My Substitute Reality -You're just jealous cause the little voices only talk to me-

Monday April 13, 2020

From WaPo

Filed under: Nothing — don @ 7:59 am

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/23/lets-be-honest-impeachment-hurt-trumps-response-coronavirus/https://www.washingtonpost.com/

President Trump has been roundly criticized for allegedly failing to prepare for the coronavirus
 crisis before it arrived in the United States. Those critics conveniently overlook something else that could have been distracting the president’s attention during that crucial period: impeachment.
It seems forever ago, but Trump’s impeachment was the major story in January and early February — the same time that disease was forcing China to lock down cities. Despite the near certainty that Republicans would not vote to convict the president, Democrats and most of the major media were almost entirely focused on impeachment. As a result, the White House was focused on addressing this threat to its survival, not on preparing for a threat from China that might never even materialize.
Trump’s efforts to prepare the nation for this pandemic has been far from perfect, but the one thing the president did do to stop the virus’s spread to the United States during that period — restricting air travel from China — was heavily criticized
. Even former vice president Joe Biden criticized
 the president’s ban as “hysterical xenophobia.” At the time, partisan vituperation had reached a fever pitch because of impeachment. Given that impeachment managers were regularly calling Trump a king or incipient dictator, a more forceful response against the virus in January or early February likely wouldn’t have gone over well.
In fact, the situation could be even worse today had the Democrats gotten their way. Imagine if Republicans had buckled under the pressure and backed the Democratic move to subpoena witnesses. The Senate would have spent most of February interviewing witnesses in depositions and probably fighting in court to force recalcitrant witnesses to testify. It’s extremely unlikely that the matter would have been over by the end of the month, yet the markets started to decline on Feb. 24
 as it became clear that Europe and the United States would not avoid the virus’s spread. Would the House Democrats have suspended their attempt to remove the president at this crucial time, or would they have redoubled their efforts instead?
Impeachment’s lingering stain is damaging the country even today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the president have not spoken during this crisis, nor will they. Their hatred is deep and mutual, and impeachment made their breach irreparable.
The fact is that nearly four years of irrational Trump hatred has brought us to the point where any action he takes is subject to criticism. Had he acted decisively in February when he had time, many surely would have accused him of manufacturing a crisis to distract the public from impeachment. Now that we are suffering from that month’s relative inaction, he is attacked for failing to act in advance. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
This latter point gets overlooked in the discussion over Trump’s purported failures. No European leader stockpiled covid-19 tests or ordered ventilators and masks in preparation for the worst. Yes, Trump might have played down the crisis in rhetoric, but when it comes to actual policy, the sainted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepared his country no better than Trump prepared the United States. The rational analyst sees these facts and notes that it is extraordinarily difficult for politicians to foresee an event unprecedented in modern times and act accordingly. But Trump-phobia, of which impeachment was only the most obvious symptom, prevents too many from seeing the obvious even now.
This must end if we are to get through the present crisis. The #Resistance has made “not my president” its slogan for years. Well, like it or not, he is the president, and barring death or incapacitation will remain so for the crisis’s duration. Criticizing Trump’s actions is appropriate, but the hyper-partisanship that views any act that he could possibly take as presumptively tainted and wrong must end if we are to come together as one nation and fight this battle together.
The failed impeachment effort, however, has made this highly unlikely. People who just a month ago had been whipped into a frenzy over Trump’s supposed dictatorial tendencies will find it hard to suddenly be willing to trust him as the crisis demands a degree of federal action not seen since the 1930s and 1940s. We entered a crisis that demanded national unity as a fractured and bitter people. It didn’t have to be that way, but more than three years of a refusal to accept that Trump had fairly won the election — a period of willful denial that culminated in impeachment — made it so.
Impeachment advocates once implored Trump defenders to put “country over party.” Now that the country is really under assault, it’s imperative that they heed their own advice.

Wednesday April 8, 2020

Fiddling While America Burns

Filed under: Life,Politics — don @ 9:03 am

January 11: Chinese state media report the first known death from an illness originating in the Wuhan market.
January 15: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) holds a vote to send articles of impeachment to the Senate. Pelosi and House Democrats celebrate the “solemn” occasion with a signing ceremony, using commemorative pens. That same day, the first person with coronavirus in the United States arrives from China, where he had been in Wuhan.
January 21: The first American case of coronavirus is confirmed at a clinic in Snohomish County, Washington.
January 23: The House impeachment managers make their opening arguments for removing President Trump.
January 23: China closes off the city of Wuhan completely to slow the spread of coronavirus to the rest of China.
January 27: The White House convenes a special task force to deal with the emerging threat of coronavirus.
January 29: The president chairs a meeting of the White House coronavirus task force for the first time.
January 30: Senators begin asking two days of questions of both sides in the president’s impeachment trial.
January 30: The World Health Organization declares a global health emergency as coronavirus continues to spread.
January 31: The Senate holds a vote on whether to allow further witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial.
January 31: President Trump declares a national health emergency and imposes a ban on travel to and from China. Former Vice President Joe Biden calls Trump’s decision “hysterical xenophobia … and fear-mongering.”
February 2: The first death from coronavirus outside China is reported in the Philippines.
February 3: House impeachment managers begin closing arguments, calling Trump a threat to national security.
February 4: President Trump talks about coronavirus in his State of the Union address; Pelosi rips up every page.
February 5: The Senate votes to acquit President Trump on both articles of impeachment, 52-48 and 53-47.
February 5: House Democrats finally take up coronavirus in the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia.

It’s pretty clear from this the leaders in this country were not concerned with the coming pandemic.  They were much more concerned with impeaching a President they had hated since his election over 3 years earlier.

Trump hasn’t done everything right but he hasn’t done half the evils the left has accused him of.  The country needs to come together to fight this.  Having TDS makes it a lot harder as people tend to look for “orange man bad” in every story.

Remember the media jumping on the story of the man and women who took “chloroquine” because Trump said it would help?  Lies.  Firstly, they took a fish tank cleaner, not the drug that is typically prescribed for malaria.  Second, the woman at least was a Democrat supporter and not a rabid Trump fan like the media wanted us to believe.  Their desire was to blame Trump for the man’s death so they could discredit him more.

Every time I see a story headline about how the White House is in crisis or how Trump “boiled over” or some other epic meltdown that supposedly happened I simply look at where it came from.  If HuffPo or CNN or MSNBC it’s clear they have an agenda to make him look bad.  Other media outlets except Fox News have an agenda to not make him look good.  Fox News does ignore or twist some stories to make it seem like he’s the messiah.

The bottom line is he’s our President and he isn’t perfect but he doesn’t hate America.  He’s certainly trying to do the right thing and when you listen to the expert Drs like Fauci and Brix they say he listens to them and usually does what they suggest.  He’s not a Darth Vadar regardless of what some think.  I’m still not voting for him in 2020 though.

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