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How to slant the news

W_Heisenberg said:
Trump's response to the pandemic hasn't been great. Has it been abysmal? Probably not. He has actually been doing some things reasonably well. However, Trump is ultimately responsible for what happens in the executive branch, so if the federal apparatus fails to do its job properly, whether it's a political appointee or a career official, it's ultimately Trump's fault. The biggest mistake Trump made early on was not preparing for enough test kits. We are now flying blind because of this error in judgment on Trump's part. The second mistake was not acting quickly enough to have the country produce enough PPE and respirators. I think his personality defects are definitely hurting our country. I wouldn't necessarily describe him as a psychopath as psychopaths lack empathy, and I think Trump has some empathy for others, but it's a big, big problem if he's demanding Governors kowtow to him in return for federal assistance. That's messed up. Someone who was more psychologically stable and/or normal wouldn't be acting the way Trump is acting.
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The problem with the tests was because the CDC had trouble making a good test that worked. Understandable, it's not so easy. Then the FDA made it hard to get tests approved, trying to be careful but the wrong decision in this case. None of that was caused by Trump.

I agree Trump is good at saying the wrong thing sometimes. But I also think he is working hard at trying to save the country. Whether for his own ego or for all of us, or both.
 
Good4Nothin said:
So he compared Trump to the Chinese leaders, not to the leaders of any other western democracy.
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Here... Look at the slopes to see who flattened the curve the best so far and who did the worst... Yes, USA is the worst of ALL.

covid_curve_flattening_us_vs_others_mar26_20.jpg
 
Chomsky said:
Firstly, he needed to have a proper team in place to analyze and prepare for epidemic/pandemic response. Instead, he disbanded the pandemic response team.

Secondly, he should have been testing and tracking from day one. But he had no tests. (cf "firstly" above)

Thirdly, he had several months to prepare our health system with adequate supplies like PPE. He didn't. (cf, again, "firstly")

But here's the very real thing: These errors are costing lives. This is no academic exercise. My city is lit-up. And I have a very important person to me that is at risk. I take this very personally. So should you. So should everyone else. Because we're all getting hurt here, and it's not acceptable. Not in our republic.
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Blame the virus, not the fallible humans who are doing their best with an impossible task. And do some fact-checking -- Trump did not disband the pandemic response team. And the CDC had trouble developing the test, and the FDA made it too hard to get approved. Fallible humans in fallible agencies. You can't possibly blame this all on Trump, even though you would love to.
 
buck said:
Dr Fauci says quartening them would not be helpful and would complicate the response. You say otherwise. Hmmmm. Who trust?

Also, the government of ny threatened to sue and declared that decision to an act of war. The suit, he likely would have won. Too bad trump can't be a dictator like they have in china, I suppose
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I did not say that Trump needed to be the one to do it and "social distancing" is just a please quarantine. Dr Fauci fully supports it as a "travel advisory".
 
Good4Nothin said:
My question was about whether other leaders of western democracies have done much better. I mentioned Cuomo, the governor of NY, who also hesitated to take extreme measures.

Why are Democrats not criticizing Democrats for any of their mistakes. They are not criticizing the CDC or the FDA for their mistakes, which greatly delayed testing.

I am trying to see if anyone can be fair and unbiased.
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On the off chance that you will conform to the same standard that you want to enforce on others, this article and video contrasts the responses by South Korea and the United States.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Whoops, that need for (widespread?) testing meant that COVID-19 was already here.
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Whoops I never said that. Initially you use pinpoint testing, contact tracing, then further testing based upon what you find.

Your use of he also seems to imply that no other person, much less level of government, has any responsibility for public health in response to a contagious disease (without federal funding and control?). If that is the case, then we were screwed no matter who happened to be POTUS.
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He's the chief executive officer. If he's not responsible, who is?
 
W_Heisenberg said:
Trump's response to the pandemic hasn't been great. Has it been abysmal? Probably not. He has actually been doing some things reasonably well. However, Trump is ultimately responsible for what happens in the executive branch, so if the federal apparatus fails to do its job properly, whether it's a political appointee or a career official, it's ultimately Trump's fault. The biggest mistake Trump made early on was not preparing for enough test kits. We are now flying blind because of this error in judgment on Trump's part. The second mistake was not acting quickly enough to have the country produce enough PPE and respirators. I think his personality defects are definitely hurting our country. I wouldn't necessarily describe him as a psychopath as psychopaths lack empathy, and I think Trump has some empathy for others, but it's a big, big problem if he's demanding Governors kowtow to him in return for federal assistance. That's messed up. Someone who was more psychologically stable and/or normal wouldn't be acting the way Trump is acting.
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You are forgetting some others

- he destroyed effective response system to this sort of situation in prior years and left the country unprepared (from removing the pandemic response team that was supposed to handle this, to installing puppets at CDC and cutting their funding, etc)
- he installed ineffective leaders based on their ass kissing at the top of the critical agencies like Alex Azar who was in charge of this before Pence
- his let the virus spread on the cruise ships and then allowed release of those passengers to medical professionals without proper PPE
- he installed censorship tzar Pence over the healthcare professionals and disallowed them to speak about the danger. One example includes forbidding the advice of medical professionals for people over age of 60 to not fly
- he repeatedly and publicly downplayed the virus and convinced his supporters (a TON of them) that they don't need to worry and should go about their life as normal
- he failed to lead any kind of reasonable response from the top down
- he failed to have Fed Govt coordinating efficient distribution of supplies. Instead he has been leaving it to the states to fight between each other and also with the Fed Govt itself in the bidding process for ventilators and other supplies

These are just some that come to mind off the top of my head.
 
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Chomsky said:
1) Whoops I never said that. Initially you use pinpoint testing, contact tracing, then further testing based upon what you find.

2) He's the chief executive officer. If he's not responsible, who is?
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1) In order to need to test for COVID-19 in the US it must already be in the US (i.e. Trump had already failed to prevent that). I agree that testing, contact tracing and enforced quarantines would have been the best policy. That course of action was in not precluded by Trump's negligence to say so.

2) We have multiple levels (layers?) of government for that very (good) reason. This one huge reason not to have ever more power and expense transferred to the federal government level.
 
Good4Nothin said:
Blame the virus, not the fallible humans who are doing their best with an impossible task. And do some fact-checking -- Trump did not disband the pandemic response team. And the CDC had trouble developing the test, and the FDA made it too hard to get approved. Fallible humans in fallible agencies. You can't possibly blame this all on Trump, even though you would love to.
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He didn't disband them? Then who did? He's not in charge? He's the one that appointed Bolton!

As to the administration not being prepared with tests, PPE, proper warning, etc., who's in charge? Trump. If the Chief Executive Officer is not in charge, why do we need him? To feed us false narrative to better his personal self?

You want "fallible" Trump? You keep him. He's too "fallible" for us. (and 'fallible' is putting it far too kindly)
 
Good4Nothin said:
... Trump did not disband the pandemic response team ...
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Chomsky said:
He didn't disband them? Then who did? He's not in charge? He's the one that appointed Bolton!
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Video emerges showing Trump talking about cutting pandemic team in 2018, despite saying last week 'I didn't know about it'

He explained his reasoning for it:

Trump said:
I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them
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ttwtt78640 said:
1) In order to need to test for COVID-19 in the US it must already be in the US (i.e. Trump had already failed to prevent that). I agree that testing, contact tracing and enforced quarantines would have been the best policy. That course of action was in not precluded by Trump's negligence to say so.
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I'm not sure what's your implication of the bolded?

2) We have multiple levels (layers?) of government for that very (good) reason. This one huge reason not to have ever more power and expense transferred to the federal government level.
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Within reason. There's some things that can only be done at the national level to keep us safe. Pandemic response prevention & coordination, being a relevant example.
 
Good4Nothin said:
Trump has gone along with what the medical experts advised. He was reluctant at first, and was flexible and changed course because of the experts. You left all that out. That is what I mean by slanting the news.
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I quoted him undermining the message being given by his own experts. I didn't cite any news story - but Trump's own Tweet. And that was this week - just four days ago.
 
Chomsky said:
I'm not sure what's your implication of the bolded?

Within reason. There's some things that can only be done at the national level to keep us safe. Pandemic response prevention & coordination, being a relevant example.
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Really? Who has ordered 'non-essential' businesses to close? Was that "mandate" federal or not?

Who decides how many ventilators or hospital beds NYC needs or gets?

If the federal government is responsible then they would be fully expected to fund that responsibility, yet congress had not appropriated adequate funding to do so. We see this with federal immigration law enforcement as well - congress says illegal immigrants must be stopped/deported, yet offers inadequate funding to even pretend to secure the borders and/or arrest, prosecute and deport even 5% of the millions of illegal immigrants now living inside US borders.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Really? Who has ordered 'non-essential' businesses to close? Was that "mandate" federal or not?

Who decides how many ventilators or hospital beds NYC needs or gets?

If the federal government is responsible then they would be fully expected to fund that responsibility, yet congress had not appropriated adequate funding to do so. We see this with federal immigration law enforcement as well - congress says illegal immigrants must be stopped/deported, yet offers inadequate funding to even pretend to secure the borders and/or arrest, prosecute and deport even 5% of the millions of illegal immigrants now living inside US borders.
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Exactly. That's what they're supposed to do. But where were they when this thing was still preventable? Or at the least, "minimizable"? Where was the tests? Where was the guidance? The warning? The preparation? The supplies & provisions? None. It was all a hoax.
 
Chomsky said:
Exactly. That's what they're supposed to do. But where were they when this thing was still preventable? Or at the least, "minimizable"? Where was the tests? Where was the guidance? The warning? The preparation? The supplies & provisions? None. It was all a hoax.
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You could read about what delayed the tests. I have posted it several times in this thread.

And why are you focused on Trump, and never criticize any other world leaders?
 
Chomsky said:
Whoops I never said that. Initially you use pinpoint testing, contact tracing, then further testing based upon what you find.

He's the chief executive officer. If he's not responsible, who is?
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Didn’t happen on my shift!


I used to work at a 24/7 gas station/garage and the above was a mantra when questioned by the owner of some Charlie-Foxtrot that happened while he was away.............
 
Good4Nothin said:
You could read about what delayed the tests. I have posted it several times in this thread.

And why are you focused on Trump, and never criticize any other world leaders?
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Because we live here and not there?
 
Trump had a good run living off someone else's good economy.


He's lived off his dad's money forever too. He's use to this stuff.
 
Chomsky said:
Exactly. That's what they're supposed to do. But where were they when this thing was still preventable? Or at the least, "minimizable"? Where was the tests? Where was the guidance? The warning? The preparation? The supplies & provisions? None. It was all a hoax.
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I don't think that it was ever preventable (since no nation has been able to do that). I also do not think that the federal government can stop its spread, certainly not without 100% state and local government cooperation. Congress has seemed to have given up on anything except damage control (flinging out 'vote buying' cash to as many as possible?) now and has decided to hunker down in their safe spaces.
 
Good4Nothin said:
You could read about what delayed the tests. I have posted it several times in this thread.

And why are you focused on Trump, and never criticize any other world leaders?
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Trump is charged with protecting us. They are not.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
I don't think that it was ever preventable (since no nation has been able to do that). I also do not think that the federal government can stop its spread, certainly not without 100% state and local government cooperation. Congress has seemed to have given up on anything except damage control (flinging out 'vote buying' cash to as many as possible?) now and has decided to hunker down in their safe spaces.
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There may be things that are unpreventable, but not being prepared is not one of them. They had two months or more to order, stockpile, and produce supplies in preparation. PPE come specifically to mind.
 
Chomsky said:
There may be things that are unpreventable, but not being prepared is not one of them. They had two months or more to order, stockpile, and produce supplies in preparation. PPE come specifically to mind.
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Perhaps a quick check of what congress was very busy doing (almost to the exclusion of all else) "two months or more" ago is in order. House impeachment vote on Decemeber 18, 2019, followed by a long "seasonal" vacation and a Senate "trial" ending in an acquittal vote on Fedruary 5, 2020.

Impeachment of Donald Trump - Wikipedia

Maybe you can show me congressional action back then to secure more testing and PPE supplies, but I doubt it.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Perhaps a quick check of what congress was very busy doing (almost to the exclusion of all else) "two months or more" ago is in order. House impeachment vote on Decemeber 18, 2019, followed by a long "seasonal" vacation and a Senate "trial" ending in an acquittal vote on Fedruary 5, 2020.

Impeachment of Donald Trump - Wikipedia

Maybe you can show me congressional action back then to secure more testing and PPE supplies, but I doubt it.
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Because their was no pandemic response team to identify the threat, warn the administration, thereby mobilizing us into preparedness.

And don't start blaming the impeachment on Congress. Trump made that bed himself through his actions.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Perhaps a quick check of what congress was very busy doing (almost to the exclusion of all else) "two months or more" ago is in order. House impeachment vote on Decemeber 18, 2019, followed by a long "seasonal" vacation and a Senate "trial" ending in an acquittal vote on Fedruary 5, 2020.

Impeachment of Donald Trump - Wikipedia

Maybe you can show me congressional action back then to secure more testing and PPE supplies, but I doubt it.
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So what you're saying is, congress is now retroactively responsible for executive branch functions.

Okay.
 
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