcj-lK_pAhX4lXIEHT7YDgYQ6AEwC3oECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=bernays%20china%20regimenting%20public%20mind&f=false
Maybe someone can help me. Based on what I’ve heard, my understanding is that it is best for us to achieve a 70% nation-wide infection percentage as quickly as possible making sure we do not overwhelm the hospitals in the process. We’ve got hospitals that are half-empty.
Are we supposed to delay achieving 70% for some other reason? You still have to achieve 70%. Why delay it?
I don’t know where you’re getting this (“it is best for us to achieve a 70% nation-wide infection percentage as quickly as possible…”) from, but a 70% *immunity* rate is what’s needed for minimum “herd immunity,” and if you attempt to get there quickly except via immunization, you’ll end up with millions dying.
You say “We’ve got hospitals that are half-empty.” Now do a back-of-the-paper calculation about how many people would need hospitalization in the U.S. if as many people as possible were infected as quickly as possible and compare that to the total number of hospital beds in the entire country.
Instead, the goal should be to either get there very slowly, preferably by slowing down infection enough that a vaccine can be discovered so that people achieve immunity safely, via vaccination, and if not, so that we have more time to create effective therapies (so fewer infected people die or have long-term health problems from infection — right now, even some of the people who recover may have lifelong medical problems from it) and no hospitals are overwhelmed.
Get there very slowly so the big cities don’t empty out completely, like Chicago is emptying out, and the big city bosses get billions in bailout money, and very slowly so that they have the advantage in the election, which is what Comrade Xi desires, to put the quislings of the Democrat party leadership into an even stronger power position than his Queen Pelosi
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
This is an act of war delaying informing the world of the outbreak. the CCP are the enemy. Pick sides. Very soon it will be clear who are American patriots and who are quislings of the CCP.
No matter how much you want me to join you in your false dichotomy, it remains a fallacy.
You should learn what it is and stop using it: https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#FalseDichotomy
I pick the side of honest, informed discussion.
Well there’s no honest open discussion in the PRC. There is strict government control of the media.
So that’s what you have in store for you if you don’t oppose the Chicoms now when they are so clearly at fault.
You might as well join the CCP. except they don’t want Americans so you arent even allowed in their mafia.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Will the people who whined about Trump supposedly rejecting the “intelligence consensus” now reject it themselves?
Chicoms always were the real baba yaga, not Russia. The question is who is on their payroll and who is not. Lets find out folks. Watch and see who is rowing the boat for Comrade Xi.
“if you attempt to get there quickly except via immunization, you’ll end up with millions dying.”
That happens if you get there slowly.
You have stated some other reasons for delay, but those a pretty speculative. There are costs as well as the speculative gains you are stating. Already, people battling non-Convid illnesses are second class patients.
“That [i.e., millions dying from COVID-19] happens if you get there [i.e., to 70% or better immunity] slowly.”
No, millions dying from COVID-19 is less likely if 70% or better immunity is achieved slowly, both because it can happen with immunization (if a vaccine is discovered) and because a slower infection rate increases the likelihood that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and that effective therapies are developed as we learn more. If you disagree with that, please explain.
“Already, people battling non-Convid illnesses are second class patients.”
Yes, I’m well aware that some people have died from other health problems (heart attacks, etc.) because they’ve put off going to the hospital, afraid of becoming infected, because some first responders are no longer giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, etc. I’m certainly concerned about that too, but it doesn’t fall under the issue I was addressing, which is the mistaken claim that “it is best for us to achieve a 70% nation-wide infection percentage as quickly as possible…”
No, millions dying from COVID-19 is less likely if 70% or better immunity is achieved slowly, both because it can happen with immunization (if a vaccine is discovered) and because a slower infection rate increases the likelihood that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed.
I allowed for delay to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed. And noted a lot of them are half empty. Your other reasons are speculative. I’m wary of them. Meanwhile, unnecessary delay involves concrete costs — particularly on the poor.
Steve, to put things into perspective one should look at death statistics. How many that die from cancer or heart disease per day, how many deaths from drug overdoses, from auto accidents, etc.
Covid at present is killing nearly the same number as drug overdoses, but overdoses kill young people and Covid kills the old and sick.
Get rid of Covid deaths from the NY metropolitan area and the deaths from the old and sick. Your left with a lot of deaths but the country has ~330,000,000 people so the number is quite small and doesn’t merit the closure we are seeing. It merits doing what is reasonably possible but the shrieking and hollering is more TDS than anything else. We don’t hear about all the deaths caused by the NY failure to clean up the subways, Covid patients forced back into Nursing Homes, or plain stupid statements that helped propagate the infection. Why not? Because our largest area of death is run by Democrats. The same exists in the argument over guns. Where do many young people die from guns? In Democratic cities.
Per the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker https://coronavirus.jhu.edu…, there have been about 290K deaths world-wide to date. A December 2019 NCBI study estimates 389K deaths annually from the flu. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…
Funny how many of the flu statistics have been absorbed by the COVID19 statistics, particularly because many who might have died of the flu this “cold and flu” season because of underlying conditions, may have come down with COVID19 instead or first. Viruses almost go after those with the weakest immune systems.
“many who might have died of the flu this “cold and flu” season because of underlying conditions, may have come down with COVID19 instead or first”
Right, and those that died of neither might have died of their underlying diseases. That doesn’t mean one doesn’t have sympathy for them. Most people do. It is just an acceptance of life and death.
Well, maybe, but the Johns Hopkins tracker doesn’t break that down – whatever a jurisdiction submits is what they post. The NCBI study looked at flu death reporting, although the authors recognized the margin of error is certainly affected by the role played by underlying conditions. In any case, the point here is that the COVID-19 death total has yet to pass the likely number of deaths from flu in a given year.
The first part of that comment was actually something I was responding to. I didn’t put it in quotes. CommitToHonestDiscussion is saying that part of the calculation should be that we are buying time to come up with a vaccine. Is that rational? To make that part of the calculation as to how quickly or slowly we allow the spread? I understand what happens if we end up with 70% infection. That means millions of deaths. I would prefer that not happen. But if that’s going to happen anyway, unnecessary will delay will create more misery.
Steve, that is one idea of how to address the Covid crisis, develop herd immunity.
The other way is if a vaccine can be created, but remember we will always be threatened by another virus Coronovirus or otherwise and can even be threatened by genetically altered viruses. Also remember the virus might not work well enough and if it does it likely will only work for the present virus.
We have to balance the disease with the economy (along with other things). There is no one right answer though the left seems to know that the wrong answer is whatever Trump is doing. When Trump hits it right the left forgets about it and goes onto the next thing. It is never ending. The left has no policy except Trump is wrong no matter what he does. That is true of the never Trumpers and some libertarians though sometimes I feel that type of Libertarian is a closet leftist.
Disclosure, many of my core beliefs are libertarian intermixed with the DOI and the Constitution.
I am wary of delays that go beyond what the hospitals require to keep from getting overrun. What you’re going to get from the Governors and people like Fauci is constant lockdown. It there’s a spike, that can’t be blamed that way. If they open up, and there’s a spike, they’re afraid they’ll get blamed.
Politicians and people that have ego problems worry about what people will say or how they will vote. If one person dies from Covid there is an outcry but when people die because of the lockdown they die in silence. The left is not being honest. They are being political without any position what-so-ever. All they want is power.
If no vaccine and no life saving treatments exist then eventually most of the population will get the virus in due time. Of course the virus could become less lethal with time. There is a dose relationship to the illness so my guess is that some people are getting infected with very low doses and perhaps their sickness then becomes less noticeable.
It made sense initially to buy time and see to it that the hospitals would not be overextended. But that time is long over except possibly in small areas. Social distancing, masks make sense but the individual has to determine the level of risk he faces. The ill and elderly need to be much more careful than everyone else because they die at a much much greater rate. We have to look at the numbers and when we do the death rate for younger healthy people is very low.
“What you’re going to get from the Governors and people like Fauci is constant lockdown.”
Had Fauci been in charge, I expect that he would have ramped up testing and tracing months ago, an approach that has been used successfully in countries like South Korea.
Trump’s response was exceptionally incompetent and dishonest, and many people have died or otherwise been harmed unnecessarily.
Even now, he could do good by advocating that everyone wear masks, but he’s too narcissistic to wear one.
It is still the case, is it not, that the Coronavirus continues to spread in S. Korea. And will continue to do so until 70% of the country is infected. Testing should mean, therefore, that a country can speed up the time frame for achieving the 70% mark. A country without testing must err with more caution as to whether hospitals will be overrun. So it seems to me S.Korea should be farther ahead than we are at achieving the 70% marker.
Yes, it continues to spread in S. Korea, but extremely slowly: http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/en/
You continue to confuse “infected” with “immune.” Herd immunity is about developing widespread *immunity* — people who’ve developed an immune response, either because they’ve developed the disease and recovered or because they’ve been vaccinated and developed immunity that way.
Your conclusion that “Testing should mean, therefore, that a country can speed up the time frame for achieving the 70% mark” is false. They are not trying to speed it up. They’re trying to slow it down in the hopes that herd immunity can be achieved via development of a vaccine. For example, polio still exists in the world, but people in the U.S. don’t worry about it, because most of us were vaccinated and developed immunity through vaccination. We didn’t develop herd immunity through infection. When you say “it seems to me S.Korea should be farther ahead than we are at achieving the 70% marker,” it’s actually the reverse. Only ~11K people total have been tested positive in S. Korea, whereas over 1.3 millions Americans have tested positive (our population is ~6 times larger, but our infection rate is much larger than theirs). If I’m remembering right, the rate of testing (that is, tests given per million people in the population) is similar in the two countries, but they have a much larger number of people testing negative. Here’s one graph that shows how many tests per confirmed case: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-covid-19-tests-per-confirmed-case-bar-chart
Of course, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to develop a vaccine. We still don’t have a vaccine for HIV. But we have developed treatments that make it possible for people to live with HIV, whereas when it was first discovered, it almost always developed into AIDS and killed a huge % of infected people. That could also turn out to be the case with COVID-19 — that we develop effective treatments so that few people die from it or have longterm health problems.
Slowing down the spread of infection gives the medical research community time to learn more and work on both a vaccine and treatments, so that fewer infected people will die or have longterm health problems.
Testing and contact tracing also allows that 70% to hopefully be among the more fit and younger citizens if done wisely.
This I think could be a useful purpose of testing. Get to 70% as soon as possible while trying to make that 70% people who are not elderly or with pre-existing conditions. I don’t know how feasible that is even with an adequate number of tests.
I don’t understand what testing has to do with getting to 70% excetp in proving you got there. Are you saying that we should be pushing infections using testing to tell us when to stop pushing?
I was hypothesizing that you might be able to get to 70% by making sure that 70% contains mostly low-risk people, people who won’t become seriously ill — as opposed to 70% at random.
“I was hypothesizing…”
Steve, that by itself doesn’t require testing. It appears you have adopted the idea that instead of involuntarily quarantining the entire population we voluntarily quarantine the sick and elderly. As we open up I won’t disagree with that idea that existed close to day one of the epidemic. Since the ones that are hospitalized and die are mostly the elderly and sick that would prevent hospitals from being overloaded as well .If no vaccine is found herd immunity might be developed but without adequate drugs a portion of that elderly and sick population will die. Sometimes one has to recognize that one has multiple bad choices.
” For example, polio still exists in the world, but people in the U.S. don’t worry about it, ”
The nation did not close down waiting for polio to be eradicated.
The thinking process of some people would leave the nation closing down all the time impoverishing everyone so that the development and distribution of things like the polio vaccine could never be accomplished.
It took decades between the first reports of polio in Europe and outbreaks in the U.S., and we understood much less about disease transmission, vaccine development, etc., when polio arrived in the mid-1800s than we do now. The situations aren’t really comparable. I was simply trying to give an example where we achieved herd immunity without most people being infected.
I haven’t heard anyone arguing for closing down the country all the time. The biggest problem is that Trump is astoundingly incompetent and has squandered months when he could have ramped up testing and tracing, ramped up mask-wearing, ramped up PPE production for healthcare workers and others who are exposed (folks in meat production plants, grocery workers, etc.), … That should have been the primary goal of the stay-at-home order: to give us time to make it all more manageable.
“It took decades ” Right, but we didn’t close the country down waiting for a cure. If we had we would have a much lower standard of living today and some of the sophisticated medical cures may never have been discovered due to lack of funding. There is a balance between what we would like to do for the health of the nation and what we would like to do for the financial wellbeing of the nation.
The balance is what should be discussed but what I am hearing is that whatever Trump does is wrong without any plans from the other side.
Here on the blog we have a chance to discuss these things as most people understand both the need to open up and the need for safety.
Then we get to comments like this that throw all discussion out the window: “The biggest problem is that Trump is astoundingly incompetent” while playing Monday morning quaterback: “and has squandered months when he could have ramped up testing and…” Down the road you will say things that conflict with your present statements here.
The question now comes to what did you believe about the Chinese Traveller’s Ban on January 31? The second question is did you believe on January 31 that the President should follow the scientists advice? That is where the problem arisies. Trump was right and the scientists wrong.
I always believed in masks in close quarters. I don’t assume to know what the President believed but I do know we didn’t have enough masks and needed them at the hospitals. Add to that the scientists said no masks were necessary. Remember the statement by the WHO. I believe Trump didn’t know one way or the other but he knew that if we pushed masks onto the public at that time we might impair the healthcare system due to the lack of masks. Today I worry about him being in close proximity to others (within 6-10 feet) or when he is in an enclosed room with multiple people. However, when complaining about the lack of masks in front of him during the early days I also remember all those people that said listen to the scientists and the scientists at WHO said no masks.
Testing. People said Trump should listen to the scientists. He did and that caused us a big problem where we had to play catch up on testing. Trump was not medically sophisticated. He thought the CDC and FDA could handle these things and after all everyone was telling him to listen to the scientists. He finally listened to himself and opened testing to private labs. From that point on things went very fast but once again it was against what people were telling him to do yet they complain he should have done the opposite…all very confusing.
I’m angry about the testing and maybe Trump should have used his gut right at the beginning, but then in come the Monday morning quarterbacks saying no matter how good things went that things would have been better if Trump had listened to the scientists. It doesn’t matter which decision Trump makes for those that don’t like him won’t discuss principles and facts. They will simply say the opposite and since no one can know what would have happened they say the opposite would have been better. I am afraid that is one of the traps you fall into. If you can stay clear of such traps then perhaps you have a mind to discuss these things on a higher level.
Sorry, I responded to you by mistake, thinking that your comment was from StevveJ. If the commenting system here allowed people to delete their comments, I would have deleted it as soon as I realized and before you took time to respond.
I have no desire to invest time in an exchange with you. You insult other commenters here too often, and my experience is that exchanges with people who choose not to be civil just aren’t worth it.
“I have no desire to invest time…”
That is fine with me. We will see if you choose to be a hypocrite or a thinker. As far as being insulting look at your own rhetoric and hyperbole. Take note your rhetoric reflects the response you get. In the meantime I pointed out the conflicts you face in this discussion and I believe you do not have an answer for them. If you do then somewhere along the line your rhetoric should reflect that but I think not.
I should have added that when you were engaging with me you posted under the name anonymous.
I will respond to one thing in your subsequent reply (and for some reason, there is no “reply” icon” under that comment, so I’m replying here).
Re: “As far as being insulting look at your own rhetoric and hyperbole,” I invite you to quote any insult that you believe I directed towards another person commenting here (I’m not talking about an insult directed at a public person such as Trump). If you’re correct that the quote is an insult directed at another poster, I’d like to be able to retract it, as I think that exchanges are better off when we all avoid insulting someone we’re having an exchange with is.
” I invite you to quote any insult that you believe I directed towards another person commenting here ”
Several things. I believed you were another anonymous poster that I have had bad discussions with and if you stay awhile you will find that some of the anonymous posters along with some that have names add nothing and just want to attack. I like people of any side who are willing to debate facts because my main interests are civil liberties and the right to life, liberty and property all integrated into the Constitution. I don’t like when people attack the President in an emotional fashion or using generalities. If a person hates Trump that is fine as long as he provides a rational reason. If you read further there are very few leftists on this blog that actually think or are willing to defend positions or principles. Some leftists paint the other side as deplorables, racists and the like so now you will see those same attacks going in the reverse direction to those that have utilized that type of attack.
I did not know that you were a new poster until you responded to me instead of Steve. You said something else that also lead me to believe you were a new poster. Things can get rough around here.
I understand what your saying. You think part of the strategy should be to buy time for a vaccine. That’s a roll of the dice. If there is no vaccine, and if hospitals are in good shape, it could very well be that using testing to slow down the spread simply makes you more vulnerable to the second wave, and the third, and so on, and with the added misery that the unnecessary delay causes.
“It surely won’t slow down until it hits 60 to 70%”
Asian nations such as South Korea and Singapore, lauded for strict controls and rapid testing to avoid damage during the first wave, might be vulnerable to a second wave
Even if a vaccine works, Osterholm said, it’s unknown whether it would be durable enough to confer long-lasting protection
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/11/coronavirus-expert-michael-osterholm-warns-virus-spread-far-from-over/3108333001/
“You think part of the strategy should be to buy time for a vaccine.”
Not just a vaccine (which we may not succeed in developing, though we know more about coronaviruses than we do about some other diseases where we’ve been unsuccessful in developing a vaccine), but to buy time for understanding the disease better and for developing more effective treatments for people who become infected, so fewer die or have long-term health problems from it.
As I wrote elsewhere, the biggest problem is that Trump is astoundingly incompetent and has now squandered over 3 months when he could have ramped up testing and tracing, ramped up mask-wearing, ramped up PPE production for healthcare workers and others who are exposed (folks in meat production plants, grocery workers, etc.), …
I am well aware of all your reasons. You forgot to mention the overflow of the hospitals in this one by the way. And on that one I think there is agreement.
Your reasons are a gamble. Possible gains stacked against concrete losses — concrete losses that will affect the poor more than others.
I’m not opposed to gambling. You might persuade me. But the reasons you are giving for slowing the spread are not self-evident. And a cavalier acceptance of them is not in order.
I don’t think it’s a gamble at all to assume that medical research will learn more about how the disease progresses in the body and how to effectively treat people. They’re already learning things but it’s also clear that there are open questions. You can see doctors communicating in real time with each other about what they’re learning and what their questions are, you can see lots of pre-prints of research efforts, …
I’m not at all cavalier about this. I understand the huge financial impact, especially for the poor. I also know (though not well), a couple of people who have died from it, and the brother of friend just died of a heart attack, and I know that it’s harder for his family to mourn together. And that’s just a small part of the effects of the shut-down. I worked overseas in a very poor country that I expect will be devastated by this, as they simply don’t have medical care available in much of the country.
I’m poor. I can’t think of an outcome where it doesn’t harm poor people disproportionately. Can you?
This conspiracy theory doesn’t even make sense from a strategy standpoint. Let’s pretend Trump was able to control the virus — a huge assumption — and intentionally killed 30,000 minorities in New York (the epicenter of the U.S. Corona Virus crisis outbreak). Let’s make the total 50,000. He still wouldn’t win New York in the Electoral College. Some people hate Trump so much (Trump Derangement Syndrome) that they’ve lost their critical thinking skills. It’s frightening that Gonsalves teaches at Yale and appears on national media outlets as an expert.
E.L. Fisher:
Your comment includes this assertion:
“Some people hate Trump so much (Trump Derangement Syndrome) that they’ve lost their critical thinking skills”.
Again and again, on these comment threads, we see conservatives bemoaning the lack of “critical thinking skills” by Trump critics. Which makes us naturally wonder where this hackneyed phrase comes from and ‘why’ Trump supporters use it with such abandon.
Does this phrase come from an Ann Coulter book? Does she have a chapter that begins with: “The most effective way to dismiss liberals is to question their critical thinking skills”?
One could easily question the ‘critical thinking skills’ of Trump followers who thought a Reality TV star was an appropriate choice for president. What’s more, their inability to link increasingly erratic weather to Climate Change impeaches any ‘critical thinking skills’ they imagine possessing.
July Johnson who is probably our friend seth peter
The US is at war with China. Not the good people of Chinese ancestry, just their mobsterlike CCP overlords.
Time for you guys to wake up and pick sides
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Kurtz, to suggest that American liberals must rally behind Trump to fend off China is like an alcoholic having the D.T.’s.
Robert Kuttner is an old fashioned labor advocate who is a staunch critic of the PRC exploitation of its captive labor force. I notice he was just on Steve Bannon’s show. Interesting huh?
American patriots will show their face before long, and quislings the same
Some American patriots have yellow faces too. Some of the finest Chinese people in the world live here in the US and are loyal Americans. So this is not a race war. Not on our side at least. This is a war for global conquest by the PRC and its Chicom leadership against the United States which stands for a lot more than just “Trumpism” whatever that is meant to indicate.
America also stands for things like public health, government transparency, elections, unions, reasonable environmental regulations, and the right to organize. Things which have no meaning in the slave state that is the PRC
and yet the US mass media is protecting them
The Chicoms are beating up on the HK people again now, in the streets, and has the US press reported it?
Of course not. They’re licking the boots of Comrade Xi, and he doesnt like it.
Whatever “war” we are in with China is the good kind – competition, not military action – and they are eating our lunch. We have an inward looking shallow dimwit president who has knee capped our allies, sells personal and national self pity, killed our participation in a successful regional trade deal intended which is challenging China, and thinks receiving personal flattery from dictators – including the ChiCom Kurtz says he hates so much, and which he imagines makes him a “patriot” – is an accomplishment and a deal.
While we get in international fights over meaningless BS meant for the rubes like what to name the virus, the Chinese are sending aid and supplies around the world and courting smaller nations who now question our commitments. Quislings like Trump and Kurtz are giving the Chinese exactly what they want – an open field and no competition. They’ve surrendered.
Wrong, Chinese communist party thugs have enslaved their own population, they oppress the Tibetans and Uighurs, they oppress the Falun Dafa and the Catholics, and that’s all just inside their own borders. They also treat Hong Kong like garbage, and menace Taiwan. That’s what, 1/7 of the world population?
And they failed to warn the world about the Sars-Cov-2 virus about 2 months late. Which is an intentional omission tantamount to act of war. And Americans and people all over the world are dying which pleases them greatly
And you are here apologizing for them. Well, you could move to Hong Kong, at least the Chicoms would pay you $7 an hour for being an “internet commentator” i hear that is a real job now. The rates have gone up from the days of the “Wumao army”
Pathetic!
PS I never said i hated the Chicoms. No more than I hate any other criminal gang! I don’t want to be their unwitting slave and bootlicker. That’s Book!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U7XPn7TOk0
watch the video — the HK protesters suspect that the Chicoms are using the virus to consolidate power!
Kind of pathetic the things i hear you fools say, is Trump to be blamed for that too?
Here’s your masters, lab release two months earlier than the told the WHO, but all book can say is “Orange Man Bad!”
https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/cellphone-data-could-indicate-october-shutdown-at-wuhan-lab/
Defend them some more why don’t you, lick those boots harder!
Do you think that Robert Kuttner is a Trumpophile?
Here’s a Democrat who can explain how the financialists wing of the Dem party, sucks up to the Chicoms, and American labor suffers!
Where’s that “erratic weather” coming from, where is it going, how does one put faith in the models after their less than stellar performance in re. Yuhan Virus?(Sp) A capacity for critical thinking is needed to interpret the vast amount of data being generated from the study of the Pandemic. Unfortunately, in my estimation, is the decided inferior critical thinking skills of leftists. Some people have major skill sets in both critical thinking and in emotional IQs. Most Of us though have a natural affinity for one activity over another. A gross generalization is that the left favors emotional responses and the right prefers critical thinking.
Also critical thinking does NOT REWARD wishful thinking (much to the chagrin of the left.)
July Johnson – as someone who is often forced to use my critical thinking skills, let me give you a little tip. Weather is not climate.
It wouldn’t matter if all the nursing home patients in California died from COVID-19, they would all still be voting Dem after their deaths.
Wasting time and energy as usual on inconsequential side trips while the President lies in public daily and avoids the problem.
The Atlantic:
“…There is one way out of the mess: To fix the economy, the country must solve the public-health crisis. Survey data show that the economic turmoil is driven not primarily by government shelter-in-place policies but by Americans’ fear that going outside will result in illness….”
Today’s WaPo editorial:
“…The pandemic response demands a testing regimen that does not yet exist. According to the Covid Tracking Project, states are reporting about 300,000 tests a day, about a tenth of the 3 million or more a day that experts say is the minimum needed to begin to safely open workplaces again. Weeks ago, Mr. Trump should have embraced this as a uniquely federal responsibility, under the supervision of an experienced leader, a Manhattan Project for the pandemic age. Instead, he left the job to governors, and the nation is staggering under the consequences.
Mr. Trump and the “liberate” protesters portray a choice between opening and staying locked down, but that is false. Everyone understands the urgency of returning to work, schools, leisure and worship, but it must be done in a way that does not ignite a second wave. Until a vaccine or effective therapy arrives, that means segmenting the population by testing, and isolating and treating those who are sick as much as possible. The virus is dynamic, relentless and opportunistic. It will spread as long as people give it the means.
We have the technology but not the scale needed to test the whole population. If ever there were a job for the federal government, the singularly most powerful actor we can rely upon, this was it. Instead, we are now suffering with piecemeal efforts at diagnostic testing, while more than 20,000 new infections and about 2,000 deaths occur every day. What would it have taken for Mr. Trump to put testing kits in every workplace and school? We will never know, because he didn’t try. …”
After a very brief intro, here is our President failing spectacularly at leadership and simple truth telling.
https://twitter.com/funder/status/1258742453441617920
Book, last week Trump even doubled-down on his determination to END Obamacare; a peculiar priority at a time when healthcare is so utter crucial.
When will you guys unite behind the American president, and stop harrying him, and backstabbing him, as Comrade Xi so ardently desires you to do?
You see the big irony here is you guys chirped on and on for 3 years about Russia Russia Russia and Putin and that was basically a phony story, a mountain out of a molehill
The real mountain is the mountain of treason that the US mass media is committing by constantly attacking Trump, sowing division, and protecting the CCP and China.
This was already clear before the covid-19 crisis, and it’s even more clear since.
not because the virus is fake, it isnt, it’s very real, and the US is very harmed by it. far more harmed than China is. Very curious isnt it?
but because the Chicom leadership of the PRC ie China covered it up
Maybe leaked from the Wuhan lab as early as October. Seriously.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Are you guys on the American side or the Chinese side? You’re going to have to choose. We are at war.
PS the Chicoms are beating the tar out of the HK people again. Not in the US press but yeah its’ happening again.
Why not in the press? Because the US mass media are PRC sychophants and traitors. That’s why.
Are you a traitor? Look in the mirror. That’s the person you have to answer to. Whose side are you on?
Kurtz, your efforts to link Trump critics to China is totally pathetic!
Trump, more than any recent president, has pursued crony capitalism which essentially describes China’s power structure. To suggest that Trump stands apart from China as a model of democratic principles is ridiculous, to say the least.
July Johnson is a PRC Chicom quisling. You have picked your side.
There is zero comparison between Trump’s economic policies and the Chicom system. You are ignorant of China if you see it that way. This would make you more of a useful idiot than a quisling I guess. You are downgraded to just a useful idiot July Johnson. But if you keep it up maybe you can get a promotion to quisling.
And if you were important like a news editor, which you are not, then you could be a Red Star Running dog, too
Sorry, Kurtz, but the majority of Americans, those who DON’T have TDS (defined as blind loyalty to a lying, unfit narcissist who cheated his way into office) do not view this person as valid. When he waddles out of the White House and stands behind a podium containing the seal of the Presidency that was earned lawfully by people like Lincoln, FDR, JFK and even Republicans like Eisenhower and the Bushes, with his false campaign slogans and American flags behind him, we see an obscenity–an obese, arrogant reality TV performer with a fragile ego who thought he could con the world into believing that he is a “very stable genius” that was the only one who could save America. Save America? From what–the booming economy created by Barak Obama who turned around the worst economy since the Great Depression? From Obamacare? From consumer and environmental regulations that prevent consumer financial abuses and water and air pollution that sicken and kill people?
When the rubber met the road–a real test of leadership, Don the Con flopped badly. So badly, in fact, that there are those who would term his failure genocide. While I don’t agree with this characterization, Trump proved that he is no leader. First he tried to ignore the warnings. Next, he called them a “hoax”. Then the lying started: 15 cases would soon be 0 cases, we’d have a vaccine “very quickly”, “It’s one person coming in from China”, “anyone who wants a test can get a test”, and so forth. He was so terrified of the CDC doctors telling Americans the truth, plus seeing a chance for free publicity, he insisted on insinuating himself into daily briefings, which only solidified what most people already knew: he’s arrogant and not very bright.
Just yesterday, we saw an unfiltered display of his fragile ego when he lashed out at an Asian-American reporter who asked him why he was bragging about testing as if we are in competition with other countries(which he lied about , BTW) when Americans are still getting sick and dying. He accused her of asking a “nasty question”, and tried to pass over her, but another woman reporter gave her the floor, which only enraged him even more, so he retreated into the White House. On the point of deaths per 100K population, America is 131st out of 140 countries, something else Trump lied about. The media aren’t making Trump look bad–the truth is.
Whose side am I on? America’s side. That is the opposite of Trump, who is an existential threat to the survival of the American people and our economy. If you and Kellyanne think we’re going to rally around Trump, you both are sadly mistaken.
Oh i see. July is Natacha. Welcome back Natach though we realize you never left.
See how well you fare under Communist masters one day. They don’t like women and they like American women least of all.
News flash: we are at war
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
whether it was emergent from nature or just an accidental lab release of a frankenstein virus cooked up for epidemiological experimentation, the Chicom leadership have turned the lemons into lemonade, They basically weaponized this by failing to warn the world.
You are either an apologist or not. This is how it shakes out in war. People need to line up against the greater adversary. If you don’t then you become a backstabber of your countrymen. This is for you to decide. Make your choice.
The latest pivot, probably cooked up by Kellyanne, is to try to blame China for everything, thus ignoring Trump’s endless failures and lying. The COVID-19 organism was not the result of genetic engineering. No one knows the origin, but it appears to be the wet market in Wuhan. The China travel ban still allowed 40K people to travel to the US from China, and there was no ban on travel from European countries. As it turns out, the source of the New York COVID-19 organism was from European travelers. None of this excuses Trump’s ignoring the warnings, failure to have a pandemic team and plan in place, with supplies, and his seemingly endless lying. It is not patriotic to cheat to win an election. It is not patriotic to fail at leadership. It is not patriotic to lie to Americans, or to push to open up businesses and schools when it isn’t safe. Trump IS the enemy now. If he were a patriot, he’d just go ahead and resign.
And, before you go on and on about China’s failure to warn, I want to see all of the Presidential Daily Briefings from December, 2019 on.
Natacha,
the outbreak happened in October.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Deliberate failure to warn by the Chinese Chicom liars, and you’re blaming Trump. Which means you’re covering for Xi Jinpeng. You get a Red Star for the day. Pick sides now. You are with us or against us. Continued sabotage of American unity will be henceforth recognized for what it is.
I guess you have been triggered?? 🤣 ROTFL TDS is a syndrome triggered in those who have become Deranged because President Trump was legally and legitimately elected. Get over it.
131out of 140… that looks bad. Drop NY, NJ, MASS from the equation and it looks much better. Natcha, why are you including Mr. Cuomo’s share with trump’s? Surely, Mr. Cuomo doesn’t belong in the same ghetto as trump. Speaking of Trump, how dare he call upon the Chinese to desist coming to the US in Early Feb? And the insult to our European friends!
Particularly when Cuomo should have blamed the Italians for the NYC spread of COVID19. LOL 😂
What a crock of irrelevant crap.
The Chinese are not causing Trump’s complete failure during this historic crisis and “getting behind” someone who won’t lead is impossible. He changes policy day to day, refuses to do what he alone possess the power to accomplish, undercuts what little leadership has emanated from the WH, and lies to us multiple times a day. His disaster is making ours and it is literally killing people.
China has nothing to do with that, other than – like him – delaying what we could and should have done. But he knew that in January, at the same time he was kissing Xi’s a.s and then started trying to hide it himself. Get oughta here with that BS.
Book keep it up. The crisis could have been contained. The Chicom leadership deliberately chose not to warn, which means, whatever the sars-cov-2 genesis, however the outbreak happened, they made a choice to weaponize it.
This is war
I have given you the information you need to pick sides.
We will see. Perhaps you chose to keep on pushing the angle that Xi wants however, he likes it. If so then you get a red star for the day.
Not January, october is when the outbreak probably happened. You read it here first.
Deliberate failure to warn, means, act of war
You’re full of …t Kurtz. This is not war with China though your handler wants you to think that. China did deliberately deceive, just like Trump did and for the same reasons – see video below – but they did not purposely create it, nor not contain it.
Your red-China zombie routine is not worth anyone’s time.
Enjoy. It’s your great leader.
https://twitter.com/funder/status/1258742453441617920
oh, it may have been emergent from nature, or maybe it did come from a lab, perhaps not a bioweapon rather just a frankenstein “gain of function” “research study”, and probably a screwup release and not a deliberate one. but make no mistake, it could have been a bioweapon and a deliberate release, and there’s more evidence to support such a hypothesis now than there was 2 months ago. and plenty more that it was lab created if only as part of a study. but we will never know, because the Chicoms have it all locked up and nobody can see!
and even if not, they knew 1-3 months in advance of telling WHO about the outbreak. Criminal! Millions dead now as a result of a critical failure to warn. Oh, Trump made mistakes, but he didn’t make the critical first failure to warn that has caused many countries to fumble the ball with the sick and dying! And yet you blame Trump here every day. Pathetic!
Keep on apologizing for the CCP like a good lackey, keep it up! You should be ashamed of yourself. You hate Trump more than you love your own country! You’re blind! Move to HK and you can make $7 an hour for this garbage, instead of posting it for free. Oh wait: they won’t let Americans into the country now!
https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-travel-restrictions-due-to-covid-19-an-explainer/
Because why? Because they understand what you don’t — we are at war!
Kurtz, sorry for thinking you were worth a discussion. To start with, I have never apologized for what the Chinese did by hiding the virus, but I also am not so stupid as to ignore that Trump did the same. By the way, he was busy praising them after being told they were misrepresenting the extent of the pandemic in their country. Your choosing to mimic his lame attempt to displace blame is beneath contempt as is your equating loyalty to him with loyalty to the country. That’s some of the dumbest s…. I have heard here, and that’s a high bar.
Trump has already surrendered the field to the Chinese by pulling back from global competition and refusing to enter the successful TPP because ….. Obama. You’re advocating the same ostrich behavior and the Chinese are eating our lunch while we left the field.
Here’s a tip. Someone who lies and brags as much as your leader is not a serious person worthy of your support, let alone attention, and no one on the world stage takes him seriously. Flatter him and he’ll do anything. He’s a weakling and he’s selling our future for ego games. There is no plan. There are no deals. Just poses.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
They lied. Trump was taken in by the lies. He was negotiating a trade treaty and they were plotting war.
Pick sides book. You will whether you understand that is what you are doing, or not, however.
The devastation of the Peloppennisian War allowed Philip and then Alexander to rise.
Who might be attempting to rise as we focus on stupid infighting?
Wasn’t that war fought over whether Greek or Turkish Baklava tasted better??
Book you can shine the Chicom jackboots all you like but they won’t let you join the CCP. I can’t see you but you’re definitely not Chinese. And the sad thing is, I bet they aren’t even paying you for carrying their water. You probably think this gibberish is in your own self interest somehow
Well, it will all be clear inside of a year whether the US is finished or not. Either it is or it isnt. It’s sad but the way the Democrat leadership has so aligned with Comrade Xi, it’s basically either Trump wins or the quislings of the PRC do.
Life will go on either way.
Turley Makes Bogus Attack On Biden
The Professor uses this column to suggest that Joe Biden has engaged in conspiracy mongering:
“Such conspiracy theories are largely brushed over by the mainstream media. Indeed, as we have seen, even a bizarre conspiracy theory by former Joe Biden was largely shrugged off by the media”.
Turley references a column from 2 weeks ago where he suggested Biden thinks Trump’s intention to sabotage the Post Office is an effort to sabotage the fall election. This is ‘NOT’ a conspiracy theory by any stretch!
Trump’s demand that the Post Office quadruple parcel package rates is completely unjustified from any business standpoint. Parcel Packages are currently the most profitable segment of the P O’s entire business. No serious business analyst agrees with Trump’s demand. To the contrary, jacking-up rates on packages would almost surely drive package deliveries into private hands and thereby ‘accelerate’ the P O’s decline.
Trump’s demand that the P O quadruple package rates quite obviously stems from Trump’s hatred of the Washington Post which is owned by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos. Bezos original business, Amazon, is the leading source of packages delivered by the Post Office. Trump, in fact, has made little pretense to disguise his motives on this issue.
Trump has also made public statements to the effect that Voting-By-Mail would favor Democrats which is factually untrue. Studies show Republicans are just as likely to vote by mail. Nevertheless, Trump has threatened to tie his demand postal package rates to any further relief from the pandemic’s economic fallout; thereby creating a poison pill.
So Professor Turley is presenting another in his series of false ‘What Abouts’ by suggesting that Joe Biden is venturing nutty conspiracies. What’s more Turley also takes a bogus shot at mainstream media by accusing them of not challenging Biden’s ‘nutty conspiracy’. Mainstream media, in fact, has duly reported Trump’s irrational demands on the Post Office.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/beijings-global-megaphone
“Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles.” — Xi Jinping, February 2016
1A widely used digital television service in Kenya includes Chinese state television in its most affordable package while omitting international news outlets.2 Portuguese television launches a prime-time “China Hour” featuring content from Chinese state media.3 Chinese diplomats intimidate a cable executive in Washington, DC, to keep New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), a station founded by Chinese Americans who practice Falun Gong, off the air.4 And a partly Chinese-owned South African newspaper abruptly ends a writer’s column after he discusses repression in China’s Xinjiang region.5
These examples, which have come to light over the past three years, illustrate the various ways in which Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media influence—in the form of censorship, propaganda, and control over content-delivery systems—extend beyond the borders of mainland China to reach countries and audiences around the globe.
The report below updates and expands on a 2013 study by the same author, The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets around the World, published by the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy.6 Drawing on recent scholarly research, media reports, interviews, Chinese government documents, and official speeches, the present report addresses the following questions:
What are the goals of the CCP’s efforts to influence media outlets and news reporting globally?
How does the CCP promote state media content and desired narratives internationally, while deploying various tactics to suppress critical news reporting?
How have these dynamics evolved over the past three years under the consolidated CCP leadership of Xi Jinping?
To what extent do the CCP’s efforts appear to be achieving the desired effect?
How are governmental and nongovernmental actors responding to the challenges to press freedom and democratic governance posed by the covert, corrupt, and coercive aspects of the CCP’s transnational media influence?
The CCP and various Chinese government entities have long sought to influence public debate and media coverage about China outside the country, particularly among Chinese- language communities and through obstruction of foreign correspondents within China. However, over the past decade, top CCP officials have overseen a dramatic expansion in efforts to shape media content and narratives around the world, affecting every region and multiple languages.
The emerging result is a multifaceted, adaptive, and complex set of tactics that are deployed across varied environments. They combine widely accepted forms of public diplomacy with more covert, corrupt, and coercive activities that undermine democratic norms, reduce national sovereignty, weaken the financial sustainability of independent media, and violate the laws of some countries. 7
Some of these dynamics can be traced back to the 1990s, but certain features have broadened and deepened in recent years. The trend is fueled by the paradoxical insecurity of the CCP, whose leaders feel threatened domestically even as they grow more emboldened internationally.
The global expansion of CCP media influence began in earnest during the tenure of former Chinese president Hu Jintao, and as current president Xi Jinping has tightened ideological controls at home, he has also been especially focused on intensifying propaganda efforts abroad. Under his direction, Beijing’s representatives and proxies have adopted a more aggressive and comprehensive approach to foreign media influence operations. In an October 2015 article, media studies professor Anne-Marie Brady found that Xi has used his highly concentrated political power to personally initiate this change, raising China’s foreign propaganda efforts to “a new level of assertiveness, confidence, and ambition.”8 Indeed, Chinese state media, government officials, and affiliated companies are achieving increased influence over key nodes in the global information flow, exploiting the more sophisticated technological environment, and showing a readiness to meddle in the internal political debates and electoral contests of other countries.
Key trends since 2017
The past three years have been marked by an acceleration of this process and the emergence of more new tactics. It is notable that during the same period, Xi further consolidated his power at the 19th Communist Party Congress in October 2017 and won approval for constitutional amendments that removed presidential term limits in March 2018. The following changes in Beijing’s overseas media activities since early 2017 deserve special scrutiny:
Russian-style social media disinformation campaigns and efforts to manipulate search results on global online platforms have been attributed to China-based perpetrators.
Tactics that were once used primarily to co-opt Chinese diaspora media and suppress critical coverage in overseas Chinese-language publications are now being applied—with some effect—to local mainstream media in various countries.
Beijing is gaining influence over crucial parts of some countries’ information infrastructure, as Chinese technology firms with close ties to the CCP build or acquire content-dissemination platforms used by tens of millions of foreign news consumers.
There is evidence that Chinese-owned social media platforms and digital television providers in multiple regions have engaged in politicized content manipulation to favor pro-Beijing narratives.
Chinese officials are making a more explicit effort to present China as a model for other countries, and they are taking concrete steps to encourage emulation through trainings for foreign personnel and technology transfers to foreign state-owned media outlets.
The CCP’s efforts have had a clear impact on the ground….
“we are discussing a matter of a couple weeks in January or February.”
No, actually, we’re discussing Trump’s astoundingly bad mismanagement for months. The first cases in South Korea and the U.S. were diagnosed on the same day; they’ve had only a few hundred deaths, whereas we’ve had over 80K at this point (I’ll leave it to readers to adjust for population, as our population is ~6 times larger). And of course, his mismanagement preceded the first diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S.; it includes his choice to ignore the NSC pandemic playbook (not preparing for adequate testing, PPE, etc.), to disband the NSC pandemic response team, to remove the CDC expert monitoring public health in China months before the virus emerged, …
You say “Gonsalves insists that such a failure to respond a couple weeks earlier is ‘awfully close to genocide.’” No, he said nothing about “a couple of weeks.” Your linked source only quotes him as saying “How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy?”
But even if we were talking about a couple of weeks, that can matter a great deal when it comes to exponential growth. Had we started social distancing even two weeks earlier, that would have saved many lives.
“it was not until much later that we saw the growing differential among minority groups in the lethality of the virus.”
The difference isn’t solely that the virus has a higher death rate (though it does, because people of color tend to be poorer and therefore in poorer health), but that there’s a higher infection rate (due, in part, to people of color being overrepresented in more crowded living conditions and in a variety of jobs where they cannot socially distance, don’t have paid sick leave, etc.).
“Imagine if a Yale professor had accused President Barack Obama of genocide. The response of not just the media, but the faculty and students at Yale would have been overwhelming.”
You’re moving the goalposts, “awfully close to genocide by default” isn’t an accusation of genocide. Moreover, your own source notes that his comments weren’t directed only to Trump. They write “Gregg Gonsalves, a professor of epidemiology and law at the Ivy League institution, blamed the Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the novel coronavirus pandemic in the United States, calling it ‘awfully close to genocide by default.’ and also quote him saying “what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders.” Leaders, plural. So why are you pretending that it’s only a criticism of Trump?
As for your claim, it cuts both ways. Trump also gets away with all sorts of things that would have been criticized had they been done by Obama.
Gonsolves is even clearer elsewhere that he’s also blaming the Democrats: “.@realDonaldTrump deserves lot of blame for the catastrophe that #COVID19 is in the US, but it’s also @SpeakerPelosi’s lack of vision, small-bore solutions & pre-emptive surrender to the @GOP makes things worse. If @TheDemocrats won’t fight now for real change, will they ever? 1/ … We don’t have what we need right now to get us out of this hell–epidemiologically, economically–and @TheDemocrats’ leadership won’t ask for it.” — https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1257842910990610434
It’s academically irresponsible to critique Gonsolves relying solely on what’s included in a single Washington Examiner article instead of turning to more extensive primary sources when they’re easily found. Turley should know better as a professor.
Why are you criticizing Trump when the liars and incompetents of the Chicom government of the PRC knew of the outbreak as far back as October?
Which side are you on?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
The wumao army of Comrade Xi is active on Turley”s blog today!
“Why are you criticizing Trump …?”
Because unlike you, I understand that a false dichotomy is common logical fallacy.
I don’t have to choose between criticizing Trump and criticizing China. I can criticize both, and if Turley’s article were about China’s response, then that’s what I would focus on. But his article is about Gonsolves and Trump.
I actually see commonalities between Trump and China. I agree with Laurie Garrett: “When a leader uses kill-the-messenger governance, underlings stop sending bad news upstairs. That’s what happened in China: local Wuhan CCP bosses didn’t tell #XiJinping about the new #coronavirus. And that’s what’s happ’ing in USA, as #Trump offs bearers of bad #COVID19 tidings” (where “off” means “fire,” as she was responding to a NYT tweet noting that “President Trump moved to replace Christi Grimm, a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services. Grimm angered him with a report last month that highlighted supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.”).
“Which side are you on?”
The side of honesty and the side of the American people. Did China f*** up by not dealing transparently with the virus? Yes, absolutely. And Trump also f’d up by not dealing with it honestly or in a skilled way. Americans are dying because of his choices. Tens of thousands of people have already died who need not have died had he been a fit president. Even more are facing longterm health and/or financial problems. Do you care about the harm he’s doing?
As for your link, until there’s public evidence to the contrary, I’ll go with the best current evidence from scientists and our intelligence agencies (e.g., the DNI: “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”).
“I’ll go with the best current evidence from scientists and our intelligence agencies ”
The trivial poster states his position above. Our intelligence services didn’t know what was happening in China though there was evidence, The Expert WHO said the disease was not transmissible and our leading expert Fauci said not to ban Chinese travellers.
Had we followed what Trivial Poster says the lack of the ban would have devasted a lot more of the country. When we look back at the supposed biggest expert that Trivial Poster wants to rely on we note that Their advice was wrong on almost every turn. Not only that but there seems to be a connection with WHO and the CCP (China).
It turns out that Trump has done a lot better than if he followed the advice of this character.
Assuming the lab release was an accident, the Chicom leadership of the PRC weaponized it by failing to warn the world.
We are at war
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
If you keep blaming Trump then you are protecting Xi. This is a binary choice.
Gon better figure out we are at war, a war started when the Chicom leadership of the PRC decided as far back as October not to warn the world of the outbreak
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Pick your sides people. Where does the water meet the shore? Whose side are you on?>
we’re discussing the Chicoms who knew of the outbreak for 1, 2, maybe 3 months before they told the WHO.
That’s the critical delay for the entire world which is suffering.
Just so the CCP could position itself better than all the rest for the emerging pandemic.
Stop blaming Trump and carrying water for Comrade Xi!
Trump did exactly what the Chicoms did. He was told about the coming crisis for months, as well as the fact that the Chinese were short selling the danger, and then he went out and did the same thing. F..him and them both. They’re comrades on this one.
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/05/how-colleges-get-rid-of-conservative-admins-an-example-from-unc/
Did you catch this? When liberals get their hands on something, they eventually ruin it.
a new story but an old pattern
we can break this pattern with a Maoist – Saloth Sar style “back to the countryside” program of “reeducation” which tasks useless university professors and bureaucrats with digging irrigation ditches in the desert
I’m not sure much short of that can fix it at this point.
you have had some good ideas in the past but I wonder if they are any more feasible than the radical one I propose. probably so but i wonder. & sometimes things are really bad and really far gone and only strong medicine will do
Absurd, the academic who wrote your article happened to drop this little tidbit:
“Of greater concern, she took issue with me talking to students about my religious and political views and threatened to have me removed from my job if she got another complaint that I shared my views.”
If the academic in question was really talking religion and politics in class that could mean he really ‘was’ pushing the envelope in terms of appropriate classroom behavior.
He’s an administrator, Peter, not a professor. He’s not teaching, and he made it clear the circumstances in which he had discussions with people. He also made clear that the faculty and other institutional employees unload all the time.
You just cannot get it right.
The Chicoms have enlisted so many quislings and lackeys in the US press and academia it’s truly pathetic
https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/beijings-global-megaphone
Comrade Xi orders Peter and Book to keep up their efforts slandering Trump and trying to intimidate US readers of this blog into hating him.
With Trump sidelined, the war is over before it has even begun., Pearl Harbor had less casualties than the US has had because of Chicom lying to the world about the outbreak– and hiding it–= as far back as October!
. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1280133/china-coronavirus-news-wuhan-laboratory-covid-19-intelligence-report-xi-jinping-trump
Will you lackeys now jump in and try and deny this and save Comrade Xi’s enterprise against America?
Which side are you people on?
Absurd, if he’s an administrator, then religion and politics are even ‘less’ appropriate for a pro in his capacity.
You didn’t read his article and that’s perfectly plain to anyone who did read it. You’re in a whole. Quit digging.
Gonsalves may want to rethink this allegation. If he considers President Trump as a genocidal monster, everyone involved in enabling this virus escaping its point of origin and withholding vital information that would minimize its global impact, would be part of this genocide conspiracy. #1 on this list would be the Chinese government. #2 would be the WHO. #3 would be anyone that opposed Trump’s early travel ban. #4 would be everyone opposing social distancing recommendations, especially those very public figures actively encouraging social activities that ran counter to the task force recommendations. Lastly, we’d have to apply the same degree of genocidal scrutiny to state, county and municipal public policy that contributed to above the mean infections and deaths.
By definition then, we have some genocidal monsters on this blog.
Does that racist really deserve space here. Other than to prove we DO uphold freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Too bad it includes freedom of stupidity.