Long Beach VA Medical Center, Trump supporters everywhere.

[Vote American - Vote Trump]

Not a Biden or Harris turd in sight.

[Gregg Carr]

Trump is a draft dodging coward who called our troops suckers and losers for
being wounded and dying for America. Trump's sworn not to leave office
unless its in a body bag just like Saddam. Just hit the EASY button for that
one.


Trump’s Debate Hail Mary: Lie After Brazen, Incoherent Lie
Biden fought back with populism. The debate is unlikely to change a steady
Biden lead.

Looking to turn around a trailing campaign, President Donald Trump dug deep,
chilled out and threw a bunch of garbage at the wall, hoping at least some of
it would stick.

Trump opened Thursday night’s debate by falsely claiming a vaccine for COVID-
19 was imminent, followed up by continuing to lie about his refusal to
release his tax returns, then raised a series of nonsensical allegations
about Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s son, and ended with a pack of mistruths
about both his and Biden’s policy accomplishments and proposals.

Trump mostly abandoned the constant interruptions and abrasive style he
deployed in the first debate, but continued with the falsehoods and
exaggerations. His performance is likely to reassure some Republican
political strategists who are fretting about a potential Democratic
landslide.

Still, the incumbent badly needed a dramatic moment to have any hope of
improving his flailing chances ahead of Nov. 3. Roughly 50 million Americans
have already cast their ballots, and Biden has led for months in nearly every
available public poll both nationally and in the critical swing states that
will decide the electoral college.

He didn’t get it.
President Donald Trump reacts during the final presidential debate at Belmont
University in Nashville,...
JIM WATSON via Getty Images
President Donald Trump reacts during the final presidential debate at Belmont
University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Oct. 22.

The debate’s defining moment came during an exchange over Trump’s allegations
of corruption surrounding Biden’s son, Hunter. Biden, after pointing to
Trump’s own moneymaking entanglements with foreign governments, said the
issue was a distraction compared to the coronavirus pandemic and the
accompanying economic downturn.

“It’s not about my family or his family, it’s about your family,” Biden said.
“We should be talking about your family. But that’s the last thing he wants
to talk about.”

“That’s a typical politician statement,” Trump responded. “I’m not a typical
politician.”

The exchange highlighted a fundamental problem for Trump: Many of the issues
he has focused on are obscure to all but the most dedicated watchers of Fox
News, while Biden has remained narrowly focused on the pandemic, the economic
downturn and health care. Those are typically the highest-priority issues for
the electorate in public polling.

Trump displayed his atypical tendencies during the debate’s opening,
promising the imminent delivery of a coronavirus vaccine, before quickly
backing down after fact-checking from moderator Kristen Welker. Biden quickly
attacked Trump for failing to develop a plan to control the pandemic.

“220,000 deaths,” Biden said, noting the number of deaths from coronavirus so
far. “If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who is
responsible for that many deaths should not remain president of the United
States.”

Trump, meanwhile, continued to cast about for others to blame. “I take full
responsibility,” he said at one point, appearing to engage in some rare self-
reflection. He quickly added: “It’s not my fault that it came here, it’s
China’s fault.”

Trump’s assertions on policy didn’t hold water. A brief sampling:

On immigration, Trump baselessly claimed that “less than 1%” of asylum-
seekers apprehended crossing the border actually come back to immigration
courts for their hearings. His own administration puts the number closer to
50%.

On health care, Trump asserted that Biden’s plan to include a public
option in the Affordable Care Act would get rid of private health insurance
for 180 million Americans. Biden has never supported a single-payer health
care program that would move all Americans to government-sponsored insurance.

On criminal justice reform, Trump said Biden used the phrase “super
predators” in the 1990s — that was Hillary Clinton.

On taxes, Trump again claimed Biden wanted to raise “everybody’s taxes.”
Biden has said he wouldn’t hike taxes on anyone making less than $400,000.

Trump’s best moments came when he deployed tried-and-true political attacks,
mostly slamming Biden as a do-nothing career politician. During debates over
criminal justice and immigration, he repeatedly questioned why Biden and
President Barack Obama did not pass significant legislation on those issues
during their administration.

“Why didn’t you fix all of these thing when you were there?,” Trump asked
rhetorically.

Biden’s answer was accurate ? they were dealing with a recalcitrant GOP-
controlled Congress ? but the attacks could still land with undecided voters.

But if they were designed to win over the relatively small percentage of
Black and Latino men whose votes the Trump campaign hopes to win, the
incumbent undercut that outreach in other moments.

At one point, while looking directly at Welker, who is Black, Trump claimed
to be “the least racist person in the room.” At another, when Biden attacked
him over his administration’s unpopular policy of separating migrant children
from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump said the children “are so
well taken care of. ... They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

Biden, as the frontrunner in the race, primarily sought to avoid mistakes.
Freed from Trump’s badgering, he delivered more coherent answers, while still
occasionally fumbling on policy details. But in the latter stages of the
debate, he displayed more fire and populist language than he typically does.

At one point, Biden noted the wealth of American billionaires had increased
by more than $700 billion over the course of the pandemic.

“What happens to the ordinary people out there?” Biden asked, jamming his
finger on the lectern for emphasis. “What happens to them?”

At other times, Trump walked into Biden’s attacks. At one point, he
criticized Biden for wanting to raise the minimum wage, arguing it would lead
to job loss. The problem? Increasing the minimum wage is broadly popular,
supported by roughly two-thirds of Americans.

[Klaus Schadenfreude]

Post by Gregg Carr
Trump is a draft dodging coward who called our troops suckers and losers for
being wounded and dying for America.

Which troops were those?

[unknown]

Post by Klaus Schadenfreude

Post by Gregg Carr
Trump is a draft dodging coward who called our troops suckers and losers for
being wounded and dying for America.

Which troops were those?

You should ask Trump.

Meanwhile:

The US is only 4% of the world population, but accountable for more than
20% of Trump virus deaths.

Trump is guilty of more than 228,000 counts of "criminal negligence
causing death", and more than 8.6 million counts of "criminal negligence
causing bodily harm" due to mishandling of the COVID pandemic.

https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcouriernewsroom.com%2F2020%2F04%2F09%2Fexperts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF7hXDB3RNl2Geh7reKSdvYZ8w3Xg>


Experts Predicted a Coronavirus Pandemic as Far Back as 2017. Trump
Ignored Them.


The Trump administration ignored warning signs, failed to adequately
prepare for PPE shortages, botched the rollout of tests, and
repeatedly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus.

The novel coronavirus outbreak didn’t become a full-fledged pandemic
until March, but with each passing day, it’s become increasingly clear
that President Trump and his administration failed to heed numerous
warning signs and wasted two months of valuable time that could have
been used to prepare for the devastation now being unleashed on the
United States.

Here are some of the ways in which the Trump administration’s failures
have affected the nation’s response to the pandemic.


*Ignoring Warning Signs*

American intelligence officials issued a warning as far back as late
November
<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273>
that a contagion was spreading through China’s Wuhan region, ABC News
reported on Wednesday. This warning, which was detailed in a November
intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical
Intelligence, was the result of analysis of wire and computer
intercepts, along with satellite images.

Analysts determined that the emerging disease could lead to a
“cataclysmic event,” and according to ABC News, the report was briefed
“multiple times” to the White House and various federal agencies.
President Trump reportedly even received a detailed explanation of the
problem in his daily brief of intelligence matters in early January,
weeks before the virus emerged in the U.S., but then spent the better
part of January and February downplaying the severity of the virus.

On Monday, the New York Times also reported that Trump’s trade advisor,
Peter Navarro, had written his own memo in late January warning the
administration
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/navarro-warning-trump-coronavirus.html>
that the coronavirus could cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and put
millions of American lives at risk.

“The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would
leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus
outbreak on U.S. soil,” Navarro wrote in his Jan. 29 memo. “This lack of
protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a
full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

Navarro’s warning appears to have gone unheeded, and President Donald
Trump has denied
<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/trump-peter-navarro-coronavirus-memos-174237>
he ever saw the January memo or a follow-up February memo from
Navarro—even though that second memo was addressed to Trump directly
through the offices of the National Security Council, Trump’s then-chief
of staff Mick Mulvaney, and the White House coronavirus task force.


RELATED: Officials Tried To Warn Trump A Pandemic Was Coming In
January. He Didn’t Listen.
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/20/officials-tried-to-warn-trump-a-pandemic-was-coming-in-january-he-didnt-listen/>

“I didn’t see them. I didn’t look for them,” Trump told reporters on
Monday during a coronavirus task force news briefing.

The Trump administration also ignored the results
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html>
of a 2019 simulated exercise imagining how a modern-day influenza
pandemic would affect the United States. In the simulation, 110 million
Americans were expected to become ill, leading 7.7 million people to be
hospitalized and 586,000 Americans to die. The results of that scenario,
reported by the New York Times in March, showed how underfunded,
underprepared, and uncoordinated the federal government would be in
fighting a novel pandemic.

The Pentagon also knew a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus was
likely and warned the Trump administration of such a possibility in
2017. According to exclusive documents obtained by The Nation, the
Pentagon even predicted the shortages
<https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/>
of masks, hospital beds, and ventilators that American hospitals are
currently experiencing. The documents
<https://www.scribd.com/document/454422848/Pentagon-Influenza-Response>,
which detail how the U.S. military could respond to such a pandemic, are
eerily prescient.

“The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease,
particularly a novel influenza disease,” the military plan states.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and
the document specifically cites coronaviruses on several occasions, in
one instance saying, “Coronavirus infections [are] common around the world.”

Despite all these warnings, Trump has repeatedly insisted that no one
could have seen the coronavirus coming.

“Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion.
Nobody has ever seen anything like this before,” Trump said on March 19,
contradicting the reality that his own Department of Health and Human
Services oversaw the simulation.


*PPE Shortages*

American hospitals are facing “severe” and “widespread shortages”
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>
of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as N95 masks and surgical
masks, as well as shortages of medical equipment, such as ventilators
according to a new watchdog report from the Department of Health and
Human Services Office of Inspector General.

Doctors and nurses from across the country have spoken out about the PPE
shortage
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>
and how it puts their lives—and their patients’ lives—at risk. Many
doctors and nurses are breaking protocol and reusing masks, while others
have been forced to use swim goggles, bandanas, and trash bags
<https://www.propublica.org/article/medical-workers-treating-coronavirus-are-resorting-to-homemade-masks>
to protect themselves. Some nurses have even quit their jobs
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/02/im-a-hospice-nurse-heres-why-i-chose-to-step-away-from-the-job-i-love-during-coronavirus/>
over the lack of protections.


RELATED: Trump Doesn’t Think There’s A Medical Supply Shortage.
These Hospitals Beg to Differ.
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/07/trump-doesnt-think-theres-a-medical-supply-shortage-these-hospitals-beg-to-differ/>

That the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, failed to
prepare enough supplies to deal with the coronavirus has become
something of a scandal, especially because a 69-page National Security
Council playbook on fighting pandemics
<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285>
includes guidance on when and how to start obtaining PPE.

The Trump administration ignored that playbook, which says the
government should have begun efforts to obtain personal protective
equipment such as masks, gloves, and gowns in mid to late January.
Instead, as the Associated Press reported this week, the Trump
administration squandered nearly two months
<https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc> that could have
been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical
supplies and equipment.

Federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of
N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators, and other equipment needed
by front-line health care workers. By that time, hospitals in several
states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate
equipment and pleading for shipments from the Strategic National
Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years
ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains
during a national emergency.

Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just
as the number of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state
and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old
dry-rotted masks.

“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human
services secretary during the Obama administration, told the AP.

Rather than do everything he can to help states deal with the PPE crisis
now, Trump has instead called the federal government a “backup,”
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/02/trump-passes-the-buck-to-states-on-giving-nurses-and-doctors-what-they-need/>
told states to find supplies on their own
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/30/trump-seems-to-be-playing-politics-with-medical-equipment-thats-risking-lives/>,
interfered with their efforts to do just that
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/03/28/trumps-personal-grudge-with-whitmer-may-have-led-to-supply-slowdown-to-state/>,
and accused governors of lying about their needs
<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dm8w5/trump-says-states-are-lying-about-how-many-ventilators-they-need-to-fight-coronavirus>.



*Testing Kits*

The national shortage of COVID-19 tests has been well-documented, but
the highlights bear repeating: After deciding not to adopt the test used
by the World Health organization, the CDC botched
<https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722> the development of
its first coronavirus test, which dramatically slowed the roll-out of
tests and caused a devastating delay.

The federal government was also slow to engage the private sector and
academic labs in testing; the Food and Drug administration waited until
Feb. 29
<https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-new-policy-help-expedite-availability-diagnostics>
to engage private labs in the testing space. These delays and shortages
caused the government to issue strict, inconsistent, and ever-evolving
guidelines on who could be tested for COVID-19. The Trump
administration’s testing failures were so severe that in February, as
more people across the U.S. became sick, government labs processed only
352 COVID-19 tests, an average of only 12 per day
<https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722> in a nation of
more than 300 million people, according to an AP analysis of CDC data.

While testing has since ramped up, issues remain. The shortage of tests
remains substantial
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/us/politics/trump-governors-coronavirus-testing.html>,
patients have reported waits of up to two weeks to receive test results
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/health/coronavirus-testing-us.html>,
and many labs are now short on the swabs and chemicals
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-test-shortages-face-masks-swabs.html>
needed to run the test.

As Bloomberg wrote
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/coronavirus-testing-accuracy-and-availability-shortages-remain>
on Tuesday, “Coronavirus testing has become a massive logistical
failure, one that’s made it impossible to know how much the virus has
truly spread.”

The U.S. has by far the most known cases of COVID-19 in the world, with
more than 430,000 confirmed cases
<https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html>. Nearly 15,000 Americans have
died as of Wednesday evening. While the U.S. has now completed two
million tests <https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily> according to the
COVID Tracking Project, the country continues to lag behind many other
countries
<https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/02/826368789/fact-check-trump-claims-u-s-testing-for-coronavirus-most-per-capita-its-not>
in testing per capita. In short, the surge in tests came entirely too late.

“Many local communities are flying blind, making decisions in the
absence of full information largely due to the failure of the federal
government to provide sufficient testing capacity,” Chrissie Juliano,
executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, told
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-test-shortages-face-masks-swabs.html>
the New York Times. “This testing shortage, and lack of available
information about the actual burden of the virus, has set our country’s
response back by an order of magnitude we will never know.”


*Downplaying the Coronavirus*

Despite the various warnings the administration received about the
coronavirus, President Trump has repeatedly downplayed the dangers of
the virus
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/01/pence-says-trump-never-downplayed-coronavirus-19-times-he-did/>.
Since late January, Trump has said “We have it totally under control,”
declared that the virus would “go away in April,” said the number of
cases would soon be “down close to zero,” called it a democratic “hoax,”
and compared it to the flu.

Trump has minimized the risks of the coronavirus dozens of times, doing
so as recently as late March, after his own administration had already
issued stringent “social distancing” guidelines.

Mike Pence says Trump never “belittled” the threat of coronavirus.

We did some digging and here's a bunch of times he did just that.
pic.twitter.com/bMoNEWPk3O <https://t.co/bMoNEWPk3O>

— COURIER (@CourierNewsroom) April 2, 2020
<https://twitter.com/CourierNewsroom/status/1245843762506543104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The president has also refused to take any responsibility
<https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2020/03/2020-time-capsule-3-i-dont-take-responsibility-at-all/608005/>
for the administration’s missteps, and has instead tried to deflect
blame onto Democrats, former President Obama, China, the media, and the
World Health Organization. He has also said
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/animals/trump-im-a-cheerleader-for-the-country/vp-BB11Z6ej>
that he made his previous comments minimizing the severity of the virus
because he regards himself as America’s cheerleader.

He does not appear to be succeeding, either as cheerleader or president.
A new CNN poll
<http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/04/08/rel4a.-.coronavirus.pdf>
released Wednesday found that 55% of Americans think the federal
government has done a “poor job” of preventing the spread of COVID-19,
while only 41% think it has done a good job. Similarly, 52% said they
disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and 55% said
they think he could be doing more to fight the pandemic.

Only 43% of Americans think Trump is doing everything he can.


https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/
<https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/04/09/experts-predicted-a-coronavirus-pandemic-as-far-back-as-2017-trump-ignored-them/>