I would have to look it up, but IIRC a lot of the sales occurred almost directly after an intelligence briefing stating the virus would get bad.

If the information was public, fine, but that's the problem. For most of the briefings Congress was getting the WH made them confidential, so she knew things the general public didn't. In essence she was insider trading and that should at least end her career in the Senate.

Agreed. Not only this, but when they start buying them back when the virus subsides, you can't blame them either. But I fully agree with #1, where if you want to be a public servant, you should not be allowed to own stock to remove any chance of impropriety.

Loeffler's stuff is questionable, but if a 3rd party is handled her selloff without any input from her or her husband then I don't think anything will come of it. Buying the Citrix stock nearly 2 weeks before the first signs of this really hitting the US became apparent looks shady as hell though.

I think Burr's timeline is far more questionable since he sold off the day of the record high without buying anything, again, nearly 2 weeks before it started to show here.

It's interesting that Loeffler bought Citrix shares the day after Burr had his selloff.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...irus-examined/



Burr's timeline:

Loeffler has dodged the question of whether she or her husband provided any information to their broker. I'm sure she's right when she says neither she or her husband sold anything, but that doesn't mean she didn't provide guidance through insider information.

Bwahahaha.


Reporter: "What about the uninsured? How will they get treated and not lose everything? You shut down the Obamacare Portal."


Trump: "Mike, take that one."


Pence: {5 minutes of utter nonsense, avoiding the question}


Trump then (deservedly) called Pence out for his utter b.s. answer.

Pence dodges a question from Fox on how Americans can get insurance during the coronavirus pandemic. After Pence finishes, Trump adds: "I think it's one of the greatest answers I've ever heard, because Mike was able to speak for five minutes and not even touch your question."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 1, 2020

President Trump: "Did you know I was number one on Facebook? I just found out I’m number one on Facebook. I thought that was very nice, for whatever it means." https://t.co/CCmRRA6993 pic.twitter.com/QcLddSPYd8

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 1, 2020

It was more than just buying Citrix. She also bought shares in a company that provides protective garments. Sold shares in retail outlets. This is not a big coincidence.

If this was a movie i would expect a group of generals remove him from office any minute ...

I've said before I wouldn't wish the virus on anyone, even Trump, but I'm starting to think it might not be so bad if it was Devin Nunes:


https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/polit...ols/index.html

I sure hope not because that would be such a cop-out.

As a country, we elected Trump and surrounded him with the protective cocoon of a GOP Senate.

And we need to live with those consequences--even through the worst times--to show people that decisions like that matter.

When you elect Trump as your President, then Trump is your President.

It isn't a game, and you don't get a reset button.

And that's true even if "Both parties are the same," or "I'm really more of a libertarian," or "I'm casting a protest vote," or "Neither candidate really speaks to me," or "I'm going third party this year."

When a political party becomes so demented as to nominate a Trump, you do everything in your power to keep him from becoming President. No exceptions. Period. Full stop.

Because the generals are not coming to save us.

There was a poll during the last election that showed 13% of people would rather an asteroid strike the Earth than have either candidate as president. So 13% of the people just said F it, kill me.

My point being, when both parties throw up shitshow candidates, dont blame the others just because you blindly pull the dem lever.

Neither party gave us a quality candidate. And this is the result.

Do you honestly think if Hillary were president right now things would be like this?

She was a deeply flawed candidate, but she isn't so much of a narcissist that she wouldn't default to the experts when she should have.

Meanwhile in Ventilator making hell

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

such poetry...

i used the term

snakey weasel before too
yours is more actionoriented

If one sincerely and honestly believes that Hillary Clinton was as bad of a candidate as Donald Trump, then nothing I can say will change your mind.

dola: Reading that, it comes off as more aggressive than I meant it.

I actually meant it honestly. To me, Trump was so much worse of a candidate than Clinton that I have trouble explaining it to someone who does not see it.

See, that is where Im not sure. You really dont think she is a narcissist? I mean, she let her husband get BJs in the oval office and let it go. Is that because she is just that forgiving or was it she had such a thirst for power that it just didnt matter.

Would she have handled this better? Probably. But the question is how much?

I dont know and we will never know. We can only speculate and that is usually clouded by our feelings and backgrounds.

My point was, put up quality candidates. Both parties are failing at this. And blaming people who refused to vote for either is wrong.

Fair enough, but I'm not even sure you need to question if Hillary would handle this better. Trump is quite literally the worst type of person in the world to handle this. Literally someone who would do nothing is better. For once he should be golfing.

And Im in the boat that both candidates were equally bad. It is opinion. But as I just said dont blame me for refusing to vote for 2 candidates that I felt were terrible. Blame your party for not getting the right people out in the right areas.

I would hope she would. Or would she get into the mindset that was her legacy moment and not listened to her advisers and just do what she wanted? Would she look to protect her wealthy friends first before the people? Probably not, but maybe she would.

I believe she would have given more of the bailout to the people than the corporations though. At least, I think she would have.

I thought the "if this was a movie" made clear how this was meant :) I have the luxury looking at this from the outside, although of course the US being 'driven' by a narcissistic maniac also impacts us living elsewhere.

Holllleeee shit. 10 million filed for unemployment over two weeks (3.3 last week, 6.6 this week).

The jobs report will show an uptick to 3.8 % (but that is because the numbers are finished off on the 15th of the month). After today's news, one economist said the realtime number is 10.1%

So basically, already one out of every 16 working americans lost their job in the last two weeks.

Yeah Clinton would be a far superior president if not just in terms of the difference in hubris and the mockery Trump has made of the oval office. However let's look just at this pandemic and please just explain what would Clinton have done any different (and better yet how do you know this?)

We have an entire world suffering similar to the United States...
We needed healthcare for all (like Italy?)
We needed less right wing leaders (Like Spain?)
A more respected leader (won't argue that but again what proof is there that this would do anything?)
A more authoritarian leader shutting everything down(ummm... okay so exactly the fears of pages 1-400 of this thread is what we now all claim we wanted)

The fact is it is all hindsight at this point. I would have expected Clinton's responses to be similar to Biden's about not being xenophobic or deBlasio's infamous "Go out on the town and enjoy yourself" tweet. I mean she for sure would have presented herself better and not been an ass to the media but why would we have any more testing kits that apparently don't exist anywhere? Why would the governor of FLorida who doesn't listen to Trump listen to her? Why would woodticks who think this is a hoax believe it if Clinton told them to shelter themselves?

A more interesting study would have been a Man in the High Castle type universe. Had Clinton made every single decision Trump made up until this point what would CNN's editorials say? What would Fox News say? Would certain FOFC members update us hourly about how awful she is?

I know some of you will take this as an exoneration of Trump but it's more of question of what would really be any different?

I think that it is more about competence than politics/policies.

I'm a liberal, but I would have rather had Jeb Bush in charge than Bernie to deal with COVID-19.

What we really needed was a great manager. And I think that that skill isn't really dependent on right/left politics.

dola:

I actually think that Bernie and Trump would have had very similar reactions to the virus. First, have dismantled the infrastructure we had in place to manage it because they are "outsiders." Second, yell at the virus to go away. Third, use it as an opportunity to attack the same old villains (immigrants and democratic governors in Trump's case; capitalism in Bernie's case).

First: What infrastructure do you think Bernie would've dismantled?

Second: Don't forget that Bernie would've wagged his finger

Third: I'm actually kind of surprised that Bernie isn't making a loud push for 'Medicare for all' right now.

I think its stronger to forgive then just to go down the fuck all, you're out camp. Shrug

double dola:

Romney would have been another good person to have in charge for COVID-19.

Yeah this is a great response and one I completely agree with. I guess I shake my head at the "blood on his hands" questions about Trump like Clinton (or another Republican leader besides Trump) would have had a death toll completely different than what we have despite evidence from the entire world that this virus is killing people everywhere. But she would be less concerned about optics of how great she is for sure.

Definitely. You can argue that some of the crises were partly her fault and she's far from uncontroversial, but Merkel over here is undoubtedly very good at managing one.


Trump had an amazing chance to remake himself here as a leader but simply can't get over himself. Merkel on the other hand was clearly on the way to 'checking out' before this hit and has taken up a more public leadership role because she needed to.

No idea, but I think that everything about the way he has campaigned has indicated that he would have run things his way and not relied on what was already in place.

It seems as though Merkel's management is manipulating death numbers though right? Where Italy is counting everything as COVID.

Totally anecdotal but it hit home because I personally know somebody now and have a hard time saying whether Italy is doing it right or Germany. A coworker's mom was given a year max to live due to stage 4 cancer back around Christmas. She got COVID-19 a week or so ago and will likely pass any time now. So the COVID certainly made her death that much worse but is her death cancer or COVID? I don't have an answer, don't know the answer. Certainly don't think every death is this situation but it sure seems like a lot of the deaths in older people were very unhealthy people.

Nah, I would counter Clinton wouldn't have gutted the State Department and would've listened to intelligence. I'm betting with a fully vested state department you would've been able to call China on it's bullshit instead of Trump d*cksucking because y'know despots.

Did ya see Russia bring aid to us, did you hear how the Patriots plane flew back from China with supplies (Bobby Kraft coming in for the Orange One). Do you think that would've happened with Clinton, I guarantee not.

What I do know is that it wouldn't have mattered because FoxNews, Trump and his ilk would've defied any shutdown measures because it would have been a leftist conspiracy to take over the US.

At the end of the day, we needed Fox News and Trump to damage America so badly that it may, I add with quotes once the CV wipes out most goobers, may see reason. That you need a strong Federal government to protect Americans instead of saying their on their own, which is what Trumpy is doing right now to states that disrespect him.

Now the added kicker is the level of unemployment, and even with all these the realities the Turtle is resistant to further aid. Cool. The number of dead and the number of 401k being flushed down the commode to instill Republican dominance is going to bite.

They'll still have their goobers but man, when this goes full tilt in the South, Southwest and Midwest, I can't imagine the added chaos. No wonder Pennsylvania is out of guns.

Isn't this hitting the blue areas (most population dense) the hardest? Not sure your rant addresses my questions or even makes sense?

First off- I full on admit everything discussed is in hindsight, and we obviously will never know how Clinton, Bernis, or anyone else would have responded.

That being said I think they would have taken it more seriously from the start and at the very least started ramping up production of masks, PPE, etc...I think they would have called on the national guard earlier, I think they would have coordinated the distribution of equipment, ppe, etc...at the federal level so states wouldn't have to be bidding over each other. all of these actions would have slowed the spread, lowered the death toll, and in turn made the public calmer to the point of perhaps the market wouldn't have tanked so hard. In addition she likely would never have disbanded the CDC pandemic response team that would have seen this coming from further out.

Again, purely speculation. Trumps biggest problem is he is a horrendous human being and unless you have bought into the cult it's obvious.

It's hitting them first.

Not a rant. My point on the gutting of the State Department and the continual articles on Trump relying on his gut over Intelligence have been widely, widely reported.

Yeah I think he is an ass as well. I just don't agree with the taking it seriously. (Not probably the right word but everyone in the world was somehow blindsided by this) I mean the narrative is the DNC or Clinton would have acted sooner but the Democratic debates in late February and early March spent about a minute on COVID, the Democratic leader's said to go out to Chinatown and don't be racists. I mean this is what actually happened. Would Clinton have led different? I don't know I can answer that with what actually really happened with other Democratic leaders.

Like somebody said earlier in the thread. We can look back on 9-11 and say oh yeah or look after a Yellowstone volcanic eruption and say oh yeah but why do we assume human beings (just like the ones in Italy and the rest of Europe) would have planned any different for something that hasn't happened on this scale in 100 years?

For one, she probably wouldn't have cut the pandemic funding that was in place under Obama. It may have helped quite a bit.

I would echo that anyone aside from Trump would have projected more confidence in these briefings. There was one day where the markets were going up when Fauci was talking but then Trump went on this nutty aside and the markets immediately dropped.

I do think the bailout likely would have been more tilted towards the middle and bottom - but it likely would have had more GOP opposition.

You know what's more shocking, I'm betting W would've handled this better and we saw him handle 9/11 and Katrina.

With Trump, you could see the iceberg coming.

W would have easily handled this better.

I guess my whole point is that I can speculate and say so and so would have handled it better. And odds are they probably would have but all we have to go on is the reality which is the prominent democrats didn't do this. So I'm not sure we are doing anything but 20/20 here are we?

https://abc7news.com/sf-chinatown-pe...fears/5964696/

GoDaddy Security - Access Denied

I mean this is what really happened, not "I think this would have happened". I think we all missed this and it's just easier to say it's nobody's fault but Trump's.

It's his fault, he's the president. He's done things to prevent oversight, he's bought hook line and sinker all the bullshit that our enemies tell him because they flatter him. This isn't hard think, whether you argue hindsight or not. He was a terrible option then, and he's a terrible option now, and he'll be a terrible option in the future. He is the nadir of America.

The whole whataboutism is weak. The man said he was the smartest guy in the room, it's true, because he surrounded himself with idiots. He gutted anyone who challenged him and he can only be the point of discussion, because that's what he wants. He is a spectacle without substance.

The man is a complete failure and with his lead that is what America is becoming too.

Lets also not forget he trips over himself to take all the credit in the world when things are good, but when they go to shit he literally says he doesn't accept any responsibility.

Not really debating this, but someone linked to the Kanye Katrina video this morning and that moment is still pure gold.

My whole feeling when he had all the CEOs there for the CV meeting was to point out that he was a successful CEO like them but president.

He's the epitome of the SNL sketch with Will Ferrell and the I'm #1 hat (ironically also red).

Mike Myers didn't really know what to do in that moment.

edit: (not) dola

Saying De Blasio fucked things up doesn't mean every Dem has done the same thing. I think there's a chance the U.S. could look more like Washington state right now if we had competent leadership. Trump has flat out told us he wanted to keep the numbers of reported case down because it made him look bad and that states that don't respect him enough will have a more difficult time getting needed medical supplies. Almost any other president, Hillaryy included, would not have done those things.

But, I think there is a strong argument to be made that Hillary would have been ratfucked by the GOP to a degree that the outcome would be the same as Trump or worse, but I don't thin that's an indictment of Hillary.

The extended version is great because Myers can tell Kanye is not reading the screen and he doesn't know what to do. When Kanye says they are sending people to New Orleans to shoot blacks Myers knew there was no saving things.

No but it is a real life example of Democratic leadership screwing up as well. I mean NYC is the epicenter of the United State's COVID problems right now.

Someone responded about getting into whataboutism. But that's exactly the opposite of my point. My point is outside of South Korea (and I am not even sure their culture is applicable to the United States) every country in the Northern Hemisphere has had similar issues and problems. Maybe leadership would have made no difference at all and the human race was just not prepared for this? I mean in the hypothetical world Clinton and Bush and Romney are all confronting this problem and making a difference but in reality Trump, De Blasio, GOP leadership, Pelosi, Italy's PM, Spain's PM, Boris Johnson are not having any effect.

Also in the real world Jay Inslee and Mike DeWine and Andy Beshear have done very good jobs.

Jobs wise, the last two weeks have equaled two years of the Great Recession. Things are never going to be the same. :(

Furloughs coming in my wife's department. Two out of five expected to be furloughed until the end of June. Hope it's not her.

My GF is pretty fortunate. Hasn't been working since March 15th, but still getting paid for full time. Just found out 5 minute ago that they are extending her pay protection until June 1st (was April 26th). Very happy for her. And still getting her annual bonus in about a week from the previous year performance (the annual bonus is probably about 25% of her annual income minus bonuses. So its a big deal)

That fake news shit is still circulating ? :confused: An italian right wing faction started it like 3 weeks ago back when it still seemed like defending 'italian honour' was a reasonable thing to do. On the sole basis that Italy had more deaths and "how can that be ?!?"
The tracking here is about as far above reproach as possible. With the way the health care system, data input and oversight is designed (very independent, transparent and not collated at all before publication) you could not fudge those numbers if you wanted to. Unless all hospitals (which are independent entities) secretely made a pact to hide deaths, this is not happening.

Heck, we are even counting deaths outside hospitals contrary to other countries (UK, France until this week. Not sure about Italy, but reports from they are missing a ton) and since we test a shitload from the start we never even had any sort of mysterious rise in deaths from "respiratory disease" or "pneumonia".

Funnily enough the german conspiracy cabal was claiming the government made this into a bigger deal by counting unnecessary deaths like even counting people in palliative care that have decided to stop treatment for Cancer to die without further prolonging suffering. Which are counted, just not with the intent to make this a bigger deal.

So far Germany has done a great job at testing and quarantining as well as a decent one keeping it from spreading in hospitals and retirement homes. We also have a healthcare system with weaknesses but tailormade for this: We have a shitton of ICU facilities and Ventilators (5 times more per capita than the UK and 3+ Italy) and have not had major outbreaks in confined areas like Lombardy or Madrid.

Edit: If anything the low death numbers create a problem because people are growing restless with the restrictions (why not open everything up ? Why kill my job/forbid me from meeting people when here is hardly anybody dying ?)

Our school district will probably have RIFs next school year and a salary freeze. And I imagine Insurance prices will go way up so the insurance companies can make back the money they lost from this.

He most definitely is. Every day. It's just that campaign stuff is being drowned in Covid 19 news (as it should be). And his campaign surrogates are attacking Biden, re: M4A regarding Covid 19.

Probably not a great idea to tie health insurance to your employer when everyone gets fired during a pandemic.

On a seperate topic:

I can only imagine public pension funds are getting hammered right now.

Is the fed buying up muni bonds or just treasuries? Because it would be a smart move to start buying up those muni bonds.

Re: Trump vs Hillary.

Pretty obvious that both would have found lacking in the response (just like pretty much every other leader). I mean this in the early and also current stage.

There's plenty to ding Trump on for sure so using a scale of 1-10 where 10 is perfection and 6 is average. My take is Trump was a dismal, oblivious 3 in the early stages and he is 6-7 now, much of it based on Fauci & Birx and him listening to them (at least for now).

Hillary would have listened earlier, taken it more seriously and been less BS. So I would give her a 6-7 in early stages but do think she would be struggling in current day just like Trump is.

Re: re-election. Yes, Trump can still pull out a win on this. He won't be blamed on the poor economy. He will be blamed for the early response but that won't matter if he does well going forward.

He is more somber now, told a sympathetic story about a friend that went to hospital and 2 days later is in a coma, still spotty in the daily debriefs but great opportunities for him to be presidential and less of an oblivious ass, he's shown some bi-partianship etc.

We've taken some hits and a knee to the groin. Doubled over now taking an 8 count. But once we are over the hump, he needs to find someone to blame.

If he is smart he would continue to attack China. Not with the childish Chinese Virus/Flu but about how it originated there, how they didn't tell the truth etc. Plenty of world leaders would jump on the bandwagon and unite under Trump if they can believe he won't backstab them.

Additionally, if we do find therapeutics and vaccine, we should give it to the world for sure but also use it to build tremendous goodwill with all friendlies, neutrals and borderline frenemies.

... but only if he recognizes he has to change his abrasive approach, see this as an opportunity to position the US better in the world, and see this as an opportunity to rebuild his image & legacy.

You must not have seen today's tweets. The new tone is back to the old tone.

So ignoring the rest of your post, what in the world gives you ANY kind of faith that this is going to happen?

I can believe it. And hence my last paragraph.

It would be so easy. Quoting Tarcone, I should be President !!

I have seen his tone change some. He obviously has not done a 180 but whereas he was an oblivious ass all the time, there are times now where he is not.

But yeah, I'm not disputing he won't change. But if he did (and found a bigger boogie man to blame)... good chance he'll get re-elected

And I was just enjoying the freaky low gas prices.

Just spoke to my friend MBS (Crown Prince) of Saudi Arabia, who spoke with President Putin of Russia, & I expect & hope that they will be cutting back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more which, if it happens, will be GREAT for the oil & gas industry!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2020

Then again, maybe it didn't happen.



Putin essentially says Trump is a liar.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refuted on Thursday US President Donald Trump's claims about a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"No. There was no such conversation." pic.twitter.com/hYSHWOaihB

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) April 2, 2020

The list of people I trust less than Trump is short, but Putin is on it.

"We can't really know what would have happened". I mean, god forbid we try to actually learn from the mistakes instead of throwing our hands up and going "aw, shucks, we'll never know".



SI

Some good news.

Anti-malaria drug speeds up recovery of coronavirus patients: study

or is it?

Hyped Malaria Drug Not Showing Much Effect at One Paris Hospital

Wait? What? Using your numbers and words above, if 6 is average then Hillary gets an "average" to, I dunno "slightly above average" for her entire handling of the crisis but "she would be struggling just like Trump". But Trump gets a awful "3" and is up to "6-7" in the last week or two and they're pretty similar? That seems like grading on the curve of lowered expectations. Never mind that those first few weeks mattered /a lot/ to get us to where we are today.

If, for instance, you had shut it all down the week of March 13th (Trump Euro ban/NBA suspension/Tom Hanks night) instead of letting morons like Desanits wait until YESTERDAY, the next month wouldn't be nearly as bad.

And, look, this isn't even about re-litigating the 2016 election. Hillary was a flawed candidate but it's who would have won if not for Trump. I mean, right now it would be the mostly warm body of Joe Biden. Same thing. Ted Cruz? Marco Rubio? I mean, hell, Cruz was self-quarantining himself on the 14th. Rubio has done everything from work on the stimulus to give a sobering evaluation on the 17th to say the media loves the high death tolls but I'm pretty sure he'd have done a better job. I'm not saying Trump was the absolute worst person in the world for dealing with this, but he's in the bottom quartile. So let's grade him up against everyone else not against his arbitrarily low curve.

SI

I notice that people not included on that list are Angela Merkel, Andrew Cuomo, or Jay Inslee.


SI

I feel compelled to point out again that Constitutionally, the president does not have the authority to do this. Governors do. It would have been better if we had a president who issued clear statements on that point as you describe, but again a lot of Democrats weren't ready to make that move at that point in time either.

Even more important - and more likely IMO with a better president - would have been getting going on setting up temporarily medical facilities, using the DPA to ramp up equipment production, etc. basically as soon as we saw it spreading to places like Korea.

I agree with your basic point - others would have done better than Trump, no question. But at the same time, nobody was adequately prepared. Nobody wanted to move fast enough. There would have been blood on anyone's hands, and there is on all of ours for presuming that this wasn't really something we needed to prepare for years ago despite the experts saying otherwhise.

In fairness, Trump doesn't really have any authority over the states. He could ask for a ban and sycophants like Desantis would oblige, but that's still primarily on Desantis. He could have ordered a shelter-in-place at anytime over the past month.

Trump deserves blame for the lack of preparation, testing, and resources. His decisions will kill a ton of people but that shouldn't give Governors who had the power a pass.

Dewine for instance has done a terrific job in Ohio.

This isn't some fake "both sides suck" dichotomy, though. Yes, "there would have been blood on anyone's hands", but the amount really does matter. The degrees of difference matter in this case. If the pandemic kills 100K or 2M, that matters. So, yeah, I have a hard time with "well, it was going to suck either way" - this is not one of those cases that is a distinction without a difference.


SI

Cuomo shut down many hospitals over the years and is cutting back on Medicaid to this day. He was late to shutdown the state because he was in a pissing match with De Blasio. In no way is Cuomo a hero despite the media love affair that is going on.

If any Governor should be commended, it should be people like Dewine and Inslee. But they don't get on TV everyday so they don't get the media love.

I agree the difference matters, but I think the death toll overall would have been a lot closer together than those numbers indicate. Again, you can see that in the different way governors reacted across the country. Generally Democrats have acted more quickly … but not by all that much. The similarities have been much greater than the differences.

It will be curious to see the end results when adjusted for size. Though that will be hard to suss out. For instance, North Dakota's problems are going to be different than New York's, of course.


SI

I thought I was clear in saying that Hillary would have done better in early stages than Trump but that both would be struggling now. My grading was not on a curve, it was on 2 different "tests" (e.g. early stage & current stage).


I don't disagree. For me, current stage began soon after Trump's Wed 3/11 "I can't read" speech. I think it was on that Fri/Sat when he was deferring more to Fauci and Birx.


And what are the criteria you would grade Trump/Hillary on in this "current stage".

1) Would Hillary have less deaths? The deaths occurring now are not due to shortage of medicine or equipment, it is in spite of our best efforts

2) Would Hillary have had more ventilators or masks made by now? Don't think we can say

3) Would there be less confusion by government agencies? I doubt it

4) Would the stimulus bill be better? Arguably yes/no depending on your POV but it was bi-partisan

5) Would Hillary have picked a better response team than Facui & Birx? Would she have listen better to Fauci & Birx? No on first, probably yes on second but Trump is listening to them now

6) Would Hillary have held better daily briefings? No argument from me, yes

7) Would Hillary have instilled more confidence or helped morale in the US population? Arguably yes but probably not for the 38-42%, the independent voters have the tie breaker

etc.

What is it that you believe Hillary would have done better than Trump in this current stage that would have significantly changed current state?

Again, if your argument is that Hillary would have done better in the early stage, you won't get an argument from me.

Agree, Cuomo has recovered well but there was an article that De Blasio wanted quarantine/PAUSE (so likely earlier than was publicized), Cuomo said no way, and then Cuomo issued PAUSE 3-4 days later.

Deaths now? No, probably pretty similar. But what do deaths now matter? We're still "only" at 5K. Deaths over the next two months to two years? I think the rest of the questions matter toward that.


I'm going to guess she wouldn't have states bidding against each other to get them to curry industry favor. Hell, she might have had some going directly to companies she favored, but she struck me as more corrupt than incompetent. Trump is both.


I strongly disagree here. If you don't spend the first three years of your Presidency trying to dismantle the very agencies tasked with dealing with problems (or assigning people to actively sabotage them like Perry, DeVos, Pruitt, Zinke, etc), then you're going to have better run agencies. More on this in #5.


Agreed. Probably wouldn't have mattered as it was Congress, especially McConnell driving it. There's probably even a number of alternate universes where it hasn't gotten done because of sparring between Hillary and Mitch.


Obviously, Fauci and Birx are proving to be a good team. But it took them a /long/ time to get Trump onboard because he only wanted sycophants around him until he personally figured out how bad it was. I think Hillary listens a lot sooner and that matters a lot when we're talking about exponential growth.

Who else beyond that? And this will matter a lot in the coming weeks and months. Funny how Pence is supposedly the one "in charge", Azar is a forgotten man, and where the hell is Redfield? Those are all positions that could have been better filled. In a perfect world, a former Pharmaceutical executive and a research scientist could be useful (a toady VP who decries science, less so).

But Redfield's CDC botched the tests and cost us 4-6 extremely valuable weeks. Maybe they don't if they have a better administrator in charge. Maybe Azar's expertise in the pharmaceutical field is helping our clinical trials be more effective behind the scenes. If that's the case, bravo. But, if not, why is he there? Why don't we have anyone on the team who can help with the medical supply chain?

In a way, these matter least of all but are also really important. If the federal government gives more stringent guidelines, then maybe we don't have governors doing their own things because Trump was trying to preserve the economy for just a minute longer before it fell apart.

If we don't have people at the top doing the "it's just a flu, bro" schtick for weeks, then maybe we aren't still fighting as much of it now, harming our social distancing efforts. Maybe we don't have people going out because they want to, talking about this false "letting people die or the economy" choice. Then again, I'm open to the idea that it wouldn't have mattered. These people would do what they were going to do anyway. And if it hadn't been Trump at the top, it would have been Tucker Carlson or Devin Nunes or whoever.

SI

Hillary, or any other president, wouldn't have Jared running around with his own group trying to take over from the people who actually know what they are doing.

CBO projecting a 9% unemployment rate for the end of 2021.

I'd take that projection right now. I think it's optimistic.

If you don’t have a dog in the fight, it’s a really tough call. Putin is undoubtedly more directly dangerous, but Trump sways with the wind and is arguably more indirectly dangerous...

I think we're going to have a slight recovery after a painfully hard fall. The recovery will feel awesome, even though everything will not be awesome, and then, we'll have a rotation between shutdown and normalcy that will probably last until the end of next year. By then, the major question becomes do we have a reliable vaccine that drastically reduces the threat? Or will we have gotten too many people infected by that time and it won't really matter anymore?



I think it's quite plausible that in a few weeks time we could see daily numbers 10 times higher than what we see right now. We don't need to, but it's plausible.

Hilary would have had what 40+ years of federal govt. experience over Trump, so she would have handled this so much better/more like normal with it being a national emergency. She never would have been the mad dictator Trump has been. She would have listened to her intelligence people and then her health care people on this and would not have tried to hide it so it hurt her re-election chances. She wouldn't have gutted the various agencies/committees that could have helped get a good plan going early on.



C'mon how can you say after 3 years of Trump that Clinton and/or most of the other R/D candidates for President would have handled this a hell of lot better? There still would have been deaths, maybe a lot, but there would have been a good detailed plan on how to handle this from the very start.

Why is thing not being called Trump Virus?

He takes credit for all kinds of things he had nothing to do with. Might as well add to his list if accomplishments.

We've had lots of presidents without good, detailed plans on how to handle far less pressing emergencies. And again, look at the governors. How many of them had a good, detailed plan for stuff in their control? How many foreign countries did?

I think a lot of what's going on here is we're looking for something to blame because we're mad. And the answer is, we're all to blame. Some have more than others, and Trump's near the top of that list, but there's plenty to go around.

I think we're coming out of this in a new world. Just looking around my neighborhood. Two small bars across the street will likely be out of business. Same with the nail salon and brunch place. The little late night Mexican joint is not going to make it since their business is people coming home from the bars.

My Mom lives in a smaller town. There's a hot dog joint that's been there for 60 years. Right across the street from the baseball parks. They'll be out of business soon with little league cancelled and no one allowed to come inside. The local tavern is trying to set up carryout but how long can that keep them afloat? Their whole downtown is filled with these little retail shops that are closed.

It'll just be weird to see all these small businesses that have been around for decades die. The whole thing is incredibly depressing. Not just from an economic loss, but a cultural one too. You forget how much some of these places mean to the community.

Jared is now in charge by the looks of things and he has wisdom to share:

In a administration filled with dummies, Kushner may take the cake. He sounds like a high school senior who took his first business class and learned a couple buzzwords but doesn't understand anything else.

I saw on Twitter even Fox News went away from Trump speaking at the press conference eventually. Anyone know if thats true?

They did. They had another program to go to at the tail end.

The difference is that CNN didn't show the beginning a couple days ago.

Another quote from Jared, this one coming to a Biden ad soon.

This will kill diversity in a lot of areas and also will further drive all sorts of Business towards online retail ...

Why does the WH try and put out "Really Important" memo's and statements from Ivanka?

It's going to drive a ton of consolidation. If you thought this world we lived in now was a world of oligopolies and megacorporations which screws consumers and consolidates wealth at the top, I'm worried we haven't seen anything yet. Our future has science fiction dystopia potential. We were slowly heading that way but now we may race towards it.

SI