DL Open Thread: Sun., April 19, 2020
If An Unhinged President Gives An Unhinged Press Conference, Is It News To Show That The President Is Unhinged? I’m asking the journalists among us, and there are a few. I think the answer is yes, but it should be buttressed with analysis by mental health professionals and discussion of what it means for the Presidency and the country. I’m surprised I hear so little talk of the 25th Amendment. I mean, I hate to criticize a president who has saved billions of lives, but there you have it.
Everything Falls Apart, Ctd. US. Global. The latest carnage: 735,287 confirmed cases and 39,090 deaths in the US.
Trump Sends Masks To China. Ill. Governor Buys Masks From China. Trump PO’d. Needless to say, governors should not have to scour the world for overpriced masks while the president disavows any responsibility for getting the supplies. What would Trump have Pritzker do since Trump has told governors that they’re on their own?
How Seattle Turned A Soccer Match Into A Covid-19 Petri Dish…and the great lengths they went to to cover up its malfeasance. Great reporting from Pro Publica and the Seattle Times.
‘CEO’s Are America’s Real Moral Hazard’. Robert Reich speaks the truth–again.
More Infections At Delaware Prisons. At some point, Claire Dematteis’ Nurse Ratched impression will wear thin–as thin as the protections she’s not providing.
General Assembly In Limbo. I’m totally fine with this for now. A good article from Matt Bittle on where we stand. BTW, I subscribe to the Delaware State News. It’s worth it.
What do you want to talk about?
Antibody Tests On Market Have Not Been Checked By The FDA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/19/fda-antibody-tests-coronavirus-review/
In other words, they could be completely worthless and dangerous. I blame the governors.
As much as unhinged, this is just Trump 2020 campaign mode 101.
He is using COVID-19 as the excuse for massive, daily, nationally televised campaign rallies and what can the DEMs do about it? Hopefully something. Nose on face, this is undeniably clear.
No better image for Claire than as the villain of Cuckoo’s Nest, btw.
Maybe. But his numbers are going down. While most of it is likely due to his failure to lead, I think some of it is just the utter insanity of these briefings. He can’t grow his base any further, and the spike that any leader gets while leading in a time of crisis has long since subsided.
I usually look at the 538 poll of polls, and the trend is not his friend. Blaming others just isn’t working anymore. And, if you look at these Senate races, I think that he is inflicting damage up and down the ticket.
What a shame.
BTWBTW, I was once in a production of ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ at the Wilmington Drama League. The nicest person in the cast was Lorraine Beaver, who played Nurse Ratched. She was so good in the part, though, that the audience could barely bring themselves to applaud for her at curtain call.
Trump was getting ‘real-time’ updates from WHO on coronavirus:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/19/coronavirus-latest-news/#link-STS66CQEJFAVBPEFZWHUSLMWJE
Another lie debunked, not that it matters.
In response to your question about airing the conferences: Your idea is a good one. But even without a mental health discussion, this is an opportunity for the public to see him unfiltered by the media.
An Australian journalist who went to a briefing remarked that it revealed to her how much the media was cleaning up his insanity for public consumption. This gives people an unvarnished look, and it’s ugly as a mud fence. I think it’s important for people to see it. At this point, anyone who believes the shitgibbon gets what he or she had coming.
I thought creating moral hazard for bigger bonuses was what CEOs do.