Assailing President Trump’s silence on aid to states and municipalities, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said, “Mr. President, are you going to save New York City or are you telling New York City to drop dead?”
Please consider White House Calls Testing ‘Sufficient’ but States Say They Need More.
In Maryland and Virginia, governors said stay-at-home orders would have to remain in effect until those states begin to see decreases in the number of Covid-19 cases. Elsewhere in the nation, state officials said they would need to conduct far more testing before easing restrictions, and continue to face shortages of supplies and testing kits.
“We are fighting a biological war,” Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on the “State of the Union” program on CNN. He added that governors have been forced “to fight that war without the supplies we need.”
On the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday morning that “there is a sufficient capacity of testing across the country today for any state in America to go to a Phase One level” of easing some restrictions.
Mr. Northam, a Democrat, called Mr. Pence’s claim “delusional,” saying that Virginia lacks the swabs needed for the tests. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan another Democrat, said her state could handle “double or triple” the current number of tests “if we had the swabs or reagents.”
And Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said that it was “absolutely false” to claim that governors were not acting aggressively enough to pursue as much testing as possible.
Larry Hogan, a Republican
In addition to being a Republican, Larry Hogan is also the chair of the National Governors Association.
“Every governor in America has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests not only from the federal government but from every private lab in America and from all across the world and we continue to do so,” said Hogan.
Liberation Effort
Despite saying he would “allow” governors to make their own decisions on when to reopen their economies, Trump called on Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan to “Liberate” their economies.
Liberate Michigan
Liberate Minnesota
Liberate Virginia
For starters it is not up to Trump to “allow” states to to make their own decisions. Rather, states get to make their own decisions, period.
Second, after that presumptions power grab, Trump incited residents of those states to defy their governors.
Trump Encourages Protests
The New York Times claims Trump Encourages Protest Against Governors Who Have Imposed Virus Restrictions
In a series of all-caps tweets that started two minutes after a Fox News report on the protesters, the president declared, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” — two states whose Democratic governors have imposed strict social distancing restrictions. He also lashed out at Virginia.
His stark departure from the more bipartisan tone of his announcement on Thursday night suggested Mr. Trump was ceding any semblance of national leadership on the pandemic, and choosing instead to divide the country by playing to his political base.
Inciting Insurrection
The Washington Post claims Trump’s ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ tweets incite insurrection.
“Liberate” — particularly when it’s declared by the chief executive of our republic — isn’t some sort of cheeky throwaway. Its definition is “to set at liberty,” specifically “to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power.” We historically associate it with the armed defeat of hostile forces during war, such as the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control during World War II. Just over a year ago, Trump himself announced that “the United States has liberated all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.”
It’s an echo of the “Second Amendment remedies” rhetoric of the 2010 midterm election. It’s clearly a violation of federalism principles, and it’s quite possibly a crime under federal law. And insurrection or treason against state government is a crime in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota, as well as most states. Assembling with others to train or practice using firearms or other explosives for use during a civil disorder is also a crime in many states. But the president himself is calling for just that.
Regardless of whether the tweets are criminal on their own, more importantly, they are irresponsible and dangerous. Private armed militias recently expressed eagerness to support the president’s veiled call to arms when he shared a comment on Twitter suggesting that if he were impeached and removed from office, it could lead to civil war.
Irresponsible and Dangerous
I am no constitutional expert, but I have some friends who are. I will bounce this idea off them.
Regardless, I agree with the WP that the Tweets are at best irresponsible and dangerous.
Pence Ducks and Dodges Question
Please consider Pence Ducks and Dodges When Grilled on Trump’s ‘Liberate’ Tweets
Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace immediately confronted Pence on the growing anti-quarantine protests, asking him to personally weigh in while also noting that many of the participants were ignoring social distancing.
Pence, for the most part, swept that question aside in favor of generally praising the president’s handling of the pandemic before saying that Trump now wants to get the country back to work.
Wallace, meanwhile, pointed out that in many cases “these protesters—who are not social distancing—are saying they don’t want to wait” and are actually protesting against the administration’s own guidelines to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, anchor Chuck Todd also stated that the three states Trump targeted are all following the administration’s guidelines, pressing Pence to explain what the president is trying to liberate them from.
As he did with Wallace, Pence ducked the question, instead talking about Trump’s hopeful wish to quickly reopen the country while parroting Trump’s refrain that the “cure can’t be worse than the disease.” Todd, however, interjected to repeatedly ask what the president was tweeting about.
“I have given you a lot of leeway,” the NBC News host continued. “Why is the president trying to undermine the guidance you have been laying out? And that he’s been — he laid out this guidance on Thursday and undermined it on Friday.”
Appeal to the Base Foolishness
Please note that even the Fox News anchor is uncomfortable with Trump’s Liberation Tweets. And Pence repeatedly dodged the question.
Once again Trump plays to his base with such tactics. But his base is going nowhere.
Nearly everyone except those who would always vote for Trump anyway is at least somewhat uncomfortable with such divisive tactics.
All Trump had to do to win in 2020 was act like a President instead of a partisan clown.
He cannot do it because he thrives on the adulation he gets from rabid supporters who will always vote for him anyway.
This message comes from someone who voted for Trump in 2016.
Neither the extreme Left who believes the Democrats need a Progressive candidate to win, nor the Ever-Trump Right, understands what I just said.
The swing voters, independents, and anti-Hillary voters are why Trump won in 2016 and they are why Trump will lose in 2020, assuming Biden makes a sensible choice for VP that independents can back.
Mish
If anyone in my family dies, I will gladly liberate as many as I can.
How did Mish go from freedom loving Libertarian to rooting for more shutdowns and liberties being taken away from us? This is one of the saddest parts of this whole ordeal.
Imagine the C-19 crisis getting worse by November, and Trump still winning. What would that say about the stupidity of the American voter? Talk about “protest vote”!
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and don’t intend to do so in 2020, but unfortunately there is nothing “sensible” about the modern Democratic Party – and that includes Joe Biden or any running mate he might pick.
I’m so proud of our true American patriots standing up without masks showing that they are far smarter than any government or scientist in the world with respect to this virus. The world is apparently fully of pointy-headed pansies who are afraid of a little flu–every country in the world shuts down in a concerted a secret conspiracy to undermine our dear leader. After weeks of intensive on-line study, they have come to the conclusion that it is the duty of the thousands or so bold ones to step freely into this scam and put grandma and grandpa (and a certain, ahem, few others) on the line as true American patriots who want to go out and shop. Science is the new religion and religion is the new science…if you don’t believe it, it ain’t true.
If anyone in my family dies, I will gladly liberate those wonderful patriots.
Trump has the power to withdraw US troops from around the MENA and around the world. He should do so. He would lose the backing of the MICC (as Nixon did for ending Vietnam) and might lose the election. He would also lose the backing of the ‘Republican’ Senate.
Trump should also get his Korea agreement back on which Bolton wrecked, deliberately.
Foreign policy is where presidents can make a difference. The economy belongs to Congress.
“For starters it is not up to Trump to “allow” states to to make their own decisions. Rather, states get to make their own decisions, period.”
True. Trump does not have the power to stop tyrannical governors and mayors from shutting down everything they deem ‘unnecessary’ and eliminating the last vestiges of liberty in this once-free country.
isn’t it amazing how tyrannical govnahs fall along party lines?
“In addition to being a Republican, Larry Hogan is also the chair of the National Governors Association.”
He is from Prince George’s County and the first ‘Republican’ to win a state-wide election since Sen Mathias way back when.
This county is populated by anti-business, pro-big government lefties and idiots. The State of Maryland would turn into a cesspool quickly if not for the tax revenues provided by PG and Montgomery Counties.
I understand that it is wrong for a pasty white guy to wear blackface. But, is it “wrong” for Pence to wear “brownface” from shoving his nose so far up The Dumpster®’s asshole? Asking for a friend.
The Dumpster is an incoherent, inarticulate, incompetent, morbidly obese, narcissistic sociopath. Which explains everything.
#TrumpRecession #TrumpDepression #TrumpVirus
Morgan said that he still considers Trump a friend but that he could no longer hold his tongue amid the “mounting horror” that are the daily White House briefings.
“He’s turning these briefings into a self-aggrandizing, self-justifying, overly defensive, politically partisan — almost like a rally to him,” Morgan said. “Trump’s ratings are falling, and the reason for that is — he needs to understand this — they’re falling because people don’t trust him.”
Her in MN, 79% of our employees are now working.
We are also doing a great job sheltering, especially when you compare our per capita cases with no-shelter states of Iowa, ND & SD as well as our shelter neighbor WI.
Trump’s tweet promoting and encouraging this is ridiculous.
Despite good health care, our rural health care has been consistently going down. Without federal funds, they’ll be shuttering more locations.
If the protesters have their way, our hospitals would end up over flowing by June, Interrupting medical device & PPE production.
I’m in a VERY Republican suburb, last night 3 people on my block had parties on their yard. Warmish weather played a part, but Trump played a part too….i know because the drunk fools were yelling pro-trump things.
Since I’m looking at buying 2 more 1 acre lots in the neighborhood, I’ll gladly add those 3 to my watch list.
Might want to pick up a shotgun, just in case.
Done and done. Best part is everyone in the neighborhood is friendly yet fearful of me. I have MANY sharpshooting awards and the best security system around 😃
The fact that tRump is still getting such a high approval rating in this country means that this country’s fate is probably doomed for a long time. Russians finally get their revenge.
Your Russian collusion delusion has rotted your brain keep your eyes peeled to the TV, makes you well informed.
My major criticism of Trump is he didn’t shut down travel from China and Europe soon enough. Everything else falls on the CDC contaminating test kits and CDC/WHO spreading the lie that masks didn’t work. Cutting off funding to WHO was the first step. Next is to fire the head of the CDC. If people want a vaccine, ban the FDA and let big pharma pay people $100,000 a person to take the risk of testing the vaccine.
WTF? How dare they talk about reopening the economy when they still cannot 60 days later get hand sanitizer onto store shelves!
For those who still think covid-19 is no worse than a flu, consider that 0.15% of the entire population of NYC has already died of covid. Flu’s typically kill about 0.1% of the infected, not the entire population.
It’s the flu…hide in your house all you want
Top quality response, full of facts and logical arguments.
Except that it is wrong by a factor of nearly ten
Not changing your mind but it is less deadly than the serious flu…just media inundated you with CFR rates every 20 mins to keep you scared…the 2017-18 flu season had 80k deaths and SARS overwhelmed the HC system and they were building tents in emergency room parking lots from overflow of cases and we did not shut down the country and the people because a virus, this was all the flatten the infection rate to not overwhelm the HC system, did not happen, back to work and open the economy
You are missing a decimal point there. Even using city pop of 8.4 mil and the highest fatality rate rather than official
No, I’m not. 14,500/8,500,000=0.0017. That’s 0.17%. Your “correction” to my math is off. Nice try though.
Yes and I also believe that on 911 3 skyscrapers all collapsed into their own footprint at free fall speed due to furniture fire.
Biden’s ties with China might be his undoing.
To Americans, Trump is better than China.
So Biden is better than North Korea? I’m not following your logic.
“Nixon goes to China”
“To Americans, Trump is better than China.”
Better at what? Failing at containing something Trump thinks is just a flu? Failing to produce a facemask? Failing at absolutely everything, period? All of the above?
Perhaps I should clarify. I wasn’t comparing Trump the person with China. I was comparing the idea of Trump vs the idea of anything Chinese related.
“I am no constitutional expert, but I have some friends who are. I will bounce this idea off them”. Be prepared for as many different answers according to the number of people answer the question.
I bet you are right. I still hope to hear their responses.
If we are to discuss Constitutional violations, the governors already have violated the First Amendments freedom of religion and freedom to assemble, the Fifth Amendment’s deprivation of liberty without due process (given we are all under house arrest) and those of us who live alone are effectively in solitary confinement, which many consider to be cruel and unusual punishment, and in Violation of the Eighth Amendment.
And this doesn’t consider the State Constitutions. I see plenty of grounds for impeaching state governors right now. Quarantining the sick is accepted, but quarantining the healthy? I don’t like this precedent at all, it would be way too easy to abuse.
Trump is getting desperate because of the economy, but a global recession is already baked in the cake with all the economic dislocatoins the world has endured thus far because of Covid-19.
Nevertheless, Biden is a pretty bad choice as a nominee. According to a NYT survey, 4 out of 5 Sanders supporters plan to vote for Biden, but none were enthusiastic and some were not quite committed. Some might not bother to vote if they were busy with other things. More interestengly, 15% plan to vote for Trump, perhaps blue collar voters who are drawn to Trump’s protectionist views. These 15% will probably play a crucial role in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, so we may very well see a redux of the 2016 elections with Trump winning, unless Trump screws up “bigly” (always a possibility).
Then there’s this sexual assault claim against Biden. I wonder how that will play out with the Democrat’s base.
In Spain there is no second ammendment to save, instead there is a row over socialist control of… well of everything. The coalition partners have previously called for the abolition of private media, more recently there are survey questions by the national research institute, ones that feed policy choices, that asked if the Spanish wanted a single authority on information about the virus, and then today this
where the second in command of the guardia civil states from own written document that their orders are to
“Another of the lines of work is also to minimize that climate that is contrary to the government’s crisis management”.
The climate being referred to is opposition and criticism of the government handling.
There are even suggestions of attempts to outlaw a right wing party.
Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal should unite with northern african nations.
They’ve got much more in common with them then with northern european countries.
Pretty sad, but between Trump and those guys, Xi and the CCP don’t exactly have a hard time playing the role of the adult in the room….
There is no testing!! I see ads requesting people who have recovered from covid19 to donate blood and I may be one of those people but there are NO TESTS!!!! Trump is worthless! He should not only be impeached – he should be executed for treason!
Kudos Mish. Mr Stable Genius just can’t operate without stirring the pot to a flat, to declining, base. He’s not running a country – just pandering to a base.
Ya’ll liberals are in trouble now: trump has unleashed Meal Team Six!