It does raise the question of whether he contracted COVID at all, and despite being the Globe's main attraction, I will quickly be off it today.
President Trump to speak at White House event
That is as status of his COVID-19 infection remains unclear, the Washington Compost tells me.
Don't waste your time on it (my print copy was AP) because the crucial question is this:
"The crucial COVID-19 question no one in the White House will answer" by Liz Goodwin Globe Staff, October 9, 2020
WASHINGTON — President Trump appeared to be closing in on one of the many unanswered questions about his bout with coronavirus: How did he get infected?
More like was he infected.
With all due respect, this whole thing is starting to feel orchestrated to deflect and distract from so many things while providing pre-preprogramming, mind control narratives to advance to overall Great Re$et agenda.
On Thursday, he suggested it happened during a ceremony with family members of fallen soldiers on Sept. 27, but Trump and his aides have repeatedly dodged an equally important and easier-to-answer question, one that would help uncover who the president himself may have exposed — including potentially his rival, Joe Biden — and whether he should have been campaigning in the days before he announced his diagnosis late last week: the date of his last negative COVID-19 test.
This repeated refusal by Trump, his doctors, and top aides raises questions about when the president first became contagious, and his judgment in traveling around the country after at least one top staffer began showing symptoms. A bevy of Trump’s top aides have since fallen ill, and several of the nation’s top military leaders are in quarantine after interacting with a Coast Guard admiral who tested positive after attending the Gold Star event.
Trump was hammier for suggesting it could be there, but boom, evidence suggest maybe.
That's if you buy into this fiction. The original cause was fingered as the Rose Garden while the pre$$ totally avoids the fact that it is the debate itself where Trump most likely was infected.
If you buy into this script, it makes sense. That's where they infected him with who knows what, if he was infected at all.
Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, his physician Sean Conley, and other aides and campaign officials have all refused to answer the question. Their explanations range from wanting to protect Trump’s privacy to not being in the loop on the president’s testing timeline. Sometimes, they urge reporters to focus on the future, not the past, but the question is relevant to the immediate future, public health experts say, because it could guide the contact tracing effort that has belatedly begun at the White House. An official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention embedded in the White House Medical Unit is contact tracing to ensure those who had direct contact with the many White House COVID-19 cases isolate and are tested, so they don’t continue to spread the disease.
This fraudulent plannedemic is being spread like fertilizer by the pre$$.
“The more precision that we can have in terms of the last day he was negative…the more precise contact tracing efforts can be,” said Dr. Howard Koh, a former top official at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration. “Having precision on that whole process is very important, and we don’t have that now.”
The question also has political importance given the White House’s COVID-19 outbreak has drawn blistering criticism of Trump’s approach to handling the disease both in his own home and as president. Even some Republicans are criticizing the president for holding events — some indoors — without social distancing or masks. This week, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell suggested he’s avoided going to the White House since August because officials there appeared to have a lax approach to COVID-19.
Trump is LITERALLY being SHUNNED!
If it turns out Trump had not been tested for coronavirus in the days before he received a positive result, it would reinforce the concern he carelessly exposed his own donors in New Jersey and others, even as those around him, including top staffer Hope Hicks, were falling ill.
Speaking of Jersey, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he’s been discharged from a New Jersey hospital where he spent a week after contracting the coronavirus, so how deadly can it really be?
With all due respect, the stench of fakery is overwhelming.
Your ma$ters are making you look like foolish pieces of $hit, and speaking of turds:
“It is a very important question for our country,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, told reporters Thursday. “Let us see a date, a time, when you last tested negative before you admitted to this virus.”
Anthony Scaramucci, who served a brief stint as Trump’s White House communications director and has since become highly critical of him, speculated in a tweet that the obfuscation around the testing means Trump may have been sick “earlier than we all thought.”
“Could he have debated [Biden] sick with Covid-19?” Scaramucci asked. “We won’t know but we can smell the recklessness and lack of regard for others.”
Could he have gotten infected there, you mean?
Trump is eager to show voters that he recovered, planning to hold an in-person event at the White House on Saturday and a rally in Florida on Monday. In a Fox News interview Friday night, he said he had been retested but hadn’t received the results. Still, Trump asserted he was either “at the bottom of the scale” or virus free, but avoiding the question about his last negative test may further the perception that Trump is not being transparent or honest about his condition, following Conley dodging other key questions during his hospital stay. A recent CNN poll found that just 12 percent of Americans said they had faith in most of what they hear from the White House about the president’s health.
What an INDICTMENT of not only the DOCTORS but the MEDICAL PROFE$$ION in general!
The same amount are also willing to take the tube of toxic poisons, too, as Trump tells the New York Times he is medication free.
“They need to get this episode behind them as soon as possible,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former aide to Senator Marco Rubio. “It’s really hard to do that when they won’t answer fundamental questions.”
The pre$$ will also help by dragging it out.
Trump’s reticence is provoking eye rolls from those who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, given how his campaign pushed false information questioning her health, including suggesting she had an illness affecting her brain, after Clinton fainted at a 9/11 anniversary ceremony.
She seems to have livened up since then.
Maybe it's the blood transfusions?
“There’s irony all over this,” said Amanda Renteria, who worked on Clinton’s campaign, but Renteria said the outbreak at the White House brings the focus back on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus at a crucial time for Democrats, who are making the case that the country’s high COVID-19 death toll is at least partially the president’s fault.
“It’s hard to say everything’s OK when your own White House is a hot spot,” she said.
Proving once again that the legendary COVID is a POLITICALLY USEFUL VIRUS!
--more--"
He's refusal to "answer the question(!)" simply reminds all voters of his broken promises as he tries to buy votes:
"Trump’s push to give federal aid to crucial 2020 voting blocs undermined by uneven execution" by Jeff Stein The Washington Post, October 9, 2020
HOLMEN, Wis. — Randy Messelt thought little of President Donald Trump’s recent trip to central Wisconsin to announce tens of billions of dollars in additional federal aid for farmers.
I'm more concerned with the coming food shortages and famine that the pre$$ now ignores.
Messelt, 54, a lifelong Democrat, was one of the many Wisconsin farmers who helped tip the presidential election to Trump in 2016 because he felt Hillary Clinton and other Democrats had neglected the needs of rural America, but just one year into Trump's administration, Messelt was ruined financially due to a long-running crisis in dairy country, exacerbated by the president's international trade wars. His son, Timothy Messelt, 26, who planned to inherit the farm that had been passed down for five generations, killed himself as the family business collapsed and he went through a breakup.
Unbelievable.
The WaCompo is insinuating that Trump practically murdered him when much larger forces are at work.
"It's too little, too late. It's a joke. A joke. It's a whole joke," Messelt said of the president's federal farm aid programs, looking up at an empty 150-foot barn that once housed 53 cattle. All but one of the four farms once adjacent to Messelt's have closed, and he is not sure whom he will vote for this fall. He added of Trump's most recent announcement: "I don't care if it's a Democrat or a Republican or whatever. What they do is they toss you a bone here or there so it looks like it's hanging on, looks like the economy is doing fine, and then the bottom falls out."
He encapsulates my sentiments exactly.
In recent weeks, the president has with increasing urgency sought to unlock federal spending to shore up key voting blocs ahead of the 2020 presidential election. He has attempted to push billions in taxpayer money to farmers, seniors and other voters in swing states that could decide his political fate. This drive has only intensified since Trump left the hospital this week. He is now prodding Congress to send another round of $1,200 stimulus checks to millions of Americans, similar to the ones sent earlier this year with his name on them.
ALL PRESIDENTS have DONE THAT!
In the past, it was called the power of incumbency!
Presidents have traditionally sought to deliver material economic benefits to their constituents to win reelection, but Trump's latest efforts to throw money at key electoral constituencies - with or without congressional approval - stand out as uniquely aggressive in the modern presidency, according to longtime budget experts.
SIGH!
"Clearly, he is trying to buy the election in a way nobody has ever done before, at least not in my lifetime," said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, but it is not clear that Trump's efforts to throw money at key voting groups will in fact sway voters to his side, in part because the execution of these programs has often proved either uneven or nonexistent.
Probably not, and what candidate isn't trying to buy the election via the donors that fund them?
No mention of them here.
Don Weigel, 54, an independent voter and dairy farmer near the town of Marshfield, has voted for both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates amid the typical swings in dairy prices. The past two years have been as hard as any. Weigel for the first time started an apple orchard and considered taking a part-time job to supplement his income.
Still, Weigel said he will "probably" back Trump in November, in part because of the $14,000 he received in federal aid this spring through the Cares Act. Weigel said the additional assistance allowed him to make payments on seed and fertilizer, as well as to pay off some of the debt he accrued in acquiring the property of a neighboring farmer.
"It's helped a lot. It really keeps a guy going," said Weigel, as he went to crush the grapes that had snaked around his grain silo and would eventually become juice. "Every time you look at a candidate, you look at: 'Are they going to benefit me?' That's what you always look at."
Farmers like Weigel proved crucial for Trump's initial path to the White House. Approximately 70% of farmers, traditionally Democratic or independent, voted for him in 2016, but once in office, the president took actions that risked alienating that base of support. America's farmers have been roiled by multiple financial crises under the Trump administration, including some directly tied to the president's decisions, particularly the dramatic price volatility related to his ongoing trade wars.
In order to insulate domestic manufacturing from foreign competition, the president slapped tariffs on international imports of products such as steel and aluminum. Other countries retaliated. Most notably, China imposed tariffs on American agricultural exports, a move designed to weaken the president politically. Trump also sought to renegotiate trade deals with America's European and North American allies, which plunged trade markets into further uncertainty.
Isn't that interference in the election?
The president has turned to cash bailouts to ease the political and economic fallout. The president's embrace of bailouts and higher federal spending flies against Republican economic orthodoxy and has frustrated some of his closest White House aides, traditional conservatives who oppose higher levels of government spending, and the scattershot approach may be less effective than reaching a deal on another stimulus package with congressional Democrats, which has remained out of reach despite increasing strain on the economy and the president's eagerness for a deal.
Still, many Democrats in rural Wisconsin said they believe Trump's late push for more federal spending will help his reelection prospects. At a recent Tuesday night in a barn outside of La Crosse, Lisa Vander, 58, a doctoral student in economics with two masters degrees, hosted a handful of neighbors to spray paint large cardboard yard signs for Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.).
Only one farmer, a lifelong Democrat, was in attendance. While Vander said many farmers do support Biden, she has met few who have abandoned the president despite the severe disruption to their trade markets.....
Then Trump holds Wisconsin, doesn't he?
--more--"
At least until the mail-in ballots start rolling in:
"Huge Absentee Vote in Key States Favors Democrats So Far" by Reid J. Epstein, Nick Corasaniti and Stephanie Saul New York Times, Oct. 10, 2020
In Madison, Wis., thousands of people have gone to parks to deliver their ballots during Saturday voting festivals. In Milwaukee, Facebook feeds are inundated with selfies of Democrats inserting ballots into drop boxes, and along the shores of Lake Superior, voters in Wisconsin’s liberal northwest corner still trust the Postal Service to deliver ballots.
Why wouldn't they?
That pro-Biden crowd has been caught tossing Trump ballots like War of the Worlds.
Once the tripods go into an area, no more votes come out of there.
Of all the mini-battlegrounds within Wisconsin — perhaps the most pivotal state in November for both President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the mother lode of absentee ballots is coming in Dane County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Madison. As of Friday, the number of submitted ballots there amounted to more than 36 percent of the county’s total 2016 election vote, a sign of significant enthusiasm; that figure is 10 percentage points higher than in any other county in the state.
In Wisconsin’s Republican heartland, the suburban counties that ring Milwaukee, the absentee turnout is only at about the state average so far, and in the dozens of rural counties where President Trump won huge victories four years ago, ballots are being returned at a far slower rate than in the state’s Democratic areas.
The yawning disparities in voting across Wisconsin and several other key battlegrounds so far are among the clearest signs yet this fall that the Democratic embrace of absentee voting is resulting in head starts for the party ahead of Election Day. For Republicans, the voting patterns underscore the huge bet they are placing on high turnout on Nov. 3, even as states like Wisconsin face safety concerns at polling sites given the spikes in coronavirus cases.
Oh, BIDEN is OFF to an EARLY LEAD, huh?
The Democratic enthusiasm to vote is not limited to Wisconsin. Ballot return data from heavily Democratic cities like Pittsburgh; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Tampa, Fla., and the long lines of cars waiting at a Houston arena to drop off ballots, are signs that many voters have followed through on their intentions to cast ballots well ahead of Nov. 3.
There is still time for Republicans to catch up in many places, and they are expected to vote in strong numbers in person on Election Day, and untold numbers of absentee ballots could be rejected for failing to fulfill requirements, like witness signatures, or could face legal challenges, but in states that have begun accepting absentee ballots, Democrats have built what appears to be a sizable advantage, after years when Republicans were usually more likely to vote by mail.
Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, said his models showed Democrats with a 10-point advantage among the 275,000 first-time voters nationwide who had already cast ballots and an 18-point lead among 1.1 million “sporadic voters” who had already voted.
At the same point in the 2016 cycle, Mr. Bonier said, his model showed Democrats with a 1.6-point advantage among sporadic voters. “Democrats are highly engaged, and they’re turning out,” Mr. Bonier said. “Republicans can’t say the same.”
Across the country, voters in states with little history of casting their ballots weeks before Election Day have embraced the practice as the nation grapples with the eighth month of a pandemic that has so far killed more than 212,000 Americans.
As of Saturday, more than 8.8 million ballots had already been received by elections officials in the 30 states that have made data available. In five states — including the battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Minnesota — the number of ballots returned already is more than 20 percent of the entire 2016 turnout.
The Wisconsin ballot numbers illustrate how much voting has changed in the pandemic era. In the 2016 general election, 146,294 Wisconsinites voted by mail, and 666,035 others voted at in-person early-voting sites. In the current general election, 646,987 people have already voted absentee as of Friday. Early-voting sites start opening in Wisconsin on Oct. 20.
Wisconsin’s municipal clerks can begin tabulating absentee ballots once the polls open on Election Day. As a result, the full results from early voting in Wisconsin as well as some other states may not be known until after Nov. 3.
Let the forging ballots begin!
Officials from both parties say that Democrats are far more eager to vote early, a consequence of encouragement from party leaders like Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama to vote as soon as possible to avoid possibly exposing themselves to the virus at Election Day polling sites. Many Republicans have followed the lead of Mr. Trump, who has regularly castigated voting by mail, while the party’s leadership in some states has offered mixed messages about when supporters should vote.
Is that how our evil overlords plan to spread a fictional second wave further?
Trump voters infected at the polls!
Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor, said the 2020 presidential election is the first in which Democrats are casting pre-Election Day ballots at a faster rate than Republicans.
In Florida, he said, 11.5 percent of Democrats who requested absentee ballots have returned them, compared with 8.7 percent of Republicans. The same pattern emerges in another battleground state, North Carolina, where the return rate for Democratic ballots is 32.9 percent and the return rate for Republicans is 27.4 percent.
While Democrats fret about the possibility of Mr. Trump repeating his 2016 Election Day turnout that swamped Hillary Clinton’s early-voting lead, Democrats’ early-voting advantage this year, particularly in states like Florida, is worrying top Republicans. While many Republicans expected turnout before Election Day to be slightly depressed by the president’s criticism of mail voting, the gap means that Republicans have to flood the polls on Election Day, and a lack of absentee ballots returned could leave the G.O.P. blind as it adjusts its get-out-the-vote operation in the weeks ahead.
“One of the advantages of having absentee ballots or voting by mail is it gives you a little bit of a snapshot as they are returned, and finding out who is returning them and where you are in your field operation,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist. “If Republicans aren’t getting accurate reads on that, they’re not getting accurate reads on where they need to adjust more.”
Alex Conant, a veteran adviser to Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said the president’s continued belittling and questioning voting by mail had suppressed Republican turnout.
“In Florida, Republicans have a really good early-vote program,” he said. “The president takes advantage of it. So why the president would tell Republicans in Florida not to vote early, when historically that’s how we run elections in Florida, is very concerning.”
Then Florida flips this year on the way to a decisive Biden victory, huh?
While Wisconsin Democrats have waged a campaign for months to urge voters to request absentee ballots and return them quickly, the Republican Party of Wisconsin recently sent mail to its supporters urging them to hand-deliver ballots to their local municipal clerks, but in much of Republican-heavy rural Wisconsin, clerks work only part-time, leaving fewer opportunities to return ballots by hand.
“The left is very focused on getting their people to request absentee ballots and return them,” said Matt Batzel, the Cedar Grove, Wis.-based executive director of American Majority, a conservative grass-roots training organization. “Democrats are in the lead as of the ballots that are returned, no doubt.”
Just 26 percent of Democrats said they planned to vote in person on Election Day, compared with 56 percent of Republicans, according to polling of likely voters in 11 battleground states conducted by The New York Times and Siena College since Sept. 8.
“People that I’m talking to are going to go to the polls,” said James Edming, a Republican assemblyman from northern Wisconsin who was the first elected official there to endorse Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. “If you put ’em in the mail, God only knows, but if I turn it in to the clerk at the Town of True, I know it’s going to count.”
Looming over the absentee ballot returns are the continued lawsuits and systemic problems that the president has seized on in an attempt to cast doubt on mail voting. There are currently hundreds of lawsuits across the country, still undecided, regarding the rules and regulations of how ballots will be cast and counted.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the secretary of state is still seeking court guidance on whether the state is required to perform signature matching on absentee ballots, and the state is still waiting on a potential Supreme Court ruling regarding ballot deadlines.
Election officials nationwide are also bracing for challenges to some ballots, over whether postmarks are clear and legible or whether signatures were incorrectly rejected.
News of ballot errors, while infrequent, has nonetheless received outsize attention and amplification, mostly from the president. Still, the issues raise some doubt about the ability of cities and states to meet the surge in demand for mail-in ballots. In Ohio, nearly 50,000 ballots were mailed out with incorrect information. In Brooklyn, nearly 100,000 ballots were sent out with similar errors.
Even within states, the effort put toward absentee voting varies wildly.
To vote early in Pennsylvania, a voter can go to a county election office to request an absentee ballot, fill it out in person and submit it on the spot. The Pennsylvania secretary of state encouraged counties to open satellite election offices, but not every county has done so. Philadelphia, for example, has seven open and will have 17 throughout the city by Election Day. In Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, there will be five open on weekends throughout October, but in Lackawanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, there are no satellite election offices, and in North Carolina, Democratic-leaning counties around Asheville, Charlotte and Raleigh have high rates of absentee voting so far, but a half-dozen rural Democratic counties with majority Black populations have some of the state’s lowest turnout ratios so far.
In Wisconsin, election officials in Milwaukee and Madison, the state’s largest and most heavily Democratic cities, have sought to make absentee voting more accessible to avoid large gatherings at the polls. For the last two Saturdays, the Madison municipal clerk’s office has sent 1,000 poll workers to more than 200 city parks, where they have collected more than 16,000 ballots. Milwaukee officials have 13 drop box sites across town, which have become the city’s latest selfie-taking hot spots.
“I see lots of pictures on Facebook of people taking selfies as they drop their ballots into the boxes,” said Sachin Chheda, a Democratic consultant in Milwaukee, “and I’m not seeing that a little bit, I’m seeing a ton of that.”
Up north, turnout in Ashland County, a rare rural county that backed Mrs. Clinton in 2016, is already at 22 percent of the 2016 total. In adjacent Price County, where Mr. Trump won 60 percent of the 2016 vote, turnout is lower so far, matching just 14 percent of 2016’s turnout.
“There’s a lot of trust in our mail system up here and a lot of dependence on the mail system,” said Xristobal Ramirez, the chairman of the Chequamegon Democratic Party, which covers Ashland and nearby Bayfield counties along the Lake Superior shore. “The mail generally doesn’t fail us out here.”
--more--"
Looks like Wisconsin will also be flipping blue with a flood of ballots that will add insult to injury so I can see why Trump wants to get out there:
"President Trump’s doctor says he isn’t at risk of transmitting coronavirus, but doesn’t disclose if he tested negative" by Jonathan Lemire The Associated Press, October 10, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House doctor said Saturday night that President Donald Trump was no longer at risk of transmitting the coronavirus but did not say explicitly whether Trump had tested negative for it. The diagnosis came as the president prepared to resume campaign rallies and other activities.
In a memo released by the White House, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley said Trump met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for safely discontinuing isolation and that by “currently recognized standards” he was no longer considered a transmission risk.
The memo did not declare Trump had tested negative for the virus, but sensitive lab tests — like the PCR test — detect virus in swab samples taken from the nose and throat. Dr. William Morice, who oversees laboratories at the Mayo Clinic, said earlier this week that using the PCR tests, the president’s medical team could hypothetically measure and track the amount of virus in samples over time and watch the viral load go down.
Some medical experts had been skeptical that Trump could be declared free of the risk of transmitting the virus so early in the course of his illness. Just 10 days since an initial diagnosis of infection, there was no way to know for certain that someone was no longer contagious, they said.
They used the faulty and flawed PCR test on him that turns up non-infectious false-positives over 90% of the time.
The memo followed Trump’s first public appearance since returning to the White House after being treated for the coronavirus at a military hospital. Hundreds of people gathered Saturday afternoon on the South Lawn for a Trump address on his support for law enforcement from a White House balcony.
Trump took off a mask moments after he emerged on the balcony to address the crowd on the lawn below, his first step back onto the public stage with just more than three weeks to go until Election Day. He flouted, once more, the safety recommendations of his own government just days after acknowledging that he was on the brink of “bad things” from the virus and claiming that his bout with the illness brought him a better understanding of it.
His return was a brief one. With bandages visible on his hands, likely from an intravenous injection, Trump spoke for 18 minutes, far less than his normal hour-plus rallies. He appeared healthy, if perhaps a little hoarse, as he delivered what was, for all intents and purposes, a short version of his campaign speech despite the executive mansion setting.
Though the gathering was billed as an official event, Trump offered no policy proposals and instead delivered the usual attacks on Democrat Joe Biden while praising law enforcement to supporters, most of whom wore masks while few adhered to social distancing guidelines. Trump then declared that the pandemic, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans, was “disappearing” even though he is still recovering from the virus.
He wishes.
In either an act of defiance or simply tempting fate, officials organized the crowd just steps from the Rose Garden, where exactly two weeks ago the president held another large gathering to formally announce his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That event is now being eyed as a possible COVID-19 superspreader as more than two dozen people in attendance have contracted the virus.
My money is on the debate since that is the one place the pre$$ studiously ignores.
Trump had hoped to hold campaign rallies this weekend but settled for the White House event, but even as his health remained unclear, he planned to ramp up his travel with a rally in Florida on Monday, followed by trips to Pennsylvania and Iowa on subsequent days.
Security was stepped up around the White House before the event, which was called a “peaceful protest for law & order” and predominantly attended by Black and Latino supporters. Police and the Secret Service closed surrounding streets to vehicles and shut down Lafayette Square, the park near the White House that has long been a gathering place for public protest.
As questions linger about his health — and Democratic opponent Joe Biden steps up his own campaigning — Trump has more frequently called into radio and TV programs to speak with conservative interviewers, hoping to make up for lost time.
Think about that!
What should be an advantage for Trump given Biden's dementia, but now the entire issue has been flipped on its head.
Did Trump ever fall into that one!
Biden’s campaign said he again tested negative on Saturday for COVID-19. Biden was potentially exposed to the coronavirus during his Sept. 29 debate with Trump, who announced his positive diagnosis barely 48 hours after the debate.
Democrats seem to be immune to COVID, and Trump may well have been infected there!
The president had not been seen in public — other than in White House-produced videos — since his return five days ago from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he received experimental treatments for the coronavirus.
On Saturday, all attendees were required to bring masks or were provided with them, and were given temperature checks and asked to fill out a brief questionnaire. Some in the crowd removed their mask to listen to Trump.
Ahead of his Saturday event, Trump used Twitter to share news articles about problems with mail-in ballots in New Jersey, Ohio and Texas. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that universal mail-in voting is beset by widespread fraud.
Trump’s return to public activity came as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, cautioned the White House again to avoid large-scale gatherings of people without masks.
Fauci said of the Barrett event in an interview with The Associated Press, “I was not surprised to see a superspreader event given the circumstances.” That means “crowded, congregate setting, not wearing masks. It is not surprising to see an outbreak,” he said.
District of Columbia virus restrictions prohibit outdoor gatherings larger than 50 people, although that rule has not been strictly enforced. Masks are mandatory outdoors for most people, but the regulations don’t apply on federal land, and the Trump White House has openly flouted them for months.
Confined to the White House as he recovers, Trump spent sizable chunks of the past few days making the rounds of friendly conservative media, calling in to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night and spending two hours live on air with radio host Rush Limbaugh on Friday in what his campaign billed as a “radio rally.”
Holding court on his reelection battle, his fight against the coronavirus and revived negotiations with Democrats to pass an economic stimulus bill, Trump made a direct appeal to his base of loyal supporters, whom he needs to turn out to the polls in droves.
In a Friday night interview on Fox’s Tucker Carlson’s show, Trump was asked if he has been retested for COVID-19. “I have been retested, and I haven’t even found out numbers or anything yet, but I’ve been retested, and I know I’m at either the bottom of the scale or free,” he said.
White House officials, however, have declined to answer when Trump last tested negative for the virus before his diagnosis or release detailed information about lung scans taken while Trump was hospitalized.
While reports of reinfection in COVID-19 victims are rare, the CDC recommends that even people who recover from the disease continue to wear masks, stay distanced and follow other precautions. It was unclear if Trump, who has refused mask wearing in most settings, would abide by that guidance as he resumes his campaign.
I will keep mine from them, and you can't be reinfected, sorry.
If you are, your body already has the antibodies to fight it off.
That's long-established science when it comes to coronaviruses.
--more--"
Related:
"A private security company is recruiting former U.S. military Special Operations personnel to guard polling sites in Minnesota on Election Day, an effort the chairman of the company said is intended to prevent left-wing activists from disrupting the election but that the state attorney general warned would amount to voter intimidation and violate the law. The recruiting effort is being done by Atlas Aegis, a private security company based in Tennessee that was formed last year and is run by U.S. military veterans, including people with Special Operations experience, according to its website. The company chairman, Anthony Caudle, posted a message through a defense industry jobs site this week calling for former Special Operations forces to staff “security positions in Minnesota during the November Election and beyond to protect election polls, local businesses and residences from looting and destruction.” He said in an interview earlier this week he is planning to send a “large contingent” to Minnesota but did not specify the numbers. In an interview earlier this week, Caudle, the chairman and co-founder of Atlas Aegis, said the client is a “consortium of business owners and concerned citizens” in Minnesota, but he declined to name the group. That consortium hired another unnamed firm licensed in Minnesota as the prime contractor, and Caudle’s company is responsible for staffing the security guards, he said. He declined to say where in Minnesota the guards would operate or how many intend to be out on Election Day....."
Maybe Minnesota flips as well, 'eh?
Just in case Trump miraculously prevails:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday backed the creation of a congressionally appointed commission that would determine whether a president is capable of performing his duties, insisting that it wasn’t specifically about President Trump while suggesting that his recent diagnosis was the motivation for it. “This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters, but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents,” Pelosi told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. She later added: “This legislation applies to future presidents, but we are reminded of the necessity of action by the health of the current president.” Pelosi’s comments and her embrace of the legislation come against the backdrop of Trump’s dismissiveness about the threat of the coronavirus and his erratic response to negotiations on a federal relief package....."
The states face severe revenue shortfalls without it.
Related:
"Wall Street closed out its best week in three months Friday as investors drew encouragement from ongoing negotiations on Capitol Hill aimed at delivering more aid to the ailing U.S. economy. Much of this week’s focus has been on Washington, where President Donald Trump sent markets on a sudden skid Tuesday after he halted negotiations on a support package for the economy until after the election. He appeared to change his mind a few hours later, however. On Friday, Trump was cheerleading the prospect of a deal, declaring on Twitter that talks on a new aid package are “moving along. Go Big!” “The fact that Trump reversed course, I think, has given people optimism again,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab. The market’s solid finish follows a weekslong run of mostly shaky trading over worries that Congress and the White House won’t deliver more support for the economy as it reels from the impact of the pandemic and concerns that stock prices simply got too high during the summer....."
Must be the steroids and Wall Street is, and I quote, "seeing a Democratic sweep as more likely than before."
"Americans are finally saving more money — at exactly the wrong time" by Shirley Leung and Larry Edelman Boston Globe, October 10, 2020
In an economy built on conspicuous consumption, Americans never seemed to save enough, but in an economy decimated by coronavirus closures, we might be saving too much.
The pandemic has upended consumer habits, with fewer people eating out and traveling and others building a financial cushion. Economists have long worried about Americans carrying too much debt, but ironically the sudden embrace of savings comes at a time when the economy needs consumers to spend more. A prolonged period of parsimony is hampering the recovery and threatening industries that had thrived on our free-spending ways.
I don't know what free-spending ways they are talking about, and it wasn't the plannedemic that upended habits, it was the orders by dictatorial and tyrannical governments and governors who can no longer hide behind the badge, 'er, shield.
Even if we had the money, there is nowhere to spend it!
The national personal saving rate is now running at double the pre-pandemic levels, in part due to government relief money that flowed into American households.
Among those driving that number is Melissa James, a 31-year-old diversity consultant in the Boston area. Prior to the pandemic, she led the life of a single professional whose spending habits supported the economy in Boston and beyond. Heading into her office at the We Work by South Station, she would grab a grande Starbucks iced caramel macchiato and order lunch from SweetGreen. She would eat out at a restaurant or get a drink at a bar four or five times a week, and take three to four international trips a year.
Now James works from home, and isn’t getting on a plane anytime soon. She bought her first cookbook and learned how to cook.
“I have perfected the chicken piccata,” said James, adding that she also knows how to whip up her family’s traditional Jamaican dish of salt fish and fried dumplings.
A financial planner had once advised her to change her lifestyle to save money, but James declined. Now, she estimates she is saving about $2,000 a month. “Apparently, all I needed is a stay-at-home advisory,” James quipped.
Ha, ha... ha.
Then there is Gary McNabb, a retired registered nurse in Groton. He grew up “really poor” in Brighton public housing, he said, one of four kids whose father, a Boston Police officer, was killed in the line of duty in 1968. As an adult, he and his second wife lived frugally in a cramped condo until they got his children through private school and college.
Now 63, McNabb and his wife are hunkering down again because they don’t want to get COVID-19. The couple no longer eats out three or four days a week or goes to the movies regularly. They dropped their gym membership. There was no summer vacation in Maine or Rhode Island; trips to see family in Arizona and California were called off; and Gary backed out of a once-in-a-lifetime fishing adventure in Alaska that would have cost $20,000, and that’s all fine with McNabb. He and his wife are enjoying bike rides on the Nashua Rail Trail, walks in the town forest, shopping at farm stands, and spending time with neighbors.
“I don’t feel deprived at all,” he said.
That's the problem.
Never mind the ripple effects; the loss of freedom and liberty is something he doesn't even notice at all -- like many of my fellow citizens who rationalize this totalitarian crime against humanity!
Americans have long spent more and saved less than counterparts in Europe and Asia. Consumer spending fuels almost 70 percent of the US economy, compared with 39 percent in China, 52 percent in Germany, and 58 percent in Canada, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, among the seven largest industrial countries, the United States has the highest level of personal debt as a percentage of the economy after Canada, data from the International Monetary Fund show.
The Great Con$umeri$t Engine that powered the world economy for so long is $puttering to end due to COVID!
To be sure, the nation’s present personal saving rate of 14.1 percent — calculated as the percentage of income left after taxes and expenses — is an imperfect barometer of the average consumer behavior. That’s because not everyone has the wherewithal to save money.
To be sure is a phrase that is used to concede the truth of something that conflicts with another point that one wishes to make, so..... sigh!
The reality is the savings rate is far lower or nonexistent for low-income households and those who have lost their jobs during the pandemic, while high-income households and those who remain employed are saving far more in part because many have been working from home and have been able to reduce daily out-of-pocket expenses; moreover, some Americans have been able to save in part because personal incomes were buoyed by an infusion of funds from the federal government over the spring and into part of the summer. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Massachusetts personal income surged 76 percent in the second quarter from the preceding quarter, more than any other state, fueled by an increase of almost $109 billion in government transfers including enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks.
Yeah, we all got rich!
That money is running out.
David Laibson, a Harvard economist who specializes in household finances, said he sees a potential silver lining in a temporary elevated savings rate. When consumers are ready to go back to their routines, they will have more cash on hand to spend, which could ultimately help the economy bounce back faster.
I'm sorry, but the reality is you will not be going back to any routine.
Data compiled from the Bureau of Economic Analysis implies that in aggregate US households saved an additional $1.2 trillion more from February through August.
“That extra $1.2 trillion is dry powder that is ready to be deployed when households feel comfortable spending again," said Laibson.
In more ways than one.
While consumers can wait out the virus, companies that rely on social consumption, from restaurants to hotels, don’t have time on their side. They’ve already laid off workers and lost revenue, and they’re not sure how long they can hang on.
“There is long-term damage happening to the labor market in these sectors,” said IHS Markit economist David Deull. “This long-term damage takes time to heal. It certainly is going to worsen the income gap and wage gap once again.”
All for our own welfare, $afety, and protection as the people who extol such things benefit by the billions.
These sectors may be anxious for consumers to return to their spendthrift ways, but for some people the pandemic has become an opportunity to no longer live beyond their means.
That kind of talk makes me sick!
Boston hair salon owner Pedro Aguirre, 39, has saved so much by eating at home and eliminating Uber trips that he has paid off about $12,000 in credit card debt.
“I am going to get to 40 and not have so much debt, and it’s going to be amazing,” said Aguirre, the owner of Vanity Loft in Mission Hill.
He expects that when there is a vaccine, he will still splurge on an annual monthlong vacation, but he won’t be eating out and drinking like he used to.
“Being able to save and pay off the debt has been so emotionally impactful,” said Aguirre. “I don’t want to go back to spending recklessly. That’s what it feels like now. Do I need to eat out every day? Do I need to spend $10 on coffee?”
Or $3 on a Globe, for that matter!
--more--"
I should have saved myself the money and the trouble this morning.
"The lawyers she cleans for are still working from home, which means she’s still out of a job" by Katie Johnston Globe Staff, October 9, 2020
Paulina Bastidas used to arrive in the Financial District at 7:45 a.m., along with thousands of other people who streamed into office buildings in downtown Boston every weekday morning. She got off the Blue Line at State, directly below the building where she worked, went down to the basement to change into her uniform and collect her cleaning cart, and took the elevator up to the 28th floor to start cleaning the kitchens, conference rooms, and bathrooms of the law firm WilmerHale.
When the pandemic hit, the roughly 500 lawyers and staff who worked in the offices Bastidas cleaned retreated to the safety of their homes, but Bastidas didn’t have that option, and with the firm’s 10 floors at 60 State Street deserted, her employer — the facility services contractor UG2 — no longer needed her to wipe down the conference tables and glass doors, scrub the shower stalls, or mop the bathroom floors. So she was laid off from the job she held for 18 years, one that allowed her to put enough money away to buy a condo with her daughter on a quiet one-way street in Revere.
Bastidas hasn’t worked in more than six months, and she can’t go back to the WilmerHale offices until the lawyers do.
Service workers like Bastidas were laid off in droves when white-collar employees fled their cubicles in the middle of March, and many of those lawyers, accountants, software engineers, and designers won’t be coming back to their offices until next year, if ever. WilmerHale just started allowing small groups of employees back in the building on a voluntary basis but hasn’t determined when it will fully reopen.
The Great Re$et is WELL UNDERWAY!
Without people commuting to offices in Boston and around the region, normally bustling business districts have become shadows of their former selves. Lunch spots and flower shops closed their doors. Parking lots turned into wastelands. With business travel at a virtual standstill, cavernous convention centers stand empty.
Many of the people who once kept these places running don’t have college degrees or are immigrants like Bastidas with limited English skills, and limited job prospects.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the unemployment benefits were generous, with a $600-a-week boost that raised some workers’ wages above what they used to make, but that extra pay ended in late July, followed by a brief $300-a-week bump that has also come to an end. With no further aid from the government in sight, unemployed workers are down to the final 13 weeks of extended benefits, set to expire in December.
“Now the stimulus is gone and my savings are gone,” said Bastidas, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I’m very stressed now, especially about whether or not I’m ever going to return to work.”
Massachusetts has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 11.3 percent, down from highest-in-the-nation rates that topped out at more than 17 percent earlier this summer. Unemployment in the service sector is higher than in any other job category, and many of the state’s 622,000 service workers are dependent on people returning to the office in order to resume their jobs.
And yet the $atanic governor is incredibly popular!
Service occupations shed more than a quarter of all jobs in the sector nationwide between February and May, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
It’s unclear when employees will come back to their offices, and if those offices will ever be as full as they once were. As companies realize the savings of keeping employees at home and productivity remains strong, employers may allow, or even encourage, their staff to work remotely more often, and many employees welcome that change, but this kind of shift could exacerbate the inequities that already exist between the many white, well-paid employees who can do their work over the Internet and people of color who do more hands-on work in the service sector, said Dania Francis economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Unemployment rates for Black and Latino workers — more than a quarter of whom are in the service industry in Massachusetts — have not dropped as much as that of white workers as the stalled economy started sputtering back to life this summer.
Forget the Globe dragging race into the equation; not only are companies realizing savings, productivity is increasing because the hardest slavedriver of Americans is themselves.
“As far as being absorbed back into the economy, there’s certainly a disadvantage for immigrants and underrepresented minorities,” Francis said. “There definitely will be ripple effects.”
Cleaning and maintenance jobs — over half of which are done by Black and Latino workers nationwide — could be part of that wave.....
Don't expect Americans to do those jobs, right?
--more--"
Related:
The strain and uncertainty of being unemployed in a pandemic
As relayed by Katie Johnston of the Globe Staff.
White House virus aid offer is panned by Pelosi,
Not only is her mask not covering her nose, she has been unmasked as the blocker of further relief to the people as she holds the aid hostage.
Trump’s taxes trace payments to properties by those who got ahead
The article is by Nicholas Confessore, Karen Yourish, Steve Eder, Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman, Grace Ashford, Michael LaForgia, Kenneth P. Vogel, Michael Rothfeld and Larry Buchanan New York Times, and when will they learn that NO ONE CARES?!!
The Globe thinks the story is nuclear and will kill his chances once and for all, while Abraham just wants to make Trump stop along with Cohen even as the Biden campaign goes down in flames with their toxic spew.
Elizabeth Warren stumps for Joe Biden at N.H. rally
That article came all the way back on page B4, folks.
The Globe advises that Democrats need to learn to stop worrying and love the brinkmanship as Massachusetts voters strike an important blow for mob rule and one-party rule so prepare for the election to end in disaster even as Trump tires to play peacemaker in a hostile world:
Trump claims he saved Biden's life and is a beacon of light in these dark days.
Boston-area Armenians are mobilizing in response to the conflict with Azerbaijan
They won't have to since a cease-fire has been declared after Russia’s mediation:
Armenia, Azerbaijan agree on cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh
A man inspected a house in Stepanakert destroyed by shelling from Azerbaijan’s artillery/Associated Press
Fierce fighting eases after cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan
The New York Times says there is little expectation of a durable peace two weeks into the most violent conflict that the volatile region has seen in decades.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater:
"North Korea unveils new weapons at military parade" by Kim Tong-Hyung The Associated Press, October 10, 2020
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Saturday that his country would “fully mobilize” its nuclear force if threatened as he took center stage at a military parade in which the country unveiled what appeared to be a new intercontinental ballistic missile and other additions to its growing weapons arsenal.
The celebratory event, which began late Friday, was not broadcast by North Korean state television until Saturday evening, when it aired a taped broadcast.
Goose-stepping troops were seen marching in the streets in front of a brightly illuminated Kim Il Sung Square, as a military band performed while moving in formation, shaping “10.10,” “1945,” and “2020” in honor of the party anniversary.
The performers and tens of thousands of spectators roared as Kim, dressed in a gray suit and tie, appeared from a building as the clock struck midnight.
During his speech, Kim seemed to tear up at one point as he repeatedly thanked his “great people” and military for overcoming “unexpected” burdens and carrying out anti-virus measures imposed by the ruling party and government to keep the country COVID-19-free, a claim that has been widely questioned by outside observers.
This year’s anniversary comes amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration and deepening economic woes that analysts say are shaping up as one of the biggest tests of Kim’s leadership since he took power in 2011, but many analysts believe North Korea will avoid serious negotiations or provocations before the U.S. presidential election because of the chance that the U.S. government could change.
“North Korea is pushing ahead with its nuclear strategy regardless of the tough year that it has had with regard to diplomatic talks, flooding from typhoons and COVID-19,” Hanham said in a telephone interview. “I also think that this is a message to the United States — he has already declared he no longer holds himself to the moratorium and he has something new as well he may wish to test.”
Kim, flanked with senior officials and smiling widely, waved to the crowd and kissed children who presented him with flowers before taking his spot on a balcony. He also extended an olive branch to rival South Korea, expressing hope that the countries can repair bilateral ties once the threat of the pandemic is over.
After the speech, Kim waved and watched with binoculars as the military hardware was rolled out in the square. He saluted as fighter jets flew in formation above head, using fireworks to form the Workers’ Party’s symbol — a hammer, brush and sickle — and the number 75 in the sky. Earlier Saturday, masked citizens lined up to lay flowers at the statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the father of the current ruler, at Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill.
Authoritarian North Korea is keen about anniversaries, and this week’s festivities were earmarked for years in advance as a major event to glorify Kim’s achievements as leader, but there hasn’t been much to celebrate lately as Kim struggles to keep afloat an economy crippled by years of stringent U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear program and ravaged further this year by border closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic and devastating summer floods and typhoons that will likely worsen chronic food shortages.
Maybe the UN World Food Program could help them out, huh?
The problems, combined with North Korea’s depleting foreign currency reserves, are possibly setting conditions for a “perfect storm” that shocks food prices and exchange rates and triggers economic panic in the coming months, said Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at Seoul’s Institute for National Security Strategy.....
--more--"
If not, avoid the sharks and hop the first speedboat to Hong Kong.
