Wuhan Killer Sneeze (thanks Tea)

[IdleRich]

Oops, no, they've changed their minds

The White House appeared to be in fresh disarray on Wednesday as Donald Trump insisted that his coronavirus taskforce would remain in place ? less than 24 hours after suggesting it would be disbanded. The US president reversed course following a backlash against moves to wind down the taskforce even as the country reports about 30,000 new coronavirus cases a day and the death toll moves past 70,000, the highest in the world.

That's reassuring for everyone.

 

[IdleRich]

?Trump contradicted a nurse who said that access to sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic "has been sporadic."
Trump shot back, "Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people."?

Is that claim literally tautologous?

 

[Leo]

people dying, depression-era unemployment levels and small businesses left to swing in the breeze, and the answer from Washington is...more corporate tax cuts and reduction of capital gains tax rate!

The Trump administration is considering a wide range of tax-cut proposals for businesses and investors in the next coronavirus response bill as it tries to shift from government spending programs to support the economy toward measures that aim to reinvigorate growth.

The list of ideas under discussion includes a reduction in the capital gains tax rate and measures that would allow companies to deduct the full costs of any investments they make now or in the future, according to administration officials and several outside experts who have discussed plans with the White House.

Those proposals, which are still being debated and are not final, could accompany President Trump?s top two priorities for the next rescue package: the suspension of payroll taxes for workers and an expanded deduction for corporate spending on meals and entertainment.

Mr. Trump and his aides are also planning to push lawmakers to approve legal liability limits for businesses that operate during the pandemic, a top priority of business lobbying groups in Washington and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader.

in a just world, this would result in a public insurrection. I'd look for a pitchfork myself.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Is that claim literally tautologous?

That would be a genius line if it had actually been intended as humorous.

Ha, I meant Trump's of course. It'd be nice it Dissensus allowed nested quotations by default.

 

[IdleRich]

Trump's or mine?

 

[IdleRich]

The immediate future for the US is not looking good it has to be said....

You can call them BYOC parties. That?s bring your own Covid-19.
Health officials in Walla Walla, Washington, are admonishing the sudden rise in so-called ?Covid-19 parties? where non-infected guests mingle with those who have tested positive for the virus, ostensibly in hopes of speeding up the process of catching, and overcoming, the virus.
?Walla Walla County health officials are receiving reports of Covid-19 parties occurring in our community, where non-infected people mingle with an infected person in an effort to catch the virus,? the county said in a press release Tuesday.

 

[IdleRich]

The immediate future for the US is not looking good it has to be said....

Within two weeks there will be 100,000 dead from Coronavirus, I see no evidence of any kind of slow down (it looked as though it was beginning to decrease a few days ago but now it's higher than ever) and they are talking about ending the lockdown in loads of places. It's fucking mental, it's about to explode in the red states, it seems as though they are actively trying to move up the "per capita" tables cos being number one in terms of actual deaths isn't enough.

 

[IdleRich]

Although it has to be said Mitch McConnell is very keen to protect employers from Corona.... related law-suits if they force employees back to work.

 

[IdleRich]

Also great story in the Mail today saying that UK and US use war rhetoric to describe the "fight" against Coronavirus.... whereas in Germany, they prefer to use scientific terms for what is happening, because they lost the war obviously and there definitely couldn't be any other reason to use that sort of language.

 

[IdleRich]

So, you've probably all read that those gowns that they ordered from Turkey and kept pretending were on their way when they'd just been ordered and had arrived when they were at an airport in Istanbul and so on turned out to be no good at all when they finally did get here. This headline though

Coronavirus PPE: all 400,000 gowns flown from Turkey for NHS fail UK standards

I like the "all" as though they kept going through, checking every single one of them - maybe there is one right at the back we can use... nope, none, none at all.

 

[Murphy]

NHS resource linked up by a colleague today

https://stresscontrol.org/

if you?re a key worker, frontline or just feeling the walls creep in, check the info & dates

 

[Murphy]

 

[IdleRich]

And they voted for Ian Duncan Smith....
I see a second White House staffer (this time an aide to Pence) has tested positive for the lurgy this week.

 

[Mr. Tea]

View attachment 3386

Oh come on, it's a joke newspaper, everyone knows that.

And the Sunday Sport isn't particularly serious either.

 

[droid]

I think this may end up killing a million Americans.

 

[IdleRich]

This is what I was alluding to above. There are gonna be 100k dead within the next two weeks, there is no sign of it slowing and yet the impetus seems to be towards actions that will increase the rate of infections and thus the numbers that die. It's insane.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm sure there is a huge, huge overlap between those Americans who are convinced that 9/11 was literally an inside job by their own government, or some shadowy arm of it, and those who believe the disease is a "hoax", or was created artificially, or who are in some way convinced that any lockdown measures are a deliberate assault on their liberty, or is "creeping socialism", or whatever.

Which is ironic, when you consider that Trump's inaction, dithering, attacks on the scientific and medical establishment and all-round uselessness could end up making him (and his closest allies and enablers) culpable for a death toll that could exceed that of 9/11 hundreds of times over.

 

[IdleRich]

I'm sure there is a huge, huge overlap between those Americans who are convinced that 9/11 was literally an inside job by their own government, or some shadowy arm of it, and those who believe the disease is a "hoax", or was created artificially, or who are in some way convinced that any lockdown measures are a deliberate assault on their liberty, or is "creeping socialism", or whatever.
Which is ironic, when you consider that Trump's inaction, dithering, attacks on the scientific and medical establishment and all-round uselessness could end up making him (and his closest allies and enablers) culpable for a death toll that could exceed that of 9/11 hundreds of times over.

I think that some people think it's a hoax, but plenty of them don't, they just wanna be allowed to take their chances - basically they believe in rugged individualism and they think it's completely wrong that anyone should be MADE to do anything for the good of someone else, or even multiple someone elses Probably Ayn Rand's fault. Or is that positive vs negative freedom? I always get confused with that one.

 

[Leo]

some Americans get so single-mindedly whipped into a frenzy about the threat to their freedoms that they're blind to arguably bigger threats, such as a pandemic, climate change, a broken healthcare system, creeping authoritarianism...

a cynic might say that's even part of the plan: GOP/Fox News keeps the proles obsessed with losing their freedoms so they don't have the attention span to realize all the ways they're actually getting screwed. look over here, not over there.

 

[Mr. Tea]

a cynic might say that's even part of the plan: GOP/Fox News keeps the proles obsessed with losing their freedoms so they don't have the attention span to realize all the ways they're actually getting screwed. look over here, not over there.

"For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have, dismiss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty."

From 'The Terror', 1917.