Former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, has told friends that President Donald Trump "is the most flawed person" he's ever known.
"The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me."
Former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, has told friends that President Donald Trump "is the most flawed person" he's ever known.
"The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me."
I believe it but I wish these individuals would come out and say it. Bolton was another too scared to be honest and forthright.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
So anyways ...Covid cases increase at the most rapid rate since July. We could loose another 50k lives by the end of the year. Hospitalization rates sore. 14 states with increase fatalities.
Super spreader trump says we’re on the mend. Pffft Trump and his supporters continue to super spread. Literally killing US.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Anyways. 500% increase in cases over the last two weeks in Texas 20% are people under 30. Mississippi reimposing mask mandates.
Meanwhile trump faces a self induced decline today to get relief aid passed. But struggles with GOP leaders and senate republicans still refusing to take this relief aid seriously.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
From a purely tactical perspective, I'm not sure why Pelosi isn't aggressively seeking a deal with the White House. Her proposal is $2.2T and the White House I believe was last at $1.9T, and I think that they are desperate to try to get something out before the election, so I think that they would be more willing to compromise. I have to believe that - if Trump loses - he won't want to do jack squat to get anything passed, and that would turn into a bad look for the HoR as well.
If she and the White House can come to a deal, it would then fall on the Senate, which you would think would make it a win-win for her. Either they pass it and she could claim victory, or they would stick to their guns of not passing it, based on their bill that foregoes individual stimulus payments.
If the agreement fails in the Senate, they would look like the obstructionists and she could highlight that they don't even want an individual stimulus, which - last I checked - was hugely popular among voters. I don't know who the constituents are that are backing Senate Republicans to not include that in their bill. She would also send the Senate to war with the White House and increase the likelihood that the Senate will flip in the election.
She seems to want and all-or-nothing approach though. I really don't get her, other than the obvious corrupt, career politician concerns, which apply in like manner to McConnell.
Last edited by dawglover05; 10/20/2011:47 AM.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Interesting graphics...Kind of like watching that mountain climbing game on The Price Is Right. (I played the song in my head)
With exception to Arizona, it almost seems the flu season held true, north vs south, as our flu season down here tends to be our warmer months (Because we all hunker indoors away from the heat, I presume), and I fully expect the second wave to be worse on the northern states (just due to timing), although I would not overlook the possibility of southern tourist states to see spikes as tourists come and go.
Last edited by FloridaFan; 10/21/2003:31 PM.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
But I thought Trump said we're turning the corner now? As a matter of fact, he's been on the Trump Farewell Super Spreader Tour 2020 for a while now saying that as the cases and hospitalizations soar.
This isn't really intended towards you personally. I just couldn't resist making that comment to follow up your post.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
A TRUE EYE-OPENER: THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON'T AGREE TO PELOSI'S STIMULUS BILL For all of you that think President Trump and the Republicans are wrong for blocking the bill and telling Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer No because it is not what is right for the working class people and here is the reason why Stimulus package: COVID-19 VIRUS STIMULUS BILL ...Now you know why Republicans are blocking this 2 trillion dollar congressional bill !!! Hard to believe but look it up on the Congressional website for HR 748 from 116th Congress. American population: 330,483,530 Stimulus bill: $2,000,000,000,000 ($2 Trillion) Dividing the cost by everyone in America is $6,051.74 The government could have given every person over $6,000, but instead will give $1,200 to each adult under a certain income. Want to know where the missing 96% of your tax dollars went? $300,000,000 for Migrant and Refugee Assistance pg 147 $10,000 per person for student loan bailout $100,000,000 to Nasa, because, who knows why. $20,000,000,000 to the USPS, because why the hell not $300,000,000 to the Endowment for the Arts - because of it $300,000,000 for the Endowment for the Humanities/ because no one even knew that was a thing $15,000,000 for Veterans Employment Training / for when the GI Bill isn't enough $435,000,000 for mental health support $30,000,000,000 for the Department of Education stabilization fund/ because that will keep people employed (all those zeros can be confusing, that’s $30 BILLION) $200,000,000 to Safe Schools Emergency Response to Violence Program $300,000,000 to Public Broadcasting / NPR has to be bought by the Dems $500,000,000 to Museums and Libraries / No one know how we are going to use it $720,000,000 to Social Security Admin / but get this only 200,000,000 is to help people. The rest is for admin costs $25,000,000 for cleaning supplies for the Capitol Building / I kid you not it's on page 136 $7,500,000 to the Smithsonian for additional salaries $35,000,000 to the JFK Center for Performing Arts $25,000,000 for additional salary for House of Representatives $3,000,000,000 upgrade to the IT department at the VA $315,000,000 for State Department Diplomatic Programs $95,000,000 for the Agency of International Development $300,000,000 for International Disaster Assistance $90,000,000 for the Peace Corp pg 148 $13,000,000 to Howard University pg 121 $ 9,000,000 Misc. Senate Expenses pg 134 $100,000,000 for Essential Air carriers - pg 162 - because the Airlines are going to need billions in loans to keep them afloat. $100,000,000 is chump change $40,000,000,000 goes to the Take Responsibility to Workers and Families Act This sounds like it's direct payments for workers. Pg 164 $1,000,000,000 Airlines Recycle and Save Program pg 163 $25,000,000 to the FAA for administrative costs pg 165 $492,000,000 to National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) pg 167 $526,000,000 Grants to Amtrak to remain available if needed through 2021 pg 168 (what are the odds that doesn't go unused) Hidden on page 174 the Secretary has 7 days to allocate the funds & notify Congress $25,000,000,000 for Transit Infrastructure pg 169 $3,000,000 Maritime Administration pg 172 $5,000,000 Salaries and Expensive Office of the Inspector General pg 172 $2,500,000 Public and Indian Housing pg 175 $5,000,000 Community Planning and Development pg 175 $2,500,000 Office of Housing What DOES ALL of this have to do with the Virus? Are your eyes open yet? If you made it this far in reading this, please don’t vote for a Democrat/Socialist.
I haven't been tracking the numbers closely for a while. But the fact we are setting all time highs is concerning.
I did want to chime in on one Trump lie about the numbers spiking because the USA is testing more. That's not true. We've been testing at about this same level per 1M population for a while. We are in the same sort of test rate as countries like the UK, Belgium & Spain .... the numbers did go up when we eventually started wide spread testing back in like May - but we have not continued to ramp up and accelerate testing. The idea we have this massive spike because we test more is lunacy / denial / ignorance / fabrication. CV-19 is spiking in a LOT of places around the world.
I have to fly to England in a couple weeks. Not looking forward to that one bit.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
New record cases, hospitalizations on the rise as Trump is conducting super spreader events and lying to his supporters that we've turned the corner and it is going away. Murica!
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Fauci: Trump has not attended a White House coronavirus task force meeting in 'several months'
WASHINGTON – Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said Friday that President Donald Trump has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in "several months"and the meetings themselves have greatly "diminished".
Fauci's comments came after the U.S. reported more than 77,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins data. The last time daily cases exceeded 71,000 was during the summer surge in July. The U.S. has also reported more than 223,000 deaths.
Fauci, a leading member of the White House's coronavirus task force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on "Meet the Press Daily" that he hasn't directly spoken to or interacted with Trump in some time, and the number of task force meetings have "diminished".
Led by Vice President Mike Pence, the coronavirus task force used to meet daily during the first months of the pandemic, but that has now been scaled back to meeting once a week, Fauci said, due to the White House focusing on an "economic reopening."
“We certainly interact with the vice president at the task force meetings, and the vice president makes our feelings and what we talk about there known to the president,” Fauci said when pressed about the last time the president attended. "But direct involvement with the president and discussions, I have not done that in awhile."
Similarly, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who sits on the task force as well, told NPR in an interview Monday that Trump has been primarily receiving information from Pence and Dr. Scott Atlas.
“I definitely don’t have his ear as much as Scott Atlas right now. That has been a changing situation,” Fauci told MSNBC.
Atlas, who is not an infectious disease expert, is now a White House adviser on the coronavirus and has publicly downplayed the virus. Reports from The Washington Post said Atlas, a fellow at the conservative think tank Hoover Institution, has been pushing herd immunity inside the White House, and Trump has been listening.
On Sunday, Twitter removed a tweet by Atlas, who posted: “Masks work? NO.” The social media platform stated the tweet violated the policy on coronavirus misinformation.
“The President is routinely briefed about the coronavirus each and every day. The relevant information is brought to him on the big decisions, and then he moves forward in the way that’s best for our country,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews told USA TODAY in a statement.
Fauci said the nation is in a "precarious" position regarding COVID-19, and people need to grasp how difficult winter will be if infections continue to spike how they are now.
"We don't want to shut the country down. Every time I talk about things that we need to do, people get concerned. We're not talking about shutting down, but we're talking about doubling down on some of the fundamental public health measures that we need to adhere to," Fauci said, referring to mask-wearing and social distancing. "They seem rather simple, but they really do work."
Trump has repeatedly claimed “we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner,” regarding COVID-19. “It’s going away,” he said during the debate Thursday. According to CNN, Trump has made this, and similar claims, diminishing the threat of coronavirus nearly 40 times.
On Monday, Trump blastedFauci as a "disaster" after Fauci said in an interview that it came as no shock to him when the president tested positive for COVID-19 because Trump regularly eschewed the use of masks "as a statement of strength."
Trump quietly closed the U.S.'s vaccine safety office last year. Researchers are scrambling to replace it. The Week Kathryn Krawczyk ,The Week•October 23, 2020
Developers will start rolling out their COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months, leaving U.S. health officials to test their long-term safety. But that won't be easy, especially given that the Trump administration quietly shut down the office responsible for ensuring the safety of vaccines last year, The New York Times reports.
Before the late 1980s, vaccine safety relied on parents, doctors, vaccine makers, and hospitals to step forward and report symptoms they feared were connected to a vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then worked out a new system that sought out clusters of symptoms among people who receive a vaccine, and expanded that oversight during the H1N1 epidemic of 2009. This system helped the U.S. figure out which symptoms actually popped up long after a vaccine was injected, and which were just coincidental.
But in 2019, the National Vaccine Program Office was shut down in an effort to cut costs and "eliminate program redundancies," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote at the time. The shortsightedness of that shutdown has come into clear view amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who who was assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS during the 2009 pandemic. FDA and CDC staffers have reportedly been meeting up on their own time to cobble some safety projects together. "There's no sort of active coordination to bring all the information together," Lurie told the Times.
Other vaccine experts and political scientists have their own concerns: foreign disinformation campaigns, a lack of transparency, proper communications to clear up health issues unrelated to vaccines, to name a few. A coordinated vaccine office would be tasked with handling all of that.
How many times do you need to listen to people talking about masks and washing your hands?
Wearing masks has been fairly widespread from the beginning and even more now, yet the world keeps spiking.
Face it, we are all going to get it at some point, just like we all caught the flu at some point in the past and will again at some other point in the future.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Most studies that I have seen have mask wearing in the 54-59% range. While that if a majojrity, it is grossly inadequate. We need that number to be at least 80%, preferably closer to 90%
Am I perfect? No Am I trying to be a better person? Also no
Yeah, the trends, numbers and what's going on in our nation concerning something that's killed over 225,000 Americans should be no concern to the president.
You would think that a president who keep claiming a vaccine is coming soon would be gathering all the information he can every day and tell the people of America how to move forward in trying to keep the death count as low as possible until that vaccine comes along.
But nah. Let's skip the meetings with the experts and keep holding super spreader events with crowds close together and wearing no masks. Sometimes I find your responses unbelievable.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
GOPers are like so what if people are dying... but the same people were crying the blues when the economy was shut down and the markets dropped. The party of upside down values, religion, and guns... Pffft.
By ZEKE MILLER AND JILL COLVIN | Associated Press | Published: October 25, 2020
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence plans to maintain an aggressive campaign schedule this week despite his exposure to a top aide who tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Saturday.
Pence himself tested negative, his office said. Under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria, the vice president is considered a "close contact" of his chief of staff, Marc Short, but will not quarantine, said spokesman Devin O'Malley.
O'Malley said Pence decided to maintain his travel schedule "in consultation with the White House Medical Unit" and "in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel." Those guidelines require that essential workers exposed to someone with the coronavirus closely monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and wear a mask whenever around other people.
O'Malley said Pence and his wife, Karen, both tested negative on Saturday "and remain in good health."
President Donald Trump commented on Short early Sunday after his plane landed at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington. "I did hear about it just now," he said. "And I think he's quarantining. Yeah. I did hear about it. He's going to be fine. But he's quarantining."
Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease expert at George Mason University, called Pence's decision to travel "grossly negligent" regardless of the stated justification that Pence is an essential worker.
"It's just an insult to everybody who has been working in public health and public health response," she said. "I also find it really harmful and disrespectful to the people going to the rally" and the people on Pence's own staff who will accompany him.
"He needs to be staying home 14 days," she added. "Campaign events are not essential."
After a day of campaigning in Florida on Saturday, Pence was seen wearing a mask as he returned to Washington aboard Air Force Two shortly after the news of Short's diagnosis was made public. He is scheduled to hold a rally on Sunday afternoon in Kinston, NC.
Pence, who has headed the White House coronavirus task force since late February, has repeatedly found himself in an uncomfortable position balancing political concerns with the administration's handling the pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 Americans. The vice president has advocated mask-wearing and social distancing, but often does not wear one himself and holds large political events where many people do not wear face-coverings.
By virtue of his position as vice president, Pence is considered an essential worker. The White House did not address how Pence's political activities amounted to essential work.
Short's diagnosis comes weeks after the coronavirus spread through the White House, infecting President Donald Trump, the first lady, and two dozen other aides, staffers and allies.
Short, Pence's top aide and one of his closest confidants, did not travel with the vice president on Saturday.
Pence's handling of his exposure to a confirmed positive case stands in contrast to how Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris responded when a close aide and a member of her campaign plane's charter crew tested positive for the virus earlier this month. She took several days off the campaign trail citing her desire to act out of an abundance of caution.
Correction: This version corrects in the news summary that Pence tested negative.
Two of Vice President Mike Pence's top deputies have tested positive for the coronavirus: chief of staff Marc Short and political aide Marty Obst.
"Today, Marc Short, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, tested positive for COVID-19, began quarantine and assisting in the contact tracing process," Devin O'Malley, press secretary for the vice president, said in a statement.
O'Malley said both Pence and wife Karen Pence tested negative for the virus on Saturday.
ABC News has also learned at least one additional staffer in the vice president's office has tested positive in the last few days and several staffers are now quarantining.
Pence has been crisscrossing the country on the campaign trail for weeks. He made visits to Lakeland and Tallahassee, Florida, on Saturday. On Friday, he spent time in his home state of Indiana, where he voted in person in Indianapolis, before holding rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He will continue his schedule, O'Malley said, despite the close contact with Short.
"While Vice President Pence is considered a close contact with Mr. Short, in consultation with the White House Medical Unit, the Vice President will maintain his schedule in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel," he wrote in a statement.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise essential workers who have been exposed to COVID-19 should take their temperature before work, wear a face mask at all times and social distance "as work duties permit." Pence is scheduled to hold a rally in Kinston, North Carolina, on Sunday evening.
Short has served as Pence's chief of staff since March 2019.
Obst, a top political aide to the vice president, tested positive last week, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. He is an outside adviser and not a government employee.
He was spotted at a fundraiser at Trump Doral attended by both Pence and President Trump on Oct. 15. While he was traveling with the VP last week, he wasn't in close proximity to him, sources say.
Obst did not respond to a request for comment. The vice president's office did not immediately respond.
The trusted adviser, who ran Pence's campaign in 2016, has kept up a steady stream of tweets and retweets on Twitter in recent days and weeks, though he does not appear to have mentioned his own diagnosis.
This is the second time someone close to Pence has tested positive for the virus. Katie Miller, Pence's press secretary and wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, tested positive for COVID-19 in May.
Both Mike Pence and the second lady tested negative for coronavirus in the days after President Donald Trump tested positive and was hospitalized at the beginning of October.
Earlier this month, in an interview with CNN, Short said the vice president was tested "every day."
At least 34 people connected to the White House tested positive for the virus earlier this month, including the president and first lady Melania Trump, as well as press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, campaign manager Bill Stepien, senior adviser for policy Stephen Miller and outside advisers Kellyanne Conway and Chris Christie.
ABC News' Mark Osborne contributed to this report.
""Borat's official Twitter account also claims that COVID-19 tests were not required in order for them to enter the White House.""
Look - I know Cohen was hell bent on making fun of and making the Trump administration look ridiculous..... But he can only do that if you let him right. You can't get access to the WH without a Covid test unless they let you.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
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