Before the debate. Or during, if you happen to need it….
“Sex Bomb” performed by the Red Army Choir
You’re welcome.
"what digby sez..."
Month: October 2020
Who knows? But they seem to think the exposure happened earlier than they’ve admitted. The Daily Beast reports:
On the same day President Trump acknowledged contracting the coronavirus, the White House quietly informed a veterans group that there was a COVID-19 risk stemming from a Sept. 27 event honoring the families of fallen U.S. service members, the head of that charitable organization told The Daily Beast.
The White House warning, which came on Oct. 2, is the earliest known outreach to visitors of the complex that there was a risk of coronavirus emerging from the grounds where the president, the first lady, and at least 17 of his aides, according to Politico, have now tested positive for the virus.
The Sept. 27 event to honor Gold Star families came the day after the White House hosted a celebration for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that appears to have been an early source of the White House outbreak, though West Wing officials have quietly disputed that linkage. It is unclear to the head of the veterans charity—the Greatest Generations Foundation—which participant’s potential positive coronavirus test sparked the warning.
“The White House has been in daily contact with TGGF for contact-tracing purposes after alerting us on 10/2 of a possible COVID-positive person at the event so we could know there was a potential our attendees were exposed,” said the Greatest Generations Foundation’s president and CEO, Timothy Davis.
Pictures from the Gold Star family event, which Trump attended, show minimal mask wearing and social distancing. It took place indoors, though attendees said they were tested prior to attending. A Republican close to the White House also told The Daily Beast that others present at the event received outreach from a White House office—though not the medical office—late last week urging them to get coronavirus tests. The source described a chaotic scene in the White House as it tries to manage the internal outbreak.
“The communication breakdown during this is even worse than usual,” this source said. “Different departments and offices are not talking or communicating appropriately, people are doing different things, and officials are having trouble getting on the same page. The East Wing and the West Wing are dealing with this totally differently. It’s just a mess.”
[…]
The White House has repeatedly said that it only contacts individuals who may have come within six feet of a White House personnel member in the 48 hours preceding their positive test. The outreach to Davis raises questions about whether there were any COVID-positive individuals in attendance at the event. Trump’s top aide, Hope Hicks, tested positive September 30, three days after the gathering and pictures from the ceremony do not show her in the audience.
The Gold Star families event was attended by the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Charles W. Ray. The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that Ray tested positive for coronavirus, prompting “self-quarantining” from several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior military leaders Ray met with last week. Also at the event were Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who has tested negative, and Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The article goes on to describe a very haphazard “contact tracing” program being handled by an in house team, apparently. They are as good at that as they are everything else.
It’s a petrie dish in that White House.
And now the Covid-carrier in chief is wandering around like it’s all over because — wait for it —- he personally found the miracle cure:
He’s laying it on a little bit thick, don’t you think? And I’m not just talking about the make-up.
Brad Dechert and his wife, Jennifer Schickram, believe the threat posed by the coronavirus has been overstated. Credit…Mark Makela for The New York Times
The latest sojourn into Trump country reveals that they are still a bunch of jerks:
Entering Ted’s Bar and Grill on Monday, Tim Girvin briefly slid on a “Trump 2020” face mask, before whisking it off to join friends at a table for lunch.
He said those few seconds were the only time he wore a mask all day.
“I have my own business and I don’t have anybody wear a mask in my business,” said Mr. Girvin, a used-car dealer. “I don’t buy into it. When you look at the facts, with how many people die of influenza every year. Obesity kills more people than the Wuhan virus does.”
On the day that President Trump defiantly left the hospital where he was being treated for a coronavirus infection and returned to a White House that appears to be one of Washington’s most contagious hot spots, backers of the president in rural Pennsylvania showed no signs of questioning their own defiance of experts’ advice on how to limit the virus’s spread.
In the Lebanon Valley east of Harrisburg, where support for Mr. Trump remains particularly strong, the president’s failure to protect his family and inner circle from the virus was not seen as a reflection on his inability to protect Americans, as the death toll passed 210,000.
On the contrary, Trump loyalists echoed misinformation that the president has spread for much of the year, as he has sought to minimize the threat of the virus to aid his re-election.
Voters who support the president falsely claimed that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on deaths and cases were wrong, that getting the virus was no worse than getting the flu, and that it was introduced and kept in the spotlight only by Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponents.
“Who do you think brought this into the country?” said Mr. Girvin, who has shared posts on Facebook that independent fact checkers have labeled misinformation. “Joe Biden has enough nerve to say Donald Trump’s killing people? No. The far-left liberals are causing this. The Pelosis, the Soroses and all these people, that’s who caused it. And I wish them all the worst.”
As interviews with Mr. Girvin and others make clear, Mr. Trump has managed to politicize science during a public health crisis, something that historians will likely look back on as a defining aspect of the coronavirus pandemic.
Scoffing at masks, social distancing and crowd avoidance — all measures recommended by health experts, including in the Trump administration — has become a test of loyalty for fervent supporters of the president, who mocked Mr. Biden’s masks during their debate last week and, on returning to the White House on Monday from the hospital, ripped his off, despite being highly contagious.
Brad Dechert, a Trump supporter who visited a Walmart here on Monday without a mask, said, “I like my freedom” on leaving the store, and pronounced Covid-19 as “nothing more than a flu, really.’’
Pennsylvania requires face coverings indoors in all locations open to the public, and most businesses, including Walmart, post notices warning patrons not to enter without one. But a store greeter identified by her vest as a health ambassador said she had no power to stop the 10 percent of shoppers who refuse to cover up.
“Younger people’s more safe,” said Mr. Dechert, 31. “Older people have an issue. Nobody batted an eye for the flu. Now all of a sudden, it’s an election year — Covid.”
Mr. Dechert, a volunteer firefighter who served overseas with the National Guard, said he thought the C.D.C.’s count of 209,000 deaths from Covid-19 as of Monday was grossly inflated.
“Say I have it and I get tested five times, that’s five new cases,” he said. “I know for sure, through E.M.T.s, they count it separately.” (This misconception, spread on social media, has been rebutted; the C.D.C. reports total cases and total tests separately.)
His wife, Jennifer Schickram, 33, a homemaker, said with equal conviction that health providers exaggerate cases to collect higher payments. “They want the extra benefits that are going to come out of listing people as Covid,” she said.
“We all die at some point,” Mr. Dechert added. “So, hey, I grew up in this America where you could have freedom, go out about your own business. Cool. Hey, if I get it and I die, awesome.”
[…]
Ms. Jones said she recently sold a child care business because so many parents were working from home that demand for her services plummeted.
The president “had one of the greatest economies going before it happened and the liberal left does not like that,” she said. “They couldn’t impeach him. They couldn’t do anything about the Russia collusion. So then they were colluding with China, they bring in the virus.”
Asked where she got her news, she said, again gesturing to her young niece: “I was just telling her, don’t go to the news sources. Go to different podcasts.”
She mentioned podcasts by the conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager. In April, Mr. Prager called coronavirus lockdowns “the greatest mistake in the history of humanity.’
God help us.
I find this to be more and more infuriating. These people are willfully ignorant at this point. And while it’s true that they have a right to kill themselves, as stupid (and expensive) as that is, they really do not have a right to kill other people which they are either too stupid or too callous to be concerned with. How can we be expected to show such people compassion and respect as fellow citizens?
I just don’t want to hear any more about how these people have been overlooked or disregarded. We’ve seen their true colors. They only care about themselves. In fact, they don’t even do that.
Now, it’s very true that Trump was hit by a global pandemic just like every other country in the world. But there is no doubt that his response has led to a much worse economic performance than it would have had if he’d dealt with it responsibly and effectively. We know this because other countries did a whole lot better than we did:
Trump and his braintrust could not accept that they needed to contain the virus if they wanted to get the economy working again.
It’s true that some of those countries are experiencing the expected winter surge and will no doubt have some economic turbulence to go along with that. But it remains true that the United States has experienced the worst response to the virus and the worst economic consequences due to Trump’s inept leadership.
Here’s a little progressive porn from Never Trumper Steve Schmidt to give you a thrill up your leg. (Hey, we deserve some red meat once in a while too!)
So former Fox News mouthpiece Greta VanSusteran complained that Schmidt is rude. Lol. This is what followed:
Schmidt replies:
You’ve never beaten me at anything. This is our first dance. @realDonaldTrump. Did you like #covita?
In case you haven’t seen “Covita” here it is:
We are so much better at this than your team of crooks, wife beaters, degenerates,weirdos and losers. You are losing.
We heard you loved Evita. You saw it so many times. Where will you live out your years in disgrace? Will you buy Epstein’s island? One last extra special deal from him? Or will you be drooling on yourself in a suite at Walter Reed? Maybe you will be in prison?2 I bet you fear that.
@ManhattanDA may not be around to cover for you or your crooked kids anymore. @elizaorlins doesn’t believe in different sets of rules for the Trump’s. What about the State AG? You know what you’ve done. Oh Donald.
@realDonaldTrump who do you owe almost $500 million in personally guaranteed loans to? Its’ all coming down. You think you and your disgusting family are going to be in deal flow next year? Are you really that delusional?
You are lucky Chris Wallace interrupted you after @JoeBiden said you weren’t smart. You started to melt down. That’s the place that hurts the most. Right? Fred SR knew it. You’ve spent your whole life proving it. You aren’t very smart. You couldn’t take the SAT’s on your own. What was the real score? 970? We both know you know.
Are the steroids Wearing off? Is the Euphoria fading? Do you feel foggy? Tired? Do you ache? How is the breathing? Hmmm.
Are you watching TV today @realDonaldTrump? We will have some nice surprises for you. Everyone is laughing at you. You are a joke. A splendid moron turned deadly 🤡 clown.
Did you watch @MarthaMcSally in her debate against American hero, fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut @CaptMarkKelly. She is so embarrassed by you. She is ashamed and full of self loathing for the choice she made in following you over the cliff. She is in free fall now. She will Lose; like most of them, because of you @realDonaldTrump.
We hear from the WH and the campaign everyday. They are betraying you. They are looking to get out alive and salvage careers and their names.
It’s @IvankaTrump and @jaredkushner vs @DonaldJTrumpJr and @kimguilfoyle on the inside. They are at war over scraps and who gets to command what will be the remnants of your rancid cult. It’s almost over now.
You are the greatest failure in American history @realDonaldTrump. You are the worst President in American History. Disgrace will always precede your name. Your Grandchildren and great grandchildren will grow up ashamed of their names.
One day I suppose there will be some small and not much visited library that bears your name. It will be the type of place where a drunk walks by, staring at the wall for a minute, before deciding it is beneath his dignity to piss on. @realDonaldTrump That’s what is waiting for you.
@JoeBiden is a better man. He’s smarter. He’s winning.
Do you remember when you didn’t want to name @DonaldJTrumpJr Donald because you were worried about him being a loser named Donald. You were right about that. He is. But it is you @realDonaldTrump who will be remembered as America’s greatest loser. You will be crushed in the election. Shhhhhhhh.
I know it’s cheap and tawdry and probably beneath me to enjoy such a take-down. I can’t say I’m particularly proud of the feeling it gives me. But Donald Trump is killing people. He is a monster. And I need to vent my horror at what he and his GOP henchmen and accomplices have done to this country or I’ll make myself sick.
This helps, if only for a moment. 🙂
President Trump spent Tuesday night tweeting madly for hours about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and various conspiracy theories about the 2016 election. Twitterati speculated that his experimental drug cocktail and steroid treatment for COVID-19 might be making him manic and grandiose. But how could you tell, really? This is pretty much his normal modus operandi. The only reason one might suspect that his drug treatment was contributing to the burst of energy and wild commentary is that he is a 74-year-old man with co-morbidities who has been seriously ill with a disease that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. Since he didn’t even make one of his “proof of life” videos on Tuesday, it’s possible someone else was tweeting for him. But in the end the best guess is that Trump was lying in bed with Fox News on as usual, scrolling through his Twitter feed and incoherently venting his spleen — just as he might do on any other Tuesday night.
Sick or high or just having a normal one, it is perfectly understandable that Trump would be melting down in spectacular fashion. His only concern for the last four years has been getting re-elected for four more years, and that’s not going well at all at the moment. This tumultuous last couple of weeks brought him only one piece of good news: the death of a beloved liberal icon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The insensitive glee with which Trump and his GOP accomplices greeted that event, and their shameless hypocrisy in insisting on filling the seat just weeks before the election, was a true high point for the Republicans this year. I hope they enjoyed their moment, because everything that’s happened to them since then has amounted to an epic train wreck.
While Republicans were still swilling champagne, the New York Times reported out a major exposé based upon Trump’s long-hidden tax returns. It turns out he didn’t bother to pay federal income taxes in most recent years — apparently that’s for the little people. In normal times that would have been a huge scandal, but Trump managed to distract everyone away from that by acting like a deranged barbarian in the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, quickly followed by the news that the White House had become a major COVID cluster, with dozens of people diagnosed with the virus, including the president, the first lady, at least three senators and several of Trump’s top aides and campaign officials.
After all that, I think we’ve all been wondering how the American people would react. From the looks of the polling so far, they’re not pleased. In fact, the vast majority seems to believe that Trump and his administration were asking for trouble and they got it.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll released on Monday, 63% said Trump acted irresponsibly in handling the risk of getting the virus and giving it to others. Only 33% said he had done the right thing, which means even some of his own voters aren’t impressed with his actions. And 69% said they couldn’t trust what the White House was saying about Trump’s health. Considering the Soviet-style propaganda campaign they’ve been running at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that’s no surprise.
Election polling is no better for Trump. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has Biden up by 14 points nationally, as does a new FPU/Herald poll. CNN/SSRS has Biden up by 16 points. Nate Silver at 538 says getting COVID has hurt him in more ways than one:
The White House is apparently in total chaos, which isn’t really news, but there does seem to be a certain desperation that isn’t always present. This is likely because of Trump’s atrocious messaging to the public over the past few days, in which he’s pretending he has “beaten” the virus with his strength and virility, and telling people to stop letting the virus “dominate” their lives. But there are those who willingly ride along and amplify his message:
The lack of empathy in that comment even makes a Fox News host do a double take. But the attitude reflected there absolutely reflects the ongoing thinking of the Trump administration and Republican officials, even with a major outbreak amid their own ranks. They clearly don’t care that most people can’t get the kind of medical treatment they have available, much less the full-spectrum VIP care the president receives. Those who die, as Trump would say, are obviously losers. They let that virus dominate them.
So too, apparently, are the millions of people still on unemployment, facing eviction, losing health insurance and unable to feed their families. The long delayed second stimulus seemed to be gathering some steam in the last week or so with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin deep in negotiations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with a couple of major sticking points (help for state and local governments and a $400 weekly stipend on top of unemployment insurance) yet to be hashed out. It was unclear whether they could finally come to terms but any hope for that was dashed when Trump awakened from one of his COVID fevers and tweeted that he was pulling out of all talks for a stimulus and would only resume them if he wins the election. He instructed McConnell to put all of his focus on getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Considering that recent polling suggests that 74% of voters want the government to prioritize COVID relief over confirming Barrett, it was bizarre for Trump to take the blame for the collapse of the talks. But perhaps the sickly president was being manipulated:
It sounds to me as if McConnell has given up and just wants to make sure he gets his justice on the court before the whole house of cards collapses.
Someone must have wised the president up to the fact that he had made a massive blunder, because by late Tuesday night he had reversed field and was issuing edicts about stand-alone bills to rescue the airline industry and send $1,200 checks out immediately. Apparently it dawned on him that trying to blackmail people into voting for him might not be the smart move. Maybe someone was able to explain to him that getting money to people before the election could actually be helpful. But who knows?
The fact is that that we have a president in the grips of a serious virus which is known to have serious neurological effects on many people who contract it. He’s also on some strong drugs that can have unpredictable side effects. Even on a good day, Trump never fully understands the governing aspects of his job, nor does he care about anything except how it affects him personally. The country is in the hands of someone who is clearly unable to carry out his duties and he’s making disastrous decisions that affect the lives of tens of millions of people.
In other words, it’s business as usual in Washington.
Why? Because Donald Trump is an odious ignoramus and the Republican Party has enthusiastically enabled him every step of the way.
Tim Alberta in Politico writes:
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The president has a problem with female voters. Yes, this has been observed by every pollster, every political professional, in both parties over the past four years. Trump has been briefed on it—time and again—by his team, who warned him that the 2018 Democratic wave could repeat itself without a course correction. But what we’re seeing now, in polling conducted by both parties, isn’t a wave. It isn’t even a tsunami. It’s something we don’t have a name for, because we’ve never seen anything like it. The president’s standing with women voters of every race, every educational background, every socioeconomic stratum, has fallen off. But when it comes to the white, college-educated women who made up a sizable chunk of Trump’s base—he won 44 percent of them against Hillary Clinton—his numbers have collapsed entirely.
The president, seeing ominous signs of this earlier in the year, sought to scare these voters back into his camp, warning of an assault on the suburbs and violence visiting their families and communities. But this tactic appears to have backfired. Recent internal polling from Republicans and Democrats alike suggests that Trump’s law-and-order messaging alienated far more women than it attracted.
This isn’t just a problem for Trump in purple states. Last week, I heard from one of the smartest Republicans alive, a longtime party operator who lives in a state Trump carried by double digits. He told me the polling he was seeing there was something out of a nightmare; these were numbers he never expected to see in his lifetime.
The only thing more dizzying than that? I had another conversation, with another dependable red-state Republican, the very next day, and heard the very same thing. Both of these men were sounding the alarm, alerting me that Trump could actually lose their states, and would at the very least drag down a number of down-ballot Republicans, because women have turned on the GOP at a historic clip.
His bully act isn’t a hit with women. No doubt there are women who like a 74 year old crude brute who wears a lot of make-up and brags and whines and insults everyone constantly. We see them at the rallies. They work in the White House and run for the Senate. But it appears that their numbers are shrinking dramatically.
The Republican party has been a macho, authoritarian party for a very long time. But Donald Trump’s cartoon caricature of masculinity finally exposed what they were about to many women who’d been hoodwinked into thinking they were at least honorable and patriotic. It’s obvious now what they really are.
The question we really have to start asking isn’t why so many women have abandoned Trump and the Republicans but rather why so many men are sticking with him.
Things are looking so bad for the acting president’s reelection, even Vladimir Putin is hedging his bets. While noting former Vice President Joe Biden’s “sharp anti-Russian rhetoric,” Biden’s willingness to engage in talks to limit strategic weapons “is already a very serious element of our possible cooperation.”
Trump? Biden? Whatever.
Poor Donald.
Putin’s flexibility may be more than a President Biden gets from compatriots in his country’s conservative party, as Digby reminded Twitter on Tuesday:
Count on it.
Josh Marshall thinks temporarily Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning for a change in his status as well, and to shift into trench warfare no matter how overwhelming a Democratic victory in November.
Get out there and vote. Get your friends to vote. Your relatives. Your neighbors. They’ll need to develop political muscles for the fight that comes after we win this one. And no matter what the polls say, that’s not a sure thing.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
One would not expect American enemies to ignore mental incapacity at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Or to miss taking advantage of it. After all, neutering the U.S. has been Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wet dream for years.
So, longtime readers may recall international friction over fishing rights and sea lanes in the South China Sea have been brewing for many years. The U.S. Navy has conducted a string of freedom of navigation exercises — which hit an all-time high in 2019 — to remind China that the U.S. and our Southeast Asian partners reject its territorial claims in the disputed waters.
Meanwhile on this side of the planet, half of U.S. states are reporting an increase in new COVID-19 cases. The White House is now a “ghost town” and a designated a coronavirus “hot spot.” Staff are reportedly afraid of infection and angry that Trump “has little intention of abiding by best containment practices.” Even former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway’s 15-year-old daughter, Claudia of Tik Tok fame, has tested positive for Covid. (What happens in the Trump White House, doesn’t stay in the Trump White House.) Chaos reigns as Trump’s reelection chances circle the drain.
What an opportunity for foreign adversaries.
Did you notice the Joint Chiefs of Staff are under quarantine? With Acting President Donald Trump infectious with COVID-19, drugged-up and, in between tweeting furiously, likely making doodles upstairs in the Residence, China now feels it has a freer hand (New York Times, Oct. 5):
The soldiers run through the forest, through the surf, through smoke and flames, ready to die for the motherland. The video, one of a series that has recently appeared online in China, climaxes with the launch of nine ballistic missiles and a fiery barrage of explosions.
“If war breaks out,” a chorus sings, “this is my answer.”
Chinese propaganda is rarely subtle or particularly persuasive, but the torrent of bombast online and in state media in recent weeks is striking and potentially ominous.
The targets are China’s main adversaries: the United States and Taiwan, which are moving closer and closer together.
The propaganda has accompanied a series of military drills in recent weeks, including the test-firing of ballistic missiles and the buzzing of Taiwan’s airspace. Together, they are intended to draw stark red lines for the United States, signaling that China would not shrink from a military clash.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is asserting his country’s claims in the South China Sea while facing pressure to “revitalize Manila’s security cooperation with the United States against the need to preserve his country’s economic ties with Beijing.” Lacking much of a navy, there is little Duterte can do but posture.
Dwindling fish stocks in the South China Sea are driving fishermen in the region farther from shore where they face ramming and harassment from Chinese vessels in contested waters.
But not to worry. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on the job. He began meetings in Tokyo this week with diplomats from Australia, India and Japan aimed at strengthening ties among regional allies as China flexes its muscles and amps up militaristic propaganda. And the Russian military gave Putin a successful hypersonic missile test today for his 68th birthday.
Donald Trump wishes he had a hypersonic missile he could salute as it rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But short of that, even sick, sinking in the polls, and his administration in disarray, the acting president wants you to know the U.S. is still strongly.
Update: Should have read “enemies,” not allies, 1st p. SMH.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Everyone knows that Trump has been “downplaying” the pandemic. He admitted it on tape. He has defied all the guidelines and encouraged others to do it too, for months and months.
So when he got it … guess what?
Catching coronavirus has been disastrous for President Trump’s re-election hopes, with support for the president plummeting since news of the infection broke, allowing Democratic nominee Joe Biden to open a commanding double-digit lead, a new Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll shows.
The nationwide poll reveals that instead of a sympathy factor for Trump, there’s been a stunning drop in the Republican president’s poll numbers since he revealed his diagnosis last Friday.
In two days of polling before Trump got COVID, the president trailed Biden by just a 46-41% margin. In the three days of polling after the coronavirus diagnosis, Biden held a 55-34% lead. That means Biden’s lead grew by a whopping 16 points from pre-COVID to post-COVID.
Among all the 1,003 registered voters in the nationwide Franklin Pierce-Herald poll, Biden now holds a 51-37% lead over Trump less than a month before Election Day. Three percent support a third party candidate while 8% say they are still undecided.
This is the third 14 point or higher lead in the last few days.
I’m sure he”s turning that around with his doubling down on ignoring the virus and telling people that he’s refusing to negotiate for any economic relief unless they vote for him will turn that right around.