“This seems like a big moment in the campaign. Trump explicitly told the nation that he should be trusted over his own CDC on the vaccine. That’s headline news. It unequivocally confirms what critics — including scientists inside the administration — have warned of.”
—Tweet by Greg Sargent, Sept. 16, 2020. [Who is Greg Sargent? Just an average American citizen capable of thinking for himself, that’s all.]
“There are approximately 328.2 million people in the US. To get to the low end of herd immunity, about 60% of the population must catch Covid. That’s about 196,920,000 cases.
The current US death rate is about 2.96%. So that’s 5,836,679 deaths necessary for herd immunity.”
—Tweet by Kyle Feldscher, another average American, Sept. 16, 2020. [The Spanish Flue pandemic of 2018, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killed 675,000 Americans. Let that sink in, Mr. Trump.]
“We’re very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we’re within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it.”
—Donald Trump, in Tuesday’s town hall Q & A. [CDC Director Robert Redfield disagrees, testifying before Congress that it could be as late as the third quarter of 2021 before a vaccine is widely available.]
“I think he made a mistake when he said that. It’s just incorrect information,” Trump told reporters. That is incorrect information. I believe if you asked him, he would probably say that he didn’t understand the question.”
—Trump, in response to Redfield’s testimony. [That’s right, Donnie, everyone’s wrong but you. Never let science get in the way of a good political agenda.]
“The president loves mixing it up with everybody. He did the interview with Jonathan Swan, the 18 tapes of Bob Woodward — now he did this. But this is an ambush.”
—Faux News host and Trump apologist Laura Ingraham, on that town hall meeting at which ordinary citizens asked question of Trump that any thoughtful voter might ask. [Maybe Laura’s pissed because a Black woman had the audacity to ask Trump to not interrupt and let her ask her question. Horrors! How rude of her!]
Louisiana Voice 
It looks as if Trump is pretty confident in assuming his “America’s First Dictatorship” by the way he is so often openly lying more bigly than ever before and getting such fine “dictatorship support” comments from AG Barr…All we need is for McConnell to weigh in and inform us that we are now under complete Trump (formerly Republican governance) and should just sit down and shut up! The chaos just keeps on coming….just Vote Blue all the way Thru…please!
“Vote blue”. First, you allege that Trump is a dictator. Then, in the next breath, we should support the Democrats who want to have control over every aspect of your life; from nationalized health care, to who is born, to control of what we eat, what we drive, and how we make a living (Green New Deal), to educate our children, to coddle criminals, to when we work or do not work. Who in their right mind would want Pelosi/Schumer/AOC/Harris to run their lives ?These are the same people who are supporting the madness in several of our liberal cities (they certainly have not discouraged behavior and have gone so far as to provide bail for these thugs).
How is it you slam Trump for his handling of pandemic but give Obama/Biden a free pass for how they responded to their pandemics. And no, Kyle Feldscher, we will lose nowhere near 5.2 million people. No one talks about the idiot liberal Governors who killed thousands of our elderly citizens(Cuomo, Newsome). That control is exercised by each state and the President has no control. (Biden “I will mandate masks”….oops, I can’t.) Joe has not the first clue of what he would do in a similar situation. It is easy to be a Monday morning QB. If a single critic had a better idea, why did they keep it to themselves? Because all they can do is criticize others decisions.
Please democrats. Let’s talk about your platform. Let’s discuss your options to Trump. Let us discuss an economy guided by the likes of AOC, Sanders and others.
Yes, yes Ms. Zoe! Let’s return to yesteryear. Let’s go back to the good ole days. When Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was, famously, so thick with combustible industrial chemicals that it often caught fire. Manhattan was dumping some 150 million gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River each day. Allowing lead to be used in so many products. Let’s let companies make and sell all the pesticides they want. Let’s ignore climate change. Let’s not say a word about how dangerous smoking is to your health and allow bars and other indoor places to allow smoking. Let’s do away with social security. Medicare. Let’s do away with street signal lights. Let’s not allow insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. Let’s do away with all government regulations. Let’s not wear masks. Let’s let herd “mentality” take care of the virus. Let’s trust corporations and people to do the right thing. They won’t take advantage of us. No one will speed or drink while driving. Shall I go on? For goodness sake let’s get rid of government in our lives so we can have freedom!
Let’s add doing away with manufacturing standards and requirements that make the companies build a safer product, Let’s do away with the FDA. Let’s do away with environmental standards, hell we don’t live in those communities along the river where all the chemical plants are located. Who cares about them. Let’s do away with workplace safety regulations. Affordable health care! Who needs that? I got mine.
Zoe, in another comment on this blog, you stated that as usual I bring nothing to the conversation. Well, Zoe, unlike many other posters on this blog, I find it very hard to take any of your comments seriously. Each time you post a comment, I found myself researching all that you posts and debunking them and it has become tiresome.
You keep asking people to put forth the Democratic platform, but as kamarcan said below, this election is not about platforms. It’s about defeating the hateful idiot that currently occupies the White House. It’s about defeating the idiot whose speeches, news conferences, and tweets constantly carry a divisive message and are often filled with lies.
You often speak about critics offering solutions. Zoe, trump does not even listen to the good advice that his own people give him. Critics do not have to offer alternatives. That is the job of his advisers and cabinet. He is the POTUS. He was elected to make these decisions, after good counsel with his advisers. But, he does not listen.
As for weaponizing the CIA, the FBI, and the IRS, what do you mean by that Anyway, I can only name two presidents who thought and think that the DOJ and various cabinet members work directly for him. And when such people do not follow orders that are contrary to the law they are dismissed. One, a Republican president by the name of Nixon, who was famous for the Friday Night Massacre, during the Watergate controversy. The second, is trump who has relieved so many of his top cabinet officers and other high level appointees, I can’t keep count. Many weren’t even fired, they left on their own volition.
I read an article about the Marxist ties to the BLM movement. Interesting. But, do you actually believe that a concern about systematic racism by certain law enforcement is a Marxist ideology? You also label the looters and rioters as Democrats. How can you do that? In all honesty, I believe that most of those individuals don’t belong to a political party, probably aren’t registered to vote and if registered, probably don’t vote. That’s what you should fear. Those people taking their voice to the polls.
Zoe, I just watched a clip of Brian Williams, from MSNBC, Eugene Robinson, and Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC. They had just listened to trump’s remarks about the testimony the head of the CDC had given on Capitol Hill. trump was asked by a reporter how can he contradict the head of the CDC. trump’s response is that the man perjured himself and that he evidently didn’t understand the question being asked by the congressman. trump also commented that if it weren’t for the Blue States, the Covid-19 cases would not be so high. Brian Williams asked Robinson and Steele for their opinion. I will only paraphrase what Steele said. He basically said that he was so tired of trying to tell the 40% that they need to jump ship. How after hearing lie after lie you can trust this man. This from a former chair of the RNC. (I know it’s incorrect to begin a sentence with an initial lower case. But, I did it anyway.)
“Slamming” trump for his mis-handling of COVID 19 doesn’t mean anyone gets a free pass. trumps bungled response is criticized widely on its own lack of merit. And the pandemics you compare are not the same… not in scale, scope or impact. There are simply more options here than the binary pair of options that you repeatedly apply to your opponents with reckless abandon.
And the “idiot liberal governors” were forced to take control in the vacuum left by trump when he abandoned us all because the press stopped providing live coverage of his political rallies that masqueraded as pandemic press conferences… and also because he couldn’t take responsibility for stupid comments like injecting bleach, among others. So now, he just criticizes the people who actually DO something and tries openly to corrupt public statistics from the CDC…. while cheerleading himself.
You want to talk platforms with the Democrats? This election isn’t about platforms. It’s about a hateful idiot and the damage he has done to our system of government. Hell… I can’t even give him credit for the things he’s done that I agree with because of the bullshit he does seconds later. I’m sure there’s a Democrat here that could engage you on “platform” but you’re going to need a friend that can help you develop a more realistic and reasonable view of the Democratic platform. It can start by adding the words “my neighbors, friends and family” in front of the political party that you are criticizing. I.E. “…we should support my neighbors, friends and family the Democrats who want to have control over every aspect of your life…”. They’re voting citizens with equal standing in this country… not some alien species. But if we keep referring to them as if they are, then it becomes easier to believe the lies you read about them. It’s ridiculous that a conservative, disabled veteran that has voted Republican my entire life has to to tell you this.
Recommended for everybody and every bot: THE SOCIAL DILEMMA, a documentary on Netflix.
Watching this gave me insight into why my views can be the polar opposite of others. It really is because we experience different realities. If I Google something, as one example, I am directed to things Google AI knows I want to see and the same for the people with completely different views. The same is true of Facebook and other social media. Why? Because our preferences are monetized by the amount of time we spend looking at different things on the web.
Although the documentary focuses on the Internet, the same principles apply to all media. Think about it. If I get all my news from OAN or Fox, I get a very different view than if I get it from CNN or broadcast news networks and, if I watch MSNBC or go all the way to RT I get the opposite extreme from Fox and OAN.
Anyhow, if you have Netflix, please watch this. It lasts 1 hour and 33 minutes and is well worth your time. I hear it can be seen on You Tube even if you don’t have Netflix, but am not sure about that.
Yep, that’s why I keep telling people they should disconnect from social media. There’s an old maxim I learned in EE school: Garbage in = garbage out. It applies in electronics as well as media consumption.