People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows -- US Politics September 2020

i probably haven't even had a friend over to my house 18 times in a 7-month period! not lately, at least, that's for sure. the maintenance people at the white house must have been like "hey, what up Bob" every time he showed up

"hey Bob, how's that heated pool upgrade you were talking about the 9th time you were here to talk to trump, a couple months ago? and did your kid get into Williams?"

more amazing to me is that he did this TWICE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear:_Trump_in_the_White_House

he's probably in the white house right now, just quietly taking notes

i know this is beyond all kinds of fucked up...but in the abstract I just love this. it’s so perfect it’s going to make me cry

In early August 2018, Trump called Woodward about the book after the text had already been finalized. Trump told Woodward: "You know I'm very open to you. I think you've always been fair", as both of them expressed sentiments that they should have had an interview before the book was written. Trump initially claimed that no one had informed him that Woodward wanted to interview him, attributing this to his aides being "afraid" to talk to him or "busy"; but later in the call, Trump acknowledged that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham "did quickly mention" that Woodward wanted to conduct an interview. Woodward informs Trump that the book is "a tough look at the world and your administration and you", but will be "factual" and "accurate". Trump thus concludes that the book will be "negative", "bad" and "very inaccurate", because "accurate is that nobody's ever done a better job than I'm doing as president".[10]

Haha, is that why he gave so many interviews for the second book?

I love that they weren't even able to get a full victory lap out of the Nobel nom this morning before this broke. At least last week they were able to show the Pelosi tape at a presser before the Atlantic story came out and took over.

like how do you keep this pace up for four years and at the home stretch just blow it out so hard and shit the bed *this* spectacularly? and then half of the voting pop.’s (which includes so many people I’ve known and trusted implicitly for decades) response is simply: FUCK YES BROTHER TURN IT UP

some people like their beds shitty

Place thumb over butthole and let four years worth of pressure build, I guess?

I'm pretty sure he just admitted that the "no mask" message early on was a govt directive to suppress demand for PPE so that the govt could stockpile.

This Should Be "A Big Deal":

We just added Woodward revelations to Timeline

One item:

Feb. 7: Trump tells Woodward he knows of airborne risks and covid is worse than worst flus

Feb 10-Mar 2, 2020: Trump holds five #MAGA rallies each attracting thousands of people in confined spaceshttps://t.co/62MAaRVL13

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 9, 2020

Norwegian Parliament Member Tybring-Gjedde Attended Loyola University Chicago on a Water Polo Scholarship, Nominated Trump for Nobel Prize

how many times will the phrase "taken out of context" be used this week, over/under?

In response to Trump knowing of the coronavirus threat earlier and downplaying the severity of the virus publicly, Romney replied: “It doesn’t sound ideal to me"

Now that's leadership!

here's 1 'context' quote: Sen. Thom Tillis, a vulnerable Republican who is up for reelection, said he wants to see "the full context" of Trump's comments before fully weighing in. But he added: "When you're in a crisis situation, you have to inform people for their public health but you also don't want to create hysteria."

Graham added: "I don’t think he needs to go on TV and screaming we’re all going to die.”

a thing he does daily whenever a protest occurs or a policeman is held accountable

"I’d argued since day one that we put this in proper perspective: I have not been in favor of these overall shutdowns, have been devastating to the economy, devastating to people's health in other ways," said Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told me, when asked about Trump's comments to Woodward.

Johnson added: "It’s been a difficult thing to manage, and I’ve tried not to be critical of any government officials having to make really tough decisions with imperfect information, that includes governors and the President. So I understand what he's saying. I don't think it's an illegitimate point to make."

get fucked, bronco

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration's top infectious disease expert, is quoted telling others Trump's leadership was "rudderless" and that his "attention span is like a minus number."

AHAHAHAHAHA

"When you're in a crisis situation, you have to inform people for their public health but you also don't want to create hysteria."

Hence the long wait after "Pyromania."

guilty lols

why did trump agree to talk to woodward lol

and let himself be recorded!

"they don't have that technology yet, to permanently record the sounds of things I say"

the thing about this recording -- and take a knee, because it's important for all of you to grasp this -- is that the entire administration was clearly being dishonest with the american people about the pandemic. and this was not just trump. at the beginning of the pandemic, fauci advised people not to wear masks, later saying it was to preserve critical ppe. like, what the fuck? he should have said 1.) masks work but 2.) we need them for healthcare workers right now. but instead he played down the effectiveness.

yea I'm not really happy about that

take a knee, because it's important for all of you to grasp this

new board description

trump is a baroque and flamboyant liar and asshole, but there is a general problem with government officials being dishonest with the public. and it's severe. that's why people don't trust campaign promises -- often candidate signal to special interests that they won't really carry out the populist proposals they are running on.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/finance-202-publicly-biden-is-tough-wall-street-privately-his-camp-is-offering-reassurance/

so yeah -- trump is, as usual, just repeating what people around him were saying, which is that it's the president's job to "prevent panic" or "manage" the public rather than level with them like adults.

I truly do believe many healthcare workers didn't think masks would help significantly and worried about a run on PPEs because there were people stockpiling PPE-type masks that weren't doctors. it was a legitimate concern.

BUT...I agree with whatever public figure scientist it was that said we could have easily drawn a distinction between PPEs and cloth masks rather than telling them not to buy them at all, but warning that the benefits of the mask against COVID weren't proven so nobody wore masks with a false sense of security, like it made them invincible.

lots of health officials have egg on their face after that one. the difference between them and Trump = they have largely admitted this and owned up to it, and expressed regrets.

IDGAF about Fauci but IIRC his public statements in March were masks don't help you much (which seemed aimed at trying to keep people from wearing a mask and thinking they're immune now), they do help you not spread it if you're sick and saving PPE.

i mean, whatever. they were controlling what information the public received based on concerns about how they'd react. and in the end it just caused confusion--no one knew what to believe.

it was obvious to everyone masks were at least partially effective in preventing the transmission of an airborn virus.

Fauci said he didn't because he said he was going off of what was known at the time, which was that there were reported PPE shortages. not 100% thrilled with that, but it isn't as if he was the only person. the Surgeon General made the most pronounced anti-mask statement, and even the WHO was the last one to the finish line.

doesn't change that once the guidance was changed, these same officials never waffled on them again, whereas Trump outright refused to embrace pro-mask messaging or wear them himself.

(which seemed aimed at trying to keep people from wearing a mask and thinking they're immune now)

again the better call would be to just explain the whole situation -- that masks protect you to a degree, but what they really do well is protect others. instead they try to get ahead of it, thinking this will be a better way to manage the public's behavior.

doesn't change that once the guidance was changed, these same officials never waffled on them again, whereas Trump outright refused to embrace pro-mask messaging or wear them himself.

the bar needs to be higher than trump, i'm sorry

found the interview I remember:

LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?

Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.

LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.

Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?

Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.

LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?

Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.

again the better call would be to just explain the whole situation -- that masks protect you to a degree

not being flagrantly malevolent is a start, but it doesn't mean you're doing the right thing. and public trust is very key right now--misinformation is everywhere, conspiracies are proliferating, and transparently misleading information from the federal government is part of that

it was obvious to everyone? cos afaict, you only started around the same time the guidance changed (much like I did - early April).

I think it's obvious to us now, I don't think it was obvious to everyone then. I had doctor friends who also recommended against it.
-------------------------------------------------------------

treeship. wrote this on thread outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc) on board I Love Everything on Apr 3, 2020

started wearing a mask during my daily walk to central park.

can hardly breathe in this and my glasses fog up.

like I'll agree that health officials bungled the messaging on it, completely, and I've been saying that. but you're kind of painting them like this is the same level of offense as Trump knowing something to be false and saying it anyway to preserve his own popularity.

I think the health officials just made a mistake. Trump didn't make a mistake, he was deliberate.

His reasoning there about touching the masks is still being talked about on the ILX pandemic threads within the last 72 hours IIRC.

yeah i was wearing it once i got the full story

cos basically, health care officials are going to learn in real time with any new novel virus. that occasionally means walking back things you say previously. otherwise, you basically aren't giving the general public any guidance, and flawed guidance based on the limited information you know is better than no guidance.

if we're going to treat health officials with disdain because they changed a directive as new information came in (which, btw, the studies that showed the efficacy of masks has only just started emerging, it was purely theoretical prior), they're not going to want to help us. same as blaming the National Hurricane Center every time the cone of uncertainty nudges an inch to the left.

we can't lump willful misinformation from politicians in with well-intentioned mis-statements by health officials, especially if health officials own up to their mistake and correct it later and give new guidance. and you can bet if we have another novel virus, masks will be embraced earlier on (especially without Trump in the White House, hopefully)

look, trump is worse than fauci. but withholding information in order to "prevent a panic" is not something that is exclusive to him. people in government were trying to manage the public reaction -- you can even see it in that fauci interview, that they were concerned that if people started wearing masks there would be other consequences, so they were hedging on their effectiveness.

and regarding the confusion, some of that conspiracy nonsense would have happened regardless of who was President, but do we really think public distrust in the WHO/Fauci etc would have been so pronounced if the actual politicians in office who are meant to serve the public weren't fanning the flames themselves and publicly saying Fauci was "wrong" (like one Governor), or refusing to encourage the population to wear masks, advocating against masks or refusing to adopt any kind of national strategy?

Sure, you'd have false flag assholes, but probably not so goddamn many of them. if the President and local government did the same thing with hurricane forecasts ("don't trust the new track - assume the original track is where the storm is going"), you'd have more people refusing to evacuate.

and, additionally, Fauci shouldn't even be the face of this! the CDC is supposed to run point on this, yet Redfield just sits in his bathtub all day.

"withholding information" is revisionism. They truly didn't believe there to be a significant benefit at first, either, there wasn't data there to show it. they erred by telling people NOT to wear masks, as opposed to saying "we have limited data on their efficacy against coronavirus".

this wasn't them knowing it was the key to slowing the spread and deciding not to tell us. I actually saw enough masks to where I looked online in mid-March to see what immunologists, scientists, epidemiologists etc were saying and while there WERE some advocating for masks, it was a minority opinion.

aren't there countries who still haven't really embraced them?

Yeah, the United States of America!

for instance: https://www.wired.com/story/how-masks-went-from-dont-wear-to-must-have/

xpost lol touche

The UK is the answer you're looking for, Neanderthal.

@treesh that WaPo article about Biden is so maddening/predictable.