by Amanda Marcotte | June 24, 2020 - 7:32am | permalink
At his Tulsa rally on Saturday, Donald Trump may have failed to draw the big crowd or the violent protests he desired, but he did enter a new phase in his efforts to make the coronavirus pandemic disappear through the magical power of lying about it.
During Trump's disjointed speech, he mentioned that the "bad part" about testing people for the virus lies in the fact that "you're going to find more cases."
"So I said to my people, slow the testing down please," he added, protesting that they "test and they test" and suggesting that cases that might otherwise be written off as "the sniffles" then get classified as COVID-19.
This is far from the first time that Trump has publicly speculated about concealing the extent of the pandemic by clamping down on testing. Indeed, there's every reason to believe that the glacial pace of testing in the U.S. is a direct reflection of the president's wishes.
As Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, observed the last time Trump whined about testing, "The lack of tests isn't accidental. It's by design."
Despite this history, the White House made a show of playing Trump's comment as a joke, with one administration official telling CNN that Trump was "obviously kidding" and another saying it was "tongue in cheek." But Trump doesn't like it when his own people undermine his heartfelt desire to make the coronavirus go away through pure denialism
by Steven Harper | June 24, 2020 - 7:04am | permalink
Amid protests over the police killing of an unarmed Black man, Trump announces that he will resume campaign rallies on June 19. The date is also known as Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the US. He plans to hold the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 — one of the worst events of racial violence in American history.
The racial overtones associated with Trump’s choice of date and city create immediate controversy that overshadows another fact: He chose an indoor venue with a capacity of 19,000 people at a time when Oklahoma, especially Tulsa, is experiencing a spike in confirmed COVID-19 infections.
In fact, Trump misleads his followers into a false sense of security: “They’ve done a great job with COVID, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma.”
Trump also says that he plans rallies in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina — states where new COVID-19 infections are also increasing.
by Robert Reich | June 24, 2020 - 6:37am | permalink
Excerpt:
Why are we so different from other nations facing the same coronavirus threat? Why has everything gone so tragically wrong in America?
Part of it is Donald Trump.
Covid in the Country
by Laura Flanders | June 24, 2020 - 6:01am
Excerpt:
Although the toll of the coronavirus has been most acute in urban areas, the virus has been spreading in rural America. The reasons behind the uptick are numerous, from lack of medical providers, hospitals and personal protective equipment, to limited broadband and large proportions of uninsured and poorly protected farm and factory workers.
“They’re called essential workers, but they’re not treated as essential human beings,” says Sandra Oxford of the Hudson Valley Labor Federation in this special report.
Is being rural a pre-existing vulnerability in this crisis? Equipped with a facemask and a selfie stick, Laura Flanders reports (from a responsible distance) on the impact of Covid-19 on one poor, rural county just 100 miles from New York City. She talks to poultry workers, dairy workers, artists, activists and labor organizers about what the pandemic has revealed about their county from its economic fragility, to the strength of local social networks. What fears do people have facing a future of more budget cuts and what sort of investment is most needed now?
by Jeffrey Sterling | June 24, 2020 - 5:55am | permalink
It is hard to find many positives as the death toll from the novel coronavirus continues to climb, but as we have seen before with situations of crisis, truth does find a way to make itself known. In the sense of whistleblowing, we saw it with the crisis involving the president, which demonstrated the worth and power of whistleblowers to bring accountability to power (though of course, the end result had more to do with denial than truth).
Now we see the revealing nature of whistleblowing once again as so many have been coming forward to reveal how we have had no preparedness nor plan with regard to combatting the coronavirus. Whistleblowers have testified before Congress about how woefully unprepared we have been and how the response from those charged with protecting us and this nation has been, at best, deemed inadequate, and at worse, negligent. Imagine where we would be in this pandemic without the courage of those who have dared to come forward to reveal the realities of our government’s response to and our preparedness in a global crisis.
by Ted Glick | June 23, 2020 - 8:11am | permalink
I watched President Donald Trump's speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday evening for an hour and a half. I don’t think I’ve ever watched one of his speeches live from the beginning to almost the end, but I did Saturday night.
The stakes are high, and it felt like I should see for myself how this miserable excuse for a human being was going to make his re-election argument.
A huge part of his plan, of course, was to pack the Tulsa arena to overflowing, 22,000 inside and 40,000 in an overflow area. That part failed miserably. No overflow crowd, and no packed arena. Trump was reduced to pretending, lying, that "bad guy" protesters outside had prevented people from coming in.
But he soldiered on. And by "soldiered" I mean that he spent a quarter or more of his speech ad-libbing—forgetting the teleprompter—about his Commander-in-Chief speech at West Point a week or so ago. But even there, what did he talk about? Not the content of his speech, which he claimed went over spectacularly with the troops, of course, but instead, amazingly, astoundingly, a presentation about all that he had to endure up there with the West Point generals: the sun in his eyes, the heat, having to salute "600 times," but most of all, the way in which the "fake news media" fixated on how weak he looked walking down a short ramp from the stage to the ground. Trump went on and on about how, because he had "leather shoes," and because the ramp was like "an ice skating rink," he had to be very careful, with little steps, telling the general next to him who had the right kind of shoes that he should be ready in case Trump slipped.
If Trump was a stand-up comic instead of a President, this trivial, self-pitying story might become known as one of the best, long, stand-up comic routines of the year.
by Amanda Marcotte | June 23, 2020 - 8:06am | permalink
Don't even bother trying to resist the pleasures of Donald Trump's epic face-plant in Tulsa over the weekend. One of the oldest and purest forms of humor is laughing at a buffoon whose exaggerated sense of self-importance conflicts with the evidence provided by reality, a tradition that extends from Dogberry in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" to the tone-deaf people who in "American Idol" auditions who believe they sound like Mariah Carey.
And boy howdy, the contrast between reality and expectations set by Trump and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, could not have been greater. Parscale excitedly touted a million registrations for Trump's Saturday evening rally. Internally, the campaign's more conservative prediction was around 60,000 people — more than three times what the Tulsa arena could hold — but believed as many as 300,000 supporters might turn out.
by P.M. Carpenter | June 23, 2020 - 7:21am | permalink
According to White Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany — the only harpy on earth who can make Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee seem reputable — the barely attended Tulsa rally was a "huge success" that received "rave reviews" which put Trump in "very good spirits."
Not even Fox News' Steve Doocy bought that. Perhaps Hugh Hewitt wrote a rave review, since he's nearly as much of a lying spin artist as Ms. McEnany is. But the remainder of Earth's seven billion population just laughed its ass off at the auditorium's one-third capacity, which McEnany brushed over at a blinding prolixity speed of 600-words per minute.
As usual, the White House and Trump's campaign didn't bother to get their stories straight before declaring a huge success or assigning blame. While McEnany was praising an imaginary horde that was slopping up Trump's rhetorical sewage, campaign manager Brad Parscale effectively was declaring the auditorium an empty tomb because of — what else? — The Media. (According to Parscale, it created fearful hysteria over the rally's spread of covid.)
Excerpt:
Although the toll of the coronavirus has been most acute in urban areas, the virus has been spreading in rural America. The reasons behind the uptick are numerous, from lack of medical providers, hospitals and personal protective equipment, to limited broadband and large proportions of uninsured and poorly protected farm and factory workers.
“They’re called essential workers, but they’re not treated as essential human beings,” says Sandra Oxford of the Hudson Valley Labor Federation in this special report.
Is being rural a pre-existing vulnerability in this crisis? Equipped with a facemask and a selfie stick, Laura Flanders reports (from a responsible distance) on the impact of Covid-19 on one poor, rural county just 100 miles from New York City. She talks to poultry workers, dairy workers, artists, activists and labor organizers about what the pandemic has revealed about their county from its economic fragility, to the strength of local social networks. What fears do people have facing a future of more budget cuts and what sort of investment is most needed now?
by Jeffrey Sterling | June 24, 2020 - 5:55am | permalink
Excerpt:
Now we see the revealing nature of whistleblowing once again as so many have been coming forward to reveal how we have had no preparedness nor plan with regard to combatting the coronavirus. Whistleblowers have testified before Congress about how woefully unprepared we have been and how the response from those charged with protecting us and this nation has been, at best, deemed inadequate, and at worse, negligent. Imagine where we would be in this pandemic without the courage of those who have dared to come forward to reveal the realities of our government’s response to and our preparedness in a global crisis.
by Ted Glick | June 23, 2020 - 8:11am | permalink
Excerpt:
The stakes are high, and it felt like I should see for myself how this miserable excuse for a human being was going to make his re-election argument.
A huge part of his plan, of course, was to pack the Tulsa arena to overflowing, 22,000 inside and 40,000 in an overflow area. That part failed miserably. No overflow crowd, and no packed arena. Trump was reduced to pretending, lying, that "bad guy" protesters outside had prevented people from coming in.
But he soldiered on. And by "soldiered" I mean that he spent a quarter or more of his speech ad-libbing—forgetting the teleprompter—about his Commander-in-Chief speech at West Point a week or so ago. But even there, what did he talk about? Not the content of his speech, which he claimed went over spectacularly with the troops, of course, but instead, amazingly, astoundingly, a presentation about all that he had to endure up there with the West Point generals: the sun in his eyes, the heat, having to salute "600 times," but most of all, the way in which the "fake news media" fixated on how weak he looked walking down a short ramp from the stage to the ground. Trump went on and on about how, because he had "leather shoes," and because the ramp was like "an ice skating rink," he had to be very careful, with little steps, telling the general next to him who had the right kind of shoes that he should be ready in case Trump slipped.
If Trump was a stand-up comic instead of a President, this trivial, self-pitying story might become known as one of the best, long, stand-up comic routines of the year.
by Amanda Marcotte | June 23, 2020 - 8:06am | permalink
Excerpt:
And boy howdy, the contrast between reality and expectations set by Trump and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, could not have been greater. Parscale excitedly touted a million registrations for Trump's Saturday evening rally. Internally, the campaign's more conservative prediction was around 60,000 people — more than three times what the Tulsa arena could hold — but believed as many as 300,000 supporters might turn out.
by P.M. Carpenter | June 23, 2020 - 7:21am | permalink
Excerpt:
Not even Fox News' Steve Doocy bought that. Perhaps Hugh Hewitt wrote a rave review, since he's nearly as much of a lying spin artist as Ms. McEnany is. But the remainder of Earth's seven billion population just laughed its ass off at the auditorium's one-third capacity, which McEnany brushed over at a blinding prolixity speed of 600-words per minute.
As usual, the White House and Trump's campaign didn't bother to get their stories straight before declaring a huge success or assigning blame. While McEnany was praising an imaginary horde that was slopping up Trump's rhetorical sewage, campaign manager Brad Parscale effectively was declaring the auditorium an empty tomb because of — what else? — The Media. (According to Parscale, it created fearful hysteria over the rally's spread of covid.)
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