". . . Claim: The U.S. has conducted 'over 50 million tests'
According to the graphics displayed behind Trump during his remarks, the U.S. has conducted more than 45 million tests. This requires context, because the president is citing the data point as a measure of the U.S.'s success in combating the virus. Public health experts say the number of tests that have been conducted doesn't on its own indicate a country's success in controlling an outbreak. He said the rate of positive tests indicates that far more people are being infected than are being tested, and he pointed to Arizona, where 1 in 4 tests are positive, as an example. "Right now, our pandemic is out of control," he said.
Claim: 'Our case fatality rate has continued to decline' and is lower than 'almost everywhere else in the world'
This is misleading. Trump is trying to make the U.S. look better by emphasizing the ratio between confirmed deaths and confirmed cases — known as the case fatality rate — over the more telling mortality rate. The former lowers as testing expands and detects more mild cases, while the latter reveals how many deaths a country has had relative to its population. According to Johns Hopkins University data, the U.S. mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, thanks to the large outbreak. The case fatality rate has fallen, but it isn't lower than "almost everywhere else in the world."
Claim: 'We're closely monitoring hospital capacity' in states with surging cases. 'All of the governors we've spoken with say they have enough bed capacity.'
While we can't verify what governors have told the Trump administration, U.S. hospital capacity appears to be strained. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, raised the alarm Monday over COVID-19 hospitalizations, saying the state's caseload had the potential to strain hospital resources and staff. Last week, NBC News reported that 54 hospitals in Florida had no available beds in their intensive care units and that 40 more hospitals had less than 10 percent availability. NBC News reported this month that Houston hospitals have been forced to treat hundreds of patients in their emergency rooms — sometimes for several hours or multiple days — in their scramble to meet the pandemic's rising numbers.
Claim: 'We again have tremendous amounts of supplies, we're in very good shape, and we can move them quickly'
Not according to internal administration documents obtained by NBC News, which showed that the federal government may not have the capacity to supply medical professionals with personal protective equipment.
Claim: The Trump administration inherited 'very, very empty cupboards'
This is a false claim we've fact-checked previously. Both former Obama administration officials and previous news reports dispute it. While Trump didn't inherit empty shelves, congressional budget cuts might have depleted parts of the Strategic National Stockpile during the Obama administration. However, Trump didn't do anything to change that during the first three years of his administration.
". . . The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president. . . "
. . . to know WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS!!
Dear Lisa Blunt Rochester,
Ethics regulations prevent executive branch employees from using their office for personal gain or to "endorse any product, service or enterprise for the private gain of friends or relatives." See https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/beans-brains-critics-say-trump-photo-promoting-goya-makes-clear-ivankas-tweet-was-no
I would like to know what you are going to do about this!!
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Dear Tom Carper,
Ethics regulations prevent executive branch employees from using their office for personal gain or to "endorse any product, service or enterprise for the private gain of friends or relatives." See https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/beans-brains-critics-say-trump-photo-promoting-goya-makes-clear-ivankas-tweet-was-no
I would like to know what you are going to do about this!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Chris Coons,
Ethics regulations prevent executive branch employees from using their office for personal gain or to "endorse any product, service or enterprise for the private gain of friends or relatives." See https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/15/beans-brains-critics-say-trump-photo-promoting-goya-makes-clear-ivankas-tweet-was-no
I would like to know what you are going to do about this!!
". . . A nonprofit group tallied 2,310 conflicts of interest stemming from President Trump’s unprecedented decision to retain a stake in his business properties since he took office in 2017. . . Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a report Thursday that calculated the number of times the president visited his properties at taxpayers' expense (362), the number of foreign government officials (110) and U.S. officials (250) who have visited Trump properties and the number of political events (63) held at his properties. . . Every president before Trump divested from his business interests before being sworn in, CREW noted. “Divestiture also served as an assurance to the public that the president would not open himself up to undue influence from special interests and foreign governments that might use his businesses as a way to curry favor with him and his administration,” the report said. However, Trump has not followed this precedent. . ."
(from The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John Bolton)
". . . Trump also said Kim Jong Un "has a vicious streak in him," and that he could be "mercurial," remembering an irritated look Kim John Un shot at one of his officials during the talks . . . "
Enough has been written about 45 for any sane person to realize that HE HAS NO IDEA of the existence of a word such as 'mercurial.' (Either Bolton has a very bad memory, or 45 is actually a true (and excellent) actor.)
". . . On Sunday, following a lower-than-expected turnout at Trump’s Tulsa rally, TikTok teens, young adults and K-pop stans (fans of Korean hip-hop and pop music) celebrated their efforts to troll the president. . . young people told NBC News they felt satisfied after seeing the modest crowd size. . . Trump and some of his high-profile supporters had bragged in the days before the rally that more than 1 million people had signed up to attend. Trump Campaign Manager Brad Parscale tweeted on June 14 that . . . more than 800,000 people had signed up for tickets at the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Center. . . Approximately 6,200 people attended the rally on Saturday, according to the Tulsa Fire Department. . . Parscale downplayed the impact of the online campaign in a statement Sunday. . . “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work. Reporters who wrote gleefully about TikTok and K-Pop fans — without contacting the campaign for comment — behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade,” Parscale said.. . . ". . . "
P.S. Why bother to 'contact the campaign for comment' when it (and current White House 'occupant') has previously offered so many untruths?
(from The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, Edited by Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.)
". . . No tyrant comes to power on the platform of genocidal tyranny, even though such ideas may be brewing already in the recesses of his mind. Each and every one of them promises to bring back law and order, create better economic conditions for the people, and restore the nation's glory. . . These empty promises - for the tyrant has little desire and even less ability to fulfill them - are always tied together with the thread of scapegoating Others, a necessary component that channels the narcissistic rage outward and increases the society's cohesion. . . "
". . . Trump claimed on Tuesday that his predecessor did not take action on reforming police in America . . . (Obama) did take action to reform police and attempt to reduce bias in law enforcement. The Trump administration is well aware of that, too: It unraveled those changes. . . "He said President Obama did nothing on police reform, but the fact is they made a lot of progress and President Trump rolled it back," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. . . Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said, "Donald Trump says President Obama and Vice President Biden didn't do anything on policing reform, but he knows that isn't true because he has spent the past three years tearing down the very reforms the Obama-Biden administration pursued.". . . "
(from The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, Edited by Bandy X. Lee, MD, MDiv.)
". . . Many critics of Trump, particularly journalists but also those in the mental health field, have focused on his so-called narcissism, his need to be constantly approved of, the childlike nature of his character. In this they are minimizing the significance of his paranoid beliefs and, in so doing, are relegating his psychological dysfunction to a much higher level than is actually the case. This is also true of those show believe he is simply using his attack on illegal immigrants and Muslims to feed his base. In doing so, they are suggesting that he himself knows better, that he knows that he is merely using these ideas because they will appeal to the white working-class men who make up the bulk of his voters. Yet, this overlooks and minimizes the more ominous probability: that he actually is paranoid and that there is an overlap of his personal hatreds and those of his followers. Together, they represent a desire to undo the impact of all that has changed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the general liberalization of society and life in the United States. . . "
". . . an executive order that will "encourage" officers to use "force, but force with compassion." "If somebody's real bad, you're going to have to do it with real strength,". . ."
". . . President Donald Trump has offended America’s long-time European allies to such a great degree they avoid looking to him for leadership or partnership, and “are turning their backs on him,” The New York Times reports. . . German Chancellor Angela Merkel “was so uncomfortable” with the thought of being with President Trump at the G-7 this summer, she told French President Emmanuel Macron, “I don’t want to be in the room with the guy,” according to William Drozdiak, a Brookings Institution senior fellow. Drozdiak has just published a book based on a series of interviews with the French President. . . France’s attitude “toward Trump is a mix of sadness and anger,” said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations. . . After nearly four years, Mr. Trump has no diplomatic accomplishments, Mr. Gomart said, listing failures on North Korea, the Middle East, a deterioration of relations with China and no improvement of relations with Russia. Instead, Mr. Macron believes that Mr. Trump has damaged European security through his unilateral abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal as well as nearly every arms control agreement with Russia. . ."
Showing footage of CNN remote crew being arrested by the Minnesota State Police for covering unrest. (Note: No explanation was offered the crew as to why they were being arrested.)
. . . intelligent (and articulate) president . . .
(from https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/trump-there8217s-many-per-capitas-20200521)
". . . And, you know, when you say “per capita,” there’s many per capitas. It’s, like, per capita relative to what? But you can look at just about any category, and we’re really at the top, meaning positive on a per capita basis, too. They’ve done a great job.
— Remarks by President Trump in a Meeting with Governor Hutchinson of Arkansas and Governor Kelly of Kansas, whitehouse.gov, 20 May 2020. . . "
