So you counter all the evidence of the bruising economic fight with statements?

I don't disagree, China has shown long-term strategy in investment/buying-off countries that need the $. Can't blame China, the US does it too. Until Trump, the US China policy has been "words" and not "deeds" because China has been the economic market.

Trump's counter to China trying to redirect blame was childish with the "Chinese virus". It would have been so much better to just have called it the "Wuhan virus" because that is more sustainable and doubt MSM would have called that non-ADL racist.

Nevertheless, it starts with acknowledging that we are in an economic/IP/technological war with China and then creating a strategy to counter it. Not saying Trump is up to the job but he has at least brought it to the forefront. I do struggle with Biden on this issue because I don't think he believes China is really, really a threat.

You realize that this is exactly how Putin handles anything where Russia might be at fault, or it might be his responsibility. Exactly. Deflect and deny forever, accuse someone else. It used to be a joke around here. Now it's the accepted thing to do.

Do you believe China is to blame for this pandemic? Not necessarily as the creator of the virus but for negligence, lack of transparency etc.?

If you do, why not lead an effort to blame China for it especially when they are trying to "deflect, deny, accuse someone else".

uffda

22 million jobs in four weeks. That's a staggering number in any circumstance. The ripple effect from this is going to be brutal. We're not even going to see that for another month or so. As things open up and nobody spends money. That's when the real pain is going to hit.

I believe it was a global catastrophe. It could just as easily started there as anywhere in Asia. What exactly do you want China to do about it? Or what exactly do you want the US to "make" China do about it?

What do you think success in this fight you've described looks like?


I don't. Look at the way the rest of the world has handled it. It should be obvious by the way it has spread around the world that A) Nobody was prepared and B) After the initial breakout, it was going to spread globally no matter what and there's nothing anybody could have done to prevent it. The damage could have been minimized more obviously, but there's significant blame to go around there to nearly every country in the world. .

As in the economic/IP/technological war with China or as in the current pandemic blame game?

It's all the same really. One fight, another fight, they're all still a fight with the same group.

It seems evident they are related, but the economic one.

I agree with this. Good luck getting Canada to 'fall in line' on that myth after the Huawei CEO backstab a year ago and now the mask-grab fiasco. I'm sure most other countries have similar axes to grind. The US-first, isolationist MAGA philosophy comes at a cost.

I belong to a couple Facebook groups about Las Vegas and there have been a lot of posts about Vegas reopening and people basically wishfully thinking about it. May 1st is actually being thrown around.

I'm like, guys, Vegas is so far from opening right now not only because social distancing, but because people don't have the discretionary income and wont for a long time.

The question I posed was

Quote:

Do you believe China is to blame for this pandemic? Not necessarily as the creator of the virus but for negligence, lack of transparency etc.?

I don't want China to do anything about it and don't want the US to "make" China do anything about it.

I want the US to leverage this catastrophe, coalesce countries that already have doubts about China, and reduce China's influence. I see this as an economic/IP/technological war with China.

I listen to the BBC a decent amount and have family from the UK, South Africa, and a few other countries. It absolutely amazes me that anyone thinks the global POV of the US is at all positive outside a few dictatorships. Other countries are more likely to do the direct opposite of what we do, and they should.

So take advantage of a global pandemic that will likely kill millions to get a leg up over them?

What happend to catching more flies with honey?

I'll take this to mean the economic/IP/technology war then. I'll respond more fully later on this.


Sure, I get after the initial breakout every country was found lacking.

But during the initial event? No blame there for not being transparent enough or really raising the alarm?

To be clear, I didn't use the "fall in line" quote. I used "fall behind someone leading the blame game". The former implies "obey", the latter implies "support".

I agree the US-first comes at a cost. I've stated that Trump should do this to help his re-election but have sprinkled caveats that I don't know if he's up to the job or forward thinking enough.

Yes, agree with this.

However, the blame game is much easier for Trump to win (if he's smart in coalescing support) vs the economic/IP/technology battle.

This is an opportunity handed to Trump on a silver platter. All he has to do is be smart about blaming China and creating the support.

I think I read somewhere China's silk road initiative was about $1T overall government, private & public companies. I don't know if the US has that much honey to spread around.

Yes, if Trump was smart, he should basically take advantage of a global pandemic to place blame where much (not all) belongs to further his political position and help his earlier cause of pushing back on China.

Call it first stab for China grabbing the Spratleys from its neighbors.

I'm not saying no blame for those things, but that's not the same as being to blame for the pandemic itself, which is how the original question was worded. During the initial event even China didn't know what was going on. That's before Li Wenliang began to sound the alarm. As scientists have investigated we've seen the likely time period of the initial outbreak get pushed back and back to the point where best estimates I've seen are 2-3 months before that.

By then, China being more transparent wouldn't have stopped anything, and they eventually took measures more extreme and draconian than what most countries have done. So yes I blame them for their clear distortion/suppression, etc., but at the same time even once more facts were known others did similar things. I.e. Trump calling it a hoax, saying it's well under control, saying cases would soon be down to zero, etc. We haven't a leg to stand on criticizing China/ the WHO on this stuff when we acted in a similar way.

Let's not mix Trump vs US. They are different.

Trump Ratings Remain Low Around the World, While Views of U.S. Stay Mostly Favorable | Pew Research Center

View of the US

He is not a leader in any remote, does not inspire; and can not create support. He is the great divider and he is best at feeding the haters of the world. I agree with others that think it is comical to think he can get anyone except North Korea to fall his lead. This is what the era of Trumpism has brought us globally.

You are giving Americans way too much credit for their skills with math. They are largely innumerate, the math equivalent of illiterate.

There is a built-in spin right here, which you can expect to hear today… The numbers this week were not as bad as the numbers last week… Things are looking up! That is absolutely absurd on its face, but you can guarantee that will be a talking point in red America by tonight on Fox news.

My original question is below.

Quote:

Do you believe China is to blame for this pandemic? Not necessarily as the creator of the virus but for negligence, lack of transparency etc.?

I believe Li Wenliang sounded alarm on Jan 1.


If China on Jan 1 held a press conference and said - "Guys, this is for real, no bullshit. We're going to do our best but we think it will inevitably spread to your country. Here's what we know and the treatments we have tried so far. And oh BTW, CDC we welcome you on the ground now", I'm pretty it may not have "stopped anything" but it sure would have helped.

So the goal should be not to do better/smarter from now on but to be better/smarter at blaming others, did i get that correctly ?

Incidentally, there is no working model to predict what happens in our economy for the next six weeks, six months, whenever. This kind of shocked to employment over the course of a few weeks is just one of a kind. We might never know how much of what has fallen apart is connected to a pre-existing recession that was about to happen anyway, how much is completely due to the health crisis, and so forth. And, if you were in the business of predicting the economy, the stock market, or government revenues… All of which are pretty important, good luck. People are trying to describe the shape of the economic downturn and recovery… Most economists use letters like V, U, and L to describe the economy over an x axis of time... I recently heard somebody use the phrase Nike swoosh to describe what might be ahead for us, and I am going to pirate the shit out of that phrase.

Tough to disagree with that. I realized that on this issue everybody has retreated to their appropriately colored corners, and because the POTUS is playing the blame Chyna card, team blue has decided that’s totally inappropriate. But sure, China could and should have done more, and in ways less bald faced than this strawman.

Their governmental culture of secrecy and shame played no small part in these problems, it appears. I’m not completely convinced that a more “free” country would have necessarily done better, but their accountability structure didn’t seem to lend it self to a proper, open, and effective quick response.

Yeah, don't dispute it, he's not very good at coalescing global support.

Uh no. My response to you is, at most, all Germany will do is be verbally critical of China. All words, no action.

Just like "fall in line" is not the same as "fall behind someone leading the blame game"

How would that have helped, beyond being the right thing to do? I agree they should have done it, but we weren't doing that months later when it had spread to Korea, and Italy, and … Spain didn't act decisively. The UK didn't. Sweden didn't. The USA didn't. All when we had a lot more evidence than China could have possibly given us at the start of January. Such warnings only do any practical good when they are heeded. Almost everyone waited too long to act anyway.

Relocated from the non-political COVID thread, since my snark level is surely itself a violation of the separation wall...


Be careful, as factual as the statement is, prepare for this entire argument to become 100% political. The debate about medical professionals assigning a cause of death, what to do with a count of people simply dying at home without a diagnosis or test… All that is going to be hashed out on the political airwaves, not by medical experts. Soon, all that will have to go to the politics thread, not the medical thread because… We don’t make medical decisions based on medicine, we do so based on electoral strategy.

Honestly, I don't see how it could not have helped. I'm not saying the world would have squared away from this speech but there would certainly have been more awareness ... especially if the CDC was brought in early.

Trump on March 6: I like the numbers where they are.

China being more transparent would have been a good thing, but Trump was denying the problem well after everyone should have known a pandemic was likely. Any argument saying things could have been different has to somehow change Trump's behavior, and I don't see any reason to assume that could have happened.

This is exactly my same point of view. Thank you for articulating it so well for me.

The CDC got there well ahead of us anyway. This argument would have weight if we took action before CDC recommendations and warnings came out, indicating they needed more advance info. On February 25, they warned that community spread was going to happen soon in the US and that 'Disruptions to everyday life might be severe."

What did we do? Not much of anything. It wasn't just Trump. The first school closings would not happen for more than two weeks. We still haven't taken steps that should have been taken at that point to ramp up testing etc. more quickly, establish temporary hospital locations, and so on. Beyond that, experts had been warning of this type of pandemic (or one much, much worse) being inevitable for at least two decades. Again, we did nothing.

That's WE. All of us share a significant part of the blame. Any lack of awareness was simple willful blindness, and that includes me personally. And as I've mentioned before, as bad as this is we've gotten relatively lucky. There's no reason this one couldn't have been as contagious as measles and double the lethality of SARS. That is a scenario that very possibly will happen at some point, barring a major change on how we interact with the natural world, and pandemics are only aspect of how the way we live as a species is a ticking time bomb.


You're welcome.

I think your argument is yeah China is to be blamed but US shares blame too.

My argument is yeah China is to be blamed for the initial outbreak and lack of transparency and US shares none/much less of that blame until maybe Feb 2 when NYT and WP said it was going to be a pandemic.

What would have happened if CDC was involved Jan 1, the hypothetical China speech given, and CDC reports start trickling back confirming this was for real in first half of Jan? What would have happened if China did not (arguably, not confirmed) play WHO into not declaring it as a pandemic until Mar 11?

So sure, blame Trump now after approx Feb 2 but let's not believe China does not own the majority of the blame in the early stages. And because of their lack of transparency, it has made it worse for rest of world.

If only there was some branch of the CDC designed to track global pandemics and try to stop them before they get out of control. Oh wait, there was, Trump disbanded them....

NYT and WP was calling it a pandemic on Feb 2.

Not sure if Feb 25 is when the CDC "got there well ahead of us anyway" but NYT and WP beat them to the punch.

Oh com'on. See below Feb 7 article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/h...rus-china.html

What could be the harm, he asked?

Well...

This continues a trend of promoting and approving drugs, tests, etc. I worry about many of the Tests being approved/fast-tracked that will provide a false sense of security to those taking it only to find out the results are unreliable.

Your argument seems to be that if China had been more forthcoming sooner, the U.S. government would have behaved differently. My argument is that the Chinese government's behavior, regardless of what it was, would have had very little, if any, impact on how Trump and the WH behaved. We know HHS Sec. Azar was alerting them in Jan and Feb and was neutered because of it. We know Navarro wrote his letter in Jan. There were intelligence briefings possibly as far back as November.

There's nothing that China could have done to make Trump a little less Trumpy.

and what does that have to do with a CDC team that could have been tracking cases around the globe and in the US, isolating cases, and tracing them back to the origin? would have made a huge difference in the spread here in the US.

oh boy fake protesters...what is this? 2000?

China's response was inexcusable and cost innumerable lives.

Trump's response was inexcusable and cost innumerable lives.

China would have responded horribly without Trump.

Trump would have responded horribly without China.

All of this can be true at the same time.

We agree that Trump would have continued to be Trump in the Jan timeframe even if CDC & WHO were more engaged and China was more transparent.

We disagree on when he would have gotten more serious. I say on the Mar 11 or 12 "I can't read speech" when Trump got serious. Good chance he would have gotten to that speech earlier with more pressure from scientistis, press, other countries etc.

Let's not forget about the rest of the world. Would the other countries have benefited if CDC, WHO & China transparency in early Jan?

Er ... because the CDC and WHO team would have been on the ground and given us unfiltered accounts of what's happening in the early stages?

Sometimes I wonder if you are watching the same presidency as the rest of us. What makes you think he would have heeded their Advice any sooner? What has he ever done to make you think he would have reacted any differently?

Here's how I see it

1) He "heeded" advice on Mar 11 or 12
2) He did this based on Fauci, Birx, models etc.
3) If China welcomed the non-Chinese experts (and media), these experts would have gotten the information, models earlier to Trump
4) Wouldn't even 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 days earlier have helped?

Let me reiterate -

Trump and US government slow response is not blameless.

I am just stating that China has the majority of the blame in the initial stages.

and what makes you think Trump wouldn't have looked at those models and the current numbers in the States and done exactly what he ended up doing.

Do you not realize the man in incapable of thinking more than 1 step ahead?

How about a question of my own ... and what makes you think China is blameless or doesn't have majority of the blame in the initial stages?

No.

On 2, he had lots of prior warnings. Some have already been mentioned here. Singapore was implementing restrictions, quararantines, etc. in late January. Sen. Cotton wrote a letter warning Trump at that time, then met with him the next day. Azar's warnings about a pandemic are dismissed as alarmist. A week later, public health officials including Fauci are calling from travel restrictions from the EU, which is not done due to concerns about the economic impact by Mnuchin etc. And this goes on and on, including the HHS/NSC memo in mid-February. The point is, there were lots of warnings, models, advice, etc. well before March 11. That's not what got Trump to do anything. Growing pressure from all quarters is. And the pressure didn't reach critical mass because of more experts/models/etc. All of those predated it considerably. It reached critical mass because of the number of people that were getting sick and dying around the world.

4 - It would, but not by very much. What was needed was invoking the DPA more than we've yet done in early February at the latest. Ramping up testing, medical capacity, etc. then well before the disruption started. Weeks/months at a minimum were needed to make a significant difference. Days matter of course … but only in very small amounts at the margins. The only thing that would make a major difference is acting ahead of time, before public demand for it showed up.

Where did I say China was blameless?

I answered 3 of your questions in a row so figured 3 in a row was good enough because I was sure there was going to be a 4th. I thought it would be good to understand your position.

So what is your stance on blaming China in this pandemic? State your position vs incessantly bashing Trump (I think) during the early stages (e.g. pre-Feb 2).

You will find MSM articles saying "that" model got him serious. Below is from NYT from Mar 17. Would that model have come out earlier or been presented to Trump earlier if China was more transparent in early stages?

I do agree it was a "culmination" of things but it's pretty logical to me that a culmination of things would have occurred earlier if China was more transparent and gave a hypothetical speech on "don't fuck around" here.

[url="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/podcasts/coronavirus-trump-united-states.html?showTranscript=1"[/url]

Quote:

And so the latest is that we now know a big part of what may have led to that change in tone and to the new recommendations. It was a new report out of London by disease modelers, people who study how epidemics spread, that was shared with the White House. And it showed that if nothing was done by the government and regular citizens to stop the transmission of the virus that, in fact, there could be 2.2 million deaths in the United States. And what they said to combat that to stop this just almost unimaginable death toll from a new virus, 2.2 million,

I don't know what you mean by "very much" but my position is any days earlier would have helped, especially in social distancing.

If Trump got serious lets say 4 days earlier, let's assume everything is pulled back 4 days including social distancing.

Ok. I don't think that's at all logical. It sounds like, and I don't know your mind and I'm not saying it's the case, but it sounds like an argument looking for a reason to blame China at a higher level because they are viewed as a threat, not one which assesses facts and then apportion blame based on those.

I can see your rationale as I've not been shy about saying we are at an economic/technology war with China.

However, I've been consistent (I think) in saying China gets all/most of the blame early on and that world response have been lacking after the initial phase and shares blame after a certain point (which I arbitrarily stated was Feb 2 as that is when NYT and WP said it was going to be a pandemic).

I honestly don't see why we shouldn;t give China all/most of the blame early on other than for being too PC, fear of being called non-ADL racist, or wanting to blame Trump for everything.

Forget Trump if that is a sticking point, wouldn't other countries have benefited much more if China was very transparent in Jan (e.g. gave the hypothetical speech)?

China certainly has some blame, quite a bit, but now isn't the time to focus our energies on that. The only reason Trump and the GOP are doing this is for political reasons to try and divert the blame for our nations horrid response.

There will be plenty of time to unpack this, but now isn't that time. all it is doing is diverting time and energy that could be spent working with other nations to find a cure.

No. Korea was more prepared because of actions they took after SARS to be so. Other countries, as has been mentioned, generally did only somewhat better than the US did with the apparent exception really of just Germany frm what I can tell. En masse, the world resisted acting until the pain of not doing so became too great … which was far too late. There hasn't been a major change in said reactions based on how much evidence was available to them or having more time to prepare because they got hit later with the virus, and again continued to not take actions well beyond the point where they had far more and better evidence to do so than anything China could have told us in January.

The point is, lack of information isn't what slowed down the reactions. General unpreparedness and resistance to taking drastic and unprecedented steps is. Ostrich Brigade mentality in full flow. And not one ounce of that can be laid at China's feet, which means the majority of the blame for the casualties of the pandemic isn't theirs either.


FWIW I'd think the same thing even if you hadn't said that - it's just not where the facts lead here IMO.

I would also add that Trump started calling it the Chinese Virus after China started deflecting the blame. So yeah, clearly for political purposes but also to play offense-is-best-defense purposes.

Article below is Mar 13. Trump's Chinese Virus photo was on Mar 19.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/asia/...hnk/index.html

We'll agree to disagree.

100% agree. Heck we didn't do much after seeing Italy decimated.

Offense against who? China?

Who gives a shit what they say about it.

Do you really not have an issue with tens of thousands of dead Americans and our leaders primary focus is deflecting the blame and literally saying he claims no responsibility?

Yes, China.


We should because they were proposing a conspiracy theory that we cause it. We've got enough people in the world hating US, why add to it and not correct the record,


Uh no, I do have an issue with it. However I also have an issue just blaming Trump and not blaming China.

Here's the thing. trump isn't taking any responsibility at all, and his supporters are NOT blaming him at all. In fact, he's done a 100% A+ job as far as they are concerned. I have no problem with China bearing some of the brunt for their initial response, but that is NOT what is happening with our administration. They want China to take ALL the blame for it, AND compensate the world for it. There's plenty of blame to go around, but acting like it's completely one sided, which appears to be on the horizon, is fucking dumb.

This, and anytime someone in the media even suggests he has slipped up or questioned his judgement he rants like a 5 year old who just had his lollipop taken away. Why on earth would any country fall in step with that behavior?

I will say it again, I have no idea what Edward sees that the majority of us do not when it comes to Trump. I say the same about anyone who defends him.

And the part we cannot say enough is that "supporters" are not the red hat wearing fringe.

They are every GOP Senator (except Romney sometimes). They are every GOP member of the House. They are 40% of the country.

Unless and until we understand the scope of Trumpism, we are doomed to more and more Trumps.

lol

Thank you, @realDonaldTrump for appointing me to your task force on re-opening America safely in the wake of #COVID19.

With 22 million Americans filing for unemployment, it’s clear we must start working to revive our economy and get the American people back to work safely.

— Senator Kelly Loeffler (@SenatorLoeffler) April 16, 2020

"And so I can sell my stocks without everyone watching me."

Oh my. Yeah, that's exactly who I want on a committee who gets inside information on when the country is going to open up and how.

Of course, Trump was very much in favor of Congressperson Collins getting that Senate bid and didn't like that Kemp picked Loeffler. So maybe he's trying to get her in trouble in the election this fall - though that's too much smarts for Trump.

He was given information in January. Most experts believed this would be a horrible pandemic. This included people in the government which he chided for "spooking the markets" when they spoke up. He was calling this a hoax over a month after being told about this.

Heck, the only reason he "took it serious" is because the markets started tanking and businesses were closing down.

China deserves blame but how many weeks do you need of warning in advance before you take a pandemic seriously?

It was a low level government official on Twitter. We have actual Senators and administration officials floating the conspiracy that this was created in a lab in China.


China should be blamed for keeping open wet markets when we knew it would lead to this. Also for delays in reporting this.

But the United States had plenty of warning this was coming. It did nothing.

From the NYTimes:


I would hate to work in that viper's nest. Everybody is either prey or predator depending on the daily whims of Trump.

He changed his tune on Loeffler, and threatened Collins against running in the primary. Once he had a good talk with Loeffler'sa husband, he realized what an asset she could be.

Yup, blame the US as the default when it's just so obvious.

China's Coronavirus Misinformation Campaign Seeks to Avoid Blame


Pick a date. I say the US should have known by Feb 2 because that's when NYT and WP said a pandemic was coming. When is your date when the US should have known and let's have that discussion.

Being the fair-and-balanced (not Fox version) person I am, I can see the pros and the cons to Trump policies and "deeds".

For most on this board, any support for Trump policies or deeds means automatically a Trump supporter. I disagree with that generalization.

The real question to me is for all the never-Trumpers, I would like to know what policies or "deeds" you agree, if any, with Trump on? If you can't agree on any at all, I would question how fair-and-balanced you are.

I'll take 4 weeks before Feb 2. If China gave the hypothetical "dont' fuck around here" speech/transparency I proposed, it would have saved lives.

If you don't believe it because Trump will be Trump, then forget Trump and consider how that hypothetical speech on Jan 1 (instead of shutting down the Dr.) would have saved lives in rest of the world.

This discussion is going sideways again as it normally does when it gets to Trump bashing & belittling. So let me repost my position ...

Quote:

Let me reiterate - Trump and US government slow response is not blameless. I am just stating that China has the majority of the blame in the initial stages.

Possibly fake "innuendo" news. Why don't we see if they can produce first? Sounds like company playing middleman with supposed connections to acquire the masks. If they can't, I'm all for not paying them or suing to get money back.

FEMA paid bankrupt company with no employees $55 million for N95 masks - Business Insider

The First Step Act was a very good criminal justice reform. And, from what people on the inside say, it really was pushed by the White House (Kushner in particular).

Great.

I did a cursory search for "First Step" and did not get a hit on this thread. If you haven't already, why can't you (and many others here) give some credit on what you agree with in addition to what you disagree with?

Honestly, that would lead to much more productive discussions and learning vs the repetitive, never-ending belittling that is 60-70% of the posts here.

(Apologies in advance if I'm wrong and you have given him credit)

China announced the new coronavirus to the world on January 9th. The State Department, National Security Counsel, and Pentagon warned the President that this was a serious threat to the United States in January.

In fact, Azar warned the President twice in January that this was going to be a pandemic. He was chastised for it, called an alarmist, and fell out of the President's good graces.

They knew in January what this was. Long before it took root in this country. But it was not just ignored, but also downplayed because it was a threat to the precious stock market.

On February 28th the President called this a "new hoax". Almost 2 months after China announced this and world health experts warned everyone.

I know you've got to stan for your guy, but he fucked up and cost a lot of lives.

Thanks. Would appreciate the link so I can identify the dates.

BTW, once again, I'm not saying he didn't fuck up. Here's what I'm saying

Quote:

Let me reiterate - Trump and US government slow response is not blameless. I am just stating that China has the majority of the blame in the initial stages.

What I have beef about is many here is willing to give China a pass because they want to believe Trump is to be blamed (without regard to where the real blame should be in the initial stages).

Why would a bankrupt company with 0 employees with no history in medical supplies get a $55 million no-bid deal to purchase masks at a 773% mark up?

Is the US Government that incompetent in your mind that they need to rely on someone like that?

Yeah, I think I've also given Trump credit for prison reform in this thread before, and for at least a couple weeks there he was able to flip the script and convince his base that they were anti-war, which was certainly remarkable, tho hollow as hell.

China deserves blame for keeping wet markets open and the 6 days they withheld information.

Our country should not be at the mercy of other countries like that. We should not rely on other nations for our national security. If China waiting 6 days can destroy your entire economy and kill countless people, your country might suck.

Not starting a bunch of wars is a good thing Trump has done too. In that regard, he is a better President than W.

Creating Medicare for All in regards to coronavirus treatment is good too.

Trump invited every GOP Senator to his re-opening task force, except Romney.

What a tiny, vindictive man.

Incompetant and likely desperate. Good old capitalism at work, trying to find any angle to make money.

The real question you should be asking is did the company or FEMA do anything illegal. If it did, let's do something about it. If not, let's see if it can deliver the goods (as I assume being the middleman with contacts) before inferring it did something wrong.

The article didn't say it did anything wrong that I read. Just innuendos with the twitter title.

I have, and I am pretty sure I have on here. Might have been on another platform though. As a public defender, I talk about the 1st Step Act way more than normal humans do :-)

I appreciate you guys humoring me in stating things that you agree with Trump on even if its 10-90 or 20-80.

I found it.

I wouldn't call it a Trump friendly post :-) But I do praise him for passing the 1sa:

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - The Trump Presidency – 2016

I'm sure Bill Barr's fat ass will be all over it.

China did a lot worse than that and we're downplaying their role in this. Their secretive nature has hidden a lot of data that could have helped the rest of the world deal with this.

That said, it doesn't absolve us. Oh, no, we were dumb enough that even with a 2 month head start, we did all the same stuff: downplayed how bad it was, didn't ramp up testing, only shut stuff down when it was quite late.

But, we're also not alone. Many other countries did this. We just like to think we're better than so many other countries. However, we're one of the use cases of "what not to do" as our response has been even slower and blundering than even places like Spain or Italy.

Even now we're politicizing the number of deaths, downplaying them, and pretending it's all hunky dory and ready to open back up within the same week that is likely the peak. Considering our vast resources, we're not building a competent supply chain /or/ testing apparatus, the two things we really need to open the country back up even partway.

SI

I'm on record for quite a while as saying that many of his flaws have been exaggerated on the board here. They're still flaws, totally disqualifying ones, and I remain of the mind I was during the campaign. Clinton and Trump weren't qualified to get my vote for dogcatcher, much less president. He's actually managed to come in under my expectations, which is impressive considering how low they were.

Justice reform was a small step in the right direction, Gorsuch and Mattis were good nominations, and also agree he's managed to make less bad foreign policy decisions than some previous presidents. At the same time he badly deserved impeachment.


Could have quoted others here as well. He's criticized Trump on many fronts going back quite a while. I disagree with Edward pretty often as well, but if most posters on here had their positions distorted as regularly as he does,; they'd be fit to be tied. I give him credit for his civility in the face of that.

I just don't get how people can quote a post saying 'I'm just saying China and Trump deserve blame' and then go on a diatribe about how terrible Trump is and his supporters are. Why even quote somebody if you aren't going to actually respond to the substance of what they said?

From another thread since it fits better here. Anyway, some of it was the additional restrictions, but a lot of it is also people just getting fed up with the original order. I.e. people who initially put up with it starting to object more to the order in general around the same time. That's why I've talked about the consensus cracking - tension is rising on all sides of the issue.

I've said it many times by now, but my problem, and I think Lathum's though I shouldn't speak for him entirely, is that Edward on many issues is not having good faith arguments. Many of the things he does with conversations, very frequently conversations that come out of fox news propaganda, come straight out of alt-right playbooks. I'm not calling Edward a fascist or a nazi, but I think that we are giving a strong voice to a person here who carries arguments in a way that is designed to distract from meaningful points and to dilute any discussion with minutae. I don't think its intentional either, I think its a natural thing that happens when you argue indefensible points from time to time. The best example, as always, are discussions of race. Every conversation about race, no matter who it starts between or in what tone, turns into a conversation dominated by edward. He has two reliable methods to derail any conversation about race. One - an act, or a person, is either racist or not. It's a binary yes/no question in his mind, which makes most conversations about race pointless. Second, it requires 20-25 posts of discussion to agree on a dictionary definition or racism. Goalposts moved all over the place, diluting any argument so that instead of discussing a critical topic of race, we instead discuss the definition of race until the argument goes away. Conversations about China feel the same. Conversations on the border wall to the south are even worse. On that topic Edward does share extremely similar views to nazi's. Edward frequently ignores the impact of... well, anything.. to actual human life in favor of discussing the impact to his retirement portfolio.

Some of these things can be a part of some reasonable discussion, but with him, it just never is. He controls the direction of every conversation on this forum due to how many times he posts compared to anyone else on the forum. If he doesn't like any conversation happening anywhere, he has more control over the views the board sees than anyone, and again I don't think he's doing that on purpose, but its absolutely happening in the same was as it would if we allowed a clear alt-right fascist to argue in bad faith here every day.


The most frustrating thing for me is that its just impossible to put him on ignore and talk to anyone else here. Almost everyone engages him, myself included from time to time, and I need to stop doing that.


If you look at my post history, I'll post semi-consistently here for awhile, I'll get pretty angry at something, and stop posting for 1-3 weeks. Most of those times I'm directly leaving the forum because I let myself get angry at how an interesting discussion was steamrolled by Edward into another direction, b/c he'd rather talk about mexicans or the chinese than anything else the rest of us would like to discuss.

And with that, you'll see me again in a month :) I like seeing many of your opinions and the news stories you all bring to discussion, but its futile, and this is ultimately an extremely difficult place to have any actual good discussion about anything due to the above.

Yeah, I get that. Tensions are rising. People are stressed, scared, and there's no real end in sight...or at least not in sight until we're able to do a better job of testing. The additional restrictions did seem to be too far unless people weren't following the original order.

Looking at what was added wouldn't have impacted my family much, if at all. We're only out for supplies. We've talked to neighbors from a distance. We text our circle of friends to check in and make sure everyone is doing well.

I've also been fortunate as I've been able to work at home for a long time, so except for the additional stress and distractions, this is bearable. If it wasn't for that, I'd be looking for ways to get back to work as well. And adding additional restrictions would've pissed me off, but I would continue to do my part. Can't say it would make me want to block an ambulance or keep medical personnel from getting to work. That would feel counterproductive.

I'm not calling him a fascist or nazi, he's an obvious troll and I'm amazed people are still trying to engage. Best ignore button usage ever.

Thanks for the words.