Was below the fold last week:
"Biden says he regrets saying Black voters ‘ain’t Black’ if they’re considering Trump" by Astead W. Herndonand Katie Glueck New York Times, May 22, 2020
Former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on Friday afternoon expressed regret for telling a radio host that Black voters torn between voting for him and President Trump “ain’t Black,” remarks that ignited a firestorm online.
“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” Biden said in a call with the US Black Chambers, later saying that he had not expected to join the call. “I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.”
His remarks came hours after a testy exchange with Charlamagne Tha God, a host on “The Breakfast Club,” a nationally syndicated morning show popular with Black millennials. In the interview, during which the former vice president sidestepped a question about marijuana legalization and his running mate selection, Biden also made clear that he felt there was no reason Black Americans would consider voting for Trump.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,” Biden said.
The remark sparked immediate pushback on social media, with activists and conservatives jumping on Biden, 77, for acting as the arbiter of Blackness.
At this point, I'm just going to say that I recognize the pre$$'s race-baiting right down to the capital letters being used to describe any ethnicity but White, so don't fall for it.
That does not make me a white supremacist -- far from it -- and the most insulting thing is the insult and false charge comes from the mouth of a cho$en group of $upremaci$ts in more ways than one.
In a television interview with CNBC on Friday morning, Biden pledged that he would repeal the tax cuts signed by the president in 2017 and raise the corporate tax rate, and that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, as he seeks to outline his plan for the US economic recovery in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Biden gave some of his most detailed explanations of his economic policy. He rejected the idea that he would govern as an economic progressive, saying, “I have a record of over 40 years, and I’m going to be Joe Biden. Look at my record.”
Biden also said he thought large corporations like Amazon should begin to pay their taxes, though he sidestepped a question on whether the large conglomerate should be broken up by the government.
“I think Amazon should start paying their taxes,” Biden said. “I don’t think any company, I don’t give a damn how big they are, Lord Almighty, should absolutely be in a position where they pay no tax.”
The latest jobs report showed millions more workers joined the ranks of the unemployed this week, bringing the total of jobless claims to nearly 39 million in just over two months. Biden has tried to pin the devastation on Trump’s administration; however, Biden's comments were met with some criticism as several progressive Democrats questioned whether his outlined corporate tax rate -- and his pledge to only raise taxes on Americans making more than $400,000 -- was a sign he could not deliver the programs capable of expansive change. Biden has, at times, oscillated between moderate policy proposals and embracing the rhetoric of systemic upheaval, a strategy which can allow progressive and moderate allies to see in his campaign what they want.....
--more--"
Before continuing with Biden, I want to address what is currently going on across the country regarding the race riots (call me a prophet if you will).
See: MINNEAPOLIS RIOTS; GEORGE FLOYD; 'STAGED FALSE FLAG'
The compilation above points to another planned crisis and plot, and if you dig in the trenches a bit more you will find it is the same old story straight from the Operation Gladio Strategy of Tension chapter with the agent provocateurs lighting the fires and laying the groundwork for martial law after the COVID burnout.
Not only has Fox thrown all-in with the agenda with its non-stop coverage last night (a key tell), the Globe greeted me with these before I started on today's paper:
Another night of protests and unrest across America
I'm told the National Guard was summoned to cities across the country as violent protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody continued.
Thousands ignore Minneapolis curfew as US protests spread
They also ignored vows of a forceful police response, and that was apparently just a bluff because they were nowhere to be found (reminiscent of the Rodney King riots and evidence that these controlled protests are being allowed by authority while we are all still under some form of lockdown) on the fourth straight night of protest.
Teenager dead after shots fired at protesters in Detroit, police say
State snipers or contracted shooters like those used on the Maiden in the Ukraine?
Pentagon puts military police on alert to go to Minneapolis
How would you like your martial law, under cover of COVID or SKIN?
Trump walks back his incendiary Minneapolis ‘thugs’ post
I worry about a second term; however, up until now he has not started any new wars (even if he has escalated the existing ones) and has not availed himself of emergency dictatorial power. That all could change, but so far.....
Then the story started to fall apart even in the pre$$:
George Floyd worked with officer charged in his death
It's not front-page news like this, but.....
Former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death as protests continue nationwide
That guy has shown up a lot in the past, while below the fold:
It’s bigger than buildings. America is burning
The Globe says that, for many Black Bostonians, Minneapolis suddenly feels close to home as police across the US speak out and hundreds protest in South End.
Even bu$ine$$es are are on board, so prepare for a Second Civil War over the summer, and be prepared to march on the poor, mostly Black counties in rural Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia where they have been hit hard with high losses of lives and jobs -- unlike White Oakland (by Great Scott)!
Now to turn to the women who must feel like they are sitting in the back of the bu$:
"Tara Reade is dropped as client by a leading #MeToo lawyer" by Lisa Lerer, Jim Rutenberg and Stephanie Saul New York Times, May 22, 2020
The lawyer for Tara Reade, the former Senate aide who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, said Friday that he was no longer representing her, just two weeks after taking her on as a client.
The lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor, has been a leading plaintiff’s attorney of the #MeToo era. His firm is best known for bringing discrimination cases against Fox News and its former star host Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein, and his presence at Reade’s side gave her claims added legal heft.
His announced departure occurred a day after defense lawyers in California said they were reviewing criminal cases in which Reade served as an expert witness on domestic violence, concerned that she had misrepresented her educational credentials in court.
While not providing a reason for leaving, Wigdor said his decision was “by no means a reflection on whether then-Senator Biden sexually assaulted Ms. Reade,” adding that he was among the 55 percent of Americans who believe her, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll.
Wigdor, a Republican whose support for President Trump in 2016 did not preclude him from suing prominent Trump allies, had a parting shot for the news media, which he accused of applying a “double standard” to its coverage of accusations against the presumed Democratic nominee.
“Much of what has been written about Ms. Reade is not probative of whether then-Senator Biden sexually assaulted her, but rather is intended to victim-shame and attack her credibility on unrelated and irrelevant matters,” he said. “We have and will continue to represent survivors regardless of their alleged predator’s status or politics.”
He is not the only one who has noted the double standards and attack dog nature of the New York Times.
Reade declined to comment on her lawyer’s departure.
He is leaving as her credibility is coming under scrutiny. On Thursday in California, lawyers who had faced off against her in court began raising questions about the legitimacy of her testimony, and the verdicts that followed, after news reports that Antioch University had disputed her claim of receiving a bachelor’s degree from its Seattle campus.
They didn't seem to matter when it was a woman named Blasey-Ford.
Then known as Alexandra McCabe, Reade testified as a government witness in Monterey County courts for nearly a decade, describing herself as an expert in the dynamics of domestic violence who had counseled hundreds of victims.
The public defender’s office in Monterey County has begun scrutinizing cases involving Reade and compiling a list of clients who may have been affected by her testimony, according to Jeremy Dzubay, an assistant public defender in the office.
Why is the public defender's office working for Joe Biden, and is that not a crime?
Roland Soltesz, a criminal defense lawyer, said he believes Reade’s testimony made a significant difference in the outcome of the 2018 trial of his client Victoria Ramirez. Both Ramirez and her codefendant, Jennifer Vasquez, received life sentences for attempted murder, arson, and armed robbery. “People have been convicted based upon this, and that’s wrong,” said Soltesz, adding that he “could care less about the politics of this whole thing.”
Let him out like all the other convicts (and you wonder why the cities are burning right now?)!!
Reade has accused Biden of assaulting her in the Senate complex in 1993, placing his hand under her dress and penetrating her with his fingers. Biden denies her accusation.
Questions about Reade’s education background were first reported by CNN.
Another woofer!
Reade has told The New York Times that she had obtained her degree through a “protected program” for victims of spousal abuse, which, court records show, she suffered at the hands of her former husband in the mid-1990s. That history, she said, caused her to change her name, leading to confusion about her status at the school. She later received a law degree from Seattle University, but an Antioch spokeswoman, Karen Hamilton, told the Times Reade had attended classes, but had not received a degree.
A real-life Sleeping With the Enemy.
Now Soltesz says he is exploring whether he can reopen his case. On Wednesday evening, he e-mailed a network of more than 100 public defenders, alerting them to questions about Reade’s background and credibility.
An Antioch spokeswoman sent the Times a screenshot of a transcript showing her with 35 course credits, her department as “BA Completion,” and nothing listed under “date conferred” or “degree conferred.”
--more--"
Related:
For Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, a complex history gives way to a new alliance
Why is Biden frowning?
Warren has plunged into the coronavirus response — just as Biden is searching for a VP
With all due respect to the senator, she should be ashamed of herself for not only endorsing him, but sucking up to him for the VP spot. I know it means de-facto president, but what about the principles she allegedly fights for? How often can you $ell out before you are no longer who you are?
Also see:
Biden on the Back Page
Biden's Basement Bull$hit
The Globe is doing the best they can to shield him.
Time to GO PROGRE$$IVELY BIG and BOLD:
"Seeking: big Democratic ideas that make everything better" by Alexander Burns New York Times, May 17, 2020
NEW YORK — More than 36 million Americans are unemployed. Congress has allocated $2.2 trillion in aid, with more likely to be on the way as a fight looms over government debt. Millions more people are losing their health insurance and struggling to care for their children and aging relatives, and nearly 90,000 are dead in a public health catastrophe.
This was not the scenario Joe Biden anticipated confronting when he competed for the Democratic nomination on a conventional left-of-center platform. Now, with Biden leading President Trump in the polls, the former vice president and other Democratic leaders are racing to assemble a governing agenda that meets the extraordinary times — and they agree it must be far bolder than anything the party establishment has embraced before.
Then WHY is BIDEN the "presumptive" nominee?
So far, neither Biden nor Trump has defined in itemized terms what an agenda for the first 100 days of a presidency in the coronavirus era might look like, but on the Democratic side, far more than within the Republican Party, there is an increasingly clear sense of the nature and scale of the goals a new administration would pursue.
More on that frightening prospect below.
Biden’s campaign has been rapidly expanding its policy-drafting apparatus, with the former vice president promising to detail plans for “the right kind of economic recovery” within weeks. He has already effectively shed his primary-season theme of restoring political normalcy to the country, replacing it with promises of sweeping economic change.
So the rest of us can be $wept away?
On Wednesday, Biden signaled anew that he was willing to reopen his policy platform, announcing six policy task forces — covering issues including health care, climate, and immigration, as well as the economy — that combine his core supporters with left-wing allies of Senator Bernie Sanders, his vanquished primary opponent.
Nah, no thanks. Devil you know.
The formation of those committees was aimed in part at easing divisions between Democrats that are already flaring on subjects like the size of a potential infrastructure bill and the intractable issue of health care. Despite having dashed Sanders’ populist insurgency in the primary, Biden is still facing loud calls from his party’s activist wing to adopt ideas he has firmly resisted, like single-payer health care, but in several areas there are already strong signs of consensus within Biden’s party, as once-cautious electoral and legislative tacticians shed their opposition to huge price tags and disruptive change amid a crisis that has melted traditional obstacles to government action.
Democratic leaders say that if they hold power in January, they must be prepared to move to pump trillions more into the economy; enact infrastructure and climate legislation far larger than they previously envisioned; pass a raft of aggressive worker-protection laws; expand government-backed health insurance; and create enormous new investments in public health jobs, health care facilities, and child care programs.
(Blog editor shakes head)
Discussions are also underway, some of them involving Republicans, about policies that would ban stock buybacks and compel big corporations to share more of their profits with workers. There is a sense that Democrats must use the next six months — with an unpredictable campaign still in progress — to prepare to act swiftly in case they get the chance. “There is a recognition that this event is more transformative than 2008, more transformative than 9/11, more transformative than the fall of the Berlin Wall,” said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a centrist Democrat.
That is when you want to slam on the brakes!
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who since ending her presidential campaign has laid out an array of plans for countering the pandemic, said she saw a widening recognition within her party that it faced “a big moment that we must meet with big ideas.” Warren, who has recently spoken several times about policy with Biden, said she believed the former vice president saw the moment in similarly urgent terms. “The coronavirus has pushed to the front the need for real change,” said Warren, a contender to be Biden’s running mate. “Families need more economic security, and we need an economy overall that has more resilience and more protection built in for helping each other in a time of crisis.”
He is being told he has to nominate a black woman or he won't win.
Hanging over Biden’s plans will be uncertainty about elections for the House and Senate that will determine whether Biden would have cooperative Democratic majorities or face opposition from a Republican-held Senate.
Holding the Senate is the most important thing.
For now, the political atmosphere seems to be one of demand for more aggressive action: One Democratic group, Navigator Research, which has been doing polling, found large majorities of voters concerned that the government would do too little to help people.
“We are going to have to do more, push further, be more creative coming out of this once-in-a-century pandemic — no doubt about it,” said Jake Sullivan, one of Biden’s closest policy advisers.
Oh, so COVID is to be used for POLITICAL ADVANTAGE.
HMMMM!
--more--"
Fortunately, help i$ on the way:
"Deval Patrick launching PAC to boost Joe Biden, other Democrats" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, May 14, 2020
Former governor Deval Patrick, three months removed from his short-lived presidential bid, is reemerging with a political action committee aimed at boosting presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Senate and House candidates, both this fall and beyond.
The TogetherFund PAC intends to work alongside campaigns and other organizations in competitive states and districts where the Democratic Party is trying to add seats in Congress, according to Patrick and aides.
Exactly how and where is to be determined, he said, but the Boston-based committee offers Patrick the potential of operating from a high-profile platform, where he can tap back into fund-raising networks and spread help to like-minded Democrats as he maps a path in the national political landscape.
Patrick said he intends to be involved with the committee for the next two to three election cycles, and said a repeat bid at political office is “not on the immediate horizon, to be sure.”
“I took my shot this last cycle. Now, I want to help others
“This PAC is about more than just this cycle. I want this to be ongoing for the next several," said Patrick, 63, who had initially decided in late 2018 against running for president before launching a belated bid and finishing far back in the Democratic field in the New Hampshire primary in February. “I hope it takes on a life of its own and it proves its value over time,” Patrick said.
Patrick follows other former White House candidates in pivoting to new ways to stay involved this fall. Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Ind., mayor, last month started his own PAC, and Senator Amy Klobuchar launched an effort to help a slate of House and Senate candidates.
Patrick’s committee is rooted in high-level concepts he embraced as a candidate: Promoting social justice, political collaboration, and “generational responsibility."
In a nearly seven-minute launch video, Patrick does not mention Biden, whom Patrick had already endorsed, or other candidates by name, but he stresses that Democrats “cannot waste time quarreling over relatively small policy differences when the times demand results scaled to meet the challenges before us.”
Patrick said the PAC’s effort will likely include networking in support of campaigns and using social media to spread messaging beyond “trafficking snark,” but as the novel coronavirus pandemic upends the traditional trappings of campaigning this fall, its exact path is still unclear.
“Isn’t everybody trying to sort out that question?” Patrick said in a Globe interview.....
--more--"
The other side of the ai$le will al$o be giving:
"Get republicans to vote against Trump? This group will spend $10 million to try" by Annie Karni New York Times, May 28, 2020
WASHINGTON — Four years ago, 50 of the country’s most senior Republican national security officials signed a letter declaring that Donald Trump would put the country at risk if he was elected and that they would not vote for him.
Now a new effort called Republican Voters Against Trump is hoping to chip away at Trump’s support from white, college-educated Republican voters in the suburbs, saying a more surgical approach may help to elect Joe Biden, his expected Democratic opponent.
The new group is set to begin a $10 million digital and television advertising campaign that will use personal stories of conservative voters giving voice to their deep — and sometimes brand-new — dissatisfaction with the president.
That didn't work last time, and he has incumbency as well as popular opinion with him now.
The group will test the premise of whether there are really any persuadable voters left in a deeply tribal moment in US politics, in which views of Trump, both positive and negative, have only been hardened over the past four years.
“What was missing in 2016 was a real concerted effort to take the voices of real people who have deep reservations about Trump, but who identify as Republicans, and allow them to be the messengers,” said Sarah Longwell, a lifelong conservative and a prominent Never Trump Republican.
The initiative is the idea of Longwell; Bill Kristol, the conservative writer; and Tim Miller, a former top aide to former governor Jeb Bush of Florida. Together, Longwell and Kristol have also worked on an initiative called Republicans for the Rule of Law, which has begun its own ad blitz against Trump.
I can't think of two better reasons to support Trump then!
The effort joins a similar one called The Lincoln Project, a super PAC founded by veteran GOP operatives. On Thursday, Stuart Stevens, the former chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said he joined the group. ‘‘They've proven to be effective,’’ he said. ‘‘They remind Republicans that it doesn’t have to be this way. They remind Republicans of principles that the party had said it long stood for.’’ When asked if he might be able to recruit Romney, now a Republican senator from Utah and occasional Trump critic, to the Lincoln Project cause, Stevens said, ‘‘No. Can’t imagine.’’
Mitt was the only Repug to vote to impeach!
The Lincoln Project’s leadership includes strategists John Weaver, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt and former New Hampshire Republican Party chair Jennifer Horn, who worked on William Weld’s primary presidential campaign. Lawyer George Conway, who is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, is involved.
It must be hell living in that house!
The founders of Republican Voters Against Trump spent almost three years conducting focus groups and intensive research on messages that would work with persuadable voters. From that effort, they created a cache of 100 testimonial videos with voters explaining why they are making the sometimes painful choice to break with their political party.
PFFFFT!
Some of the videos are hardly rousing endorsements for Biden. In one testimonial, Wayne from Dallas says to the camera, “I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary, so I voted for President Trump,” but he said he believed the president had “gotten worse” and that “everything he’s done has been to enrich himself.” With a note of resignation, he says: “I will not be voting for him here in 2020. I suppose I’ll be voting for Biden.”
What a ringing endorsement that is!
Sitting on his couch in New York City, Dan Eckman, a self-described lifelong conservative, says of Biden, “This guy has one term written all over him. Let him win. We’ll have four years to rebuild the base, reeducate the party, bleach out the Trump cult stain and then come back.” He adds, “I wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump with a gun to my head, and neither should you.”
They intend to use COVID to KILL YOU!
Some of the testimonials, like one from Gary, a lifelong Republican from Florida, describe Mr. Biden as “not a perfect candidate” but a “decent man.”
UGH!
Longwell said the expression of lukewarm feelings about Biden made for a more authentic pitch for a Republican audience.
(Blog editor can't help but chuckle)
The campaign, set to blitz the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona, is primarily aimed at college-educated white voters in suburbs.
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, dismissed the effort in a one-word e-mail: “irrelevant.”
Longwell said her focus groups had shown that there were still persuadable voters out there.
“I was surprised by how many people had just decided because of the coronavirus response,” Longwell said. “They for the first time started watching the press conferences.”
If watching, they are more likely to believe in Trump!
--more--"
What do they know that you do not?
"Inside an extraordinary GOP event: ‘Pressing Flesh and Kissing Babies’ again" by Astead W. Herndon New York Times, May 29, 2020
CONWAY, S.C. — The first mention of the coronavirus pandemic was a joke, and with that passing mention, South Carolina Republicans returned to the normal rhythm of the campaign trail, coronavirus all the same.
The outdoor gathering Thursday was a send-off event for Cleo Steele, a longtime Republican Party operative in Horry County, who is retiring to Ohio. Speakers shared the same microphone. Local and state political candidates greeted voters with handshakes and squeezed tight for pictures. Of all the people gathered outside the county Republican office — many of them senior citizens — fewer than a dozen wore masks.
In reality, according to interviews with more than a dozen attendees, the event was an active rejection of behavior that the hyper-conservative crowd has come to associate with liberal enemies in recent months: wearing masks and gloves, staying 6 feet away from other people, avoiding physical touch.
Being for Freedom, Liberty, and the Constitution is now "hyper-conservative."
To treat the coronavirus as something to be feared, they said, was a political act incongruous with their values.
Dwayne “Duke” Buckner, who is challenging home-state senator Lindsey Graham in the Republican Senate primary next month and came to the event to meet voters, said he had recently stopped adhering to public health guidelines, which he described as overly burdensome.
Oh, GOOD!
August Savello, 49, said he followed Dr. Steven Hotze, a Republican activist who has published videos such as “Coronavirus Mass Hysteria,” and preferred to do his own research rather than listening to state and federal public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci.
That has always been my advice to people that read this blog.
“A virus is a virus is a virus, and there’s viruses around us all the time,” he said. “My father had it, and he’s 79 years old. He said it was like a bad flu.”
Michael LaPierre, a right-wing Senate candidate who came to the event with dozens of supporters who pestered Graham, said he had no reservations about extending handshakes and taking pictures, or as he put it, “pressing flesh and kissing babies.”
If nothing else, it helps build herd immunity.
“We wipe our hands and take precautions,” said LaPierre, who is 70 and lives with his 99-year-old mother-in-law, “but I spent 28 months in Vietnam and crashed six times in a helicopter. I’m going to die when I’m going to die.”
During the program, Steele, seated in a wheelchair, was presented with commendations from Graham and home-state senator Tim Scott, as well as awards from local and state Republicans. Speakers posed for pictures with the honoree, hugging her close as they applauded her years of service. Aides to Graham and Scott wore masks. The senators did not.
Do as they say, not as they.... (I gotta take the mask off, sorry).... do.
Behind the outdoor podium, a full-fledged marketplace of pro-Trump merchandise attracted a gaggle of customers. In the center sat a bronze bust of the president, which some rubbed for luck and posed with for pictures.
Oh, Jees!
At the program’s conclusion, the emcee, Robert Rabon of the Horry County Republican Party, called up more than a dozen state and local candidates, who introduced themselves to the audience, shared a portion of their political platform, and returned to the crowd for meet-and-greets.
“Candidates — state House, state Senate, and the House — line up,” Rabon said. “Don’t take a long time.”
He coughed into the microphone and passed it to the first speaker.
Not a good idea!
Skeptics who call it out tend to contract it (Gobert, Rand Paul, BoJo).
That the event was held the same week that the pandemic’s US death toll crossed 100,000 reflected the different realities of the virus along political, racial, and geographic lines. In densely populated urban centers, more likely to be inhabited by Democrats and racial minorities, high infection rates have completely upended daily life and made social distancing largely nonnegotiable.
Too bad for them.
In coastal Horry County, which includes Myrtle Beach and is overwhelmingly Republican, news of relaxed restrictions on social gatherings was treated with relief. State data shows that Horry County has nearly 400 confirmed cases of coronavirus, below the state’s per capita average. Black South Carolinians, meanwhile, have contracted more than half of the state’s total cases, although they make up less than 30 percent of the state’s population. The crowd at the event was almost all white.....
--more--"
Here is how Biden would treat COVID-19:
"Biden’s testing strategy sets up a clear contrast with Trump on the coronavirus" By Sheryl Gay Stolberg The New York Times, May 28, 2020
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden has proposed harnessing the broad powers of the federal government to step up coronavirus testing, with a public-private board overseeing test manufacturing and distribution, federal safety regulators enforcing testing at work and at least 100,000 contact tracers tracking down people exposed to the virus.
NOPE, and let's face, the election will be decided based on Freedom in the face of COVID-19.
The presumptive Democratic nominee’s plan, laid out in a little-noticed Medium post, stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s leave-it-to-the-states strategy, detailed in an 81-page document released over the weekend, and it presents voters in November with a classic philosophical choice over the role they want Washington to play during the worst public health crisis in a century.
You are a racist and White supremacist if you holler states' rights or local control.
With more than 100,000 Americans already dead from the coronavirus and at least 1.7 million infected, testing has emerged as a major campaign issue. Polls show that most people want better access to testing and believe it is the job of the federal government. Like Biden, Democrats running for Congress have seized on testing as a prime example of what they view as Trump’s incompetent response to the crisis.
In Michigan, Sen. Gary Peters, an incumbent Democrat, tells viewers in a TV ad that “workplaces need to be safe” and “that means more testing.” In Colorado, an ad for Sen. Cory Gardner, an incumbent Republican, begins with footage of a news anchor saying, “Coronavirus tests are coming to Colorado from South Korea because of Sen. Cory Gardner.”
So it REALLY DOESN'T MATTER WHICH SIDE of the AI$LE you are on, and we are f**ked!
In Maine, Sara Gideon, a Democrat running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, is airing a TV ad in which she says that “the federal government needs to expand testing, which is critical to keeping us safe.”
She wants to put Collins on ICER!
In Washington, Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference Tuesday to attack the Trump plan as insufficient. “Mr. President, take responsibility,” Pelosi declared, adding, “That’s what the president of the United States is supposed to do.”
The lecturing from the disingenuous hypocrite and purely political creature must end.
Beyond the slogans and congressional calls for a national testing strategy, Biden’s plan, laid out late last month as he struggled to grab voters’ attention, begins to flesh out what such a strategy would entail.
Harking back to the War Production Board created during World War II by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former vice president proposed a “Pandemic Testing Board” to oversee “a nationwide campaign” to increase production of diagnostic and antibody tests, coordinate distribution, identify testing sites and people to staff them, and build laboratory capacity.
Testing, he and his advisers wrote, “is the springboard we need to help get our economy safely up and running again.”
Biden said he would do what the Obama administration did during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 — instruct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which regulates workplace safety, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue detailed guidance for how employers should protect their workers, including testing, campaign advisers say. OSHA would enforce compliance.
That's not what we want.
Under Trump, OSHA has issued COVID-19 guidance for employers that is “advisory in nature and informational in content” and does not mention testing. The CDC’s interim guidance for employers says only that companies “should not require a COVID-19 test result” or a doctor’s note to grant sick leave or to determine whether employees can return to work.
Biden would also create a new federal entity: The U.S. Public Health Jobs Corps, a force of at least 100,000 people, including AmeriCorps and Peace Corps volunteers and laid off workers, to trace the contacts of those who test positive for the virus, and “become the permanent foundation” of a service that would address other public health priorities like the opioid epidemic.
Looks like MEDICAL FA$CI$M to ME!
Republicans argue in favor of a more localized response. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, called Biden’s idea a “typical Democratic response.”
“There’s a big difference between what’s going on in Queens, New York, and rural Tennessee, and the governors know best what to do,” he said, adding, “Every time you have a national problem, whether it’s education or health, the instinct of Democrats is to say, ‘Let’s solve it from Washington,’ and my instinct and that of Republicans is that this is a country that works state by state, community by community.”
Have you met mine because.... RINO.
Some public health experts, including those who advise the Biden campaign and some who do not, say that is a false dichotomy. The federal government could and should cooperate with and support the states, and also take a more aggressive role, they say, particularly in a chaotic environment where a global shortage has left governors — and now employers — competing for scant supplies of test kits and wondering how best to use them.
“Every university, every employer, every organization is struggling to figure out how to use testing to create a safe environment,” said David A. Kessler, a Biden campaign adviser who was the commissioner of food and drugs under Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. “If you’re Amazon,” he added, “you can hire people to put in place testing systems to help assure the safety of your work force, but not everyone can do that. Why are we reinventing this firm by firm, school by school, employer by employer?”
Look, he worked for two war criminals so.....
Congress required Trump to provide a national testing strategy in the $484 billion stimulus package it passed last month and required the states to submit plans to the federal government for approval, but Democrats on Capitol Hill say the strategy the Trump administration offered over the weekend falls far short of what they envisioned.
Then impeach him.
Experts say there should be two main components to a comprehensive national testing strategy: a centralized effort to acquire test kits and distribute them, and clear guidance on how to use them.
Andrew Slavitt, who was the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama and has provided advice to the Trump White House during the pandemic, said one reason for the government to control the acquisition of coronavirus tests is that commercial labs are increasing their prices to as much as $140 a test.
“In this laissez-faire policy, there are scarce resources, and whoever has the scarce resources gets to charge what they want, and the states all get to bid and now the employers are bidding,” he said. “The consequences of this are to make the distribution much more costly, much more uneven.”
Polls show that voters tend to favor a prominent role for the federal government. In a Pew Research survey released this month, 61% of Americans said coronavirus testing was mostly or entirely the responsibility of the federal government, not the states.
A Fox News poll released last week found that 63% of registered voters viewed the “lack of available testing” as a “major problem.” Just 12% said it was not a problem at all. Voters said they trusted Biden to do a better job on health care than Trump by a 17-point margin and favored Biden on the handling of the pandemic by nine points over Trump.
Then Trump is finished.
In a CNN poll earlier in May, 57% of Americans said the federal government was not doing enough to address the limited availability of coronavirus testing. “When Americans hear Trump talking about testing not being his responsibility, the takeaway is that he’s just passing the buck,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.
F**k testing, I want them protecting Freedom!
If they don't do it, we will have to.
While Trump has repeatedly said that anyone who wants a test can get one, that is not true in many parts of the country. It is true in Tennessee, where Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has decided that the state will pay for testing. “When in doubt, get a test,” he said on his Facebook page, adding, “Aggressive testing is key to our reopening strategy,” and while Trump has emphasized the number of people who have been tested — more than 15 million Americans, as of Monday — experts say the more important metrics are what percentage of the population has been tested, what percentage of tests come back positive and how those tests are deployed.
“Instead of focusing on what we need to do as a country to keep ourselves and our populations and especially our vulnerable people safe, and saying let’s come up with the right testing strategy and make sure we have enough tests to implement it, we’ve just been fighting about the number of tests,” said Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
Testing has been a confounding issue for Trump since the early days of the pandemic, when sloppy laboratory practices at the CDC caused contamination that rendered the nation’s first coronavirus tests ineffective, delaying the rollout. The country never quite caught up.
Countries that had aggressive early testing campaigns — South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Germany, among others — have largely controlled their epidemics. Before the pandemic there were 12 direct flights between Taiwan and Wuhan, China, its epicenter, each week.
Is it a pandemic or an epidemic?
Pandemic means out of control, so stop calling it that!
Taiwan banned flights from China, as did Trump, but Taiwan had also developed a sophisticated testing and contact tracing program after the SARS pandemic of 2003. It has just 441 cases and seven deaths.
If only we had a VP like them!
Trump’s travel ban “led us to believe that we had shut the barn door when there was a flood of virus coming into our country from multiple direction,” said J. Stephen Morrison, who runs a global health program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He added, “We didn’t have a testing system and we didn’t want one.”
Still don't because we know what it is and what it means.
--more--"
More from the shadow government:
"Obama criticizes virus response in online graduation speech" by Jill Colvin Associated Press, May 16, 2020
WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama on Saturday criticized US leaders overseeing the nation’s response to the coronavirus, telling college graduates in an online commencement address that the pandemic shows many officials ‘‘aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”
Obama spoke on “Show Me Your Walk, HBCU Edition,” a two-hour event for students graduating from historically Black colleges and universities broadcast on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. His remarks were unexpectedly political, given the venue, and touched on current events beyond the virus and its social and economic impacts.
“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama said. “A lot them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”
Later Saturday, during a second televised commencement address for high school seniors, Obama panned “so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs” who do “what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy.”
“Which is why things are so screwed up,” he said.
Obama did not name President Trump or any other federal or state officials in either of his appearances, but earlier this month, he harshly criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster” in a call with 3,000 members of his administrations obtained by Yahoo News.
The commencement remarks were the latest sign that Obama intends to play an increasingly active role in the coming election. He has generally kept a low profile in the years since he left office, even as Trump has disparaged him. Obama told supporters on the call that he would be “spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can’’ for Joe Biden, who served as his vice president.
That isn't going to help him, but I suppose he needs it anyway after last week.
As he congratulated the college graduates Saturday and commiserated over the enormous challenges they face given the devastation and economic turmoil the virus has wrought, the former president noted the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, who was killed while jogging on a residential street in Georgia.
“Let’s be honest: A disease like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that Black communities have historically had to deal with in this country,’’ Obama said. ‘‘We see it in the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on our communities, just as we see it when a Black man goes for a jog and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning.”
He did hi$ part.
“Injustice like this isn’t new,’’ Obama went on to say. “What is new is that so much of your generation has woken up to the fact that the status quo needs fixing, that the old ways of doing things don’t work.’’ In the face of a void in leadership, he said, it would be up to the graduates to shape the future.
“If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you,’’ he said.
It is a perilous time for the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities, which have long struggled with less funding and smaller endowments than their predominantly white peers and are now dealing with the financial challenges of the coronavirus. Even at the better-endowed HBCUs, officials are bracing for a tough few years.
Yeah, it's all a matter of Black and white.
Obama’s message to high school students came at the end of an hourlong television special featuring celebrities including LeBron James, Yara Shahidi, and Ben Platt, and was less sharp-edged than his speech to the college graduates. He urged the young graduates to be unafraid despite the current challenges facing the nation and to strive to be part of a diverse community.
“Leave behind all the old ways of thinking that divide us — sexism, racial prejudice, status, greed — and set the world on a different path,’’ he said.
Depends on where.
--more--"
