Tag: Trump putting his re-election above American lives

Trump Spends Rally Downplaying Coronavirus And Making Racist Jokes

Speaking in a state where coronavirus cases are surging enough to repeatedly set new daily infection records, President Donald Trump told a crowd of young Arizona supporters that everything was under control.

“Someday it’ll be recognized by history,” he said of his pandemic response while speaking at a campaign-style event at Dream City Church, hosted by the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA.

This is “hopefully the end of the pandemic,” Trump told an audience of about 3,000 college students, most of whom did not wear masks.

There’s little to indicate that. Arizona is one of several states that, with Trump’s urging, followed an aggressive reopening schedule. Now it’s averaging about 2,500 new cases daily, a 94% increase from last Monday. Infections are rising in more than half of the U.S. states, with other alarming surges in Texas and Florida. Continue reading.

Police Arrest Peaceful Protester Sitting Alone By Trump Rally Venue

The woman was sitting on the ground wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt. Trump campaign staff wanted her out.

At the request of President Donald Trump’s campaign staff, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, arrested a single peaceful protester in a black “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt who was sitting outside the venue where Trump is expected to hold a rally on Saturday.

Officers could be seen grabbing the protester by her armpits shortly before noon before dragging her off. She was accused of trespassing, though she said that she had a ticket to the rally.

The Tulsa Police Department said that the woman, a Tulsa resident named Sheila Buck, was in a secure area accessible only by ticketholders. Continue reading.

Tulsa arena asks Trump campaign for detailed health plan as Oklahoma Supreme Court hears arguments about rally

Washington Post logoThe managers of the arena in Oklahoma where President Trump plans to hold a controversial campaign rally requested on Thursday that the Trump campaign provide a detailed written plan outlining “health and safety” measures ahead of the event to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to a statement from the venue

The rally is planned for Saturday evening at the BOK Center, a 19,000-seat venue in downtown Tulsa. According to the arena management’s statement, the campaign has already said it will offer masks, hand sanitizer and temperature checks to everyone who attends. The statement added that facility staffers will be tested for the coronavirus and that the venue will be “cleaned and disinfected repeatedly throughout the event, with special emphasis on high-touch areas.”

A number of Tulsa residents and business owners, alarmed by the prospect of a large-scale outbreak of coronavirus if the rally proceeds, have sued the venue manager attempting to block the event unless it is held in accordance with social distancing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A Tulsa County judge on Tuesday denied the request for a temporary injunction, but the decision was appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Continue reading.

Live updates: Coronavirus cases surge in Florida and California; Trump says testing is ‘overrated’

NOTE: This article is being provided free of charge by The Washington Post.
Washington Post logoAs novel coronavirus caseloads continue to surge across the South and West, Arizona announced 2,519 new cases on Thursday morning, Florida announced 3,207, and California reported 4,084. All are new highs.

Coronavirus hospitalizations in Arizona have doubled since Memorial Day, with public data showing inpatient beds across the state at 85 percent capacity. Most of California’s new cases — 2,115 — are in Los Angeles County. Florida announced 43 new deaths, and its rolling case average hit a new high for the 11th straight day.

Florida is on track to becoming the “next large epicenter” for the coronavirus in the United States, according to new modeling from PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which linked the spread in community transmission to travel during Memorial Day weekend. Continue reading.

Trump threatens to withhold Michigan, Nevada funding over mail-in voting

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Wednesday threatened to withhold federal funding to Michigan after its secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson (D), announced all of the state’s registered voters would receive applications for absentee ballots in the mail this year.

Trump falsely claimed that Benson sent ballots, and not ballot applications, to the state’s registered voters and alleged that the step was done “illegally.” The president threatened to withhold funding if the state did not reverse course, suggesting its move would encourage voter fraud. Trump later threatened to suspend federal funding to Nevada, which is holding a mail-in primary election, claiming the state was creating a “great Voter Fraud scenario” and allow people to “cheat in elections.”

“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” Continue reading.

Trump is gambling the health of the nation for his reelection

Washington Post logoMany of us are not surprised to see President Trump putting his own welfare above that of the nation. But why would he embrace a policy that seems to jeopardize his own reelection? That is more of a puzzle.

Trump is busily inciting people across the country — and especially in swing states— to ignore public health guidance on limiting the spread of covid-19 and resume socializing and working in the riskiest of ways. Modeling masklessness, he welcomes any sabotage of orderly reopening. “The place is bustling!” he exulted, after Wisconsin’s Supreme Court struck down stay-at-home orders.

Such recklessness, in defiance of his own administration’s guidance, risks igniting new waves of the disease. That could lead not only to thousands more deaths but also to further devastation of the economy. It’s not far-fetched to think that this blowback could arrive with the cooler weather next fall — just as people are voting in the presidential election. Continue reading.

A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis

New York Times logoBy smearing his opponents, championing conspiracy theories and pursuing vendettas, President Tru​mp has reverted to his darkest political tactics in spite of a pandemic hurting millions of Americans.

Even by President Trump’s standards, it was a rampage: He attacked a government whistle-blower who was telling Congressthat the coronavirus pandemic had been mismanaged. He criticized the governor of Pennsylvania, who has resisted reopening businesses. He railed against former President Barack Obama, linking him to a conspiracy theory and demanding he answer questions before the Senate about the federal investigation of Michael T. Flynn.

And Mr. Trump lashed out at Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger. In an interview with a sympathetic columnist, Mr. Trump smeared him as a doddering candidate who “doesn’t know he’s alive.” The caustic attack coincided with a barrage of digital ads from Mr. Trump’s campaign mocking Mr. Biden for verbal miscues and implying that he is in mental decline.

That was all on Thursday. Continue reading.

Reviving the US CDC

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen in the USA with 1·3 million cases and an estimated death toll of 80 684 as of May 12. States that were initially the hardest hit, such as New York and New Jersey, have decelerated the rate of infections and deaths after the implementation of 2 months of lockdown. However, the emergence of new outbreaks in Minnesota, where the stay-at-home order is set to lift in mid-May, and Iowa, which did not enact any restrictions on movement or commerce, has prompted pointed new questions about the inconsistent and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation’s public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus. The strained relationship between the CDC and the federal government was further laid bare when, according to The Washington Post, Deborah Birx, the head of the US COVID-19 Task Force and a former director of the CDC’s Global HIV/AIDS Division, cast doubt on the CDC’s COVID-19 mortality and case data by reportedly saying: “There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust”. This is an unhelpful statement, but also a shocking indictment of an agency that was once regarded as the gold standard for global disease detection and control. How did an agency that was the first point of contact for many national health authorities facing a public health threat become so ill-prepared to protect the public’s health?

In the decades following its founding in 1946, the CDC became a national pillar of public health and globally respected. It trained cadres of applied epidemiologists to be deployed in the USA and abroad. CDC scientists have helped to discover new viruses and develop accurate tests for them. CDC support was instrumental in helping WHO to eradicate smallpox. However, funding to the CDC for a long time has been subject to conservative politics that have increasingly eroded the agency’s ability to mount effective, evidence-based public health responses. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration resisted providing the sufficient budget that the CDC needed to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis. The George W Bush administration put restrictions on global and domestic HIV prevention and reproductive health programming.

The Memo: Gulf grows between Trump and scientists

The Hill logoThe distance between President Trump and the nation’s top scientists is growing wider by the day.

On Thursday, Rick Bright, the whistleblower who says he was unjustly ousted from his position leading a biodefense unit within the Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress that “lives were lost” because of the administration’s failures.

Bright also lamented what he sees as the lack of a comprehensive strategy to meet the once-in-a-lifetime threat.  Continue reading.

Trump says testing may be ‘frankly overrated’

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Thursday suggested the practice of widespread coronavirus testing may be “overrated,” even as health experts insist it is critical to safely loosen restrictions and reopen businesses.

Trump boasted about the United States’s testing capabilities during remarks at a Pennsylvania medical equipment distribution center, where he announced the country has administered 10 million tests since the outbreak began.

“We have the best testing in the world,” Trump told employees at Owens & Minor Inc. in Allentown. “Could be that testing’s, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated.” Continue reading.