Stop the presses! Alert the memers! Prepare the trolls!
This just in!: Conservative Trump supporters that believe everything that comes out of their Ducé’s mouth is gospel are posting that this whole coronavirus crisis is much ado about nothing. They actually don’t believe President Trump! They think that the Ducé’s lying! This would be the President Trump that just declared a National Emergency and made a very big deal out of his saving thousands of lives by his early actions in regards to containing the coronavirus! They don’t believe that he saved a lot of lives with his swift actions! They don’t believe that this is a big deal! Incredible!
I would not have thought this possible! Say it isn’t so! The world is spinning!
Now those rascals are passing around Russian memes and conspiracy theories about how the government, not their government, but the make-believe deep state government is behind it all and that government isn’t working! Their Ducé has been busily taking apart government including the White House Pandemic Response team that President Obama created. Their Ducé said, “I’m a business person. I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly.” (Now he says he doesn’t know who took the team apart.)
Reload! Reload!
It isn’t just that the current Administration shoots itself in the foot, it’s amazing how fast that they can reload and do it again.
About the numbers in a nutshell.
In a nutshell, the numbers that people have been using in regards to tracking the coronavirus in the United States are meaningless. The virus was already here and spreading before any testing was being done. The borders were never completely shut down anywhere. People could have already been dying from the virus or had the virus and recovered and no one knew. People were unknowingly carrying the virus all over the country and there wasn’t any testing. That’s why our numbers for those having the virus, being hospitalized and dying from the virus are so low.
South Korea conducts more tests in one day than this country has since the very beginning. (Yes they had false positives but they were still able to track what was transpiring and how the virus was spreading.)
But first a story
Many decades ago I was in the Army. This was during the analog radio, phone, and paper days.
If you ever saw an old military movie where aircraft movements were charted on big clear Plexiglas boards with grease pencils those are the days I am talking about. One of my first jobs as a private was as a plotter that worked behind the board. I was not only ambidextrous but could write backwards with both hands at the same time. We had to write letters and numbers backwards because they were being read from the other side by those in the war room. I would receive coordinates of airplane tracks over a headset and then plot their track. The guy, also a private, giving me the coordinates on the plot to track was in the war room. He received his information from the people tracking planes on radar. Sounds antique doesn’t it?
War games
When I was stationed in Germany our unit participated in some war games. I worked in a secure area at battalion level. I was the only one on duty in our area when the games kicked off. Messages were pouring in and I was trying to call up all the people necessary for the mobilization.
One of the many communications that I received was a rather innocuous sounding Winds Aloft. It provided the wind direction at various altitudes. This was critical information to our CBR people. (Chemical Biological Radiological) for figuring various scenarios in responses that needed to be taken regarding various attacks. I logged in having received the information and retransmitting it but no one had it that needed it. That one critical piece of information was missing. Lost in the fog.
In the beginning
Ω On January 8th a couple of Washington Post reporters covered the emerging virus in China.
Ω On January 21st the first case of coronavirus in the United States was announced.
Ω Approximately 3 critical weeks were lost COMPLETELY by Trump Administration.
From the very beginning up until 3/16/20 there has been a shortage of virus testing kits. They weren’t available then. They aren’t available now. This nation has been conducting a fraction of the testing that was being done by other nations. A fraction. The tracking numbers were/are virtually useless because of the small sampling. They’re applying statistical averages based upon the spread from other nations.
Another story
When I was on duty one night back in the 60s in Korea I received a radio call from a 2nd Lieutenant at one of our line batteries. It was late at night and into the early morning hours. I knew who he was from his call sign. I was a Specialist 5th Class crew chief then. We were at the battalion level and over him in operations.
He was screaming unintelligibly into his microphone. He was evidently under attack and being shelled. We could hear it in the background over the radio. Radio transmissions were NOT secure. I was trying to get him to back away from the mic, stop screaming and contact us over secure lines. I couldn’t get through to him because he wouldn’t stop keying (transmitting) his microphone so that he could hear a call.
My whole crew was up within minutes. We were calling EVERYBODY. All of our other missile batteries could hear what was going on and they were all raising their status. Hell! Everybody could hear what was going on; he was on the radio!
This missile battery in our battalion happened to be close to the coast so we knew that the shelling had to be coming from the direction of the sea otherwise we would have already heard from the South Korean military about an attempted incursion.
Brigade was now calling me wanting to know what was going on. I had already called over secure communications to have someone go to the tac site to tell the lieutenant to get off the damn radio and use his secure communications.
Fighter planes were being scrambled from the Suwon airbase. Missile sites were coming up to battle stations. Even the Korean National Police (KNP) were heading towards the site.
Thank God our radars weren’t showing us anything to shoot at.
The Airforce and Navy were thankfully also tied into all of this. It was the pilot of an aircraft dropping flares that figured out what was going on. He no doubt was receiving some pretty strange radio messages. As it turned out the Navy was conducting some live fire practice at night. They were firing to where the flares were being dropped. No doubt they were using coordinates as well. For some reason the plane dropping flares had drifted out of its flight pattern and along with that so did the shelling. Unfortunately our line battery was close to the area.
Everybody was called off with minutes to spare. The people that needed to stand down did so. The KNP went back to their regular duties along with everyone else. The lieutenant! Never did stop screaming into his microphone. It just suddenly went dead. We never heard how that came out. Never heard his call sign again either.
We really don’t know what would have happened if all the forces marshalled had turned up at the area. Well, it wouldn’t have been pretty. No one actually got hurt except for maybe the lieutenant. Kind of a miracle really considering all that was involved. It turned out to be one of those lessons learned events.
NOTE: I have intentionally obfuscated some information including geography.
What causes panic?
Ω Not knowing what’s going on causes panic.
Ω Misinformation causes panic.
Ω Disinformation causes panic.
Ω Lies cause panic.
Ω Bad leadership causes panic.
Ω Governments can cause panic.
Ω Media can cause panic.
Ω People can cause panic.
Just a quick timeline below of quotes about what our President has said in handling the pandemic.
The numbers are going down!
Quotes from President Trump.
Jan 24th: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
LIE (The virus was already here and spreading. Sadly we now know that things did not work out well.)
Jan.29th: “Just received a briefing on the Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!”
LIE (On the off chance you’ve missed the news or just watch Fox Pravda they weren’t on top of it.)
Feb. 2nd: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China,” Mr. Trump said of the coronavirus. “But we can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. So, we’re going to see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.”
LIE (There never was a complete ban and people weren’t being tested. Tests weren’t available.)
Feb. 24th: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
LIE (The virus had spread from both coasts by this time. People didn’t know they were at risk.)
Feb. 28th: “I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up. But, yeah, I think schools should be preparing and, you know, get ready just in case.” He added: “We have it so well under control. I mean, we really have done a very good job.”
LIE. (The President along with others were already exposed to the virus at CPAC.)
President Trump said this at a rally in South Carolina: “This is the Democrats new hoax.”
Mar. 2nd: “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great companies, and they’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon. And they’re going to have something that makes you better, and that’s going to actually take place we think even sooner.”
LIE (The “best experts in the world” were telling him a year to 18 months.)
Mar. 3rd: “They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.”
STILL a LIE
Mar. 4th: “The Obama administration made a decision on testing and that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing, and we undid that decision a few days ago.”
LIE (Didn’t Happen. The President is looking for someone to blame about the lack of testing as the virus continues to spread.)
Mar 6th: “Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They are all set. They have them out there. In addition to that they are making millions more as we speak but as of right now and yesterday anybody that needs a test that is the important thing and the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect, right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
LIE (Wasn’t true then. Isn’t true now.)
Mar. 7th: “Well, we’ll have tremendous rallies. And we’re doing very well. And we’ve done a fantastic job with respect to that subject on the virus.”
LIE (People were exposed to the virus at Mar-a-Largo.)
Mar. 9th: “Going up fast. We need the Wall more than ever!”
LIE (His own experts were telling him that a wall wouldn’t make any difference. Mexico was reporting fewer cases than the United States.)
Mar 10th: “No, I think the U.S. has done a very good job on testing. We had to change things that were done that were nobody’s fault, perhaps, they wanted to do something a different way, but it was a much slower process from a previous administration and we did change them.”
STILL a LIE
Mar 11th: “Vanity Fair Magazine, which will soon be out of business, and their third rate Fake reporters, who make up sources which don’t exist, wrote yet another phony & boring hit piece. The facts are just the opposite. Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!”
LIE (A pandemic was declared by the WHO. Reported cases in the US were over a thousand. The actual numbers were obviously much higher. Much higher.)
Halt! Who goes there?!
I’m just going to stop the timeline at Mar. 11th. This is the day when in response to criticism of the Trump Administration’s lack of transparency in their handling the corona virus pandemic the Administration made all meetings classified. So in the midst of a pandemic the White House went dark and made meetings concerning the pandemic classified. This prevented some of their own experts from participating. On Jan. 24th President Trump congratulated the head of a totalitarian state for being transparent. IRONY (On March 3rd Vice President Pence said that the Administration would be fully transparent. LIE)
In the above timeline the lies that I mentioned are a small fraction of the lies and misinformation put out by the President. His lies will end up in the tens of thousands. He seems to be incapable of being truthful on a regular basis.
I just checked the CDC web site and they still haven’t posted updated information in regards to the number of people testing positive. When they do post numbers they will just be make believe in regards to our true situation.
It seems like it was just the other day that President Trump was saying that the Democrats were claiming that the way his Administration was handling the pandemic was a hoax. (February 28th at a rally in South Carolina.)
National Emergency Declared!
If you want to see how the Administration has mishandled messaging on COVID-19 just watch or go back and watch the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo1NVoXKIp0
Ah, the National Emergency!
It’s just hard to keep everything straight IF you’re listening to the President of the United States. Should we do what the President says that we should do or should we listen to the experts surrounding him at the White House that he says we should listen to even when he contradicts what they’re saying?
Here’s what the experts and the President have said. Kind of.
Ω If you’re sick stay away from people! (At this time several of those present, including the President, had been exposed to the coronavirus. They’re grouped together and all are using the same microphone and podium.)
Ω Dr Fauci says if you stand next to someone that’s had the virus you should get tested.
Ω A person doesn’t have to be symptomatic to share the virus! In other words they can be infecting others and not even know that they have it. (At that time the President claimed that he had not yet been tested. Reportedly he has since tested negative. I find that hard to believe.)
Ω Don’t shake hands with people! (They shook hands. One guy had enough sense to elbow bump.)
Ω Wash your hands frequently! (They weren’t using hand sanitizer or washing their hands.)
Ω If you’re in the high risk population avoid crowds! (The President and Vice President are both in the high risk population. And they’re together. So, if they both go down we get the Speaker of the House. Oh,..never mind.)
Ω Wear gloves. (No one was wearing gloves.)
Ω It’s worse than the flu. Tenfold worse mortality rate. (Finally being acknowledged. President Trump’s base is NOT fully on board yet.)
Ω Testing is going to be increased. (The President doesn’t want people tested that shouldn’t be tested. He realized that our testing was working so he overhauled the system with something better.)
NOTE: I’m not going to attempt covering all the lies that the President told during his National Emergency declaration. Seriously we need a lies per minute calculator running when he he’s talking. He told a half dozen whoppers in the first couple of minutes.
I held off posting anything until today. Monday, 3/16/2020. Testing on a large scale needs to start now! We’re heading for a nationwide shutdown otherwise if they don’t start delivering on testing and mitigation. Large scale testing has still NOT started. It’s going to get ugly. Real ugly.
A closing and an Opening.
Did the President lie when he said that he had saved a lot of lives with his swift actions?
We, and by we I mean those of us that make up the United States of America, lost 3 weeks of responding to this pandemic because of the ineptness of the Trump Administration. THREE WEEKS. In his address to the nation about the coronavirus President Trump said who could have seen this coming? Well, the previous administration of President Obama did and set up a pandemic response team at the White House for just such an event. President Trump got rid of them. Or at least he said he did initially because he didn’t like the idea of so many people standing around doing nothing and that he could easily get them back. He couldn’t and didn’t.
If we use the President’s logic that he saved lives then it follows that with all the mistakes made by his administration since they didn’t spring into actions amounts to thousands of lives lost. His Administration stayed true to form, followed his lead and immediately sprang into denials and mockery.
After 3 weeks what?
What happened after the 3 weeks were lost? Well more time was lost. So far this country has been spinning its wheels for over a month and a half while lesser nations were and are aggressively dealing with the pandemic.
Here’s what we do know.
The below points were taken from Trump’s National Emergency Declaration and his experts.
Ω Numbers are going to start going up if and when testing becomes widespread. We just don’t know how high.
Ω Wal-Mart will be making parking lot space available.
Ω We need to use our common sense.
Ω Other businesses are willing to help.
Ω Seniors are most vulnerable.
Ω Medicaid regulations that get in the way of treatment are being suspended. (The Trump Administration is in the process kicking 700,000 people off of Medicaid.)
Ω We’re buying oil at a good price for our petroleum reserves.
Ω Local and state governments have gone ahead on their own thankfully in spite of the Administration. President Trump okayed what they were already doing.
Ω Well, we’re proactively leaning forward! (Dr. Anthony Fauci. Well, I certainly feel better with that mission statement.)
Ω We’re going to be able to test millions very quickly. No date was given. (The WHO offered tests to the US but the Administration declined.)
Ω Because of the lack of testing some people have already had COVID-19 and recovered. (That’s kind of good news/bad news.)
Ω The President has inspired us and we should be thankful. (VP Pence)
Ω SBA loans are available.
Ω Americans cherish the cruise line industry. (I think they’re right on this one.)
Ω We have an extraordinary public and private partnership.
Ω Seriously, eventually somebody is going to do something. (We should be grateful for the small things. If this virus had been more lethal…well, let’s just be glad that it hasn’t been so far.)
Ω President Trump didn’t think that the Democrats were giving enough in proposed aid. They aren’t doing what’s right for the country. (20 Republicans voted against the bill)
Ω Based upon what I’m hearing from the experts it’s possible that our mortality numbers may be lower. It really depends upon how fast the curve is flattened.
And last but not least.
Ω President Trump, “No, I don’t take responsibility at all…” then true to form he started rambling and lying.