Former Ohio Republican governor to speak at the Democratic convention

Ohio has burrowed itself deep in impeached president Donald Trump, who may or may not be hiding in his bunker at this time. It’s not a state that will decide the presidency. Trump won it by eight points in 2016, and if he loses it this year (and chances are growing by the day), he will already have lost Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and several other states—giving presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden more than enough electoral votes to end our long national nightmare. Yet his campaign has now made Ohio the second-largest recipient of advertising dollars, behind only Florida. 

So how do you think Trump will react when he finds out that former Ohio two-term Republican governor John Kasich is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention? Hilarious, right? 

The Daily Beast has leaked details on Democratic plans for the mostly online convention, which includes the information on Kasich’s participation. The Associated Press has more information on the Kasich coup, and adds this hint: “Kasich is among a handful of high-profile Republicans likely to become more active in supporting Biden in the fall.” The Biden campaign, feeling secure in its base, is clearly focused on expanding his potential base of support, and the never-Trump crowd, while small, could have a big impact in close races up and down the ballot. 

Ohio is a perfect example, a state in which Trump’s standing has fallen more precipitously during the coronavirus pandemic (and because of it) than most places. 

As noted in a previous analysis, Trump’s general election matchup numbers are closely correlated to his approval numbers. His 47% approvals here means he’s getting between 47-49% in the head-to-head matchups versus Biden. That’s enough for victory, but barely. Trump is hanging on for dear life in a state that he comfortably won in 2016, and which shouldn’t be in play given its demographics—mostly white, mostly non-college.  

Meanwhile, Kasich left office a popular politician, with a 52-36 rating the last time Quinnipiac checked in before he was termed out of office in 2018. But even then, there were storm clouds that hinted at a party split: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich gets a 52-36 percent job approval rating, doing better with Democrats than he does with his fellow Republicans, Democrats approve of Kasich 57-33 percent. Republicans are divided as 46 percent approve and 44 percent disapprove.” You see, he had run against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, and Trump hit him for, among other things, giving his state’s residents health care via Obamacare Medicaid expansion. 

pic.twitter.com/ZQ0osiFEJQ

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2016

The campaign eventually ended, but the feud never did. For example, here was a typical interaction between the two, in 2018:

pic.twitter.com/wqtmN9SwhT

— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) August 13, 2018

Pretty good, right? Kasich also attacked his party for looking the other way as Trump made a mockery of party orthodoxy, steel and aluminum tariffs, as well as for tolerating Trump’s attacks on national institutions like the FBI and the Justice Department. After the 2019 Dayton mass shooting, Kasich called Trump “sensitive” and “thin-skinned.”  

Kasich spent some seconds this year “running against Trump in the GOP primary,” but no one took that seriously. The Republican Party is the Party of Trump, and vice versa. There’s no longer any room for Kasich-style moderate fiscal conservatives in the GOP. We don’t want them either! But at least this year, those never-Trumpers realize the damage that Trump is doing to the country. As Kasich told the Washington Post, “[The Republican Party] coddled this guy the whole time and now it’s like some rats are jumping off of the sinking ship. It’s just a little late. It’s left this nation with a crescendo of hate not only between politicians but between citizens. ... It started with Charlottesville and people remained silent then, and we find ourselves in this position now.”

Kasich may be the highest-profile Republican to flip to Biden right now, but there is definitely something happening among Republicans. Look at Trump’s approval ratings among Republicans: 

So 87-9 seems ridiculously high, right? Except that during the impeachment hearings, that number was 91-6. That means that in just a few short months, Trump has lost a net-seven points of support among Republicans. 

Don’t scoff. Every Republican that gives up on Trump is one less vote. They may vote for Biden and say the heck with it, they’ll vote for Democrats in critical Senate and House races. Or maybe they stay home in frustration, which is almost as good. 

Every Republican defection makes it harder for Trump to bounce back. How is he going to expand his coalition if he can’t even hold on to his own core base? 

Kasich isn’t a play to win Ohio. We don’t need Ohio. Let Trump piss his money away on a state that is irrelevant to whether he wins or loses. While there are two Republican-held House seats that could be in play, control of the U.S. House isn’t at stake. 

But there are Republicans who aren’t happy being associated with a racist sociopath who is putting our children at risk to boost his reelection chances, and Kasich is a signal to them freeing them from Trumpism. There are alternatives. Because this thing, whatever it is that Republicanism has become? It really hasn’t quite worked out well for the country now, has it.

But even if Kasich doesn’t swing a single vote—which is quite possible—the inevitable Trump tantrum will be reason enough to stand up and clap. You know it’ll be glorious. 

Millions of Americans will soon find out just how badly they’ve been screwed by Trump and the GOP

Robert Reich, writing for The Guardian, weighs in on the fairy tale that our country is somehow “roaring back,” as Donald Trump characterized it when he hawked a report last week based on misleading unemployment statistics—numbers that were already woefully out of date at the time they were released.

The US economy isn’t roaring back. Just over half of Americans have jobs now, the lowest figure in more than 70 years. What’s roaring back is Covid-19. Until it’s tamed, the American economy doesn’t stand a chance.

As former Labor Secretary Reich notes: “The uptick in jobs in June was due almost entirely to the hasty reopening, which is now being reversed.”

Last month, many businesses rehired previously laid-off employees based on cues they received from state governors assuring them the crisis had passed and that it was “time to reopen.” Those governors and Republicans in their legislatures in turn took their cues from a political imperative pushed relentlessly by the White House. But, as most of these governors well knew, that wasn’t the reality at all. It was simply a story spun out of thin air by an administration growing increasingly desperate about its reelection chances; a story to mollify a restless public grown increasingly frustrated at the endless lockdowns; a story to provide temporary cover for Republicans at the state and federal level who had absolutely no clue how to handle this pandemic.

But mostly it was a story to satisfy their donors, who were seeing their corporate profits evaporate and taking it out on their paid stooges in Congress and the states. The GOP jumped to the task, bailing out businesses as much as they possibly could—namely with hundreds of billions of dollars—without ever telling the American public where those funds were actually going. (Hint: It was to their donors.) But it wasn’t done out of any concern for American workers. If it had been, the GOP would have come up with a game plan that didn’t simply involve waving some fairy dust at the end of May and telling people it was now suddenly safe to go back to work.

This was effectively an untested medical experiment on a grand scale, collectively embraced by Republicans, with ordinary Americans as its unwitting subjects. The reopening push was not based on any scientific or medical planning to address the pandemic but wholly on “feel-good” politics designed to satisfy donors for a few months. 

So when those June unemployment numbers trumpeted by Trump and his state media last Thursday were actually compiled, reported COVID-19 cases in this country were averaging 25,000 daily because all those reopenings in late May were only just beginning to register a corresponding spike in infections. Since that report, cases have now jumped drastically to an average of 55,000 per day or more, forcing many states that had prematurely reopened to reverse course, shutting down businesses once again in a desperate attempt to prevent the virus from spiraling out of control and overwhelming their state’s medical capabilities. Late in June, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci warned that we were likely to see 100,000 cases of new infections every day thanks to inadequate efforts to contain the virus and these misguided reopenings.

Republican state legislators from Texas to Arizona to Wisconsin, where COVID-19 cases are now shooting through the roof, all rode the reopening bandwagon for months. They pounded their chests on their Facebook pages about their “patriotism,” attended rallies in support of gun-toting Neo-Nazi militias, and brought frivolous lawsuits to force businesses to reopen. In most Republican-led states (and some Democratic-run ones as well), the GOP’s blind push—and often violent agitation—to force accelerated reopenings caused several states to issue blanket, credulous edicts to reopen long before it was safe to do so. In states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where they did not control the governor’s mansion, GOP-controlled legislatures introduced articles of impeachment to try to force their states to reopen, or petitioned like-minded judges to overrule the lockdown measures.

In less than a week since those new job numbers were released, instead of a nation “roaring back,” we are now witnessing an embarrassing and hasty Republican retreat from everything they and Trump assured us of with such certainty. Meanwhile, as Reich painstakingly points out, the pandemic hasn’t gone anywhere in the last four months. It still hangs around, strong as ever, like a voracious beast, ready to devour anyone foolish enough to try to defy it.

Now, Reich explains, all of those efforts are proving to be disastrous.

Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, initially refused to order masks and even barred local officials from doing so. This week he closed all gyms, bars and movie theaters in the state. The governors of Florida, Texas and California have also reimposed restrictions. Officials in Florida’s Miami-Dade county recently approved the reopening of movie theaters, arcades, casinos, concert halls, bowling halls and adult entertainment venues. They have now re-closed them.

And so on across America. A vast re-closing is under way, as haphazard as was the reopening. In the biggest public health emergency in US history, in which nearly 130,000 have already lost their lives, still no one is in charge.

You’d think some Republicans would have the decency to apologize. But none have as of this writing. Meanwhile, as a result of Republican dithering and inaction, millions of Americans are now finding themselves teetering on the edge of a financial abyss thanks to the complete lack of a coherent national response to this crisis by this president, and thanks to the Republican officials at all levels who abetted him. Reich plainly lays out what is coming in the next few weeks, all Republican “magical thinking” and fantasy-spinning to the contrary.

Brace yourself. Not only will the virus take many more lives in the months ahead, but millions of Americans are in danger of becoming destitute. Extra unemployment benefits enacted by Congress in March are set to end on 31 July. About one in five people in renter households are at risk of eviction by 30 September. Delinquency rates on mortgages have more than doubled since March.

An estimated 25 million Americans have lost or will lose employer-provided health insurance. America’s fragile childcare system is in danger of collapse, with the result that hundreds of thousands of working parents will not be able to return to work even if jobs are available.

The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate has all but abandoned the field in this pandemic, blocking attempts by Democratic lawmakers in the House to provide additional emergency aid to suffering Americans, and instead going on vacation throughout the entire month of June. In this conscious act of cowardice, they deliberately left Americans to their fate. Sen. Mitch McConnell and his colleagues have long since exhausted their quiver of phony, supply-side, “market-based” solutions and are now willingly leaving millions to be crushed by an ongoing economic catastrophe that is only now beginning to reveal its full ferocity.

As the true, stunning magnitude of this crisis finally hits home for Americans, the Republican Party will be offering no solutions—because they have none. Helping Americans in a crisis like this is not in their playbook, and they have no point of reference even if they had the inclination to do anything. In the end, they will be only too happy to scamper away to whatever gated communities continue to offer them shelter, muttering their worthless platitudes as Americans collapse into economic hardship, hunger, and in many cases, homelessness.

By late summer, all people of voting age in this country are going to be forced to make brutal, existential decisions about their futures and those of their families, and none of Trump’s hysterical babbling about Confederate statues or other race-baiting dogwhistles is going to make one whit of difference. This crisis is about to go into overdrive, far beyond any Republican attempts to “wish it away.” Millions of peoples’ lives are about to come alive with a fierce urgency that may well consign the Republican Party to the sorry trash bin of history, as Americans realize just how badly they’ve been screwed and lied to.

Sen. Joni Ernst says 130,000 American deaths show Trump is ‘stepping forward’

Though it is a holiday weekend, the Sunday news shows continued on in mostly the usual fashion. Trump ally Sen. Joni Ernst, one of the corrupt man-child's most ardent defenders as the Republican Senate nullified impeachment charges against Trump without investigation, once had a lot to day about two (2) Americans dying of Ebola under President Barack Obama, saying it showed "failed leadership." CNN host Dana Bash asked Ernst whether 130,000 Americans dying in the (now fully out-of-control) COVID-19 pandemic also is showing "failed leadership."

Sen. Joni Ernst replied with yet another response seemingly hand-tailored to show just how corrupt, incompetent, and buffoonish the Republican Party has become. After a long filibuster resulting in Bash repeating of the question: "No, I think that the president is stepping forward," she clowned.

CNN's Dana Bash: You said in 2014 that Obama showed "failed leadership" with Ebola, when only 2 Americans died. Would you say Trump's showed failed leadership with coronavirus as 130,000 Americans have died? Sen. Joni Ernst: "No, I think that the president is stepping forward" pic.twitter.com/WQqSC82OSt

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 5, 2020

Lord, now that was just pathetic. I’m embarrassed for both of them.

Again, the whole premise of so-called "news" programs is invalidated if political leaders are simply allowed to bullshit their way through each with no repercussions. Bash's question was spot-on, probing whether a sitting senator's supposed outrage at one pandemic would translate to the next. Clearly, it did not.

What, then, should the repercussions be for being so transparently a hack? Should a buzzer sound? Should a duck drop from the ceiling? During the pandemic itself physical solutions are largely out of bounds, as most of the people praising Donald Trump's brilliant handling of a pandemic now expected by the White House to result in at least a quarter million dead are praising him from inside their own homes because it is simply too unsafe to travel to the studios as usual. That means the best solution is, for now, right out; nobody is going to agree to have a pie-throwing machine installed in their den.

Hecklers, then. I'm going to propose the "news" shows liven up their broadcasts with professional hecklers. If any politician says something as egregiously tawdry as Joni Ernst says regularly, ninety seconds of interview time will be given to a team of hecklers to point it out and roast their target into oblivion.

Hey, it's more news than what's currently being broadcast. If the nation's top political reporters are incapable of bringing shame to those that quite transparently deserve it, we need to bring in people with more appropriate skills.

John Cusack Outrageously Claims Military Has ‘Abandoned’ Trump: Says Supporters He Still Has Are Racist

The radically liberal actor John Cusack had yet another unhinged meltdown stemming from Donald Trump and his supporters. In a deranged tweet that was full of typos, Cusack claimed that the president is “playing for an exit strategy” and that the only supporters he has left are racist.

“Trump is playing for an exit strategy—that keeps him from jail- miltary [sic] has abandoned his fascism—all he’s got left is rascists [sic]- He wants something to leverage – to stay out of jail,” Cusack tweeted, noticeably misspelling the words “military” and “racists.”

In another tweet today, Cusack called Trump a “bloated punk,” which just goes to show how deep his hatred for the president runs.

Cusack’s Twitter page is full of disturbing meltdowns against Trump and those who voted for him, indicating all-consuming hatred for the president equivalent to many of his Hollywood cohorts. Back in March, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Cusack called for another impeachment effort against Trump, saying it was necessary to “save lives.”

“We need strikes /  and we need to remove trump from power to save lives Impeach him again / Pressure for 25th,” he tweeted on March 31.

All Cusack is accomplishing with these tweets is showing the world that he is just another Hollywood liberal elitist who has lost all touch with reality.

This piece was written by PopZette Staff on June 13, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
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The post John Cusack Outrageously Claims Military Has ‘Abandoned’ Trump: Says Supporters He Still Has Are Racist appeared first on The Political Insider.

Senator’s cellphone seized amid federal investigation of stock trades made ahead of COVID-19 spread

Months after it was revealed that he had made dozens of questionable stock trades ahead of a global pandemic—and advised wealthy constituents to do the same—Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina had his cellphone seized by federal agents Wednesday night. The agents were at the senator’s Washington, D.C., residence.

Burr, who is a member of the “Gang of Eight” and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sparked scrutiny in mid-March after making 33 transactions in February, that rid him of a significant chunk of his stock portfolio and netted him anywhere between $628,000 and $1.72 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. The transactions came after briefings on the potential impact of the novel coronavirus from the U.S. Department of Health.

While NPR broke the story about the private warnings to rich Tar Heels, ProPublica was the first to report on the selloff. 

ProPublica’s analysis indicated that the Feb. 13 selling spree was Burr’s “largest selling day of at least the past 14 months.”

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.

A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline.

[...]

Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.

The newest and wealthiest member of the Senate, Georgia’s Kelly Loeffler, also got in on the secret selloff, making 29 transactions that add up to millions.  It’s worth noting that Burr is just one of three senators (and the only one still in office) who voted against the 2012 STOCK Act, which, as McClatchy puts it, “explicitly prevents members of Congress and their staffs from using nonpublic information for insider trading.”  Both the FBI and the DOJ have refused comment, as has Burr’s team; however, as the LA Times notes, the search warrant indicates “a significant escalation” in the investigation into Burr’s possible violation of the STOCK Act.

Soldiers and veterans are dropping dead of COVID-19, and Trump doesn’t care

Impeached president Donald Trump is a f’n idiot. He tries so hard to sound inspirational and hopeful and tough, and instead he sounds like a moron. Like here, when he ends up sounding totally psyched and excited that the United States lead the world in coronavirus deaths:

"The whole world is excited watching us," Trump tells reporters. "Because we're leading the world."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 5, 2020

He wants to sound optimistic, but he’s too stupid to pull it off. No, the world isn’t excited to see the devastation happening in the United States (except maybe Russia), and presumably, neither is Trump. But who knows? The same happens when he tries to frame the pandemic as a battle between a wily mastermind of a virus, and America’s can-do spirit. 

Here is Trump again, yesterday:

Trump says the virus is "a tough enemy, a smart enemy. But nobody's like us and nobody's tough like us. And I said it before and I'll say it again: the people of our country are warriors."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 5, 2020

The virus isn’t smart. It’s a freakin’ virus. It’s as dumb as a Trump, following base instincts without regards to long-term strategy. And we certainly aren’t going to defeat the virus by being “tough.” The virus doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the grit of the American people. It just does its own thing, on its own timetable, unconcerned by “tough” words from Trump or anyone else.

Literally, the only way to currently thwart this virus is to hide from it. That’s how powerful it is. And the only way to thwart this thing, long-term, is through science. So yeah, smart people doing smart things. Again, no “tough” words from Trump will matter a whit.

If Trump wants to treat this as a war, however, why not treat people as actual uniformed soldiers? Give front-line and essential employees veterans benefits, hazard pay, and medals. Give them free socialized medical care like members of the armed forces. Pay out $1 million in death benefits to every one of those workers felled in the line of duty. It’s a war, right? Treat the people like actual warriors. 

Speaking of, did you know that real-life warriors, those who are currently wearing a uniform, or did so once upon a time, are also dying en masse? According to the latest tally, 27 Department of Defense service members, employees, and dependents have died from the disease, as well as 771 veterans inside the VA medical system. Obviously, that doesn’t count veterans who died outside of that system, but even now, we’re at nearly 800 dead (and counting). 

But Trump doesn’t care. The only time he thinks about our service members and veterans is when they serve his ego, as backdrops for his campaign or photo ops. Otherwise, perhaps he’d keep them in mind and try to minimize the carnage. 

But he doesn’t care about anyone. The end. And this toxic brew of psychotic indifference and rank incompetence means that we’re in for hundreds of thousands more deaths before we’re mercifully done with his presidency next January. 

The Republican Party will owe this country for the death and destruction it wrought, for refusing to take out Trump when it had the chance (not just impeachment, but via 25th Amendment), and that’s a debt it will never be able to repay. 

Trump Wants to Know Why George Bush Didn’t Call For End to Partisanship When He Was Being Impeached

President Trump took a jab at George W. Bush after the latter made a rare public statement to address the nation during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video message posted over the weekend, the former President called for an end to partisanship in the midst of the crisis, something America experienced in the days following the 9/11 tragedy.

“In this time of testing, we need to remember a few things: First, let us remember we have faced times of testing before,” Bush stated. “Following 9/11, I saw a great nation rise as one to honor the brave, grieve with the grieving, and to embrace unavoidable new duties.”

“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” he concluded. “In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants, we are human beings equally vulnerable and wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together.”

RELATED: Obama Caught Golfing While Michelle Tells Residents They Need to Stay Home

Where Has He Been?

Bush seems to have forgotten how Democrats, almost immediately after the nation rallied around him, tore him apart in the following months and claimed they never supported his response to the 9/11 attacks.

On its surface, Bush’s plea for unity is a genuinely solid message … in normal times.

But these are not normal times. And Trump would like to know where Bush has been with his calls for coming together when Democrats were raking him over the coals from day one, pursuing impeachment hoax after impeachment hoax.

The President quoted Fox News personality Pete Hegseth in a tweet Sunday stating, “Oh by the way, I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside?”

Trump added his own thoughts: “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”

RELATED: The Extraordinary Measures Trump is Taking to Honor President George H.W. Bush

Coming Together Means Bowing to Democrats

Understand that there has been a deep past of contentiousness and highly charged political rhetoric amongst the Bush family and the President.

That said, since when are emotions and pride supposed to dictate what great leaders do?

Trump’s correct – if this crisis is enough to coax Bush to ask for an end to partisanship, then it should equally have been of importance to try to bring the nation together when Democrats were distracting the nation with an impeachment witch hunt that wasted the time of lawmakers and likely distracted them from the coronavirus crisis in the first place.

Perhaps had he asked for unity then, there could have been a non-partisan response to the pandemic.

The post Trump Wants to Know Why George Bush Didn’t Call For End to Partisanship When He Was Being Impeached appeared first on The Political Insider.

3,300 Volunteers From 52 Nations Sign Up Coronavirus Vaccine Trials

Everyone has felt the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic’s effects across the entire globe.

You’ve witnessed the world’s economy come to a halt, seen 30-plus million Americans unemployed, felt the economy contract by nearly five percent in the first quarter of 2020, and stay-at-home orders being issued to curb the spread preventing hospitals from being overrun.

MORE NEWS: ‘Charmed’ Star Holly Marie Combs Blames Trump For Her Grandpa Dying Of COVID – Calls President A’ Disgrace To Humanity’

The results? The Coronavirus death curve has flattened for the US-based outbreak, even in New York City, which many called ground zero. Many feel that for most of the country, the roadmap to re-opening should occur as soon and as safely as possible.

WILL THERE BE SETBACKS?

Of course. The reason? We still don’t have a vaccine. But wait, now we are learning that more than 3,300 people from 52 nations — including at least two Stanford grads have signed up to be vaccinated and deliberately exposed to the new virus. The group 1DaySooner organized the campaign.

via Mercury News

The effort was launched by Josh Morrison of Brooklyn, New York, a Harvard-educated attorney who founded Waitlist Zero, a nonprofit organization that seeks to ease kidney donation. In 2011, he donated a kidney to a stranger, accepting a small risk of death to save a life. A readily available COVID-19 vaccine, he reasoned, could save far more lives.

Traditionally, a vaccine is proven effective after comparison of cases in hundreds or thousands of individuals who randomly receive vaccine or placebo. That process takes a long time, because it must wait for natural infection.

The premise of a “human challenge” study is to infect a smaller number of vaccinated people who are young and healthy, accelerating testing and giving manufacturing a head start. A “challenge” study takes advantage of the low death rate for those infected by SARS-CoV-2 — about 0.03% for 20-29 year olds and 0.085% for 30-39 year olds according to data from China — not negligible but very uncommon for those likely to be eligible to participate.

Such studies put volunteers at potential risk of disease and death. There is no “rescue” therapy to treat them if they get sick. The long-term effects are unknown.  Yet they’re willing to help anyway. [Mercury News]

MORE NEWS: Schiff And Pelosi Launch ‘Impeachment 2.0’

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS IS HEROIC

I assume this usually happens when a new vaccine is tested. This is especially heroic when dealing with a hazardous disease.

Who are these 3,000 people? You do know you’re going into a governmental trial, right! Meaning they can put a chip in you or do anything to you! I want to see all these lemmings.

Serious illness and death from Covid-19 in healthy individuals under 60 are rare, but it has happened. It is estimated that it can kill around 0.5% healthy individuals in this bracket.

Potentially sacrificing yourself for the welfare of others is called bravery, and hopefully, nothing wrong happens to these kids.

I tell you what I’ll struggle to listen to the advice of any medical expert in the media ever again after all this. Every possible wild option and scheme has been thrown out there by people who are supposed to be in the same field and had the same training.

WAYNE’S RECOMMENDATIONS

 

The post 3,300 Volunteers From 52 Nations Sign Up Coronavirus Vaccine Trials appeared first on The Political Insider.

Democrats And TV Hosts Blaming Trump, Not China, For Pandemic Are Spreading Misinformation And Creating Division

Senators, television hosts, and prominent Democratic leaders are blaming President Trump for mishandling the spread of the virus that has taken the world to its knees.

Presidential nominee Joe Biden is among the group, appearing on CNN with Host Anderson Cooper, claiming Trump’s plan to ease back into normal life doesn’t have “hard guidelines.” As the former Vice President embarks on what one can assume was supposed to be an example of previous leadership, he loses grip of the topic as he speaks.

Watch Joe Biden try to describe the poignant moment in American History during WWII… when President Roosevelt “came up with a thing.”

It’s easy to criticize from the sidelines Joe.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), just to give insight into his modus operandi, attended the State of the Union address given by President Trump back in February, then swiftly put out a statement (that reeked of prior-planning) on the same day as the address, about how much he regretted attending the State of the Union Address.

In order to get attention from leftist media outlets, Democrat Chris Murphy will take every opportunity to attack President Trump.

But during this time, when Senators and leaders should not be politicizing the virus, Chris Murphy has lashed out yet again against Trump. His Twitter page looks like an anti-Trump rally on steroids.

Here’s Chris Murphy on CNN with Host Anderson Cooper:

Murphy, arguably the most shameless liar on the anti-Trump stage, claims the current administration was cavalier about the virus in February. Anyone can leave a meeting and make up a lie, but perhaps he should consider that on January 31st, Trump decided to restrict travel from China, showing early signs of concern.

And guess what Senator Murphy was talking about on January 31st, the day the President decided to limit travel from China because of the coronavirus? You guessed it, he was focused on impeaching the President.

Chris “Say Anything” Murphy has proved ad nauseam that he would all but dive in front of a bus to get national media attention. Actually, he likes to board city buses as part of an ill-advised campaign to connect with voters.

Chris Murphy using public transportation doesn’t prove that he cares about blue collar Americans – just like his bashing the American President doesn’t mean he knows about the origins or complications surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.

More reporting is coming out by the day about how China has mishandled the outbreak. How China allowed international travel from Wuhan, but would not allow travel from Wuhan to other parts of China. New sources say that China knew early on about human to human transmission of the coronavirus and hid this information from other nations, who otherwise would have been more equipped to protect their own citizens.

Geraldo Rivera on Fox News told primetime Host Sean Hannity on Friday that China has “made prostitutes out of half of Washington.”

Senator Chris Murphy is silent about investigations into the Chinese Communist Party, but eager to manipulate the public into thinking the American response is the problem.

Maybe Elizabeth Warren can help Chris Murphy connect with everyday Americans and grab him one of those elusive ‘working class beer bottles’ from her fridge.

Then they can get on a Zoom call with Speaker Pelosi and pick ice cream flavors out of the freezer.

Nancy Pelosi stays true to form during this crisis and blames Trump for mishandling the pandemic. Lacking self-awareness as always, Pelosi blames Trump for “dismantling” our infrastructure which led to a lack of preparedness, then continues to assert that weak people blame others. Look in the mirror, Nancy.

While Trump was working on protecting our borders from COVID-19, Nancy Pelosi was frothing over impeachment. Wasting our time is what these prominent Democrats are doing, relentlessly since 2016.

Of course, no world event has been properly examined until it’s run through the panel on ABC’s daytime talk show, The View.

Joy Behar, co-host of ‘The View’ tried to blame the President for not acting to fight the virus appropriately, with her usual condescension, beginning her question to Senator Lindsey Graham (R – S.C.) by inferring Trump’s “massive ego” makes him delusional, until Graham gives her a run for her money in support of the President’s handling of the virus.

MSNBC Anchor Stephanie Ruhle suggested that Biden should open up a shadow government, as “counter-programming” for Trump’s Press Briefings.

What exactly would a counter-programming campaign from Joe Biden look like? The man couldn’t get through a teleprompter reading of “See Spot Run.”

These Democrats need to drop their agenda-driven misinformation campaigns at the door and do their jobs. Americans need information and guidance, not political war.

But if that’s what they want, they’re fighting the wrong administration.

This piece was written by Robyn Kenney on April 18, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Bombshell: U.S. Intel says Obama gave millions of dollars to Wuhan lab that produced coronavirus
Florida doctors rip down elderly man’s Trump flag – End up getting arrested
Lindsey Graham humiliates Joy Behar on her own show

The post Democrats And TV Hosts Blaming Trump, Not China, For Pandemic Are Spreading Misinformation And Creating Division appeared first on The Political Insider.

Trump will definitely get credit if deaths exceed 100,000, but not the good kind

We warned America, and Democrats delivered an impeachment to underscore the seriousness of the matter: Donald Trump wasn’t fit to be president. Republicans didn’t care, because tax cuts and judges, and now here we are. 

Today, we’ll hit two Sept. 11ths’ worth of deaths, easily blowing by the 6,000 mark just two days after hitting a single 9/11. We’ve just about to reach a quarter-million cases, which is a whopping one-quarter of the total confirmed cases worldwide. By any measure, this is an abject disaster. Yet in a breathtaking display of goalpost moving, Trump said a couple of days ago, “[if] we have between 100 and 200,000 [deaths], we altogether have done a very good job.”

Yeah, nice try. 

Trump is in a politically perilous position, for sure. His inability to respond to the crisis—from dismantling the institutions designed to identify (CDC outpost in China) and respond to such a crisis (the pandemic preparedness task force and FEMA), to incompetent staff, to an utter inability to be forthright and truthful to the American people, to simply misplaced priorities (stock market > grandma)—our nation never stood a chance. 

Indeed, the only thing mitigating a death toll in the millions is the quick action of governors and local governments around the country. And even on that front, there was too much delay, particularly in Republican states, precisely because Trump was pretending things were okay to protect his donors’ stock portfolios. 

But let’s consider Trump’s new thesis: that as long as national deaths number below a quarter million, he will “have done a very good job.” Does he think that people will applaud him? 

Yesterday, 1,049 people died of the disease, and we’re nowhere near the peak. So every single day, we’ll be seeing 1,000, then 2,000, then a 9/11 (3,000 deaths), until who knows when. Every single day will see the kind of carnage we haven’t seen since World War II. 

Every day, people will have to face the death of someone they know, someone they love, someone they respect or admire. Artists, movie stars, athletes, politicians, religious leaders, musicians, business leaders, and so many grandmas. Their stories will be broadcast across all media, all of them a dagger in our hearts. 

And shock and sorrow will then give way to anger. It’s a stage of grief, after all. 

Conservatives will work overtime to deflect: It’s the fault of the Chinese! People die all the time (flu, car crashes, heart disease, insert random other cause of death), this is nothing special! It’s the fault of open sanctuary cities like New York!  No one could’ve predicted! And yet, the American people have already decided that they can’t and don’t trust trump. 

NEW POLL >> The credibility gap between Dr. Fauci and Trump on coronavirus is a stunning 65 POINTS. Cuomo is 25 points better than Trump. A majority of Americans distrust Trump to tell the truth about the virus. via @NavigatorSurvey pic.twitter.com/fMMQNQtGfL

— Ian Sams (@IanSams) April 2, 2020

Those numbers will only get worse. And those excuses might work in Fox News land, but that’s not where Trump needs to hold his numbers. Arkansas isn’t going to be competitive at any level this year. 

There are seven states that will decide the presidential election: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. All seven are on a razor’s edge. A shift of even a few points can take these states from “coin flip” to “lean Biden.” And already, we’re seeing the largest Democratic lead in Trump’s reelection numbers all year:

If you have seven states that are essentially 50-50 ties, then a one-point shift makes it 51-49. Two points, its 52-48. See? 

This is why Trump is freaking out. He can’t afford to bleed even marginal support, because every vote will matter. That’s why he’s trying to shift the goalposts. 

But there is no way in hell that people look at thousands dying every single day and give Trump any kind of credit. NONE. The toll on our nation is too great. The impact we’re suffering is so much worse than what other countries have experienced that it’s impossible to blame the fates. This may be an act of god, but the aftermath isn't. How we prepared isn’t. How we responded isn't. How we move forward isn’t. 

And we haven’t even discussed the economic devastation. 

NEW with @AlexNBCNews: Week of April 13 is earliest Americans will see direct deposit relief payments from the government; paper checks could take as long as 20 weeks -- nearly 5 months -- for some Americans

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) April 2, 2020

Five months? The amounts being mailed out are already not enough. Just watch the Trump administration bungle this, too. Remember that 6.65 million workers filed unemployment claims last week, breaking the previous record by10 times. And with congressional Republicans ruling out further stimulus at this time (they’ll be forced to relent, eventually), the economic pain is only going to get worse. 

Presidents don’t get reelected when they bungle the economy. How are they supposed to do so when they also preside over a mass-death event ?

So no, Trump isn’t getting credit if we see hundreds of thousands of deaths. And if we ultimately do see those kinds of numbers play out, his reelection prospects will be around zero percent, and we’ll be talking about how much damage his entire party will face all the way down the ballot.