We should just hang onto this thread until January 20, 2025. It will be (already is) a worse mess than Trump inherited the first time.

 

They doubled down...

 

Republicans are ready to die of COVID to spite Biden

Amanda Marcotte, Salon
November 09, 2021



Trump supporters at Stop the Steal rally outside Minnesota State Capitol. (Photo credit: Chad Davis)
COVID-19 is increasingly a red-state phenomenon. Among the many statistical analyses that demonstrate the remarkable effectiveness of the vaccines, perhaps the starkest are those that reveal a dramatic divergence in pandemic severity between red and blue states. As David Leonhardt of the New York Times pointed out on Monday, before we had vaccines, there "simply was not a strong partisan pattern" to the spread of disease. But after vaccines became widely available — and especially as Republican voters refused to vaccinate in large numbers — "a gap in Covid's death toll quickly emerged." Now that difference "between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month," Leonhardt wrote, to the point where counties where a large majority voted for Donald Trump have a death rate "more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties."

Leonhardt tweeted out these statistics in chart form, as well.

The vaccines proved so powerful, and the partisan attitudes toward them so different, that a gap in Covid's death toll quickly emerged.
It has grown over the course of this year and is now at its widest point. pic.twitter.com/pyWKHl4Ann
— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) November 8, 2021
Late last month, Duke sociologist Kieran Healy broke down the county-level data even further, showing that the death rate is proportional to the strength of Republican partisanship.

The polarization of death.https://t.co/dYE5b5zXh3 pic.twitter.com/zVd36PLBoa
— Kieran Healy (@kjhealy) October 30, 2021
It's tempting, both on the left and in mainstream media circles, to write off these differences as a matter of ignorance versus information. Leonhardt gently phrased this narrative in his piece as a matter of "irrational fears about vaccine" caused by disinformation "promoted by right-wing media." Social media takes are a little more blunt, about how dumb yokels in red areas are stupidly falling for vaccine misinformation while the big brains of blue America believe in science.

RELATED: Conservative radio host who called himself "Mr. Anti-Vax" dies of COVID-19

But the truth is much darker than that. As one person who replied to Leonhardt on Twitter noted, it's less about irrational fears of the shot and more that it "became a badge of honor to remain unvaccinated" and was even seen, among many Republicans, as "[t]raitorous to cave" and get the jab. Yes, there are some morons who really believe that the disease is a hoax or that vaccines contain sinister ingredients. But it's unlikely that most conservatives are that dense. After all, they tend to live in communities where hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and Facebook memorials to the dead are popping up on a daily basis. Millions of them can see the toll that vaccine resistance is taking on their communities, but they're digging their heels in anyway.

No, the darker and harder truth is that this isn't really about intelligence or ignorance. It's about ideology, and specifically, about how far a good chunk of the GOP base has become radicalized toward the politics of insurrection. More than half of Trump voters claim they want to secede from the union, and nearly a third say violence is a legitimate means to impose their will on the rest of the country. Endorsement of violence rises to nearly half of Republicans if the question is abstracted to the idea that "a time will come" for such tactics.

In light of this, the willingness to roll the dice with COVID-19 makes more sense. Vaccine refusal is being presented in right-wing media as a noble act of resistance against Democratic "tyranny." Any effort to prevent the disease — even among children — is increasingly viewed as an attack on red-state America. After the Jan. 6 insurrection failed, the radicalized members of the GOP have had few options to exercise their militaristic fantasies against Joe Biden's administration. Refusing the vaccine isn't as sexy as taking up arms against the government, but it still plays with the glamorous notion of putting your body on the line for your political views — until the threat stops being abstract and you end up in the hospital, that is. War is always more romantic in fantasies than in reality.

RELATED: Biden didn't "fall short" of July 4 vaccination goal — he was sabotaged by Republican trolls

Notably, Republican leaders aren't much interested in risking their own lives through vaccine refusal. Fox News even has a corporate vaccine mandate. But that's even more evidence that vaccine refusal is structured along the metaphor of wars and armies. The base voters are the foot soldiers, risking it all on the front lines, while the leaders give orders from the safety of their vaccinated bubble.

This whole thing may sound ridiculous, but, in truth, the strategy is a smashing success — at least so far. This was evidenced by the results of last week's off-year election, when Democrats — demoralized by many things, but especially the ongoing pandemic — failed to turn out in numbers to compete with the fired-up GOP base. If this continues into the midterms, the already dim prospects for Democrats will get much worse.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

This is what Republicans need to happen if Trump's next round of election-theft scheming is to be successful. The Jan. 6 insurrection was always doomed to failure because Republicans simply didn't have the votes to give Trump what he wanted, which was the overthrow of the 2020 election results. Being able to steal the White House for Trump in 2024 depends on Republicans seizing enough power electorally between now and then to invalidate Democratic votes on both the state and federal level. Refusing vaccines and prolonging the pandemic is one small way that the average GOP voter can do their part to help make the next coup stick.

That said, the situation is not hopeless. For one thing, evidence shows that GOP vaccine refusal can mostly be overcome with vaccine mandates. The resistance fantasies of vaccine refusers tend to crumple pretty quickly once real consequences come into play, as the relentless drumbeat of deathbed-regret stories demonstrates. Moreover, as Leonhardt writes, "red America has probably built up more natural immunity to Covid — from prior infections — than blue America." Immunity from infection is less effective than immunity from vaccination, but both are contributing to the rapid decline in case rates since the summer peak. There's a real chance that the army of vaccine refusers falls apart like so many armies do — by attrition. By this time next year, the story may very well be about how Republicans bet big on this vaccine-refusal strategy, and the only thing they accomplished was killing off their own people by the thousands.



https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-are-ready-to-die-of-to-spite-biden/

 

Former Trump official Michael Caputo broke federal law by silencing health officials: documents

Brad Reed
December 13, 2021



Michael Caputo (Screen Capture)


Former Trump administration official Michael Caputo violated federal law by ordering officials at the Department of Health and Human Services to stop talking with reporters.

Buzzfeed News' Jason Leopold has obtained documents showing that Caputo illegally told HHS officials that there were "no exceptions" where they would be allowed to speak to the media without his explicit permission to do so.

Timothy Cheng, an attorney in the Office of Special Counsel's investigation and prosecution division, concluded last month that Caputo's directives violated federal law because they did not inform HHS employees of their rights under federal whistleblower laws.

"OSC notified HHS of the missing notification and requested that HHS revise the Playbook to incorporate and prominently display the statutory language," wrote Cheng. "Besides correcting the Playbook, the revisions also provide a corrective action for Mr. Caputo’s actions, given that he cited the Playbook for his authority."



Freddy Martinez, a policy analyst at transparency advocacy group Open the Government, said said Cheng's ruling "confirms that Trump-era officials unlawfully gagged scientists during the outbreak of the pandemic” and "is an important step in holding government officials accountable for their secrecy during the pandemic.”

Caputo last year stepped down from his position at HHS after he went on a paranoid rant accusing President Joe Biden and HHS staffers of plotting a coup against former President Donald Trump.

https://www.rawstory.com/michael-caputo-hhs/

 

‘Unprecedented political interference’: Bombshell House report finds Trump Admin ‘undermined’ COVID response

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
December 17, 2021



President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, delivers remarks at a coronavirus update briefing Sunday, March 15, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)



A massive, bombshell report published Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveals the Trump administration engaged in "unprecedented political interference" in the work of scientific experts, including at CDC, and "was responsible for a series of critical failures that undermined the nation’s ability to respond effectively to the coronavirus pandemic."

One heading from the 46-page report reads: "The Trump Administration’s Persistent Political Interference in the Pandemic Response Contributed to One of the Worst Failures of Leadership in American History."

In a devastating revelation the report adds that "Trump Administration officials purposefully weakened" CDC's "testing guidance to reduce the amount of testing being conducted and obscure how rapidly the virus was spreading across the country."

The Select Committee finds administration officials "championed a dangerous 'herd immunity' strategy inside the White House—including by arranging a roundtable event between then-President Trump and a fringe group of herd immunity proponents—that would have placed millions of lives at risk."

It alleges it has new evidence showing that "Trump White House officials blocked CDC briefings and media appearances, and attempted to sidestep CDC in finalizing coronavirus guidance. The Select Subcommittee also uncovered evidence showing that Trump White House officials neglected the pandemic response to focus on the 2020 presidential election and promote the Big Lie that the election results were fraudulent."

But the Trump administration's failures date back to the very beginning of the pandemic, the reports reveals, with the administration ignoring warnings from its own officials to obtain critical supplies including PPE (personal protective equipment) which ultimately led to medical professionals including doctors and nurses being forced to wear trash bags and reuse medical-grade face masks for days and weeks at a time.

The report often avoids accusing specific individuals but in one damning example it says career scientists were "instructed to destroy evidence of political interference."

A "CDC official confirmed...she was instructed to destroy evidence of political interference by a Trump Administration political appointee. The CDC official told the Select Subcommittee that she understood this instruction—which 'seemed unusual' and made her 'uncomfortable'—came from then-CDC Director [Robert] Redfield.

The report also delves in to massive fraud and waste, and while not using the word "corruption " offers concerning examples of the administration's interference in coronavirus programs. Trump White House officials were involved in the approval process of the Treasury' Department's approval of a $700 million loan to one trucking company.

"Reports have raised serious doubts that [the trucking company] satisfied the criteria to be deemed 'critical' to national security and questioned its use of funds." That one loan represented 95 percent of the entire program's funding.

https://www.rawstory.com/unpreceden...report-finds-trump-admin-undermined-response/

 

New Studies: Pandemic Began in Market, Not With Lab Leak

Two new studies have concluded that a market in Wuhan, China—and not a lab—was the source of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times reports that the research has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal but could shift the debate over how the virus started infecting humans in late 2019. “When you look at all of the evidence together, it’s an extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market,” Michael Worobey, a co-author of the studies, told the newspaper. But Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said he is unconvinced. “I think what they’re arguing could be true. But I don’t think the quality of the data is sufficient to say that any of these scenarios are true with confidence.”

Read it at The New York Times


https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-s...ic-began-in-market-not-with-lab-leak?ref=home

 

I don't think anyone in the world would believe the media with what happened during the last 30 years. After all, Treachery and Tyranny and the path to the Magna Carta. Treachery means lying, deceiving and ignorance is the root of all human suffering. Science is a philosophy. Epistemology is the study of the limits of knowledge. The word Hubris from the bible and renamed Narcissism are know it all’s, psychopaths. I follow the true movie Lorenzos Oil and I have been following his method. This is the Richard Feynman technique. I do this in order to solve my own pain and suffering. Our Founders guaranteed We the People life, liberty, liberty means freedom and the pursuit of happiness. All you have to do is research anything that causes pain, suffering, fear. Terrorism means the same thing. If we expose the truly stupid they do not stand a chance of looking smart. Even Albert Einstein said he was stupid, so what does this make the Narcissist. I am still looking for a way to prevent narcissism from forming.

 

Reckless Assholes Went Out Driving More During Pandemic, Causing Spike in Traffic Deaths: Study

Researchers say they think they’ve figured out why there was a surge in traffic deaths across the U.S. during the pandemic even though there were far fewer cars on the roads—risk-averse drivers stayed at home, while dangerous drivers went out more than usual. An AAA study reported by The Washington Post found 4 percent of drivers increased their time on the roads during the pandemic. They tended to be young, male, and more likely to speed, read texts while driving, not wear seat belts, or drive under the influence of alcohol or weed. “We saw this small group of people who were driving more than they did before the pandemic were the same people who were the highest-risk drivers on the road,” explained AAA senior researcher Brian Tefft. The researchers said they can’t explain why younger men were out on the roads more during the pandemic, but vowed to look into it. Around 38,680 people died in traffic accidents in 2020—the highest figure in over a decade in the U.S.

Read it at Washington Post


https://www.thedailybeast.com/reckl...-spike-in-traffic-deaths-study-finds?ref=home

 

Shooter noted that trend as well.
When he went out during the pandemic shutdown he noted that more assholes were on the road, getting in his way, making it more difficult for him to keep his speed up above 100, and he also noted he had to be more vigilant while trying to read his text messages while driving.

*sarcasm off

 

Emails show Mehmet Oz pushed Jared Kushner and the White House to use an anti-malaria drug as a Covid treatment, which the WHO later strongly recommended against
Matthew Loh
Thu, August 25, 2022 at 1:03 AM·4 min read




According to newly revealed emails, Dr. Mehmet Oz offered to "personally recruit patients" to test hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatment drug.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

• 
  Emails show how Dr. Mehmet Oz directly promoted an anti-malaria drug for Covid to the White House.
  
  
• He emailed two senior advisers, asking to push for the drug before clinical trials were complete.
  
  
• Clinical studies said the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is not effective as a COVID-19 treatment.
  

Recently released emails from 2020 show how Dr. Mehmet Oz, now the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, promoted an anti-malaria drug as a COVID-19 treatment directly to the Trump White House in the early stages of the pandemic.

The emails were unveiled on Wednesday in a report from the Select House Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. They contain messages from Oz to senior White House advisers, including Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Deborah Birx, who was the administration's coronavirus response coordinator at the time.

Oz had emailed Birx and Kushner separately in March 2020 — a time when the US was still finding its footing in its fight against the virus — urging them to push hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 before clinical trials were complete.

In his message to Birx, Oz asked for the US to start patient trials for the drug as early as possible and requested that US doctors be allowed to start administering it as a Covid treatment if trials weren't possible.

"We cannot hide behind study protocols if we are not allowed to proceed," he wrote.

"I want to push brave Americans to join trials on my show tomorrow, but cannot without a game plan for accessing drugs," he added. Oz wrote that he would "personally recruit patients and pay for a trial," but was having trouble finding the anti-malaria pills.

He cited the testimony of French microbiologist Dr. Didier Raoult, who said the drug was effective in clearing 24 patients of COVID in a test that wasn't randomized or peer-reviewed.

The same drug was also championed by Trump at around the same time as a treatment for the coronavirus, even though there was no clinical evidence that replicated the results reported by Raoult.

Hydroxychloroquine had been one of many drugs that researchers were racing to test amid the pandemic, but multiple studies later found it doesn't work as a COVID-19 treatment. In March 2021, the World Health Organization also strongly recommended against using of the drug to prevent Covid infections.

Clinical trials a 'plodding process': Oz
On the same day that Oz emailed Birx, he also emailed Kushner promoting a faster rollout of hydroxychloroquine to combat the pandemic.

He noted that the Trump administration and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, wanted to conduct randomized trials for the drug before declaring it a COVID-19 treatment.

However, Oz wrote that while these clinical trials were ongoing, the White House "could immediately authorize physicians" to use a drug mixture involving hydroxychloroquine and another drug, azithromycin, to treat Covid patients.

"In addition, you should outline that 130 million hydroxychloroquine pills are coming into the market which can treat 5-10 million people and offer an accurate time-table for additional supply to slow down the coronavirus," Oz wrote to Kushner.

When Kushner responded saying that clinical trials for the drug were starting that week, Oz replied that such studies would be "a plodding process which will take a month before we have results."

He encouraged Kushner to make trials for hydroxychloroquine a "national priority and insist on immediate enrollment."

"It has been almost a week since we learned of the French data and over a month since the Chinese data and we still have no patients in trials," he wrote. "Doctors and nurses are already struggling to find pills for off-label use, but at least we have a potential pandemic solution at our fingertips."

Kushner replied: "What do u recommend to speed it up?"

A week after Oz emailed the two advisers, he sent Birx another message saying that early studies on hydroxychloroquine showed that the drug "was safe and results are better than expected."

The email thread shows that Birx forwarded the email to Stephen Hahn, who was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration at the time. "We should talk," her email read.

The messages from Oz are part of a larger report from the House Committee that accused senior officials in the Trump administration of pressuring the FDA to authorize unproven treatments for emergency use against COVID-19.

Hydroxychloroquine had been one of the main drugs that Trump advisers pushed to get reinstated for emergency authorization, per the report.

In June, Birx testified before the committee investigating the coronavirus crisis that people were communicating with the Trump dangerous ideas about hydroxychloroquine "on a daily basis."

Oz did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/emails-show-mehmet-oz-pushed-070303734.html

 

Report shows Trump 'deliberately and repeatedly' undermined COVID-19 response

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
August 25, 2022



President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, delivers remarks at a coronavirus update briefing Sunday, March 15, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)


White House officials during the tenure of former President Donald Trump "deliberately and repeatedly" pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize unproven and potentially dangerous Covid-19 treatments, while working to derail the agency's vaccine guidance ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a congressional report published Wednesday revealed.

"Senior Trump administration officials undermined public health experts because they believed doing so would benefit the former president politically."

The report, published by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, is the second installment in a series documenting what the panel calls the Trump administration's "rampant political interference with the federal public health response" to a pandemic that has now killed more than 1,040,000 people in the United States.

The publication states that "the Trump administration's nearly yearlong crusade against FDA resulted in damaging consequences for the coronavirus response: Morale inside the agency cratered, and public confidence in FDA's scientific integrity was shaken in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic."

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn told the committee that Peter Navarro, who headed the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, "exerted inappropriate pressure" on the FDA to renew the emergency use authorization for the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment, even after it was shown to be ineffective and possibly dangerous.

Additionally, Trump officials "sought to generate outside support for hydroxychloroquine by engaging known extremists and prolific conspiracists like former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Dr. Jerome Corsi, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons."

Furthermore, the report contains extensive new evidence that Trump officials, including Navarro, conducted government business using private email accounts—a potential violation of the Presidential Records Act.

"The select subcommittee's findings that Trump White House officials deliberately and repeatedly sought to bend FDA's scientific work on coronavirus treatments and vaccines to the White House's political will are yet another example of how the prior administration prioritized politics over public health," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who heads the panel, said in a statement.

"As today's report makes clear, senior Trump administration officials undermined public health experts because they believed doing so would benefit the former president politically—plotting covertly with known conspiracy theorists to dangerously push a disproven coronavirus treatment, bullying FDA to change its vaccine guidance, and advocating for federal investigations into those who stood in their way," he continued.

According to the new report, Trump officials:

• Orchestrated coordinated pressure campaigns to reauthorize and expand use of hydroxychloroquine;
• Pushed to authorize use of convalescent plasma—which used blood from people who have recovered from Covid-19—ahead of the 2020 Republican National Convention, while "grossly misrepresenting the data" on the therapy; and
• Attempted to derail the FDA's Covid-19 vaccine guidance ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

"These assaults on our nation's public health institutions undermined the nation's coronavirus response," said Clyburn, "and are precisely why we must never again settle for leaders who prioritize politics over keeping Americans safe."



https://www.rawstory.com/house-repo...rately-and-repeatedly-undermined-19-response/

 

Now anon, if you attack stumbler like that you'll get your ass handed to you.
You should know by now that stumbler doesn't tolerate dissention.

 

Are you that dumb that you could figure out I was talking about Trump?

Yes, you are!

 

Well, Shooter wasn't so worried about who you were talking about as he was rubbing your nose in your own ugly sentence structure.
Triggering you was just a bonus.

 

Trump blamed his supporters in 'the radical right' as the reason he didn't get the credit he thought he deserved for COVID vaccines while advising politicians not to 'make a big deal' out of the pandemic, book says
Taiyler Simone Mitchell
Wed, September 28, 2022 at 6:24 PM·2 min read




Then-President Donald Trump taking his mask off before speaking at a rally from the South Portico of the White House in Washington, DC on October 10, 2020 shows.Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

• 
  A new book reveals that former President Donald Trump told his aides not to wear masks in his presence.
  
  
• The book, by reporter Maggie Haberman, also said Trump told aides to avoid discussing the pandemic on TV.
  
  
• Haberman's book also reported that he told then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo not to "make such a big deal out of this."
  

Former President Donald Trump had conflicting approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote in her upcoming book.

Haberman, also a CNN political analyst, has done extensive reporting on the former president. In her book, "Confidence Man," Haberman reported that Trump would tell White House aides to remove face masks in 2020, the height of the pandemic, according to a Washington Post report detailing parts of the book ahead of its release.

"Get that fucking thing off," Trump once said during a meeting referring to the mask, Haberman wrote.

By contrast, the former President also sought credit for COVID-19 vaccines but argued that the "radical right" was in the way of that, Haberman reported, according to The Post.

The report, citing Haberman's book, also said that Trump would discourage White House aides from discussing the pandemic publically while downplaying the seriousness of the crisis.

The Post, pointing to Haberman's book, added that Trump did so because he believed the virus was "a political loser for him."

Reuters reported that his approval ratings decreased by 22 points in October 2020, sitting at a record-low 37% approval, as much of the public was displeased with how he handled the virus.

"Don't talk about it on TV," Trump reportedly told Republican National Committee's chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, the Post said quoting Haberman's book.

The report added that the MAGA President, who has claimed that he "did a great job" tackling the issues brought on by the pandemic, also told Andrew Cuomo, the former New York Governor, not to "make such a big deal out of this," per Haberman's book.

"You're gonna make it a problem," he added.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-blamed-supporters-radical-reason-002412795.html

 

What with all the promotion stumbler is doing around here for Maggies new book, she ought to give him an autographed copy.

Course, if she knew his reputation around here maybe not. A recommendation from stumbler isn't really ....

 

Trump officials interfered with CDC guidance for political purposes, House panel finds

324
Nathaniel Weixel
Mon, October 17, 2022 at 12:16 PM·4 min read




The Trump administration regularly interfered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) process for developing and issuing guidance about the coronavirus, changed scientific reports and undermined top public health officials, a congressional panel said Monday.

The House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis said interviews, emails and other documents obtained by the panel showed how political appointees in the Trump administration took control of CDC’s public communications and overruled scientists in an effort to bend the agency to Trump’s rosy outlook on the pandemic.

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield and other top agency staff described to the committee how the White House required CDC guidance to be reviewed by officials at the Office of Management and Budget, who ultimately had veto power over the content even though many had no background in infectious diseases.

The CDC’s former top deputy, Anne Schuchat, and others told the House panel that more Americans would be alive today if the Trump administration had allowed CDC to provide the clear messaging and accurate guidance that public health experts had been consistently calling for.



Political appointees altered or interfered with guidance documents for faith communities, a meatpacking plant, polling locations and voters, restaurants and bars, and coronavirus testing, according to a report from the select committee.

Redfield told committee staff that agency guidance was “compromised” at times, and that the process of getting approval from non-CDC officials gave him “PTSD.”

The House panel has been investigating Trump-era political interference in the coronavirus response for the past two years. The report released Monday is the third installment and offers additional details into how the CDC operated in the early part of the pandemic.

The panel concluded political interference has caused lasting harm to CDC staff morale, as well as a loss of credibility in the nation’s public health institutions.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the panel’s chairman, said the report shows that the previous administration “engaged in an unprecedented campaign of political interference” in an effort to “downplay the seriousness of the coronavirus.”

“This prioritization of politics, contempt for science, and refusal to follow the advice of public health experts harmed the nation’s ability to respond effectively to the coronavirus crisis and put Americans at risk,” Clyburn said in a statement. “As we continue to recover from the coronavirus crisis, we must also continue to work to safeguard scientific integrity and restore the American people’s trust in our public health institutions.”

In one instance, Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, described how the prior administration blocked a mask requirement for public and commercial transportation in the summer of 2020.

“The evidence was scientifically there” to support a mask requirement, Cetron said, but “despite what seemed like a fairly broad consensus, ultimately that decision was made and we were told that there would be no such use of federal authority for masking in a transportation corridor.”

Cetron said having such a requirement “could have made a significant contribution” to reducing the spread of the virus, especially during the winter surge of 2020.

Cetron also criticized a federal immigration order, known as Title 42, that allowed mass expulsions as the U.S.-Mexico border. Cetron said the order “was not drafted by me or my team,” but was instead “handed to us.”

The order prevents migrants from entering the country on asylum claims, and was cited as a way to prevent the spread of disease.

Cetron said he recalled participating on calls about the order during which then-senior White House adviser Stephen Miller spoke.

“I was concerned that there may be a motivation that was beyond the specific public health agenda,” Cetron said.

He noted that hard border closures “don’t really work as intended,” and other measures such as quarantines, masking and testing would help mitigate coronavirus infections on the southern border.

Still, Redfield signed the order, and it’s been in place ever since.

The Biden administration has used Title 42 to deport nearly 2 million migrants, sometimes returning individuals back to Mexico on the same day, and other times taking weeks to repatriate men, women and children to dangerous conditions in Haiti.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-officials-interfered-cdc-guidance-181640384.html

 

I think its interesting to got back and look at the pattern of treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans for all Trump's years in office. Trump was their Chosen One and infallible. And so no matter what it was when Trump really fucked up his cult followers would have to jump and make up excuses for him and lie for him picking some point in the middle to blame someone or something else.

Just like this. This thread was started on March 30, 2020 saying don't blame Trump. But don't blame him for what? The lack of ventilators as thousands of people were already dying every day because the virus had spread coast to coast. Because Trump had done worse than nothing. Trump not only didn't have a plan and did the opposite of what the healthcare and infectious disease experts were saying needed to be done, at the same time he was also just lying to the American people and had been lying to them from the beginning. And was even lying to his own son if we can believe his own words which we can almost never do.

Trump was and is literally and clinically mentally ill. And not only didn't have the mental capacity to deal with COVID he could mt have cared less about the American people. They were meaningless to Trump and the only thing that mattered was his own ego and political expediency. And there is no one else to blame for that other than Trump and the treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans that supported and continue to support him. It is mind boggling they can hate the United States of America and Americans that much.


Bob Woodward Was Stunned By What Trump Told Young Son Barron About Coronavirus
Lee Moran
Tue, October 25, 2022 at 3:19 AM



Watergate journalist Bob Woodward on Monday recalled a comment from former President Donald Trump that led to him being “as stunned as I’ve ever been as a reporter.”

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN Tonight,” Woodward shared audio of Trump telling him what he told his youngest son, Barron Trump, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. The audio was part of recorded interviews for Woodward’s 2020 book “Rage,” now released separately as “The Trump Tapes.”

Talking to Woodward on March 19, 2020, Trump said Barron, then 13, asked what was going on and he answered: “I said, it came out of China, Barron. Pure and simple. It came out of China. And it should’ve been stopped. And to be honest with you, Barron, they should’ve let it be known it was a problem two months earlier ... the world wouldn’t have a problem. We could have stopped it easily.”

“CNN Tonight” host Jake Tapper acknowledged that blame did lie on the Chinese government for covering up the initial spread of COVID-19. But he reminded viewers of how Trump himself had been warned of its potential dangers ― and chose to do nothing.

At the time of that particular interview with Trump, Woodward said he had no idea of the warning the then-president had received from his own national security advisers about the virus.

When Woodward learned of the warning, he said he listened to the tape again and concluded: “My God, Trump is conning not just me but his son and he is laying out, ‘Oh this could have been fixed, the Chinese could have done something about it.’” ”

“Donald Trump could have done something about it by being honest and warning the public that he as president has constitutional and moral responsibility to do,” Woodward continued.

Watch the interview here:



https://www.yahoo.com/news/bob-woodward-stunned-trump-told-091902598.html

 

tax free
rent free
The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t (yahoo.com)
no matter, mid terms approach.
Karma is a bitch, eh?