It is no surprise that Elbert County, Colorado was the first case reported in the US of the ultra contagious variant strain of COVID 19 because the area has been at the forefront of anti-maskers and common sense anti-Covid actions. Its Congressman, Ken Buck, has been a high profile anti masker and anti-COVID vaxxer. Interesting that this case was in Elbert County, far from a ski area so that mad it of great interest because the assumption is that international ski visitors would bring this new COVID strain from the UK that appears to be 70% more infective. What it likely means there has been community spread since the patient had no record of travel. Elbert County is in Rep. Ken Buck's 4th Congressional District.. Buck has recently announced he will refuse to take the Covid-19 vaccine because he is an American. His comments made national and international news. The district has been at the forefront of fighting any requirements to wear a mask. In May, a Castle Rock restaurant made national news for defying state rules indoor dining and they were shut down by the state. Castle Rock town council also voted to opt-out of their local health mask-wearing ordinance. Castle Rock is a major urban area in Buck's district not far from Elbert County. It also contains a major factory outlet retail center. Also in Buck's district is the JBS meat processing plant in Greeley, Colorado,, also making national news for Covid-19 infections, one of the first of many plants elsewhere reporting major problems.. In particular, the plant refused to let workers wear masks and protective equipment. The plant was fined for failing to protect workers in September.
WELCOME TO THE BLOG This blog reflects my views of current political issues.. It is also an archive for columns in the Sky Hi News 2011 to November 2019. Winter Park Times 2019 to 2021.(paper publishing suspended in 2021) My Facebook page, the muftic forum, posts blog links, comments, and sharing. Non-political Facebook page: felicia muftic. Subscribe for free on Substack: https://feliciamuftic.substack.com Blog postings are continuously being edited and updated.
Showing posts with label Covid-19. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covid-19. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Ken Buck, Congressman, Colorado's 4th, leaders defying COVID - 19 rules
https://www.cpr.org/2020/12/29/first-case-covid-19-variant-confirmed-in-colorado/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=al
https://highlandsranchherald.
https://www.usnews.com/news/
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
The moral hazards nonesense in bailouts of unemployed workers and small business
The nonsense of moral hazards created in COVID 19 bailouts of small businesses and unemployed workers
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/senate-gop-unemployment-extension-388170
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/senate-gop-unemployment-extension-388170
Some GOP senators approved large bailouts for business and did not complain if it ran up the federal deficit, or even if it created a moral hazard making it easy for a business to cheat and giving them the temptation to do it.. However, when it came to the low wage earners, all of a sudden it became a moral hazard discouraging them from getting a job and it was too bad if these workers could not pay their rent or mortgage or buy food because their jobs had evaporated in the COVID depression. . These GOP senators, standing in the way of enhanced unemployment payments are a moral issue unto themselves. It is a " let them eat cake" attitude that long ago became the symbol of class deafness and ignorance, over which many of the elite lost their heads in the French Revolution. The Heroes act passed by the Democrats in the House includes a bipartisan agreement on the PPP act extension (aid to small business second round and for PPP aid to small business in the first round that has not been spent yet. The Cares act passage is being held up as of 8/5 by refusal of some GOP Senators to support it. Support of small business in the relief package has bipartisan support.
The hardest hit by COVID 19 are restaurants and even some we consider successful are facing tough times. This from The Colorado Sun tells why some well-known ones are on the edge. I am a restaurant fan loyalist and I am selfish. I do not want to see my favorites not make it through COVID 19 because going to them is one of my beloved joys in life. However, every one of my children has at one time or another, and likewise, some of my grandchildren, have worked for restaurants. One made the food industry her career; another almost did. One of the problems is that being a server, a cook, a hotel bar manager has been underpaid and they have moved on to get more education and earn a living wage in another industry. The question is then why should there be a labor shortage and few want to work? It is because welfare...increased unemployment insurance..pays more than they earned eeking out a living in lower-rung food jobs and restaurants have made ends meet with paying their workers so little even tips cannot make up the difference. These low paid workers rarely have employer-provided health insurance and Obamacare has been a godsend. However, the Trump administration is attempting to kill it via a lawsuit that will be heard by the Supreme Court this fall and be ruled upon in the spring. What it may also mean that to pay a living wage after COVID, restaurants my have to raise their prices and pay their workers better. The genie of what is a living wage is out of the bottle and starvation wages will no longer be tolerated. Also, being a food service waiter or cashier or even a busser has the same perils as a grocery store clerk that comes in contact with the public and the self-serving anti maskers who thumb their nose at being responsible for their own health as well as others. There is a risk of catching the virus is a hazard involved in being a server. The other reason is the loss of jobs to even return to since so many restaurants have closed their doors and there is not a job to return to or one within commuting distance. So much of the problem above and beyond other areas in the country is that so many of them depend on tourist business for customers since tourism is Colorado is one of our major industries.
Miller Hudson writing in the Colorado Statesman addressed the unmotivated worker myth: "The notion that indolent workers can be incentivized to return to jobs that no longer exist before we bring COVID-19 under control is absurd. Until then, keeping those who have lost their paychecks housed and out of soup kitchens will prove cheaper than flooding our streets with an avalanche of homelessness and misery. Colorado’s second bout of economic peristalsis is likely to bring on evictions and a run on MEDICAID, as employer-based insurance coverage expires, threatening the rickety structure of a health system approaching collapse. It’s not a propitious time to be serving as governor."
If making it possible for the unemployed to survive COVID with an extra $600 is a moral hazard, the small business loans made to restaurants could also be a moral hazard that could come back to haunt them if they were not honest about the jobs they created. Why that was made a loan instead of a cash grant is a mystery to me if there was no accountability now. If in the future, an audit shows the business lied about maintaining their payroll, rent or utilities comprising 70% of the loan, and they are forced to pay back the loans, there could be another wave of restaurant closures. The interest rates were so low and the loans were over a 2 years period, there may be defaults, not just in the restaurant sector but in many small businesses.. Auditing all of that is going to be crazy so expect many loans will just be written off a loss to taxpayers and a low-cost 2% loan will be a gift to franchises and small businesses. The result is those many of those business owners may get away with not providing jobs which was one of the rationales for the bailout loans. We would just have been better off by making it a smaller grant to small business, a percentage of past income, than going through this brain damage and future bureaucratic gobbledegook that created a moral hazard, a temptation to cheat. Why not just consider all of this an economic stimulus
and a humanitarian necessity that puts money back into the economy during the worst economic times since the great depression. States cannot do it because they have balanced budget requirements and the only entity that can is the federal government.
How does that work if there is no job to go back to even if they wanted..50 million jobs have been lost in the US... My guess after this people realize that it takes $15 per hour to not live in poverty or qualify for food stamps. That may be a bad thing if you are an employer, and consumer prices may have to rise, but I think it did give an impetus to legislation. Lucky for me as a rental complex owner my tenants have paid their rent..these are truly tough times. Landlords will be suffering, too. Another legislative impetus will be to either protect Obamacare and expand it or to adopt some other method of making healthcare affordable It became abundantly clear that insurance tied to employment is not wise.. |
Sunday, August 2, 2020
Why COVID 19's buck is stopping at Trump's desk in a paragraph
I was asked by a Trump supporter of why Trump should be blamed for COVID-19's spread. She saw it as all politics in an election year. Here is my answer: The buck is stopping with him as more people realized: 1. he denied the virus and said it was a hoax for months...and his true-believing followers acted accordingly, and became anti maskers. 2. He finally agreed there was a problem in July when "his people", meaning White, people and his supporters, especially those in the red state South, began getting sick and dying 3. He made it a priority to open business ignoring the guidelines set forth by his own administration members of when and how 4. He relied on the private sector to fill the needs of PPE and testing when defense act and money needed to come from the government as well as a national effort.5. He set a horrible personal example not wearing a mask and promoting rallies and indoor gatherings in which no guidelines were followed..including mask-wearing and social distancing. 6. He turned mask-wearing and other precautions into a political issue. 7. He touted bogus cures when even a 4th graders knew were stupid..injecting household cleaners, etc into the body. 8. He supported and still supports cures that subsequent testing and studies proved were ineffective and even dangerous..even after the studies and evidence were presented to him. And yes, it is an election year, but this issue affects everyone's lives, red and blue, old, young, and of any race. It is potent enough for that reason to cost him re-election.
August 12, 2020
Kamala Harris' acceptance remarks to being chosen as Biden's running mate laid out her "open and closed case" of why Donald Trump is guilty of failed leadership and deserves blame: "When other countries are following the science, Trump pushed miracle cures he saw on Fox News. While other countries were flattening the curve, he said the virus would just poof, go away, quote, like a miracle. So when other countries opened back up for business, what did we do? We had to shut down again. This virus has impacted almost every country, but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start, his refusal to get testing up and running, his flip flopping on social distancing and wearing masks, his delusional belief that he knows better than the experts.
All of that is reason. And the reason that an American dies of COVID-19 every 80 seconds. It’s why countless businesses have had to shut their doors for good. It’s why there is complete chaos over when and how to reopen our schools. Mothers and fathers are confused and uncertain and angry about childcare and the safety of their kids at school. Whether they will be in danger if they go, or fall behind if they don’t. Trump is also the reason millions of Americans are now unemployed. He inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground. Because of Trump’s failures of leadership, our economy has taken one of the biggest hits out of all the major industrialized nations with an unemployment rate that has tripled as of today. This is what happens when we elect a guy who just isn’t up for the job. Our country ends up in tatters, and so does our reputation around the world."
Update August 9, 2020
Here is where the US stacks up in mortality rates. We have the 4th highest rate per 100,000 in the world, per Johs Hopkins as of August 8," this represents a country’s general population, with both confirmed cases and healthy people". You can slice and dice figures but this is the one Trump stumbled over and it is not dependent on the number of tests, confirmed cases, or the total population of the country.. This is per a Johns Hopkins University on going data study.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
The Swedish Covid economic freedom model: not what you thought
Not exactly going as you might have thought..
Sweden has received great praise from the anti-stay at home activists in the US. Let them get herd immunity. No stay at home rules., they demand. Those advocates look to Sweden as a model of no required rules to stay at home, schools are open, and it is open for business,. It is an apple to oranges comparison with the US. Those on the right should consider what makes Sweden different than the US. It is socialized...no one goes without good health care; there are no really poor people living cramped in rooms because they have a tax policy that accomplishes far less income disparity.. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. What part of this would the right-wing in our country like to adopt.if they want that outcome. because they have a tax policy with still accomplishes little income disparity. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. In spite of that, they still have 6 times the deaths as their neighboring Socialist countries who instituted stay at home and other strict.rules and not great economic gain.
Per Business Insider, As of April 28, 2,274 people had died from the coronavirus in Sweden, making its per capita death rate nearly six times that of Norway and Finland who had very stringent stay at home rules and similar socio-economic characteristics. https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-norway-sweden-different-coronavirus-responses-fatality-rates-2020-4
Per Financial Times in early May, Sweden will likely feel little benefit to its economy. Current growth figures are about the same as Norway and 10% better than Finland. https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e?fbclid=IwAR21e-GeSCoC6Yhiu-EHMKAI6EXTaOs15VrR071QGtprqcKEfmFSyGOZFoA
Per Reuters,“The healthcare system is under great pressure,” said Per Follin, the head of infectious disease control in Stockholm. “We need to keep going with the measures we have so this ends quickly.”
Sweden has received great praise from the anti-stay at home activists in the US. Let them get herd immunity. No stay at home rules., they demand. Those advocates look to Sweden as a model of no required rules to stay at home, schools are open, and it is open for business,. It is an apple to oranges comparison with the US. Those on the right should consider what makes Sweden different than the US. It is socialized...no one goes without good health care; there are no really poor people living cramped in rooms because they have a tax policy that accomplishes far less income disparity.. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. What part of this would the right-wing in our country like to adopt.if they want that outcome. because they have a tax policy with still accomplishes little income disparity. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. In spite of that, they still have 6 times the deaths as their neighboring Socialist countries who instituted stay at home and other strict.rules and not great economic gain.
Per Business Insider, As of April 28, 2,274 people had died from the coronavirus in Sweden, making its per capita death rate nearly six times that of Norway and Finland who had very stringent stay at home rules and similar socio-economic characteristics. https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-norway-sweden-different-coronavirus-responses-fatality-rates-2020-4
Per Financial Times in early May, Sweden will likely feel little benefit to its economy. Current growth figures are about the same as Norway and 10% better than Finland. https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e?fbclid=IwAR21e-GeSCoC6Yhiu-EHMKAI6EXTaOs15VrR071QGtprqcKEfmFSyGOZFoA
Per Reuters,“The healthcare system is under great pressure,” said Per Follin, the head of infectious disease control in Stockholm. “We need to keep going with the measures we have so this ends quickly.”
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Biden's character advantage and Trump's failing attempt to tarnish it
Update: July 20, 2020: Donald Trump's oft used trick is to call out an opponent with having the same problems those pinned on him. Psychologists call this ""projecting. To him it is a strategy: the best defense is an offensive, deceptive offense. He just crowed that he passed a simple Alzheimer's screening test and challenged Biden to do it, too. He must have been upset at recent FOX poll that shows Americans believe Biden is mentally and physically more capable than him to be president. For more, scroll down the May 15 post and go to the July 20, 2020 blog post: ""Trump's cognitive failures are pre-existing conditions" which contains more source references on the subject and updates.
Updated May 15,2020
Donald Trump is to fight the last war when the enemy is different. He hopes reviving the Hunter Biden/Ukraine issue, painting Biden just as flawed a character as he is, voters will forget their personal struggles with COVID 19 and the blame Trump is getting for a bungling response to the pandemic.
Congratulations to the Trump folks. With their tactics of false equivalencies, many who have otherwise good head on their shoulders have fallen for the old political trope: the choice is between two of equal evils. ...Biden is a sex fiend just like Trump (give me a break; one questionable incident 30 years ago equals Trump's lifetime of p grabbing, boasting about it, and porn star promos and twenty accusing him of rape or near-rape) and Biden is corrupt, just like Trump (Biden was one of the poorest persons in the Senate and has never declared bankruptcy, blown an inheritance, or rewarded cronies with favorable treatment not extended to others). and just like Trump, he lies( that one is beyond swallowing. I am trying to even come up with a comparative figure of anything that has been documented.)
Good judgment, moral, and truth-telling character, and government experience, are Joe Biden's greatest strengths and Trump's greatest vulnerabilities. Donald Trump's tactics have been to tarnish Biden's character. Both Trump and Biden have records well documented in tweets, court documents, and media file clips. Critical subjects range from COVID- 19, Ukraine, Russian interference in 2016, and womanizing. Their words and deeds can easily come back to haunt them in this presidential election cycle. A good comparison of the judgment factor is the difference between how Biden would have approached the COVID-19 threat and how Trump has acted and spoke and tweeted on record. In a January 27 op-ed in USA Today Joe Biden warned about the coming COVID -19 and outlined a plan to combat it based upon his experience with the successful response to Ebola, a response at the time which Donald Trump ridiculed. In late January, Trump was in denial in spite of every federal agency, including his own intelligence agencies, flying red flags.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/how-many-warnings-did-trump-ignore/610846/?fbclid=IwAR1a6Jz8FBaLKSy-gUvNehQzYWD5xayd3XfY2h2H9llTZvaQZseOgdzERDc In February, Trump did nothing. In early March Trump was spreading his ignorance and his mouthpiece at FOX was his megaphone with his supporting talkers claiming this was a media-generated hoax, no worse than the flu, and it would be over by Easter. Here is Biden's op-ed that ran in USA Today at the end of January. Read it and weep and think of the lives that could have been saved and maybe even businesses and jobs, as well, had Biden been president instead of Donald Trump.
Updated May 15,2020
Donald Trump is to fight the last war when the enemy is different. He hopes reviving the Hunter Biden/Ukraine issue, painting Biden just as flawed a character as he is, voters will forget their personal struggles with COVID 19 and the blame Trump is getting for a bungling response to the pandemic.
Congratulations to the Trump folks. With their tactics of false equivalencies, many who have otherwise good head on their shoulders have fallen for the old political trope: the choice is between two of equal evils. ...Biden is a sex fiend just like Trump (give me a break; one questionable incident 30 years ago equals Trump's lifetime of p grabbing, boasting about it, and porn star promos and twenty accusing him of rape or near-rape) and Biden is corrupt, just like Trump (Biden was one of the poorest persons in the Senate and has never declared bankruptcy, blown an inheritance, or rewarded cronies with favorable treatment not extended to others). and just like Trump, he lies( that one is beyond swallowing. I am trying to even come up with a comparative figure of anything that has been documented.)
Good judgment, moral, and truth-telling character, and government experience, are Joe Biden's greatest strengths and Trump's greatest vulnerabilities. Donald Trump's tactics have been to tarnish Biden's character. Both Trump and Biden have records well documented in tweets, court documents, and media file clips. Critical subjects range from COVID- 19, Ukraine, Russian interference in 2016, and womanizing. Their words and deeds can easily come back to haunt them in this presidential election cycle. A good comparison of the judgment factor is the difference between how Biden would have approached the COVID-19 threat and how Trump has acted and spoke and tweeted on record. In a January 27 op-ed in USA Today Joe Biden warned about the coming COVID -19 and outlined a plan to combat it based upon his experience with the successful response to Ebola, a response at the time which Donald Trump ridiculed. In late January, Trump was in denial in spite of every federal agency, including his own intelligence agencies, flying red flags.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/how-many-warnings-did-trump-ignore/610846/?fbclid=IwAR1a6Jz8FBaLKSy-gUvNehQzYWD5xayd3XfY2h2H9llTZvaQZseOgdzERDc In February, Trump did nothing. In early March Trump was spreading his ignorance and his mouthpiece at FOX was his megaphone with his supporting talkers claiming this was a media-generated hoax, no worse than the flu, and it would be over by Easter. Here is Biden's op-ed that ran in USA Today at the end of January. Read it and weep and think of the lives that could have been saved and maybe even businesses and jobs, as well, had Biden been president instead of Donald Trump.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/27/coronavirus-donald-trump-made-us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/ While Trump has been warned by experts that trust of people they are safe enough to shop and eat at restaurants again depends for now on testing, Trump said he did not want much testing because it would make the US look bad while he is pushing to re-open the country to business. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-doing-too-much-151141414.html This is akin to not wanting those infected on a cruise ship, having to wait to off shore because it would run up his figures and cause fear of the danger of the virus. That seems a century ago but it was only a couple of months ago. At that time those infected were under a 100; now 1.2 million and 72,000 dead and he is projecting 100,000 dead. Eventually, when more voters realize what he told them last month is not what happened this month, even more may not trust him.
From the Abraham Lincoln Association is how Lincoln is reported to attack his opponent, Douglas, as a liar not worthy of trust: "Undoubtedly the most famous utterance ever attributed to Lincoln is, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Early recollections place the saying in an 1858 speech Lincoln delivered in Clinton, Illinois. The first appeared in 1904 by E. E. Pierson, who remembered Lewis Campbell, a respected citizen of DeWitt County, telling him of the 1858 speeches that Lincoln and Douglas delivered in Clinton. According to Campbell, Lincoln said, “Judge Douglas cannot fool the people: you may fool people for a time; you can fool a part of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
When Biden announced for the presidency, I wondered if there would be some baggage that always follows those who had been in the public and in government for a long time or whether voters already knew him so well and so favorably they would ignore the negatives. Legendary was his poor debate and interview performance and his inability to raise money. He was a great "retail" candidate on the rope line, but his platform rally skills were not exactly crowd-rousing. What has proved true is that voters know him so well and they are hard to fool. In March and April, Biden had a difficult time even getting heard and Trump hogged the cable and news channels for hours every day. By the end of April, numerous polls showed Biden 8 to ten points ahead of Trump. This could be due as much to Biden's lifetime reputation as it was to Trump's fumbles, stumbles, ignorance on display, and lies in his two-hour daily media marathons. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/04/27/biden-leads-trump-2020-amid-coronavirus-concerns/302932500,
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/
Biden's opponents inferred he had dementia; and Trump overtly calls him senile. It is Trump's modus. When he is accused of being a champion liar with a long list of documented lies, he attacked Hillary as a liar. It worked and destroyed a great degree of public trust in her. : When his cognitive ability is questioned, then attack his opponent with cognitive problems.He has had a hard time living down is former Secretary of State, attempting to brief him, and in leaving the briefing called Trump a "f....g moron".. His calling Biden senile was a diagnosis without any medical professional verification and it is dirty pool. Biden's speech was stumbling at times, as he searched for words and he had a history of gaffes. "Sleepy Joe "braggart -over- the -top -demagogue-in chief Trump called him. Those who understood that Joe had struggled with stuttering his entire life knew he still was fighting it. What is a concern is his lack of vitality as he sticks to teleprompters and scripts. He is best once he goes off script with passion on a subject that especially important to him or to counter punch an attack. Being overly scripted by his aids has its disadvantages. As he recently went off script on a racial matter show the advantages of being scripted. Frankly, the spicey, quick retort Joe can come up wth zingers, too, and it is the quick on the feet Joe that gets him into trouble but shows his wit is ever sharp.
On the other hand, Donald Trump just as well could have dementia because he cannot comprehend even less than a written page of bullet points on national security interests, dozes off in presentations, forgets or ignores what he said the day before, frequently reverses or says the opposite of what he had recently ordered, or failed to grasp or understand details about the issue at hand. Some of these are also dysfunctional personality traits of narcissism, never admitting he was ever wrong, or inconvenient truth denial, and questionable judgment. Bringing up the taking disinfectants and UV lights personally internally in a stream of conscious questioning on live TV was an unfortunate public display of ignorance and common sense more worthy of a low IQ teenager. Ronald Reagan in his latter days as president was suspected of having early onset of Alzheimer's, yet he still showed enough grasp of reality to still govern competently. Reagan in his worst days was more competent than Trump in his best days.
If Biden stumbles over words, the champion is Trump: https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/videos/249744156044036/
Trump has still hung onto his 44% base, but he had never tried to expand his support. Instead, he has governed as if the only people in America are his 44% tried and true. He insulted and name called critics fired those experts who were not yes men and attacked journalists who dared to raise embarrassing questions and point out his blustering lies. Trust in Trump's honesty and trustworthiness showed an ever-increasing worry. Trump's COVID pronouncements garnered 52% distrusting him and 36% taking his word, per a recent poll. Even Trump's staff had wondered if it would be a better strategy for him to say less in his campaign rally-type TV COVID appearances. The more he opened his mouth, the more Biden's approval ratings rose as those who were not his hardcore swung their preferences to more middle of the road, trustworthy, steady- as- he- goes, Biden. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/november-general-election-biden-tops-trump-poll, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/joe-biden-leading-presidential-polls-generic-alternative-trump-n1190851
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/
Biden's opponents inferred he had dementia; and Trump overtly calls him senile. It is Trump's modus. When he is accused of being a champion liar with a long list of documented lies, he attacked Hillary as a liar. It worked and destroyed a great degree of public trust in her. : When his cognitive ability is questioned, then attack his opponent with cognitive problems.He has had a hard time living down is former Secretary of State, attempting to brief him, and in leaving the briefing called Trump a "f....g moron".. His calling Biden senile was a diagnosis without any medical professional verification and it is dirty pool. Biden's speech was stumbling at times, as he searched for words and he had a history of gaffes. "Sleepy Joe "braggart -over- the -top -demagogue-in chief Trump called him. Those who understood that Joe had struggled with stuttering his entire life knew he still was fighting it. What is a concern is his lack of vitality as he sticks to teleprompters and scripts. He is best once he goes off script with passion on a subject that especially important to him or to counter punch an attack. Being overly scripted by his aids has its disadvantages. As he recently went off script on a racial matter show the advantages of being scripted. Frankly, the spicey, quick retort Joe can come up wth zingers, too, and it is the quick on the feet Joe that gets him into trouble but shows his wit is ever sharp.
On the other hand, Donald Trump just as well could have dementia because he cannot comprehend even less than a written page of bullet points on national security interests, dozes off in presentations, forgets or ignores what he said the day before, frequently reverses or says the opposite of what he had recently ordered, or failed to grasp or understand details about the issue at hand. Some of these are also dysfunctional personality traits of narcissism, never admitting he was ever wrong, or inconvenient truth denial, and questionable judgment. Bringing up the taking disinfectants and UV lights personally internally in a stream of conscious questioning on live TV was an unfortunate public display of ignorance and common sense more worthy of a low IQ teenager. Ronald Reagan in his latter days as president was suspected of having early onset of Alzheimer's, yet he still showed enough grasp of reality to still govern competently. Reagan in his worst days was more competent than Trump in his best days.
If Biden stumbles over words, the champion is Trump: https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/videos/249744156044036/
Donald Trump had long seen Biden as his greatest threat. Biden's character was in a diametrically opposite as his. Trump's philandering and women chasing were negative compared with Biden's history as a family man, still in mourning over the death of his favored son, and his early devastating loss of his wife and daughter in a car wreck. Biden may have misspoken here and there, but usually, he had the reputation as an empathetic truth-teller who had been to hell and back in his personal life. Early in Trump's administration, Trump set about to attack both his trustworthiness and honesty and his family man's moral reputation with developing some false equivalencies to fool the voters that Biden's character was just as flawed as his own. First was the attempt to tie Hunter, his surviving son who had led a troubled life, to some sort of financial hanky panky in Ukraine and China. That was what the impeachment action was meant to counter. A month after the impeachment acquittal, Pew Research (pewresearch.org) poll showed 46% of Americans believed the Democrats proved their case that Trump had misused national security funds to convince Ukraine to reopen the already disproved allegations and should have been removed from office. 28% did not think that was enough to justify his removal and 25% said he did nothing wrong. Trump's cohorts never could prove Biden either benefitted from Hunter's questionable actions or even materially helped him. Expect that attempt by the Trumpists to be renewed after Covid fades, if it does. However, also expect the Democrats to fire back with reminders of Trump's ripping off consumers and workers and to dramatize his loans and assistance from Russians and others and the benefit to his children's licenses and marking with China. Talk about false equivalencies, Trump's questionable dealings, and support of Russian foreign policy make Hunter's dalliances true or not, look like child's play. Last week, the final chapter into Russian interference in 2016 to help Trump get elected was written by the Senate bipartisan committee findings that what Mueller reported about their interference was true and effective. Certainly, Trump had lost the popular vote in 2016, but three states won him the electoral vote raising once doubt that Trump won the presidency fair and square and without foreign help. https://www.axios.com/senate-inteligence-committee-russia-trump-b2f29fe2-4373-4cb5-9bc6-0f071a0be544.html
In another false equivalency tactic Trumpists have ramped up lately was that Biden was a sex fiend because one woman came forward with an ever-changing story that Biden had gotten under her skirts nearly 30 years ago. She was a Sanders supporter when she made public the charges and before then, she had written about her loving admiration of Putin. Biden denied the charges and her allegations were not witnessed. Rather than passing judgment about whether she is speaking the truth or not, let us talk about outrageous comparisons. Other women had reported Biden had sniffed their hair or hugged them too closely. Whether that any of this stuff was true or not is not the point. In fact, he never denied the hair sniffing and hugging, but promised he would do it no more. Wait a minute. This is equal to Trump's three marriages, the last of which horned in on his second one, his boasting about p grabbing, and his night with Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy Bunny, whom he paid off, lied about it, and got his fall guy attorney in jail for helping him cover it up? Then there were the 16 women who testified publicly that Trump nearly raped or raped them. Oh, well. So a family man Trump is not. But Biden's alleged indiscretion is to be blown up and blasted over the media by FOX. It will give Trump's devoted, forgiving followers something to hang their hats on. That it will fool once Republican suburban women who are flocking to the Democratic party to believe that Biden is just as much a womanizer as Trump is extremely unlikely. It is a very hard case to make. The defense should not come from Biden himself, but from others who should remind voters frequently and often of who the real womanizer is every time a Trumpster brings up their specious allegations. A recent poll shows little impact: those who believe Reade and those who don't split evenly and even one third of those who believe her over Biden are still supporting Biden. In the same poll, Biden is preferred by 53% of those interviewed. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/joe-biden-tara-reade-monmouth-poll/index.html Another poll, Morning Consult, shows overall, the Reade matter did not affect the 53% preference for Biden over Trump, though Biden did take a hit with 5% in women's opinion and he still had an 8% lead over Trump. https://morningconsult.com/2020/05/11/biden-popularity-reade-allegations-polling/
https://morningconsult.com/2020/05/11/biden-popularity-reade-allegations-polling/
Those FOX crews fixated by Tara Reade, now ask the question: Shouldn't Biden drop out because of Tara Reade? Trump should have resigned a minimum of 16 times when he was a candidate for every accuser. He should have quit when the p grabbing boasting ape came out and he was a candidate. In truth, he did not. In truth voters still voted for him. He got caught, was an unindicted person X, paying off Stormy Daniels and a playboy bunny as his personal attorney took the fall and is sitting in prison covering up for him. In truth, voters do not care that much if other issues are more important.
https://morningconsult.com/2020/05/11/biden-popularity-reade-allegations-polling/
Those FOX crews fixated by Tara Reade, now ask the question: Shouldn't Biden drop out because of Tara Reade? Trump should have resigned a minimum of 16 times when he was a candidate for every accuser. He should have quit when the p grabbing boasting ape came out and he was a candidate. In truth, he did not. In truth voters still voted for him. He got caught, was an unindicted person X, paying off Stormy Daniels and a playboy bunny as his personal attorney took the fall and is sitting in prison covering up for him. In truth, voters do not care that much if other issues are more important.
A personal testimony: my late husband Dr. Mike Muftic served as a Democratic national committeeman for twelve years. He was a personal friend of Joe Biden since the time they were together on a diplomatic mission. He put his medical practice on hold to campaign for him with ethnic groups in industrial states. I have been hugged by Biden himself in our younger years and I never felt threatened by him. My antennae are usually on high alert since I had been a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Update 5/25/20:
Also on racism, FOX and Trump's minions are attempting to make Biden an equivalent racist as Trump:
Update 5/25/20:
Also on racism, FOX and Trump's minions are attempting to make Biden an equivalent racist as Trump:
FOX with glee tried to capitalize on a "cavalier" joking statement Biden made in an attempt to weaken the support of Biden by his most ardent supporters, African Americans.. Watching MSNBC over the holiday, it is clear FOX's message found an echo chamber among MSNBC pundits, looping Biden's misspeak over and over again. I will not question the sincerity of the MSNBC pundits because I think they were indeed sincere in their criticism of Biden. I do react in mock amazement,
that FOX, the platform for the President's racism and amplifiers of him, all of a sudden were pointing fingers at Biden, with a sudden conversion by its pundits as a defender of civil rights. The President is one who calls torch-carrying white nationalists waiving symbols of the KKK and neo-nazism " very fine people", led public opinion that Obama was born in Kenya so he was not a legitimate president, and kept expressing his belief five young black men were guilty of the murder of a young white woman even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence,. Years before he got into legal trouble earlier for discriminatory policies in his rental properties. The message FOX promoted was that Trump was no more a racist than Joe Biden. It is a monumental false equivalency. Biden apologized for the comment when he realized how the joke was interpreted. Yes, he has over the years evolved to become even more a defender of anti-racist public policy, including revising and addressing the unintended consequences of a crime bill he had supported., President Trump has not evolved,. He can directly attribute his rise to political prominence resulting in his election on his advocacy birtherism and the guilt of the Central Park Five. He never believes he is wrong and never apologizes for it, and his attitudes to minorities never evolved. unlike Joe Biden..
that FOX, the platform for the President's racism and amplifiers of him, all of a sudden were pointing fingers at Biden, with a sudden conversion by its pundits as a defender of civil rights. The President is one who calls torch-carrying white nationalists waiving symbols of the KKK and neo-nazism " very fine people", led public opinion that Obama was born in Kenya so he was not a legitimate president, and kept expressing his belief five young black men were guilty of the murder of a young white woman even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence,. Years before he got into legal trouble earlier for discriminatory policies in his rental properties. The message FOX promoted was that Trump was no more a racist than Joe Biden. It is a monumental false equivalency. Biden apologized for the comment when he realized how the joke was interpreted. Yes, he has over the years evolved to become even more a defender of anti-racist public policy, including revising and addressing the unintended consequences of a crime bill he had supported., President Trump has not evolved,. He can directly attribute his rise to political prominence resulting in his election on his advocacy birtherism and the guilt of the Central Park Five. He never believes he is wrong and never apologizes for it, and his attitudes to minorities never evolved. unlike Joe Biden..
Joe Biden's response yesterday to the question of whether he had a double standard in the Tara Reade case and the Kavanaugh Supreme Court case was that women accusing men of sexual assault needed to be believed. Biden's response was they should be taken seriously and the accusations should receive serious investigations. As a person who has been sexually harassed in the workplace at my first job in television in New York in the early 1960's, it is a personally sensitive subject. However, the flaw of the MeToo movement is that taken seriously means to believe the accuser without the investigation part because the accuser is always right. It ain't necessarily so. In a serious investigation, if Reade had pursued it legally, she would have run across some sharp questions from a defense attorney. Here are some::
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/29/joe-biden-sexual-assault-allegation-tara-reade-column/3046962001/?fbclid=I
A message to those who felt the Bern and still are:
The DNC did not rig this. They did not finance Biden. They did not promote Biden. They did not stack caucus states for Biden. They did not cause the primary vote for Biden. Bernie failed to get more of the African American vote. He failed to turn out the young people in numbers. He scared the wits out of the moderates both with his self tag of socialism and his constant anti-big corporation rhetoric who are not full of such anger. They were not into class warfare this year. Polls reflected that nearly every Democratic contender would beat Trump in the popular vote but Biden always showed he would do it with bigger margins. A comeback was wrecked by COVID 19 as media and voters focused elsewhere. Big rallies were not in vogue this year nor were many caucus states where you could stack and control the outcome with a good organization; most of the states had moved to primaries instead of caucus. This was 2020; not 2016. The voters were looking for someone they could trust and slow Joe was it. They had had it with loud oratory. They had plenty of that already. They did not want to gamble on "new". Some did in 2016 for many reasons, but mostly because Hillary was a woman or believed what Both Trump and Bernie called her "crooked Hillary"..or she did not have the right amount of empathy. Or they fell for the GOP email ploy... just as some on the left now are falling for the Hunter, Reade, and dementia FOX talking points. So we got a fascist racist corporatist incompetent and serial lying president/demagogue who has set about to stack the federal judiciary with those his backers love. He has methodically set about to dismantle every progressive reform Obama instituted. Some other year might have been Bernie's. I firmly believe that as these younger generations gain some age and enter more leadership positions, Bernie's goals will be fully realized. But not yet. The first job though will be the restoration of Obama's agenda and take some steps toward Bernie's goals.. Even then little will happen unless the Senate also turns blue. That is the reality we are facing.
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