Page 244 of 1864
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:02 am
by foreverlax
Trump’s son-in-law has no business running the coronavirus response.
Reporting on the White House’s herky-jerky coronavirus response, Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman has a quotation from Jared Kushner that should make all Americans, and particularly all New Yorkers, dizzy with terror.
According to Sherman, when New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said that the state would need 30,000 ventilators at the apex of the coronavirus outbreak, Kushner decided that Cuomo was being alarmist. “I have all this data about I.C.U. capacity,” Kushner reportedly said. “I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn’t need all the ventilators.” (Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top expert on infectious diseases, has said he trusts Cuomo’s estimate.)
Even now, it’s hard to believe that someone with as little expertise as Kushner could be so arrogant, but he said something similar on Thursday, when he made his debut at the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing: “People who have requests for different products and supplies, a lot of them are doing it based on projections which are not the realistic projections.”
Kushner has succeeded at exactly three things in his life. He was born to the right parents, married well and learned how to influence his father-in-law. Most of his other endeavors — his biggest real estate deal, his foray into newspaper ownership, his attempt to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians — have been failures.
Undeterred, he has now arrogated to himself a major role in fighting the epochal health crisis that’s brought America to its knees. “Behind the scenes, Kushner takes charge of coronavirus response,” said a Politico headline on Wednesday. This is dilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy.
The journalist Andrea Bernstein looked closely at Kushner’s business record for her recent book “American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power,” speaking to people on all sides of his real estate deals as well as those who worked with him at The New York Observer, the weekly newspaper he bought in 2006.
Kushner, Bernstein told me, “really sees himself as a disrupter.” Again and again, she said, people who’d dealt with Kushner told her that whatever he did, he “believed he could do it better than anybody else, and he had supreme confidence in his own abilities and his own judgment even when he didn’t know what he was talking about.”
It’s hard to overstate the extent to which this confidence is unearned. Kushner was a reportedly mediocre student whose billionaire father appears to have bought him a place at Harvard. Taking over the family real estate company after his father was sent to prison, Kushner paid $1.8 billion — a record, at the time — for a Manhattan skyscraper at the very top of the real estate market in 2007. The debt from that project became a crushing burden for the family business. (Kushner was able to restructure the debt in 2011, and in 2018 the project was bailed out by a Canadian asset management company with links to the government of Qatar.) He gutted the once-great New York Observer, then made a failed attempt to create a national network of local politics websites.
His forays into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — for which he boasted of reading a whole 25 books — have left the dream of a two-state solution on life support. Michael Koplow of the centrist Israel Policy Forum described Kushner’s plan for the Palestinian economy as “the Monty Python version of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
Now, in our hour of existential horror, Kushner is making life-or-death decisions for all Americans, showing all the wisdom we’ve come to expect from him.
“Mr. Kushner’s early involvement with dealing with the virus was in advising the president that the media’s coverage exaggerated the threat,” reported The Times. It was apparently at Kushner’s urging that Trump announced, falsely, that Google was about to launch a website that would link Americans with coronavirus testing. (As The Atlantic reported, a health insurance company co-founded by Kushner’s brother — which Kushner once owned a stake in — tried to build such a site, before the project was “suddenly and mysteriously scrapped.”)
The president was reportedly furious over the website debacle, but Kushner’s authority hasn’t been curbed. Politico reported that Kushner, “alongside a kitchen cabinet of outside experts including his former roommate and a suite of McKinsey consultants, has taken charge of the most important challenges facing the federal government,” including the production and distribution of medical supplies and the expansion of testing. Kushner has embedded his own people in the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a senior official described them to The Times as “a ‘frat party’ that descended from a U.F.O. and invaded the federal government.”
Disaster response requires discipline and adherence to a clear chain of command, not the move-fast-and-break-things approach of start-up culture. Even if Kushner “were the most competent person in the world, which he clearly isn’t, introducing these kind of competing power centers into a crisis response structure is a guaranteed problem,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former U.S.A.I.D. official who helped manage the response to the Ebola crisis during Barack Obama’s administration, told me. “So you could have Trump and Kushner and Pence and the governors all be the smartest people in the room, but if there are multiple competing power centers trying to drive this response, it’s still going to be chaos.”
Competing power centers are a motif of this administration, and its approach to the pandemic is no exception. As The Washington Post reported, Kushner’s team added “another layer of confusion and conflicting signals within the White House’s disjointed response to the crisis.” Nor does his operation appear to be internally coherent. “Projects are so decentralized that one team often has little idea what others are doing — outside of that they all report up to Kushner,” reported Politico.
On Thursday, Governor Cuomo said that New York would run out of ventilators in six days. Perhaps Kushner’s projections were incorrect. “I don’t think the federal government is in a position to provide ventilators to the extent the nation may need them,” Cuomo said. “Assume you are on your own in life.” If not in life, certainly in this administration.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:16 am
by Peter Brown
Kismet wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:22 am
Disgusting yet typical of this crowd.
I was so glad to see only Ren and Stimpy of Fanlax be the only two lunatics to bite on that delicious headline. I guess more people actually read the articles than I give them credit for. Oh well, at least we have two suckers! So, for those who still haven't woken up yet and wish to preserve some veneer of brains (two are already too far gone), here are your money shots:
Companies register for trademarks for a variety of reasons....in many countries, like China, where trademark squatting is rampant, companies also file defensively, to block copycats from grabbing legal rights to a brand's name. Trademarks are classified by category and may include items that a company does not intend to market (such as, ummmmm, 'coffins'...).
When the story is too cute by half, please either read or get another source. For the permanently TDS-addled brains, it's probably best to go play in a rock quarry; that should give humanity decent social distancing from your affliction.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:17 am
by CU88
Doctors I would take medical advice from before Donald Trump:
Dr Suess
Dr Pepper
Dr Dre
Dr Demento
Dr Adam Bricker
Dr Hibbertt
"Dr" Nicholas Riviera
Dr Shrinker
Dr Doolittle
Doc Holliday
Doc Severinsen
Doc Dwarf
Hickory Dickory Dock
My sister's boat Dock
Major Frank Burns
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:25 am
by 6ftstick
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 6:53 am
6x6 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:37 am
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:03 am
It hit home for me today. I just got laid off until we get over this thing. Funny that with all the bennies on the table right now I still be making more money while I am unemployed. The sad thing is that the casinos are not open.
Tough deal Cradle, hang in there man. I might be heading up from Texas to Honeoye in another month or so. I’d be happy to meet for a beverage, keeping the proper distance of course.
If this bad gamble subsides I would be happy to meet you at Rheinblicks in Canandaigua. My favorite is their sauerbraten served with homemade spatzle. Maybe a cold mug of German beer.
I'd like to join you. But we have to eat in our own cars!
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:30 am
by kramerica.inc
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:32 am
by jhu72
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:05 pm
Worse than incompetent.
Just another lying Trumpnista.
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:39 am
by Kismet
I was so glad to see only Ren and Stimpy of Fanlax be the only two lunatics to bite on that delicious headline.
That's an improvement over you, SpongeBob (or are you SquarePants?) - most likely the person Mrs. Gump had in mind when she said "STUPID is as STUPID does". I guess it takes a lunatic to suggest others are. Very typical of your "I'm smarter than everyone" attitude on everything.
You'll be in the first lifeboat with Captain Drumpf. Don't trip over the gunwale.
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:54 am
by jhu72
Got a feeling this federal bailout of individuals is gonna be problematic for Orange Duce. Over promising and under delivering based on the early look of this thing. Will know in a couple weeks. The small business bail out also shows early signs of problems.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:01 am
by jhu72
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:04 am
by Laxgunea
Still following the responses of different countries and regions. The difference of Argentina and Brazil is instructive. Argentina took cues from Italy in early March, shut down, and is in pretty good shape in terms of cases. Brazil is favoring the economy .... hey, you can disagree, but they are open about it. Their cases, underreported, are rising quickly.
You see similar differences in Spain, where regional responses differed in intensity a few weeks ago. Strict lockdowns work. The most successful regional govt are now setting in motion plans to maintain salaries of laid off workers.
All respect to different political persuasions out there, but the problem with the Trump response has been its sheer chaos. Different information each day. That's not leadership. Agree with him or not, I'll listen to what Cuomo says .... at least I know where he is coming from.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:06 am
by cradleandshoot
Funny now that I have been laid off all of a sudden they ain't enough money to pay all of us. For criminey sake, this is the US government we are talking about. All they gotta do is keep running those printing presses full bore. F**k the twenties. Keep printing those as James Carville would say... hunna dollah bills. We dont need to drag em through trailla pahks. Just mail em to all us common folk.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:09 am
by CU88
Laxgunea wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:04 am
Still following the responses of different countries and regions. The difference of Argentina and Brazil is instructive. Argentina took cues from Italy in early March, shut down, and is in pretty good shape in terms of cases. Brazil is favoring the economy .... hey, you can disagree, but they are open about it. Their cases, underreported, are rising quickly.
You see similar differences in Spain, where regional responses differed in intensity a few weeks ago. Strict lockdowns work. The most successful regional govt are now setting in motion plans to maintain salaries of laid off workers.
All respect to different political persuasions out there, but the problem with the Trump response has been its sheer chaos. Different information each day. That's not leadership. Agree with him or not, I'll listen to what Cuomo says .... at least I know where he is coming from.
+1
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:10 am
by cradleandshoot
jhu72 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:54 am
Got a feeling this federal bailout of individuals is gonna be problematic for Orange Duce. Over promising and under delivering based on the early look of this thing. Will know in a couple weeks. The small business bail out also shows early signs of problems.
Sounds like Trump needs to bring you aboard to get this chit storm under control. Looks like you have to puke overboard, wipe off your chin and take one for the team.
![😕](//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@latest/assets/svg/1f615.svg)
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:12 am
by cradleandshoot
CU88 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:09 am
Laxgunea wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:04 am
Still following the responses of different countries and regions. The difference of Argentina and Brazil is instructive. Argentina took cues from Italy in early March, shut down, and is in pretty good shape in terms of cases. Brazil is favoring the economy .... hey, you can disagree, but they are open about it. Their cases, underreported, are rising quickly.
You see similar differences in Spain, where regional responses differed in intensity a few weeks ago. Strict lockdowns work. The most successful regional govt are now setting in motion plans to maintain salaries of laid off workers.
All respect to different political persuasions out there, but the problem with the Trump response has been its sheer chaos. Different information each day. That's not leadership. Agree with him or not, I'll listen to what Cuomo says .... at least I know where he is coming from.
+1
Outside of making himself look like a hero, you must be the only person who knows where King Andy is coming from. Bravo old chap... bravo.
Re: All things COVID-19
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:17 am
by RedFromMI
CU88 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:09 am
Laxgunea wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:04 am
Still following the responses of different countries and regions. The difference of Argentina and Brazil is instructive. Argentina took cues from Italy in early March, shut down, and is in pretty good shape in terms of cases. Brazil is favoring the economy .... hey, you can disagree, but they are open about it. Their cases, underreported, are rising quickly.
You see similar differences in Spain, where regional responses differed in intensity a few weeks ago. Strict lockdowns work. The most successful regional govt are now setting in motion plans to maintain salaries of laid off workers.
All respect to different political persuasions out there, but the problem with the Trump response has been its sheer chaos. Different information each day. That's not leadership. Agree with him or not, I'll listen to what Cuomo says .... at least I know where he is coming from.
+1
The problems are not only that our federal government is weeks to months behind on its help/organization, but that you have absolute dipsh*ts like Jarod Kushner running around trying to control the response.
And Kush has no idea of what he is doing. In yesterday's press conference, he talked about the need for good management (while not realizing how much of a self own it was) and also commenting that the federal emergency stockpile is not for the states to use (it is a federal not state stockpile?) but we will help out anyway...(nevermind that the webpage for the emergency stockpile says it is in reserve for the rest of the country to use).
The "public-private" partnership that is expediting shipping from China is still just bringing material to private suppliers who are still jacking up prices to the highest bidder. When this crisis has faded some it will be highly interesting to see how much $$$ was made by crooks via the feds not getting in the middle and forcing the supplies at reasonable prices to the places that have the most critical needs.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:19 am
by jhu72
Just two days ago, New York State had 42.5% of all reported US deaths. Currently New York State deaths account for 25.8% of reported US deaths. Again for those who think this thing is not going to effect them, or their communities.
Re: All things CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:20 am
by cradleandshoot
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:55 pm
6ftstick wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 8:10 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:51 pm
DocBarrister wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:35 pm
6ftstick wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:27 pm
DocBarrister wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 7:25 pm
Peter Brown wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:54 pm
I’m watching this task force press conference.
I know you TDS-afflicted are gonna hate to hear this, but Trump is finding his footing. He seems like he actually understands some virus specifics that most people don’t, which I’d normally not expect out of him. I know you yahoos will fillet him regardless but the voters are likely recognizing this.
Also, Dr Birx is a rockstar.
Most of today’s media are actually asking legitimate non-gotcha questions.
We needed Trump to find his footing two months ago.
What is unfolding now is one of the great tragedies in American history ... a tragedy brought about by Trump’s incompetence and malignant narcissism.
It is not possible to catch up to a pandemic like this. Tens of thousands of Americans, maybe over a hundred thousand, will go to their graves because Trump prized his political interests over the safety and welfare of the American people.
Trump’s malfeasance will long be remembered as one of the great criminal acts in American history.
DocBarrister
CHINA’s malfeasance will long be remembered as one of the great criminal acts in American history.
China’s crimes do not excuse Trump’s.
DocBarrister
3,000 provincial (Hubei) and a few federal bureaucrats lost their jobs over the initial delay in reporting.
Not that their system doesn't 'encourage' holding back bad news, but they sent quite the message in the aftermath. Note that if you are fired from a government/Party job, you will have a very difficult time finding any other job...maybe sweeping streets.
Who is getting fired over the US foul up?
Well, let's fire the ship commander blowing the whistle...that's akin to firing the Chinese doc who blew the whistle (and subsequently died).
China good. trump Bad.
Really, that's your takeaway ?
Wow... what a brilliant analogy from the guy who coined the red team blue team analysis of things.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
Re: All things COVID-19
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:21 am
by RedFromMI
jhu72 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:19 am
Just two days ago, New York State had 42.5% of all reported US deaths. Currently New York State deaths account for 25.8% of reported US deaths. Again for those who think this thing is not going to effect them, or their communities.
Last 3 days about 1000 deaths per day in US. Scroll down to the last graph on the worldometer page on the coronavirus.
Re: All things Chinese CoronaVirus
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:21 am
by jhu72
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:10 am
jhu72 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:54 am
Got a feeling this federal bailout of individuals is gonna be problematic for Orange Duce. Over promising and under delivering based on the early look of this thing. Will know in a couple weeks. The small business bail out also shows early signs of problems.
Sounds like Trump needs to bring you aboard to get this chit storm under control. Looks like you have to puke overboard, wipe off your chin and take one for the team.
No, he needs to stop overpromising, stop beating his chest and get REAL. His lies are catching up to him.
Re: All things COVID-19
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:28 am
by jhu72
RedFromMI wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:17 am
CU88 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:09 am
Laxgunea wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 9:04 am
Still following the responses of different countries and regions. The difference of Argentina and Brazil is instructive. Argentina took cues from Italy in early March, shut down, and is in pretty good shape in terms of cases. Brazil is favoring the economy .... hey, you can disagree, but they are open about it. Their cases, underreported, are rising quickly.
You see similar differences in Spain, where regional responses differed in intensity a few weeks ago. Strict lockdowns work. The most successful regional govt are now setting in motion plans to maintain salaries of laid off workers.
All respect to different political persuasions out there, but the problem with the Trump response has been its sheer chaos. Different information each day. That's not leadership. Agree with him or not, I'll listen to what Cuomo says .... at least I know where he is coming from.
+1
The problems are not only that our federal government is weeks to months behind on its help/organization, but that you have absolute dipsh*ts like Jarod Kushner running around trying to control the response.
And Kush has no idea of what he is doing. In yesterday's press conference, he talked about the need for good management (while not realizing how much of a self own it was) and also commenting that the federal emergency stockpile is not for the states to use (it is a federal not state stockpile?) but we will help out anyway...(nevermind that the webpage for the emergency stockpile says it is in reserve for the rest of the country to use).
The "public-private" partnership that is expediting shipping from China is still just bringing material to private suppliers who are still jacking up prices to the highest bidder. When this crisis has faded some it will be highly interesting to see how much $$$ was made by crooks via the feds not getting in the middle and forcing the supplies at reasonable prices to the places that have the most critical needs.
The crooks making the money are the buddies of Trump's buddies. It is all good.