U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[trotter]

4 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Texas is over 3 times the size of Britain with less than one half the population. Yet they can't get this under control while densely populated Britain can.

Yup, because people can't listen to simple instructions like 'don't go out an protest in your thousands.'

[JFK-1]

17 minutes ago, trotter said:

Yup, because people can't listen to simple instructions like 'don't go out an protest in your thousands.'

 

Like this?

Protesters hold an anti-mask demonstration in Austin

 

[kila]

'Merica eh. ****ed.

 

[trotter]

22 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Like this?

Protesters hold an anti-mask demonstration in Austin

 

Exactly. And now, thanks to these ****wits my local is closed again.

[JFK-1]

14 minutes ago, trotter said:

Exactly. And now, thanks to these ****wits my local is closed again.

 

What if, and I don't see this happening because I believe Trump pathologically incapable of admitting being wrong. What if Trump reversed course and said we need to wear masks to get out of this mess.

Would these ****wits see the light or just decide that Trump had now been hoodwinked by the 'deep state'

Edited July 19, 2020 by JFK-1

[trotter]

8 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

What if, and I don't see this happening because I believe Trump pathologically incapable of admitting being wrong. What if Trump reversed course and said we need to wear masks to get out of this mess.

Would these ****wits see the light or just decide that Trump had now been hoodwinked by the 'deep state'

Some of them would because they will blindly follow him regardless of the end results of his actions. Think of the end of Dr Strangelove when he rides the bomb all the way down. By the same token, the extreme right won't wear a mask because they think the next thing is 'they are coming for my guns'. 

 

I realise what i've written is kinda non-nonsensical, but so is this entire shitshow.

[Justin Z]

12 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

What if, and I don't see this happening because I believe Trump pathologically incapable of admitting being wrong. What if Trump reversed course and said we need to wear masks to get out of this mess.

Would these ****wits see the light or just decide that Trump had now been hoodwinked by the 'deep state'

 

We already have the answer

[JFK-1]

Well that's it, they're doomed.
 

 

[JFK-1]

11 minutes ago, trotter said:

I realise what i've written is kinda non-nonsensical, but so is this entire shitshow.

 

Yes it is nonsensical but the US has been sliding into a mass denial of indisputable reality for decades. The internet accelerated it and Trump completed the process.

Global pandemic, somehow spun into 'deep state' hoax despite the fact the entire world not just the US is suffering from it. Unless of course they're so far gone they also don't believe the news from the outside world is real.

Please wear a mask for a few minutes in a store to prevent the spread of the infection, that's it I knew it they want my guns just because i'm a simple minded ****wit.

[Justin Z]

[Unknown user]

29 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

We already have the answer

 

Tell you what, shittest muzzles ever, they still haven't made that fat useless prick shut up.

[JFK-1]

If we see a Biden victory in November which currently at least appears increasingly likely, perhaps by landslide. Then he is going to inherit an economy in meltdown and an out of control pandemic in progress with no end in sight. For the US at least regarding the pandemic.

The upside of that is both issues should be relatively easy to turn around with competent rational governance which is at the very least what a Biden administration will provide. Out will go conspiracy nuts and climate deniers heading the EPA.

Biden will actually be presented with an opportunity to later claim what Trump has been falsely claiming, the greatest economic turnaround in history. And the pandemic shouldn't be so difficult to deal with either. He only needs to look around the world to see how others have been bringing it under control and emulate them.

All of that can be dealt with by competent people in the relevant departments which i'm confident we will see. The further issue for Biden once that's up and running is repairing the damage Trump has done internationally. The fracturing of relationships with close long term allies and friends.

In the case of Europe that shouldn't be too difficult. The Europeans know Biden is not Trump and that they're now back to dealing with an administration that can be reasoned with, is rational and wont have them rolling their eyes in astonishment with every deranged tweet.

European and global populations will have in mind for a very long time the thought of what's wrong with you people? How can any sane population willingly inflict such an obvious idiot not only on themselves but the entire world? What is your major malfunction?

Russia will be a different scenario, they love their idiot/puppet Trump. Putin will mourn his demise.

All of this will cast the Republicans in an even dimmer light as far as their future goes. How can they recover any credibility after this Trump disaster?

One way out would be to acknowledge at last that Trump is a  total idiot and a disaster, but hey, you voted for him. The downside to that is yeah, but hey, you supported and enabled him while now claiming you knew he was an idiot and a disaster. You could have impeached him and didn't.

To get around that they would need a total clear out. Start from scratch with new faces entirely unconnected to Trump. And all of this is of course presuming the orange buffoon will indeed bite the dust in November.

If he doesn't the US is not just finished as a power with any international respectability for at least a generation to come. They may never recover from the further damage he would inflict across a broad spectrum. 

[JFK-1]

 

[JFK-1]

Coronavirus: US v other countries... did it mess up its reopening?
 

 

[JFK-1]

 

[JFK-1]

Take note that when the interviewer in the above clip mentions that he's losing to Biden the same witless and tired old lines come out. They're "fake polls"

This total maniac is without a doubt going to create mayhem when he denies the result, which he most definitely will, even if crushed in a landslide.

If he creates a hostile environment in which those he has claimed in the past are behind him, "the bikers, the 2nd amendment people" , an environment in which anarchy breaks out and people are killed, then he should be open to charges of sedition on top of all those others he's potentially facing.
 

Quote

Sedition: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

At that point it's up to the Republican establishment to step in and return the country to sanity by conceding.

I'm not entirely confident they will though. Even when the game is clearly over.

[Lovecraft]

58 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

 Not that he has ever looked particularly well, but Trump looks like shit.

 

 

[JFK-1]

9 minutes ago, Lovecraft said:

 Not that he has ever looked particularly well, but Trump looks like shit.

 

 

 

I thought that too but that's good, maybe a sign that despite his sheer stupidity he's not totally impervious to the reality that pandemic reality wont be remotely affected by his bizarre fantasising.

The virus is real and it wont "at some point just disappear" no matter how many times he says it.

He looks under strain, good, as orange as I have ever seen him, gross, and I noticed his obesity somewhat more than I have before despite the fact he's sitting down and trying to hide it with his jacket.

[Maple Leaf]

2 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

If we see a Biden victory in November which currently at least appears increasingly likely, perhaps by landslide. Then he is going to inherit an economy in meltdown and an out of control pandemic in progress with no end in sight. For the US at least regarding the pandemic.

The upside of that is both issues should be relatively easy to turn around with competent rational governance which is at the very least what a Biden administration will provide. Out will go conspiracy nuts and climate deniers heading the EPA.

Biden will actually be presented with an opportunity to later claim what Trump has been falsely claiming, the greatest economic turnaround in history. And the pandemic shouldn't be so difficult to deal with either. He only needs to look around the world to see how others have been bringing it under control and emulate them.

All of that can be dealt with by competent people in the relevant departments which i'm confident we will see. The further issue for Biden once that's up and running is repairing the damage Trump has done internationally. The fracturing of relationships with close long term allies and friends.

In the case of Europe that shouldn't be too difficult. The Europeans know Biden is not Trump and that they're now back to dealing with an administration that can be reasoned with, is rational and wont have them rolling their eyes in astonishment with every deranged tweet.

European and global populations will have in mind for a very long time the thought of what's wrong with you people? How can any sane population willingly inflict such an obvious idiot not only on themselves but the entire world? What is your major malfunction?

Russia will be a different scenario, they love their idiot/puppet Trump. Putin will mourn his demise.

All of this will cast the Republicans in an even dimmer light as far as their future goes. How can they recover any credibility after this Trump disaster?

One way out would be to acknowledge at last that Trump is a  total idiot and a disaster, but hey, you voted for him. The downside to that is yeah, but hey, you supported and enabled him while now claiming you knew he was an idiot and a disaster. You could have impeached him and didn't.

To get around that they would need a total clear out. Start from scratch with new faces entirely unconnected to Trump. And all of this is of course presuming the orange buffoon will indeed bite the dust in November.

If he doesn't the US is not just finished as a power with any international respectability for at least a generation to come. They may never recover from the further damage he would inflict across a broad spectrum. 

 

There's a lot to digest in that post, but all good stuff.

 

A Biden victory in November is only part of the solution.  The Dems also need to win back control of the Senate otherwise there will be stalemate, just like in the last term of Obama. Even if Biden wins, if the Senate stays under Republican control, the country is screwed.

 

With regard to foreign policy, America's allies will be fine once the buffoon is consigned to the dustbin of history.  Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and say "OK then, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"  Putin will shrug  and say "It was good while it lasted."  China is the international giant of the future.  Biden needs to figure out how to get along with the Chinese.  The two countries need each other.

 

The US economy will take time, maybe a lot of time.  Millions of jobs won't ever come back.  All the decision makers in both the government and private sectors will need to get creative.

 

The biggest challenge, in my view, is with domestic issues.  In the last three years, racism and xenophobia has reared it's ugly head.  The rifts between black and white, and north and south, need to be healed.  People openly hate each other, more so than at any time I've been watching. America's approach to immigration needs to be revised. Having a female black VP would be very useful in that regard.

 

It'll be six months, at the earliest, before Trump leaves the White House.  He can still do a lot of damage, especially if he gets desperate.

[JFK-1]

7 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

It'll be six months, at the earliest, before Trump leaves the White House.  He can still do a lot of damage, especially if he gets desperate.

 

There are some serious commentators beginning to question if he would go so far as conspiring to  create an almighty, potentially catastrophic international incident to deflect attention.

In normal times you would think what the hell are you talking about, that's insane. But every time this maniac has descended further into the depths of insanity and we think it has bottomed out, he creates a new crazy benchmark. It's extremely worrying.

Surely there's somebody in the background who would step in and say okay that's enough, this can't go on.

[Maple Leaf]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

There are some serious commentators beginning to question if he would go so far as conspiring to  create an almighty, potentially catastrophic international incident to deflect attention.

In normal times you would think what the hell are you talking about, that's insane. But every time this maniac has descended further into the depths of insanity and we think it has bottomed out, he creates a new crazy benchmark. It's extremely worrying.

Surely there's somebody in the background who would step in and say okay that's enough, this can't go on.

 

He's always had a pickle up his ass about Iran ... they're Muslim, after all.

 

There's nothing he could do that would surprise me there.

[Unknown user]

2 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

What a nasty ****ing ****

[JFK-1]

20 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

He's always had a pickle up his ass about Iran ... they're Muslim, after all.

 

There's nothing he could do that would surprise me there.

 

I wouldn't argue against him being capable of anything, I believe he's truly too stupid to comprehend the potential consequences of any craziness he may conjure up.

As for Muslims he probably doesn't really care much about them either, beyond grasping that the witless base who elected him care about the Muslim thing.

 i would love somebody to say to him sometime  on live TV which country is Mecca in? I'm confident he wouldn't know, would bluster away some witless irrelevance and have no idea what an idiot he just exposed himself to be.

[JFK-1]

 

Trump defends bungled handling of coronavirus with falsehoods and dubious claims (demonstrates remarkable ignorance about the basics of the virus)
 

And suggests he wont accept the result if he loses the election 
 

Quote

Trump defends bungled handling of coronavirus with falsehoods and dubious claims (demonstrates remarkable ignorance about the basics of the virus)

And suggests he wont accept the result if he loses the election 

President Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that the rising number of U.S. deaths from the coronavirus “is what it is,” defended his fumbled management of the pandemic with a barrage of dubious and false claims, and revealed his lack of understanding about the fundamental science of how the virus spreads and infects people.

Making one of his biggest media appearances in months — an hour-long, sit-down interview with “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace — Trump was visibly rattled and at times hostile as he struggled to answer for his administration’s failure to contain the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 137,000 lives in the United States.

On a range of other topics, including the racial justice movement and the Confederate flag, the president positioned himself firmly outside the political mainstream.

And Trump suggested he might not accept the results of November’s general election should he lose because he predicted without evidence that “mail-in voting is going to rig the election.”

In a season of remarkable public appearances by a politically wounded president, the Wallace interview was still extraordinary, in part because of the volley of false claims by Trump and aggressive, real-time fact-checking by his questioner.

Trump — whom aides say no longer attends coronavirus task force meetings because he does not have time — showed himself to be particularly misinformed about the basics of the virus that has been ravaging the nation for more than four months.

Confronted by Wallace with a chart showing that the number of coronavirus cases last week more than doubled from the spring peak in April, Trump replied: “If we didn’t test, you wouldn’t be able to show that chart. If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.”

By the president’s logic, that assumes people contract the virus only if they test positive, ignoring the fact that many people are asymptomatic carriers and unknowingly spread the contagion without taking a test or being reported.

Wallace later explained to Trump that the number of tests has increased by 37 percent but the number of cases has shot up by 194 percent.

Trump replied, “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. Many of them — don’t forget, I guess it’s like 99.7 percent, people are going to get better and [in] many cases, they’re going to get better very quickly.”

Though people in their 20s and 30s, who make up a growing proportion of cases, have been hospitalized at a lower rate than older people, many still have suffered severe illness and some have died.

Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, reacted to Trump’s interview in a statement Sunday:

“The past six months have proven again and again that it’s Donald Trump who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to COVID-19 . . . When it comes to the coronavirus, you can’t believe a word he says.”

A growing number of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found 38 percent approve of his performance and 60 percent disapprove.

The same survey found Biden leading Trump by double digits nationally, 55 percent to 40 percent.

In an attempt to regain their political footing, Trump and his aides recently have sought to divert attention from the soaring number of coronavirus cases by focusing on the rate of deaths.

In the Fox interview, Trump falsely asserted, “I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.”

“It’s not true, sir,” Wallace replied. “We had 900 deaths on a single day just this week.”

Trump shouted to aides hovering nearby: “Can you please get the mortality rates?” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany quickly presented Trump with data she said was from Deborah Birx, a physician and the White House coronavirus response coordinator, backing up his claim.

“Number one low mortality fatality rates,” Trump claimed.

At that point, Fox interrupted the taped interview for Wallace to explain to his viewers that according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States ranked seventh among 20 countries in mortality rate, worse than Brazil and Russia.

The White House relied on European data showing Italy and Spain doing worse than the United States but Brazil and South Korea doing better. The White House chart did not include Russia and other countries doing better, according to Wallace.

When Wallace pointed out that coronavirus deaths in the United States were still about 1,000 a day, Trump said: “It came from China. They should’ve never let it escape, they should’ve never let it out, but it is what it is.”

Trump then hypothesized that the case count in Europe was so much lower than in the United States because “they don’t test,” as opposed to a sign that the virus was not as rampant there because their countries had largely contained it.

By conducting mass testing, Trump said, “We are creating trouble for the fake news to come along and say, ‘Oh, we have more cases.’ ”

Trump reiterated his long-held theory that the virus would somehow “disappear,” a claim not grounded in scientific fact.

“I will be right eventually,” Trump told Wallace. “You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again. It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right . . . You know why? Because I’ve been right probably more than anybody else.”

(JFK-1 response: absolutely un****in believable)

Trump used his Fox interview to continue the White House’s remarkable assault on some of the scientists and public health professionals spearheading the government’s response.

The president called Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, “a little bit of an alarmist.” He noted that Fauci had argued internally against restricting travel from China, which Trump ordered in late January, and had initially said all Americans did not need to wear masks, before there was scientific evidence that doing so would help slow the spread.

Trump also challenged the assessment of Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who again warned last week that the pandemic could worsen this fall when flu season begins, reflecting widespread scientific consensus. “I don’t think he knows,” Trump said of Redfield.

Trump sought to draw a hard line on the coronavirus relief bill, saying it must include a payroll tax cut and liability protections for businesses, as lawmakers prepare to plunge into negotiations over unemployment benefits and other key provisions in coming days.

Republican leaders are largely dismissive of the idea of cutting payroll taxes, which fund Social Security, while siding with Trump on the liability issue.

The Fox interview was conducted outdoors on a White House patio on an oppressively hot day — the president’s choice, as Wallace twice noted.

Trump joked that he wanted to see Wallace sweat, but it was the president’s face that glistened with sweat as the Fox anchor engaged him on a wide range of other topics, including the race and justice issues that convulsed the country.

Trump declined to say whether he found the Confederate flag offensive and defended what many Americans view as a symbol of slavery, racial oppression and treason.

“When people proudly have their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism,” Trump said. “They love their flag. It represents the South. They like the South. People right now like the South.”

Wallace followed up: “So you’re not offended by it?”

“Well, I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter,” Trump replied. “That’s freedom of speech. You know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we can’t cancel our whole history. We can’t forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that, otherwise we’ll end up fighting again.”

Trump also teased the possibility that he might not accept the election results if he were to lose, jeopardizing America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power between presidents.

When Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a “good” or “gracious” loser, the president replied that he doesn’t like to lose. Then he added, “You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.”

For weeks now, Trump has claimed without evidence that the rise in voting by mail in many states makes voting susceptible to widespread fraud.

“Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?” Wallace asked.

“No,” Trump responded. “I have to see.”

Later in the interview, pressed on whether he will accept the results, Trump again declined to say. “I have to see,” he said.

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded to Trump’s remarks in a statement: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

Trump sought to portray Biden as mentally vacant, telling Wallace that he did not want to characterize his opponent as “senile” but positing that “Joe doesn’t know he’s alive” and is “mentally shot.”

Trump then challenged Biden to a cognitive test, which the president characterized as exceedingly difficult. During a physical exam in 2018, Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — which includes animal pictures and other simple queries aimed at detecting mild cognitive impairment such as dementia — and has regularly boasted about it since.

(JFK-1 COMMENT: Let's be clear about this, if Trump thinks that cognitive test is exceedingly difficult, and something to boast about, he really is simple minded and/or senile. I would expect a 10 year old to accomplish it with ease.

A couple of examples from it.

Challenge 1: Draw a clock, including all of the numbers, and set the time to 10 minutes past 11.

Challenge 2:  The subject is read a list of words that they must remember. They must repeat as many of the words as they can recall, in any order they like.

The examiner then reads five words aloud at a rate of one per second: FACE, VELVET, CHURCH, DAISY, RED

THAT simple, yet he thinks it's like an IQ test for Mensa.)

Wallace told Trump that he tried the test himself after hearing the president brag about passing it. Wallace said “it’s not the hardest test,” adding that one of the questions on the version he took was to properly identify a picture of an elephant.

“I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions,” Trump said. “I’ll bet you couldn’t. They get very hard, the last five questions.

“Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven,” Wallace said, adding: “Ninety-three.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-defends-bungled-handling-of-coronavirus-with-falsehoods-and-dubious-claims/2020/07/19/1b57cb3e-c9e6-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_virustrump-615p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

[Jambo-Jimbo]

14 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

Which I see no way out of for them with no leadership coming from the White House. At best they have a patchwork of states trying to do something similar to that which has been proven to work in other countries.

But as 'The Atlantic' article I just posted points out that's simply never going to work without a national plan. Infections will simply continue seeping in from states pretending it isn't happening. Even worse, defying social distancing and mask advice because it 'infringes my rights'

I was entirely unaware they had a right to endanger the entire nation over something as non intrusive as putting a little piece of cloth over your mouth for a matter of minutes while shopping.

All of this witless defiance and denial that it's even happening stems from Trump. From the very beginning he was setting them up for this disaster.

 

Because he thought it was all a hoax, fake news, the virus wasn't real blah blah blah, he probably still does deep down think this.

[JFK-1]

Quote

The first results of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford are expected today.
 

They will be the results of the “phase one” study involving around 1,000 volunteers. These are the earliest type of clinical trial in people.
 

Their primary purpose is to ensure the vaccine is safe enough to give to more people.
 

But we may also get insight into the type of immune response provoked by the jab – does it lead to the production of antibodies or stimulate other parts of the immune system?
 

What we won’t find out today is whether the vaccine “works” – can it stop you getting infected or at least lessen symptoms?
 

That will require trials involving far more people and in countries where there is far more coronavirus going around than there is currently in the UK.

Well we all know "where there is far more coronavirus going around than there is currently in the UK" 

[I P Knightley]

13 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

I'm tempted to find the full interview but don't think it would be good for my blood pressure. One plus would be watching just how unhealthy Trump appears.

[JFK-1]

34 minutes ago, I P Knightley said:

I'm tempted to find the full interview but don't think it would be good for my blood pressure. One plus would be watching just how unhealthy Trump appears.

 

It's an, I was about to say unbelievable when I remembered who we're talking about, considering who it's coming from entirely expected litany of lies and absurdity.

I'm still incredulous that any president of the US could sit there and babble such incoherent nonsense, yet still apparently be taken seriously by some rather than being immediately thrown into a strait jacket.

The absurdity is perhaps even outstripped the by the hypocrisy. The same yahoos supporting this idiotic pathological liar would have been screaming for blood if Obama had ever even once put in such a deceitful idiot performance.

An idiot who thinks a cognitive test every normally functioning adult is expected to 'ace' is something to boast about. A test a child could pass he informs the interviewer is 'very difficult' and implies the interviewer himself couldn't do it.

To which the interviewer says he did do it, in which he was asked to and correctly identified a picture of an elephant. That's the level of task Trump is boasting about 'acing' 🤣
 

 

[JFK-1]

As Trump Ignores Virus Crisis, Republicans Start to Break Ranks
 

Quote

President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements.

In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the value of wearing a mask in public and heeding the advice of health experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom the president and other hard-right figures within the administration have subjected to caustic personal criticism.

They appear to be spurred by several overlapping forces, including deteriorating conditions in their own states, Mr. Trump’s seeming indifference to the problem and the approach of a presidential election in which Mr. Trump is badly lagging his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in the polls.

Once-reticent Republican governors are now issuing orders on mask-wearing and business restrictions that run counter to Mr. Trump’s demands.

Some of those governors have been holding late-night phone calls among themselves to trade ideas and grievances; they have sought out partners in the administration other than the president, including Vice President Mike Pence, who, despite echoing Mr. Trump in public, is seen by governors as far more attentive to the continuing disaster.

“The president got bored with it,” David Carney, an adviser to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, said of the pandemic. He noted that Mr. Abbott, a Republican, directs his requests to Mr. Pence, with whom he speaks two to three times a week.

A handful of Republican lawmakers in the Senate have privately pressed the administration to bring back health briefings led by figures like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who regularly updated the public during the spring until Mr. Trump upstaged them with his own briefing-room monologues.

And in his home state of Kentucky last week, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, broke with Mr. Trump on nearly every major issue related to the virus.

Mr. McConnell stressed the importance of mask-wearing, expressed “total” confidence in Dr. Fauci and urged Americans to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Mr. Trump has ignored or dismissed.

“The straight talk here that everyone needs to understand is: This is not going away until we get a vaccine,” Mr. McConnell said on Wednesday, contradicting Mr. Trump’s rosy predictions.

The result is a quiet but widening breach between Mr. Trump and leading figures in his party, as the virus burns through major political battlegrounds in the South and the West, like in the states of Arizona, Texas and Georgia.

Amid mounting alarm in a huge portion of the country, Mr. Trump has at times appeared to inhabit a different universe, incorrectly predicting the outbreak would quickly dissipate and falsely claiming the spread of the virus was simply a function of increased testing.

With his impatient demands and decrees, Mr. Trump has disrupted efforts to mitigate the crisis while effectively sidelining himself from participating in those efforts.

The emerging rifts in Mr. Trump’s party have been slow to develop, but they have rapidly deepened since a new surge in coronavirus cases began to sweep the country last month.

In the final days of June, the governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, a Republican, joined other governors on a conference call with Mr. Pence and urged the administration to do more to combat a sense of “complacency” about the virus.

Mr. Herbert said it would help states like his own if Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence were to encourage mask-wearing on a national scale, according to a recording of the call.

“As a responsible citizen, if you care about your neighbor, if you love your neighbor, let us show the respect necessary by wearing a mask,” Mr. Herbert said, offering language to Mr. Pence and adding, “That’s where I think you and the president can help us out.”

Mr. Pence told Mr. Herbert the suggestion was “duly noted” and said that mask-wearing would be a “very consistent message” from the administration.

But no such appeal was ever forthcoming from Mr. Trump, who asserted days later that the virus would “just disappear.”

Mr. Trump has offered only hedged recommendations on wearing masks and has rarely worn one himself in public; in a Fox interview that was broadcast on Sunday the president said he would not issue a national mask order, because Americans deserve “a certain freedom” on the matter.

Some of the states where outbreaks have worsened most in recent weeks are led by Republicans who spent months avoiding stringent lockdowns, in some cases because state leaders were uneasy about creating space between themselves and a president of their own party who rejected such steps.

That dynamic has been particularly pronounced in Southern states like Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, where governors have either continued to resist tough public-health restrictions or have only recently and partially embraced them.

A few Republicans have grown more open with their misgivings about Mr. Trump’s approach, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who said this month that he would require people to wear masks at any Trump rallies in his state.

After issuing a broad mask mandate last week, Mr. Hutchinson said on the ABC program “This Week” on Sunday that an “example needs to be set by our national leadership” on mask-wearing.

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, in an interview on “Meet the Press” on NBC, did not answer directly when asked if he had confidence in Mr. Trump’s leadership in the crisis. Mr. DeWine said he had confidence “in this administration” and praised Mr. Pence for “doing an absolutely phenomenal job.”

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, rejected criticisms of Mr. Trump’s approach.

“Any suggestion that the president is not working around the clock to protect the health and safety of all Americans, lead the whole-of-government response to this pandemic, including expediting vaccine development, and rebuild our economy is utterly false,” Mr. Deere said in a statement.

With only a few exceptions, Republicans have avoided direct confrontation with Mr. Trump. They’ve come to view public criticism as an exercise in political futility — one guaranteed to produce a sour response from Mr. Trump without any chance of changing his behavior.

But many Republican lawmakers have grown exasperated with the administration’s conflicting messages, the open warfare within Mr. Trump’s staff and the president’s demands that states reopen faster or risk punishment from the federal government.

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said he wanted the administration to offer more extensive public-health updates to the American people, and condemned the open animosity toward Dr. Fauci by some administration officials, including Peter Navarro, the trade adviser, who wrote an opinion column attacking Dr. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

“I want more briefings but, more importantly, I want the whole White House to start acting like a team on a mission to tackle a real problem,” Mr. Sasse said.

“Navarro’s Larry, Moe and Curly junior-high slap fight this week is yet another way to undermine public confidence that these guys grasp that tens of thousands of Americans have died and tens of millions are out of work.”

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, was more succinct: “The more they turn the briefings over to the professionals, the better.”

A group of Republican governors have for months held regular conference calls, usually at night and without staff present, according to two party strategists familiar with the conversations.

Unlike the virus-focused calls that Mr. Pence leads, there are no Democratic or White House officials on the line, so the conversations have become a sort of safe space where the governors can ask their counterparts for advice, discuss best practices and, if the mood strikes them, vent about the administration and the president’s erratic leadership.

Mr. Trump himself seems less interested in the specific challenges the virus presents and is mostly just frustrated by the reality that it has not disappeared as he has predicted.

The disconnect is only growing between him and other party leaders — not to mention voters. A poll published Friday by ABC News and The Washington Post found that a majority of the country strongly disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, and about two-thirds of Americans said they had little or no trust in Mr. Trump’s comments about the disease.

Mr. Trump’s political standing is now so dire that even Republicans who have spent years avoiding direct comment on his behavior are acknowledging his unpopularity in plain terms.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, for instance, offered a bleak assessment of Mr. Trump’s electoral standing at a recent event hosted by Solamere, a company with close ties to Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, and his family.

According to a partial transcript of the comments, shared by a person close to him, the usually tight-lipped Mr. Ryan said Mr. Trump was losing key voting blocs across the Midwest and in Arizona, a Republican-leaning state that Mr. Ryan described as “presently trending against us.”

While Mr. Ryan did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the outbreak, he said the president could not win re-election this year if he continued losing badly to Mr. Biden among suburban voters who were wary of both candidates but currently favor Mr. Biden.

“Biden is winning over Trump in this category of voters 70 to 30,” Mr. Ryan said, “and if that sticks, he cannot win states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers are adamant that the best way forward is to downplay the dangers of the disease. Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, has been particularly forceful in his view that the White House should avoid drawing attention to the virus, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Meadows has for the most part opposed any briefings about the virus, while other Trump advisers, including Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner, have been open to holding briefings so long as they are not at the White House — where Mr. Trump could show up and commandeer them.

Mr. Pence’s team would like to hold more briefings with the health experts, but some of Mr. Trump’s communications aides do not want the vice president to be part of them.

A large number of rank-and-file Republican lawmakers share Mr. Trump’s aversion to the disease-control practices.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican closely aligned with Mr. Trump, issued an order on Wednesday blocking local governments from mandating mask-wearing, then sued the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, for imposing such a requirement. Mr. Kemp’s edict came hours after Mr. Trump visited his state, declining to wear a face mask at the Atlanta airport.

Yet some in the G.O.P. now see no alternative to parting ways with Mr. Trump, on policy if not politics.

Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a powerful business federation in the crucial state, said he saw Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, walking a prudent line — breaking with Mr. Trump’s policy demands but not blasting the president for issuing them.

“Everyone knows that the president doesn’t react well to criticism, constructive or not,” he said.

Mr. Hamer, who was among a group of business leaders who sent a letter to the White House urging the creation of clearer national standards for facial coverings, said Mr. Trump presented a challenge to Republican leaders seeking to foster responsible behavior.

“On the mask side, it is difficult when the leader of the party had been setting a pretty bad example,” Mr. Hamer said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/us/politics/republicans-contradict-trump-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200720&instance_id=20454&nl=the-morning&regi_id=138584675&segment_id=33842&te=1&user_id=1e5fff61078ae385dbc692a9a57ec6ce

 

[Joey J J Jr Shabadoo]

1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

It's an, I was about to say unbelievable when I remembered who we're talking about, considering who it's coming from entirely expected litany of lies and absurdity.

I'm still incredulous that any president of the US could sit there and babble such incoherent nonsense, yet still apparently be taken seriously by some rather than being immediately thrown into a strait jacket.

The absurdity is perhaps even outstripped the by the hypocrisy. The same yahoos supporting this idiotic pathological liar would have been screaming for blood if Obama had ever even once put in such a deceitful idiot performance.

An idiot who thinks a cognitive test every normally functioning adult is expected to 'ace' is something to boast about. A test a child could pass he informs the interviewer is 'very difficult' and implies the interviewer himself couldn't do it.

To which the interviewer says he did do it, in which he was asked to and correctly identified a picture of an elephant. That's the level of task Trump is boasting about 'acing' 🤣
 

 

I have never seen, or heard, anyone as thick as that galoot.

I suppose it makes complete sense that right wing, evangelical Christians love him.

[JFK-1]

33 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said:

I have never seen, or heard, anyone as thick as that galoot.

I suppose it makes complete sense that right wing, evangelical Christians love him.

 

It's idiocracy come to pass.
 

 

[kila]

Can we give Trump the placebo vaccine?

[Maple Leaf]

Any adult who doesn't score 100% on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment should consult with a doctor, because there is a problem.

 

Any adult who thinks that the MCA is a difficult mental challenge should be sitting in the Ozarks, drinking moonshine, and plucking on a banjo.

[JFK-1]

Welcome to the United States of ‘Idiocracy’

 

Article published June 30th

 

Quote

When Mike Judge’s movie “Idiocracy” came out in 2006, almost no one saw it. (The film grossed less than $500,000 at the box office.) Now everyone should see it.

Luke Wilson plays an average Joe who is put into suspended animation and reawakens 500 years later to find himself the smartest person in America because everyone else has gotten so dumb.

The No. 1 TV show features contestants being hit in their private parts; crops are watered with a sports energy drink, causing a famine; and the president is a former wrestler and porn star who curses freely and fires automatic weapons on TV.

In other wealthy democracies, coronavirus cases have been plummeting. In the United States, they have risen 80 percent over the past 14 days.

On Monday, the United States reported more than 40,000 new cases, while the European Union, which is more populous, had fewer than 6,000. The number of confirmed coronavirus deaths in the United States is approaching 130,000, more than twice as many as in any other country.

It is easy, and correct, to blame this epic failure on abysmal leadership. We have an irrational, incompetent president who spent months denying the reality of the disease (remember when he claimed it would “miraculously” go away by April?), while suggesting cures including a risky malaria drug and bleach injections.

Now President Trump is holding rallies in places such as Tulsa, where the disease is surging; campaign aides even removed signs from the arena urging rallygoers to practice social distancing. Trump is planning a Republican convention in a state, Florida, that has become a new hot spot of the disease. How idiotic can you get?

The presidency’s idiocy is matched by that of Republican governors in states such as Florida (where coronavirus cases increased by 277 percent in the past two weeks), Texas (+184 percent) and Arizona (+145 percent).

They were slow to declare lockdowns and quick to end them. They also refused to impose statewide mask mandates — and, in the case of Texas and Arizona, tried to prevent municipalities from imposing their own rules — even though studies show that wearing masks can reduce transmission by as much as 85 percent.

This toxic imbecility is getting people killed. But recall the adage that “every nation gets the government it deserves.” Trump and the Trumpy governors did not seize power by force. They were elected by constituents who, in some cases, see masks as the spawn of the devil.

An Ohio state legislator said, “I don’t want to cover people’s faces” because “we’re created in the image and likeness of God.” A Palm Beach, Fla., woman complained that masks “throw God’s wonderful breathing system out the door,” while a fellow Palm Beach resident denounced mask advocates for “practicing the Devil’s law.”

A North Carolina woman burned a mask, complaining that it represented “nanny state overreach.” Wait till these freedom-lovers find out about speeding laws, seat-belt laws and drunken-driving laws, which restrict their “right” to get wasted and careen down the highway at 95 mph without a seat belt.

Granted, few Americans are as maniacal in their opposition to the basic dictates of public health. But far greater numbers seem recklessly indifferent to them.

A 30-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz., man went drinking with his buddies and even shared drinks with them in a “super packed” bar. A few days later, he woke up with a 103-degree temperature. “I didn’t take this seriously,” Jimmy Flores now admits. “I didn’t think I was gonna get covid.”

There are a lot of Jimmys. While two-thirds of Americans told Pew Research Center pollsters that they wear masks in stores or other businesses, fewer than half say most people in their area do so.

And far fewer Republicans or lean-Republicans (72 percent) than Democrats or lean-Democrats (88 percent) say they wear masks all or some of the time in those settings.

Trump won 62.9 million votes in 2016. If only a third of Trump’s supporters refuse to wear masks, that’s roughly 19 million Americans who are potential superspreaders.

Add roughly 8 million similarly irresponsible Democrats — most of them presumably young and clueless — and you have the makings of an out-of-control pandemic.

We can and should hold our leaders responsible, but ultimately, we have no one but ourselves to blame. Nobody forced so many Americans to act so recklessly — first by placing their faith in a president who doesn’t deserve it, and now in ignoring widely publicized scientific findings.

We are living — and now dying — in an idiocracy of our own creation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/30/welcome-united-states-idiocracy/

 

[JFK-1]

3 minutes ago, Maple Leaf said:

Any adult who doesn't score 100% on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment should consult with a doctor, because there is a problem.

 

Any adult who thinks that the MCA is a difficult mental challenge should be sitting in the Ozarks, drinking moonshine, and plucking on a banjo.

 

The very fact he thinks it's difficult is suggestive that he has a cognitive infirmity.

[Maple Leaf]

10 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

The very fact he thinks it's difficult is suggestive that he has a cognitive infirmity.

 

Yet he is the President of the USA, with a roughly 50% chance of getting elected for another four years.  Now THAT is a disturbing thought. 

 

Just imagine Trump with nothing on his mind except appointing judges to the Supreme Court, and getting the 22nd Amendment repealed.

[franko1874]

[franko1874]

[ri Alban]

Snorting Lego is bad for your mental health. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by ri Alban

[kila]

I can't believe that Franko guy is for real

 

 

[Maple Leaf]

21 minutes ago, franko1874 said:

 

It wasn't the Zionist Mafia that killed Kennedy, it was the Chicago Mafia, headed up by Sam Giancana.

 

But that was in 1963, so what has it to do with a thread on Donald Trump in 2020????

[Maple Leaf]

24 minutes ago, franko1874 said:

 

If all those "powerful" people set out to rig the 2016 election in favour of Hilary Clinton, they sure did a shit job, didn't they?

 

Nobody has anything to fear from those incompetents.

[The Real Maroonblood]

10 minutes ago, kila said:

I can't believe that Franko guy is for real

 

 

[Lovecraft]

34 minutes ago, franko1874 said:

[Lovecraft]

38 minutes ago, franko1874 said:

[Justin Z]

[EH11_2NL]

1 hour ago, Maple Leaf said:

Any adult who doesn't score 100% on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment should consult with a doctor, because there is a problem.

 

Any adult who thinks that the MCA is a difficult mental challenge should be sitting in the Ozarks, drinking moonshine, and plucking on a banjo.

I googled this and spat coffee everywhere. Is this the actual test the Trumpet took and claims has made him an intellectual colossus??? A normal 7 year old should pass this. It's not really Trumpet that grips my shit. He's nuts but doesn't know he is nuts. It's his redneck, inbred, banjo-playing, God fearing trailer trash followers that worry me. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by EH11_2NL

[JFK-1]

31 minutes ago, EH11_2NL said:

I googled this and spat coffee everywhere. Is this the actual test the Trumpet took and claims has made him an intellectual colossus??? A normal 7 year old should pass this. It's not really Trumpet that grips my shit. He's nuts but doesn't know he is nuts. It's his redneck, inbred, banjo-playing, God fearing trailer trash followers that worry me. 

 

Yes that's the very one, challenges like draw a clock, and put the clock hands at 11:10. Then can you identify these pictures of different animals.

If you can draw a clock, tell the time, and know what an elephant looks like you 'aced' it, like Trump. He thinks it's an IQ test which even if it were as you say a child could 'ace'

 And claimed this was the response of doctors administering the test.
 

Quote

I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors and they were very surprised. They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anyone do what you just did.’ ”

 

🤣

[kila]

They should, as a wee surprise, see if Trump is willing to do the same one he passed live on air.

 

"Oh I happen to have the very test in front of me on this laptop Mr President. Shall we do a few questions again together so our viewers can agree on the difficulty?"

 

[JFK-1]

13 minutes ago, kila said:

They should, as a wee surprise, see if Trump is willing to do the same one he passed live on air.

 

"Oh I happen to have the very test in front of me on this laptop Mr President. Shall we do a few questions again together so our viewers can agree on the difficulty?"

 

 

You can be guaranteed he wouldn't, but they could easily get someone else to do it, hell I would do it. Then see if we get another rare result like Trumps. What are the odds we would? How rare exactly is it?  🤣