Trump Tests Positive For COVID-19 (nytimes.com) 838
President Trump said on Twitter that he and First Lady Melania tested positive for COVID-19. Slashdot reader halbot42 shares a report from The New York Times, adding: "President Trump? Karma calling on line 1." President Trump said early Friday morning that he and the first lady have tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation's leadership into uncertainty and escalating the crisis posed by a pandemic that has already killed more than 207,000 Americans and devastated the economy. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19," Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter shortly before 1 a.m. "We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!"
The president's physician said Mr. Trump was "well" without saying whether he was experiencing symptoms and added that the president would stay isolated in the White House for now. "The president and first lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence," the physician, Sean P. Conley, said in a statement without saying how long that would be. "Rest assured I expect the president to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future developments." Earlier in the day, one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, became infected.
The president's physician said Mr. Trump was "well" without saying whether he was experiencing symptoms and added that the president would stay isolated in the White House for now. "The president and first lady are both well at this time, and they plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence," the physician, Sean P. Conley, said in a statement without saying how long that would be. "Rest assured I expect the president to continue carrying out his duties without disruption while recovering, and I will keep you updated on any future developments." Earlier in the day, one of his closest advisers, Hope Hicks, became infected.
Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the comment section ought to be full of reasoned and rational responses, interspersed with well wishing to the POTUS from critics and allies alike.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish him well and I hope he fully recovers, well before the election.
But I really wish he had taken the virus seriously a long time ago.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
He ain't gonna do shit but boast that its nothing to worry about if he recovers. Probably a right wing state to miss the debates.
I expect the debates will go on (Re: Buckle up) (Score:5, Interesting)
They can still hold the debates. It's highly likely they will maintain the debates as scheduled. The next POTUS debate is two weeks out and that is likely enough time for Trump to recover. To lower the risk of (re-)infection the debates can be held remotely, Trump and Biden can go to separate television studios or something and have a debate like many other televised debates we've seen among people in distant locations. The inherent delay in long distance communications can make things a bit more awkward but that might be beneficial to limit the back and forth bickering we saw in the last debate.
Here's an option that I believe will be considered, change the next POTUS debate to a VPOTUS debate. Instead of Biden v. Trump put Harris v. Pence. This might be of interest to the public given the heightened probability that either one might have to step up to replace an ill or dead POTUS. This means that instead of 1 VPOTUS debate and 3 POTUS debates we get 2 of each.
Re: I expect the debates will go on (Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be an excellent way to have the debate, along with being able to mute both video and audio if either one interrupts or exceeds their time period.
Re: I expect the debates will go on (Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
I have muted the video and audio of the debate in advance.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Even from a partisan perspective, it is better that he lives.
Many conservatives detest Trump but would be happy to vote for Pence.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Even from a partisan perspective, it is better that he lives.
No argument there, but let him suffer a bit. He needs it.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Why "troll"?
I genuinely want him to have a moment where he believes it could kill him. Call me a horrible person if you want, but I'm not trolling when I say that.
Imagine if he just has a small sniffle for half a day then gets better; he'll be even more dismissive of COVID than before. All the people that died of it will suddenly be "losers", just like those people who got captured in wars, etc.
I said this elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile that same man is actively working to deny others access to healthcare by overturning the Affordable Care Act.
COVID-19 is the ultimate pre-existing condition. It effects every part of your body. If you get it in a post-ACA world then every single insurance claim you make for the rest of your life will be scrutinized.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
If even a few of his supporters take protective measures as a result of this, lives could be saved.
It's unfortunate. But minimizing the significance of the virus started as the administration's choice, not their supporters.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Funny)
The thing is, simple exposure and infection by COVID doesn't mean you get a full-blown, life threatening medical threat.
Trump's in very GOOD health for a man his age.
He has the best health care the government can provide.
He also doesn't really have any medical conditions that could be exacerbated by a full blown COVID infection.
So the chances of him having severe medical repercussions is vanishingly small.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
The thing is, simple exposure and infection by COVID doesn't mean you get a full-blown, life threatening medical threat.
Trump's in very GOOD health for a man his age.
According to Trump...
He has the best health care the government can provide.
He also had access to the best medical advice and the people around him the most stringent testing. Yet here we are.
He also doesn't really have any medical conditions that could be exacerbated by a full blown COVID infection.
Except for his age and weight...
So the chances of him having severe medical repercussions is vanishingly small.
Well it is a hoax after all.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
You might have said the same about Boris Johnston (UK prime minister), who is nearly 20 years his junior.
A couple of weeks later he was in intensive care clinging on for his life. If there is justice in the world that is the outcome that is awaiting Trump.
Had he taken the virus more seriously nine months ago many many lives could have been saved. His gross incompetence has killed tens of thousands with many more to come making him the greatest mass murderer in US history.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is justice in the world that is the outcome that is awaiting Trump.
Let's hope he doesn't die or the QAnon MAGA paranoid fuckwits will never shut up about how he was killed by the deep state using 5g rays.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
He is 74. He is male. He is obese. Those are inarguable truths and all elevate the risk. On top of that, he is suspected to have had multiple TIAs, he drinks a ton of Coke so may well have pre-T2 diabetes, is widely thought to mis-use certain drugs, and is suspected to have some heart disease too. All of that is definitely not proven, but each element that happens to be true also elevates the risk.
Incidentally, this statement: "simple exposure and infection by COVID doesn't mean you get a full-blown, life threatening medical threat" makes no sense. I presume what you mean is "risk of serious illness as a result of a covid infection is modified by a patient's specific risk factors". That's true, but you've downplayed the risk factors as I mentioned previously, and there's always a meaningful underlying risk as well (at least for adults). Plenty of people in their 20s and 30s who are undeniably much healthier than Trump, eg professional sports people, have been infected and died.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
Plenty of people in their 20s and 30s who are undeniably much healthier than Trump, eg professional sports people, have been infected and died.
Name one. 1875 people between 15 and 34 have died with Covid present to date in the US. That's out of 88,668,574. Of those, at least 1/5 were morbidly obese, 1/5 had major preexisting kidney problems and 1/5 had preexisting heart conditions. 1/2 had other serious preexisting conditions. These can overlap, but very clearly the overwhelming majority were extremely unwell
This is a list of the professional sportspeople have died. [outlookindia.com] What do you notice? They are all significantly past their 30s. There is one death there from someone in their 20s and 30s. He had leukemia.
Covid is deadly for some groups. Trump may be in some or all of these groups. But don't spread FUD about it killing healthy young adults. It does not.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
He is 74. He is male. He is obese.
You just described 75% of americans.
Wow 0 for 3.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously his mistake was getting tested. If he hadn't got tested he wouldn't have coronavirus.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Informative)
The 3Cs: Crowded places, close-contact settings and confined and enclosed spaces. He was in a helicopter with Hope Hicks for an extended period. Viral loads are likely to have been pretty high.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Insightful)
The more severe his response to the virus, the more likely it is that his hardcore base might finally start taking this virus seriously.
No they won't. They'll come up with some theory that he was secretly assassinated by the sinister gay cabal and has been replaced by a clone or robot or something if he even starts showing a little bit of sense.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really want to live in a country where the leader bends the entire government to personal loyalty undermining centuries of democracy?
No matter how much you hate the "other side" you should love democracy more. Or would you really like to live in an absolute dictatorship?
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this isn't something above him to lie about. He could easily pretend to be infected, then present himself to his constituents as a survivor. That would allow him to claim that his various medicines helped him or that the infection really isn't that bad as experts make it out.
That being said, if he's actually infected, I still wish him well.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump has been slowly melting down for a while now. A study of his tweeting habits suggests he is sleeping less and getting angrier.
https://www.psychnewsdaily.com... [psychnewsdaily.com]
As a side note his tweeting is an interesting security leak, giving adversaries information about his sleep patterns and his psychology.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
What does "taking the virus seriously" look like?
1. Wearing a mask when in public around other people
2. Encouraging other people to do the same
3. Not mocking or belittling people who do (1) and (2)
4. Not holding mass rallies full of unmasked people during a pandemic
5. Not dismissing the pandemic as "not serious", or something that will "just go away on its own"
6. Not dismissing or belittling the policy recommendations of health experts.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the responses to COVID-19, wearing a mask has to be the cheapest and most effective. Even if the masks did absolutely nothing (there is lots of evidence that they do - the fact that health workers have lower rates of the disease than the general population ought to be enough), they would at least make everybody around know that things aren't normal and be more careful. Until we get a vaccine, the most we can do is slow the disease, but that is still very important. Over time, the cost of treating the disease will go down (better treatments and perhaps a vaccine to avoid it in the first place).
Perhaps if POTUS had gone in front of people and said that they should worry the disease would have spread more slowly, saving lives AND the economy (the economy can do better if fewer people are getting sick - pretending its not serious does not make it so). It is true that the short-term damage to the economy might be greater, but the long-term likely is less. There is real economic damage in getting this disease. Death costs a lot. Long-term illness (or damage from the illness, which is not trivial a lot of the time) costs a lot.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that Steve Jobs had a reality distortion field, but that was nothing compared to what Trump has got. I say it with respect; everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but here we are talking about doing the exact opposite of the right thing. One can still be a Trump supporter while acknowledging what he's doing wrong.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
France is paying workers 84% of their wages until next spring. China built hospitals in just a few weeks to deal with patients - and delivered food to people's homes. Germany has enough testing capacity that college students are doing it by mail. The US spends over a trillion each year on empire - WTF is it good for if it can't take care of its citizens in a pandemic. And for the cost of the first corporate bailout, every family could have gotten UBI payments for over a year.
Your denialism is invalid.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
There were no good options.
Bulls**t. There were no good options that let him portray it as a Democrat hoax. There were *plenty* of good options. Just follow the lead of literally almost any other country on the planet.
Think back to March. Toilet paper was nowhere to be found. Flour/yeast was MIA. You couldn't even find ramen or other long-term stable food stuffs. I'd read about an infection at a meat packing plant and my local grocery stores would sell out of beef and chicken. Couldn't find rice or beans either.
And do you know why that is? Because everybody was worried about stores closing down. And do you know why they were worried? Because he didn't tell them to wear masks. That option was always there. He didn't tell them what they were doing to ensure the safety of the food supply, because that would contradict the narrative that the virus was a hoax. And so on and so forth. Everything that went wrong — every single thing — was 100% caused by our President dismissing the problem rather than addressing it head-on.
You're the leader of the country; what do you do? Do you go on TV and tell folks to panic? Buy out anything and everything at the local grocery store, in effect?
No, you level with the American public. You admit that the disease is scary, but you reassure them that you're doing everything possible to contain and reduce the spread of the disease, and then you actually DO everything possible to contain the spread of the disease. You do not:
Minimizing a real crisis is never a sound strategy. A leader must be honest and say, "Yes, things are really bad, but we're going to get through this." That's what a leader does. But to do that, you have to have character to begin with. When you start out on such bad footing that half the public assumes you're lying by the time they see your lips moving, it's already too late. Basically, President Trump lost the COVID-19 fight way back when he was still a candidate for office. This is why you don't elect people who have such a casual relationship with the truth.
Being a leader is all about character. If you don't have character, it doesn't matter how many people you can bully into doing things your way; you're eventually doomed to run headfirst into a brick wall born out of distrust. So even if Trump had handled things perfectly and not repeatedly lied to the American public during the crisis, things still very well might have been pretty darn bad. So I will grant you that it's unclear whether his doubling down on the disinformation made things better or worse.
What is clear is that as a nation, we should never have let him get to that point, and that the members of the U.S. Senate who voted against his impeachment are all mass murderers in the second degree. What is clear is that he should not have still been in office when this began, and that nearly anyone who could plausibly have taken the reins would have done a better job. What is clear is that he should never have told his first bald-faced lie to begin with, that each subsequent lie compounded the problem in the world's most catastrophic "Boy who cried wolf" fable, and that in this story, just as in the original fable, the death toll that followed is on the heads of the person telling those lies and those who supported him in doing so.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
And this is why the US might still elect trump, there are people like grasshoppa who will not even accept the most easily observed of simple facts and will continue to claim in the face of overwhelming evidence that Trump did a good job.
then they'd turn on their local neighbors to get their stuff. We were a hairsbreadth away from that.
Then your country fucking sucks, bro and you need to fix it. Maybe electing a less divisive president?
I'm in the UK (one of the few first world countries that managed to do worse than America so far though that looks set to change within the next week or so), we had stripped shelves, "panic buying"[*], and yes yeast and flour were hard to find. OE NOES SOCIETY WILL END.
Or, my road formed a whatsapp group (someone put flyers through the door) and people exchanged things, shopped for quarantined people etc. Some kind soul dropped a packet of yeast on my front doorstep. I parted with some of my precious stash of ebay special 80 grit bogroll. So what actually happened was people pulled together and helped each other out.
[*]It really wasn't though. People were told they needed to prepare for them plus family to be quarantined with no access to shops for two weeks, so everyone kind of really needed two weeks of food in storage, immediately. There was no way that wouldn't strip shelves.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Interesting)
Well since you mentioned N95s, that's one thing he could have done. Used his power and the supposed industrial might of the US to churn out N95s so that, you know, people could actually GET them. It's still virtually impossible for the general public to buy N95s in the US, even six months into the pandemic. Meanwhile in other countries they are still easily purchasable in any hardware store, and in some cases the government has just given them out to the public for free.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Informative)
Some reasons to try reduce the spread of the virus through the population:
If people catch it later rather than earlier, then improved treatment for severe symptoms may be available (treatment and recovery rates have improved).
If a vaccine becomes available, many people will be able to avoid catching it altogether.
Kind of bleeding obvious.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
You're still in doubt as to whether the virus is airborne?
You are one stupid motherfucker.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Which health officials? There have been plenty who have said that masks aren't required and should be avoid, afterall.
Back at the beginning of the year there was a small amount of ambiguous data. There was reason to be careful because some tests for other diseases said that that masks can cause problems. This was particularly true before it was clearly demonstrated that SARS-COV-2 is mostly passed on through proximity and airborne transmission. It was already clear that countries like Taiwan and Japan that use masks regularly were doing better than those that don't.
Now more is known. The virus is transmitted mostly through the air; more through bigger droplets when you are close, but also through small particles when you are far apart. Also importantly the number of virus particles you breathe in seems to determine how badly you get the disease. Wearing a mask will block the biggest particles which are the ones most likely to give you a bad dose of COVID-19.
If you can find an infection control expert (note, not an epidemiologist - they are much less credible) advising against masks in the past month I will be very surprised.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF are you on about? Defense in depth. It's a basic concept. Nothing works 100%, so we layer defences on top of each other. Most of us wash our hands *and* wear masks *and* stay 2m from others *and* don't go into crowds *and* meet outdoors when possible *and* avoid poorly ventilated spaces. Just like we put seatbelts on *and* don't drink when driving *and* wear our glasses if we need them *and* don't speed *and* don't run reds. We can't turn the volume off completely, but we can sure as shit turn it way down or way up, depending on our behaviour.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
Cloth masks are actually the most effective. A now brainer.
N95 Masks are mostly designed to protect yourself, the others are designed to protect your friends and family.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The mask someone not infected with the virus wears.
2. The mask someone infected with the virus wears.
They are a completely different thing, but they look the same from the outside.
1. is not very good for very fine aerosols, but it's better than nothing. It tremendously helps people who were touching a contaminated surface (door knob, hand rail or something), because they won't infect themselves by involuntarily touching their face with contaminated hands. The protection level is low, but it's better than nothing.
2. on the other hand is very good at not creating those very fine aerosols in the first place, as they stop large droplets completely and stop breathed air to flow far away, causing whirls and thus the fine droplets to merge into larger droplets which don't linger in the air that long. And again, they protect your hands from being contaminated by touching your face, and thus they lower the amount of contamination you leave on door knobs and handrails. It really helps, and in combination with 1., it's quite effective.
Face masks worn by surgeons during operations are not there to protect the surgeon from infections of the patient, they are there to protect the patient from any infections the surgeon might involuntarily carry. The whole debate started because people were looking at how the masks protect themselves, which is not the point of wearing masks.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Funny)
When people who read as much as Trump use Google they call it "research".
Actively use Google? You're giving them way too much credit.
Research is whatever happens to show up on their Facebook feed
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
Trump knew. He wasn't misinformed or ignorant, he just lied to the American people about it.
In February he told Bob Woodward:
"It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. [The coronavirus is] more deadly than... even your strenuous flus."
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Insightful)
Look closer and you'll see that the places that do that include a fair number of people not wearing masks and failing to maintain social distance.
Wanna see things able to open back up and stay open? Then wear a mask and keep your distance.
It's not 100% but it has proven to have a positive effect.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in Australia, I think we got 19 new cases yesterday, and I think we've got 340 active cases in total.
I'm looking around, and we're doing pretty well out here, we had an outbreak in one of our states, that state went into lockdown, they're now coming out of lockdown.
There is a re-opening scenario, it's when you've got the virus under control, an effective prevention strategy, testing and contact tracing for your population.
That's always been the equation, from the outset.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
That one is easy. He should wear mask to set an example. He should recommend (since he does not have power to command) to all governors alike lockdowns back in March and April. He should let the experts speak. He should not recommend unproven drugs such as hydroxychloroquine. He should not talk about "it will be over soon" and "the vaccine is around the corner". He should step in when states competed for PPE and national stockpile. He should not make rallies and if he does, he should ask the attendees to take precautions. etc etc.
There is a ton of things he should have differently. And I talked only about COVID-19 response. Not about other things like domestic and foreign politics or economy.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
He would also have a line of experts praising him for that. The interview with Bob Woodward reveals he had the information. But decided to act against it.
Yeah. Look at China lockdown. And lockdowns in Europe. They work in terms of mitigating the spread. Yes, they also cripple economy and that's why now European leaders hesitate to put them back. But US could have handled the economy hit better than anybody else.
Yes, he banned travel from China. Did he ban travel from Italy when it was surging? Spain? Yes, he got criticized for the ban. Did any critique ever stop him? A leader is always criticized. So what. The question is whether he takes the right decision based on the information available to him at the time. Did he do that? I don't think so. And I thought so even before I learned what information he had available at the time.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Interesting)
He could ostensibly have declared Martial Law, federalized the Guard, and asked Congress to temporarily suspended posse comitatus. At that point, the federal government could basically pass whatever rules they wanted to pass, and force state and local governments to comply. Yes, such actions would have been challenged in court, but by the time the challenges made it through the court system, the crisis would have been over, and it would be moot, so the courts would have dismissed the case, and we'd never know if it would have been upheld or overturned. :-)
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the experts were doing their jobs as they saw it, not pushing some contrarian anti-trump agenda. Maybe they contradicted him simply because he was wrong.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Insightful)
You are oversimplifying. The experts answered with their best interpretation of the best information they had at the time. They were also taking supply shortages of protective equipment into account.
Meanwhile Trump made confusing and dismissive statements. These statements caused easily led people to do silly things and we ended up with stories like this - https://www.statnews.com/2020/... [statnews.com]
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... he could have stopped acting like the virus was a hoax. He could have worn a mask sooner , he could have stopped mocking people who wore masks as being politically correct, he could have quarantined those arriving from China when he banned travel from there, he could have stopped interfering with the FDA and CDC, he could have let the experts talk instead of interject his own uninformed and stupid opinions on a topic he was ignorant of.
Really, of all the faults of the president, the raging out of control ego is his biggest flaw by far. That ego makes him foolishly think he is an expert on all subjects, especially those he heard about on late night conspiracy shows. That ego makes him not listen to his own advisors. That ego makes him think that everything is about ratings because the biggest insult he uses is to accuse someone have having bad ratings or being overrated. That ego makes him spout gibberish when asked questions so that he doesn't have to admit that he doesn't know the answer. Most politicians have an ego, it's natural, but they learn to keep it under control. Fix the ego, and you fix Trump.
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Informative)
What was Trump's plan back then? The tapes show he knew it was deadly and serious but he was telling the public that it was nothing to worry about. Was he really just hoping that people would believe him even as hundreds of thousands of Americans died and many times that number more suffered the long term effects of coronavirus?
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Insightful)
What does "taking the virus seriously" look like?
I have my own reservations about how he approached c19, but I'd like to hear what others believe he did wrong and what he should have done instead.
Follow the science, a kid could tell you that.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Informative)
If you look what Governor Cuomo has done in New York, you will see what taking the virus seriously would look like. He had a daily press conference for over 100 days. He gathered experts and followed their advice. He did make many mistakes (especially with respect to nursing homes) and likely continues to make them but - especially after initial stumbles - he took the science seriously. He implemented testing/tracing in a way that no other US state has done (ok, I don't know what all 50 states have done... so there might be some other examples of states who have also done it well).
Again, I am not saying what he did was perfect and without a doubt a lot of New Yorkers probably are upset at him. But he did (and does) take it seriously and is truly attempting to deal with it rather than just wish it would go away. New York went from the worst-hit state to one of the lowest rates during a time that in the rest of the country the rates of infection soared, so something he did worked.
Re: Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like when exactly? Was as fast as possible. (Score:5, Informative)
Cutting off almost all ravel from China was pretty serious.
Then he should have done that instead of what he did do.
Why do you still keep pushing that lie of all things?
Re: Buckle up (Score:4, Informative)
That's just it.
He DID take it seriously.
While the Democrats were grandstanding, going out in public, and haranguing people to "come to chinatown!"
Just a couple days ago during the first debate, Trump was mocking Biden for wearing a mask!
Why is wearing a mask important? To keep new infections rising at a slow rate, as to not overwhelm the capacity of the health care system.
If infection rates were continuing just like before the lockdowns and masks, hospitals would be operating at their limits, turning away patients and people would be literally dying on the streets and in their homes.
All the time Trump was ridiculing the masks and boasting about how he was not wearing a mask!
Re:Buckle up (Score:4)
Re:Buckle up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Buckle up (Score:4, Interesting)
The bone spur story appears to have been fabricated to get him out of military service. It may have no basis in truth.
His medical history isn't known, he could have a million issues, or none. He does appear to move in a way that suggests some kind of degeneration.
How do you (Score:4, Insightful)
contract and test positive for a deep state hoax?
Re:How do you (Score:4, Funny)
contract and test positive for a deep state hoax?
Because CHINA plague. Fortunately the President Of America is very Smart and a Good Businessman, while the Crooked Liberal Media and Sleepy Joe treet him very UNFAIRLY. SAD!
Trump's Tombstone (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Trump's Tombstone (Score:5, Funny)
I'll take Irony for 800, Alex.
Thoughts and prayers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thoughts and prayers (Score:4, Interesting)
We should show as much care and support for Trump getting COVID as he has for those who got it before him. He deserves nothing less.
I'm mainly just interested in one question we'll never get an answer to: how many people did this clown transmit the virus *to* by not wearing a mask?
Re:OK, I'll play... (Score:5, Insightful)
I detest this stuff, but I'll play along just to show you how obnoxious it gets when you see everything through a toxic partisan lens
Despising a piece of lying, thieving, sex abuser garbage like Trump is not being "partisan". Indeed, the opposite is true. Not condemning someone of such low moral character can only be due to some degree of "I support this pile of shit, right or wrong" partisanship nonsense.
Trump defenders are the ones that need to justify their actions, not those that expect that the President of the US should be someone that could be left in a room with a teenage girl without any concerns.
If Trump dies from this the whole world will be a better place.
Re:OK, I'll play... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're bringing up what Obama did in his youth to what Trump has being doing in office as a grown ass adult.
Oh, grow up (Score:5, Interesting)
I clearly indicated I was using a toxic anti-Obama attack to illustrate a toxic anti-Trump attack.
And, yes, I DID fully expect the deranged anti-Trumpers to freak-out as they always do - people who are so amped-up on hate cannot stand rational discussions. As for "a religious mindset for a person or a party..." That's just sad. You apparently lack the reading comprehension or were in such a bile-loaded rage that you did not read my entire post. As I have stated before on Slashdot, Trump is far from my ideal candidate and I do not like appearing to defend him but it's the position I find myself in when I oppose some of the rather over-the-top irrational hatred and often outright lies his opponents so frequently use (often while they posture as trying to "stop the hate" or oppose Trump's lies).
Basically:
If you want to stop the hate, STOP HATING
If you want to stop the lies, STOP LYING
If you want to demand logic, then be logical.
If you want to "trust the science", then DO IT, but do it ALWAYS not just when it goes against the bad orange man.
THAT
is the line I always try to urge - and I explicitly indicated im my post that I was using a jerk arg to make the point.
When you thought the election couldn't get weirder (Score:4, Informative)
So what's going to happen when President Trump can't campaign (and debate) for the next two weeks? What happens if he gets seriously ill?
Man, this has been a strange year.
Regardless, I sincerely wish President and Mrs. Trump well.
He would have had it during the debate (Score:5, Informative)
The one where he couldn't stop yapping for 10 seconds, with Biden a few meters away...
Stock market futures (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultraviolet and bleach (Score:4, Insightful)
Following his previous suggestions, his doctors should put him in a tanning bed with a nice big bottle of Chlorox and a few capsules of hydroxycholronique. He'll be good by tomorrow.
Re:Ultraviolet and bleach (Score:5, Insightful)
He said a bunch of garbled nonsense that required people to perform conceptual gymnastics or their own additional research to have a clue what he's talking about. Ill informed indeed, but the person to blame for that is Trump and his consistently terrible communication skills.
Re:Ultraviolet and bleach (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming this on the communication skills gives him too much credit here. Whether he would have chosen the word "injected", "inserted", "penetrated", "consumed", "imbibed", or any other number of possibilities, it's abundantly clear what he was referring to, which is introducing bleach into the human body.
This example is particularly illustrative of the psychology of the personality cult. That the Stable Genius would say something so explicitly retarded on live TV simply doesn't compute for them. The excuses become as transparent as the original statement. "Well, he only meant to suggest inserting bleach."
Then you have other people, who I presume are outside of the personality cult, minimizing the whole fiasco as well. "He couldn't have possibly meant that... He's just hard to understand."
Um, no. He really did mean that. Go look at the video. The longest cut you can find. Watch the whole 2 hours or whatever it was of infantile rambling if you can. The more context you have, the more abundantly clear it becomes, yes he really did mean that, and not even his loose grasp of language can muddy those waters.
He'll be fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt Trump's recovery will come just in time to prove what a superman he is, yet still allow him to skip the next two debates after his disastrous performance in the last one.
Re:He'll be fine... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not a surprise, but it's disappointing all the same.
President Nancy? (Score:5, Funny)
If that happens, we know that God has a sense of humor.
Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Rush Limbaugh: "Smoking is as healthy as eating carrots". .. subsequently catches lung cancer. .. subsequently catches the Covid-19 virus.
Trump: "The virus a hoax, there is no need to wear masks or social distance"
"Science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it or not." -Neil deGrasse Tyson
Re:Science (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion by Neil is a bit stupid by the way. People should always be free to believe whatever they want, true of false doesn't matter.
Nothing in that quote says people aren't free to be raging imbeciles.
Re:Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Not those exact words, but he did say "It's their new hoax." He and his supporters insist he didn't mean the virus itself, but what was the hoax then? It was the threat (or risk or danger) of the virus, which is obviously not a hoax.
If they have to intubate (Score:5, Funny)
Well that is a first (Score:5, Funny)
Finally some positive news from the WH! Mr Trump passes a test without cheating.
vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:vote (Score:5, Interesting)
The basis of democracy is that the people who vote are informed and vote responsibly.
People now have so much access to information, that even paying casual attention to the election they know more about the candidates then most 1800's voters.
If you can't be bothered to watch a two hour debate or walk to the polling station, then I don't want you to vote.
When you push people to vote who should not, you get what you get now. I won't talk about the stupid things that politicians do, but to point out that the most successful person in politics never served a day in his life 4 years ago. That just shows how pathetic the rest of them are.
Karma's a bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what happens when you tout all advice on how to prevent the pandemic from spreading.
The kind of hubris Zeus zaps you for (Score:5, Insightful)
Chris Wallance: (08:06) "Are you not worried about the disease issues, sir?"
Trump: (08:08) "Well, so far we have had no problem whatsoever. It’s outside. That’s a big difference according to the experts. We do them outside, we have tremendous crowds, as you see, and literally on 24 hours notice. And Joe does the circles and has three people someplace."
Trump was jeering at Biden's caution with masks and abstaining from rallies.
He was already infected.
Good comment I read on another site (Score:5, Funny)
Seen on another site: "But how could we even tell if Trump has lost his sense of taste?"
He will almost certainly be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Pity we can't say the same about the 30 million Americans who will lose access to healthcare when his new Supreme Court Justice over turns the ACA...
The corona virus has been shown to have (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure this is fine though. Trump has brain to spare and that even temperament we all saw on display at the debates Tuesday night. The well documented potential neurological effects of COVID-19 are nothing to worry about.
Re: How could this happen? (Score:5, Funny)
It's the test fault. If didnt get tested he wouldn't have covid.
Re:I just feel bad for the guy, you know (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Testing... reliability, accuracy etc (Score:4, Interesting)
I donâ(TM)t know what test showed this but the Covid tests havenâ(TM)t been renowned as anything near definitive.
False positive rates are incredibly small. I'm going to give the benefit of doubt that a moron who refuses to wear a mask and surrounds himself with people every opportunity he gets actually has the virus. I'm also going to assume that the white house did some due diligence and didn't just accept the first opinion they got; they'd actively have explored every opportunity to declare the president negative.
Bottom line, it takes an incredible mind to question this result, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Re:Wish him well (Score:5, Insightful)
Who in the world would joke in a situation like this by saying "Karma calling on line 1"?
Oh I dunno, someone whose grandmother has died of the virus? Someone whose child has died of the virus? Someone whose husband has died of the virus? I could go on.
The rest of the world has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the US population has suffered tens of thousands of preventable deaths. Some of the elderly victims may have died of other causes instead, but children have died, and their chances of dying of something else instead were drastically smaller. Not to mention thousands of otherwise reasonably healthy middle-aged adults.
My point is, the US's 207,000 deaths didn't happen in isolation. They weren't 207,000 lone individuals no one ever talked to. They were 207,000 family members, people with spouses and children and brothers and sisters and stepchildren and ex's and all the myriad human relationships. There are survivors. They will remember that the President lied. Some of them are going to be bitter about that.