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It's pretty known on here that I'm a big liberal.  That said, I have lived the majority of my adulthood under Republican governance at the State level.  Though I don't agree with many of the policies of these guys and am not going to vote for them, I can respect them as systems managers.

Rick Scott, who I really dislike as a politician, ...let me be clear -- that dude can manage a hurricane.  He's clear about what we're facing, he gets his face out there, explains what he has in place to face the situation, anticipates the issues, and honestly...props to the guy.  I always had confidence in his leadership in that regard.  Though I was younger, I remember similarly about Jeb Bush and certain types of ecological issues in the middle of the state.  And more recently, Desantis, who ...again.... I intensely dislike as a politician, seems to have handled some recent business.

The point here is that I can recognize a competent person to manage a crisis, even though I disagree with other positions.

And Trump scares the shit out of me.  I just don't believe him and I think he's capable of bold-faced lying in a way that other politicians are not.  In fact...not just that he's capable, but that it's likely.  It's really hitting me about this coronavirus scare.  I don't trust that he can be honest with the American people about the scope of the crisis, that he's capable of following the recommendations of the best scientists, or that he wouldn't withhold information that, in any way, might make him look bad.

This is a new feeling for me.

Even with George W. Bush, when it came out later that he was telling some falsehoods about Iraq (maybe he thought they were true at the time), I always had confidence in the message, even if I disagreed with the policy. 

I'm not worried about the coronavirus one bit, it'll blow over just like the swine flu, bird flu, etc.

I don't know Dave, I just don't agree.  Why do you think he won't follow the recommendations of the best scientists?  I get the lying thing I guess, but most of what is deemed "lying" is over embellishment on Trump's part, which anyone who doesn't have an axe to grind sees that.  When push comes to shove, I think he's less corrupt than previous Presidents, but has less tact.  What kind of information would make him look bad in a time of crisis?

I mean...Bush looked pretty bad and unprepared during Katrina.  Trump's response to the Puerto Rico crisis was pretty bad.  You can look bad during a crisis...sometimes it's foreseeable, other times it's bad luck...whatever.  But you can definitely face criticism.

The way he handled Puerto Rico, he just said it was the best response ever or something equally horrible to people in need.

So, I'm not particularly worried about coronavirus specifically, but I can absolutely see a situation where there's an outbreak and then his response is to say that we have the healthiest people.   ...or something like that.  Where he didn't maybe take the threat seriously (which could happen to anyone), but once time to address that, he would just deny, deny, deny.

I just think the man will deliberately lie to prop us his own image.  And in a crisis, that would be really, really bad.  I haven't ever thought that way about a president before.  With Trump, it's more than that, I EXPECT him to lie to prop up his image.

Chapter 1: Trump's Honesty
Chapter 2: Charles Manson's Compassion
Chapter 3: Antonio Brown's Mental Stability

None of these can be read with a straight face...

Not sure why you are combining honesty with competence to manage a crisis.  Jimmy Carter was very honest but no much of a crisis manager.  Richard Nixon was dishonest but competent.  Trump is neither honest nor a competent and formulating a national response to a crisis. 

One of the biggest barriers with Trump is not his dishonesty, but his shallow ego and politicizing everything.  Trump’s response is often based on whether the states affected voted for him or not and whether he likes the governor.  If the domestic outbreak begins in California it will be up to the state to handle it and then Trump will blame Newsom when the disease spreads to other states.  If the first major outbreak is in Texas he will stand side by side with Abbot and blame illegal immigrants from China.

I'm actually not questioning his competence.  I think he's probably not good at crisis management, but that's not even what I'm talking about here.

I just don't trust the message.  When he says that things are being done, taken care of, looked into, etc.  ....I just don't believe him.
I believed Rick Scott.  When Rick Scott got on TV, talked about a hurricane, I believe that he meant what he was saying, that the state was prepared, that he had done this or that to ensure this or that is avoided, I believed his words.  And he earned that trust, because I think his responses were on-point.

With Trump, when he says that a situation is handled, I assume that he's lying.

If Trump is talking...or tweeting...I assume he's lying.

It actually may have been the best response ever. There's no way to know when you have the local democratic leaders hiding emergency supplies. A warehouse larger than 4 football fields was full of rotting emergency supplies that were not distributed to the public. With the leftist media crying about how Trump's administration didn't care or do anything for the people, it seems that the leftists in charge of this aid hated the President more than they cared for the welfare of their own people.

Hell, I remember at the time there was a story and video going around in the media with female police officer in Puerto Rico crying and saying that federal relief was not being distributed after Hurricane Maria. Sounds more like the local government wanted to make Trump look bad rather than feed women and children after a natural disaster. But I'm sure it was all just a coincidence, LMFAO.....

Trump appointed Mike Pence to oversee the countries response to the disease. A lawyer not an MD.  Trump cited MP’s experience.  MP’s only experience was a disaster in which as a governor he put politics above treatment and prevention. 

This example of a pandemic is actually a good example of why Medicare for all is necessary.

Next time you see someone coughing, or sneezing and think in the back of your mind, "i wonder if he's got the coronavirus" .. the next thought should be "i wonder if he has health insurance" or "i wonder if his co-pays are too high and he's putting off going to see a doctor" and spreading a disease that can kill you or your family purely based on the financial aspects of our current healthcare system.

So when you hear Trump lying about there not being any cases, or that the "corama" virus is going to be gone by april, Just remember that when uninsured people get infected and can't get treatment because they can't afford it, you could be the one that's fucked.

It was an HIV "epidemic".  Here's an idea, don't fuck people without a condom and don't share needles.  

81,397 infected, 2,770 dead worldwide.  That's a fatality rate of 3.4%, mostly with the elderly.  Compared to the flu, 250,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths this season.  I agree with Trump, it'll be gone just like swine flu, bird flu, etc.

Doesn't really matter if it is gone quickly. That will just piss them off even more. It seems libs would be more happy if it did turn out to be an epidemic and kill thousands just so they could blame it on Trump. I swear when I was younger I'd never have believed anyone would rather our country burn to the ground than not have "their" people in the White House. Ronald Reagan actually scared the hell out of me as a teen but I didn't want us to fail as a country because he won. 

Between 26 million and 36 million people have been stricken with the flu as of Feb. 8, according to the latest CDC data. (https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/02/19/flu-update)

At a fatality rate of 3.4%, 26 to 36 million infections would result in around 880,000 to 1.2 million deaths.  Coronavirus is several orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu, and it is absolutely critical to keep the infection numbers down.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but just about everyone with the corona virus is being hospitalized, so it's an apples to apples comparison.

Absolute bullshit.


Me neither, I was shocked at how many supposed Americans took that stance when Obama was elected.  

That's a pretty fucked up thing to say, man.

You think I want people to die to prove a political point?

I really hope that this is handled well and I also hope that we just get lucky.  Not just for the loss of life, but for the crippling it's going to do, and has already started to do to the economy.

I don't know who you're listening to, but your head is filled with some fucked up shit if you think liberals as a group are rooting for illness and death to stick it to Trump.

No, it's not.

Only the very worst flu victims - less than 1% of those infected, if your numbers are correct - are hospitalized.  And of the worst flu cases, ~5.6% die.  In contrast, out of every single coronavirus victim, 3.4% die.  Coronavirus is FAR, FAR more deadly than the flu, and we should be looking to experts in contagious diseases on how to control this.

Just google "obama's katrina" and you can find countless examples of conservatives desperately rooting for a catastrophe in order to hurt Obama.  Examples include:

- the 2014 Ebola "outbreak" (consisting of 4 total victims)
- Hurricane Sandy
- the 2009 ice storm
- the BP oil spill

When it comes to conservatives, there's a popular saying among the left: Every Accusation Is A Confession.  This is why people like Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, and Roger Stone - who loved to chant "Lock Her Up!" - are currently behind bars.

I believe that no politician would want this type of epidemic or want people dead.  I also believe that the left will find a way to blame it on Trump because they hate him.   

buck has to stop somewhere

This is a generalization, but it is pretty safe to say that whenever anything bad happens under any presidency the opposing political party blames the president.  I remember conservatives with their hundreds of "thanks Obama" memes for every problem under the sun.  Just like the liberals blame anything bad that happens on Trump now that he is president.  It has been that way as long as I can remember.   Most of the people on this site are pretty young and think that all of the things that we discuss here are new.   The vast majority of discussions that we have had here have played out for decades with nothing having changed except the names of the characters.  It is just that many of you are too young to realize it and those of us who are older have forgotten.   But all of these societal and political debates that we have are just remakes of the same old movies.  Over and over again through the decades. 

I only have to google coronavirus and read the articles by mainstream media. Social media is also filled with crazy crap. You may not but many will do whatever they can to make Trump look bad. This is a sickness that doesn't choose sides but you'd think by watching CNN, MSNBC, and others that Trump is encouraging this disease to wipe out poor people.

I think that if the Corona virus only killed Democrats/Hispanics/Media, Trump would be the first person to step up in support of the virus.

P.S.  That sentence was not meant to be a joke.

Social media is always filled with crazy crap.

As for CNN and MSNBC i absolutely don’t get the impression Trump “is encouraging this disease to wipe out poor people “

But I do get the impression that our private payer health system will result in people getting tested later than they would under a national system.

I do get the impression Trump is putting optics and politics ahead of sound policy.  (Placing a lawyer instead of an MD in charge, requiring all medical personnel to clear interviews with whitehouse, etc.)

I agree with this completely. When I saw that appointment, my first thought was "So, spinning things is more important than curing things...got it."

Just as an FYI: I live less than 5 miles from Travis Air Force Base, where the first American coronavirus victims were flown, and the first US infection of "unknown origin" was in the same county.  I work in a medical facility with over 2000 staff, so it's not entirely unlikely that I may be among the first groups of people in the country to have to deal with this firsthand.

Is being critical of his decision to eliminate the entire U.S. pandemic response team in 2018, an example of hating Trump?  Or hting a really stupid move by Trump? 

Trump has already falsely blamed Obama. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/donald-trump-obama-testing-lamar-alexander/index.html

I am a medical professional.  My wife has a degree larger and shinier than mine.  We have friends smarter than us, including someone who was the head of Maine's CDC for almost 20 years.  Based on people around me who are better trained, and smarter - I'm concerned with the outbreak and I'm beyond tired of hearing people compare it to things it doesn't belong being compared to.  So, just like politics, I'm not even trying.  Like hitting your head into a wall, it feels good to stop.  There is a difference between "concerned" and "panic."

Here is where I agree with Dave:

The World Health Organization (WHO) = made up of very, very smart people.  Same people in charge of / over see some very, very scary things.  Based on educated information the WHO has determined a fatality rate currently at 3.4%.  During a radio conference call, and literally based on nothing - literally nothing - Donald Trump pulled a "I would think it's less than 1%, I don't agree with that number."  

Based on...what?

If Donald Trump was able to provide some level of scientific proof - but this level of "guessing" by the most powerful man in the world is ignorant and dangerous.  The 3.4% mortality rate is based on tested cases, it's not a "guess."  It's based on this little thing called "science."  Denying that is, flatly, really stupid, until you have more science to deny the prior science.

It's items like this where Dave is correct.

Trump's motivation for his announcements is to drive public opinion related to the virus, and downplay it to the public to move the stock market.  Trump's only kudos for his entire administration is related to return on investment, (yay, 409k!) and the stock market has taken a beating recently due to speculation related to the virus.

Trump's downplay of the virus is an attempt to downplay concern that negatively impacted the economy.

The fact that I see people I respect in this thread who recite the rhetoric of "corrupt mainstream media" is saddening.  I thought we were better than that.  Donald Trump only cares about his self image and how great everyone thinks he is.  He has never admitted he is wrong (remember the Dorian Sharpie map?), and continues to blame everything negative on Obama.  That's why you can't trust anything he says.  He's a spin doctor, who is only concerned with protecting his brand.

You guys are fucking hilarious.  Democrats don't lie, they are the moral compass of America!  They ALL lie to get what they want and to look good, even Obama.  Trump doing it is nothing new.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/365393-how-quickly-ny-times-forgets-obamas-lies-and-frauds (https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/365393-how-quickly-ny-times-forgets-obamas-lies-and-frauds)

Obama’s total number of false statement in 8 years in office is less than the number of false statements Trump makes in 8 minutes.

That's a false statement, thanks for playing. Oh, are you embellishing something to make a point?  LIAR!

When he says "no one knows [insert random topic here] like I do..."  -  That's embellishment.  However, when he says "the crowd at my inauguration ceremony was the biggest of all time" - that's not embellishment, its simply untrue.  If he could learn how to speak in anything other than hyperbole, it would help.

Also, Hoodie isn't the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES. ::)

Saw an interview with Dr Drew and I tend to agree with his assessment. The media driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus itself. That by no means mean that there is no concern about the virus.

https://mobile.twitter.com/rationalsquad/status/1235636443369873415

So the father of the Tea Party, CNBC's Rick Santelli, went on the air to suggest that maybe we should just infect everyone with coronavirus.  That way we could just get this over with, and the markets could stabilize.

Using the global fatality rate for coronavirus, if the entire US were to be infected, that would result in over 9 million deaths.  (I am not accounting for the huge increase in fatality rate that would accompany our medical infrastructure being blown apart at the seams.)  But at least Rick Santelli's retirement portfolio would stop losing value!

I'm sorry but if plutocrats like this don't make you vote for Democrats then you are just evil.

Are you okay?  You must have pulled your back stretching that far.

^^^^ Pretty sure in was a parody of this even more convoluted post. http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=26120.0

Ain't no crazy like political discussion crazy.  Well, religion discussions run a close second.   Whether here, facebook, the workplace, the local bar, etc.   Political discussions are hilarious as both sides throw out comments that aren't even remotely rooted in reality or truth. 

I don't disagree with this (although I think Dr. Drew is a quack, in general).  I also think the "this will blow over like everything else does" *thing* is a really dangerous mindset.  Things don't "blow over," they are fought back with science and effort (example, SARS could have been much, much worse; this is a perfect example of science staging). 

I understand the general concern.  Let's do an experiment, follow along -

I gather 10 people, place them into a room.  In this room three people have previously had, or have been exposed to influenza strain A.  Three have been exposed to strain B.  An additional three, plus the previous six (so, all nine) have been exposed to H1N1 (this is "swine flu").  So, basically a good portion of the control group have been exposed to the general seasonal flu in one form, or another.  The 10th person has never been exposed to any form of the virus.  Three situations, same closed room:

1:  I send an actively sick person into the room with H3N2 (subset of A).  There is a very good chance the people who have been exposed to the A virus, as well as H1N1 (which is also a subset of A) will produce an response and may not get the virus at all.  The people who have been exposed to the B virus only may have the same result, or may get a blunted result (they may get sick and have a shorter duration disease - the body is basically saying "hey, I've seen something like this, I know how to fight it).  The person who has never seen it may get the brunt of it and get very sick. 

2:  Same situation, B strain Victoria.  Most likely everyone in the room who has not experienced a level of sickness from a B strain will encounter a level of sickness, the more severe sickness will be reserved (again) for the folks not exposed to the virus at all.  However, in this case, everyone may see equal levels.

3:  Expose the group to H5N1.  40-60% of the control group is dead within two weeks (kind estimate); this is avian flu which no one has an immune response to and, unlike other flu, produces more than respiratory symptoms. 

Number 3 is why people are in a panic, the introduction of "novel."  A virus is alive and, like any living thing, it wants to remain this way.  Virus' mutate and change; the current Coronavirus has already evolved into two strains; scientists are debating and have no idea how to understand it yet (it's taken years to understand the flu and, at times, they still don't understand that).  Put into lament terms; the thought it there is a reason why some people get violently ill and some do not with covid-19 (more aggressive versus less aggressive strains). Like my analogy above, neither of which any of our bodies have been exposed to.

So - if you're within six feet or so within exposed droplets, you're not in a good position.  I mean, it's a virus, and it's the same family as the common cold. 

On one hand we see China building hospitals in a period of ten days to handle this, on another we have an administration saying "nothing to see here."  The truth is in the middle, right?  The way to calm people, at the end of the day, is transparency.  Unless, of course, the real truth is that we are all screwed and it's all going to fall apart; very smart virologists have been worried about "virus x" for a long time.  Is this virus "x"?  Well, I guess we are going to find out, right?

Anyway, holy hell I think this is the longest post I've made in about 12 years.  Panic?  No.  Concern, yes. 

Turns out I was right, sorta.  It is actually worse.  Reports out now that Jared Kushner ran a secret testing and data collection program and determined that the epidemic was going to hurt blue states worse than red states. So it was decided that the federal government would do nothing and then blame democratic governors for mishandling the crisis and use it as a political item to show states led by republican governors are better than those led by democrats

and then florida fucked that plan up for jared .. way to go desantis

But on a serious note .. if that entire thing isn't impeachable .. holy shit. It's even worse than incompetence, it's straight up murder.