Conservative pundits blame a grab bag of supposed villains amid the coronavirus outbreak

[homersapien 11,449]

Choose your scapegoat: Democrats, the news media, the Chinese government, the “deep state,” Bernie Sanders or even “identity politics.”

All received some share of the blame this week from conservative media figures for the growing public concern over the coronavirus, the communicable disease that has spread across the globe.

In fact, many conservative commentators have expressed less interest in the spread of the virus or efforts to combat it than they are in the story of the virus — a story they are convinced shows evidence of bias designed to harm President Trump.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson’s commentaries were a mix of paranoia, erroneous information and sometimes dangerous conspiracy theories about the virus, which has killed about 2,800 people, mostly in China, where it was first detected.

Trump, who often engages in a feedback loop with allied media figures, has already picked up on one strand of the popular pundits’ thinking: That the news media and Democrats have hyped the threat posed by the outbreak.

“Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible,” he tweeted Wednesday, misspelling the name of the disease in the process. “Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!”

Coronavirus: latest news, live updates

Hannity took Trump’s argument a step further on Thursday with focus on the Democrats, whom he argued were “sadly politicizing and weaponizing an infectious disease as their next effort to bludgeon President Trump.”

Limbaugh — a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient from Trump earlier this month — was early to tar the media as the villain. The conservative radio titan said on his program Monday that the media’s coverage of the virus was “an effort to get Trump” and to spook investors. (The Dow Jones was down more than 1,100 points Thursday, adding to its drop over the past week.)

During the same broadcast, Limbaugh repeated a debunked theory that the virus was engineered by the Chinese as a bioweapon. But then he seemingly contradicted himself saying the coronavirus “is the common cold, folks.”

Experts say that’s not the case. Early reports suggest that about 2 percent of those who contract the coronavirus die from it, making it about 20 times more lethal than the flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the flu killed about 34,000 people in the United States during the 2018-2019 flu season.

In view of the uncertainty and risk, the attacks on the news media could be particularly damaging and ill-timed, given that they may undermine sources of reliable information at a time when such information is vital.

China has also drawn suspicious glances from Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who suggested on her prime-time program this week that Chinese officials may be taking some consolation from the growing crisis because it might hurt Trump’s reelection chances.

“Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible,” he tweeted Wednesday, misspelling the name of the disease in the process. “Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!”

Coronavirus: latest news, live updates

Hannity took Trump’s argument a step further on Thursday with focus on the Democrats, whom he argued were “sadly politicizing and weaponizing an infectious disease as their next effort to bludgeon President Trump.”

Limbaugh — a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient from Trump earlier this month — was early to tar the media as the villain. The conservative radio titan said on his program Monday that the media’s coverage of the virus was “an effort to get Trump” and to spook investors. (The Dow Jones was down more than 1,100 points Thursday, adding to its drop over the past week.)

During the same broadcast, Limbaugh repeated a debunked theory that the virus was engineered by the Chinese as a bioweapon. But then he seemingly contradicted himself saying the coronavirus “is the common cold, folks.”

Experts say that’s not the case. Early reports suggest that about 2 percent of those who contract the coronavirus die from it, making it about 20 times more lethal than the flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the flu killed about 34,000 people in the United States during the 2018-2019 flu season.

In view of the uncertainty and risk, the attacks on the news media could be particularly damaging and ill-timed, given that they may undermine sources of reliable information at a time when such information is vital.

China has also drawn suspicious glances from Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who suggested on her prime-time program this week that Chinese officials may be taking some consolation from the growing crisis because it might hurt Trump’s reelection chances.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/conservative-pundits-blame-a-grab-bag-of-supposed-villains-amid-the-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/02/27/3d711032-5979-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html

[DKW 86 7,440]

And there are other professionals who have another take on it.

[alexava 6,973]

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

4 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

And there are other professionals who have another take on it.

Dr Drew is not the bastion of medical professional that you should hold up here.  He's primarily an addiction specialist per his own website.

[AURex 2,031]

Having worked in big academic medical research health science centers for more than 30 years, I can easily separate the IDEOLOGICAL DENIERS, who have zero evidence, zero clue, from the actual research/science based people who look for factual data, real evidence and substantiated facts.

Dr Oz (a TV personality hack akin to Dr Phil) and Dr Drew (ditto) are just TV personalities. Their research cred = zero. ANY politician cred = ZERO! If you want factual information, look to CDC and WHO.

 

[DKW 86 7,440]

49 minutes ago, AURex said:

Having worked in big academic medical research health science centers for more than 30 years, I can easily separate the IDEOLOGICAL DENIERS, who have zero evidence, zero clue, from the actual research/science based people who look for factual data, real evidence and substantiated facts.

Dr Oz (a TV personality hack akin to Dr Phil) and Dr Drew (ditto) are just TV personalities. Their research cred = zero. ANY politician cred = ZERO! If you want factual information, look to CDC and WHO.

And that is exactly what Dr Drew said to do. Listen to the CDC...<SMDH>

[homersapien 11,449]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/28/trump-reckoning-has-come/

As markets continued their dizzying downward spiral and other countries took heroic measures to fight coronavirus, President Trump sat down at the White House Thursday evening with two leading public-health authorities: Diamond and Silk.

Trump told the online provocateurs and other African American supporters about his “incredible,” “very good,” “great,” “best” and “fantastic” response to the virus.

“It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle,” he told them.

The real problem, he said, is Democrats and the press, who aren’t giving him “credit,” who are trying to “build this up,” and who are demanding a bigger federal response. Amid an extended attack on Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Trump said: “Politics is fine, but when it comes time to talk about pandemics you’ve got to get away from politics.”  

If only he could heed his own advice.

Sure, some Democrats are taking political advantage, but mostly they’re demanding the Trump administration do more. And so are Republicans.

The one playing politics is Trump, cheerleading about miracles and silencing those trying to prepare the public. It won’t work — investors obviously see through the happy talk — and by playing down the crisis, he’s causing preparedness and monitoring to lag, which will worsen the spread.

What Americans need now is massive federal mobilization. Instead, Trump has pulled out the usual tricks, contradicting experts, blaming the “fake news media” for the market plunge, condemning opponents and even some of his own appointees (at the Federal Reserve), changing the subject, and making things up.

Thursday night, the New York Times reported that the White House has ordered officials to seek approval from Vice President Pence’s office before speaking publicly about the epidemic — apparently a move to muzzle public-health officials and scientists.

In his first major remarks after taking over the coronavirus response, Pence spoke Thursday to the CPAC convention, a conservative gathering: “I’m here for one reason and one reason only, and that is our movement, our party and America need four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House!” He seemed oblivious to the absurdity that 73 seconds earlier, he had declared that, because of coronavirus, “This is not the time for partisanship.”

It’s standard when losing a political argument to protest that the other side is playing politics. But it was Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), a Republican, who warned that the administration is “lowballing” the amount needed to respond to an emerging pandemic and “will pay for it later.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), another Republican, says he’s “very disappointed in the degree to which we’ve prepared for a pandemic.”

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (La.), also a Republican, expressed incredulity at the administration’s lack of information.

And Republican Sen. Mike Braun (Ind.), when asked on MSNBC whether Trump’s past action left the country less ready than it could have been, said: “I think you could make that argument.”

Clearly. Last year, Trump disbanded disease-security groups in the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security created during the Ebola outbreak. He has attempted dramatic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has disparaged the expertise and thinned the ranks of scientists throughout the government.

Now, we see a depleted federal government struggling to respond to coronavirus: flawed diagnostic tests and disagreements about lab capabilities; fewer than 500 tested in the United States as of midweek, compared to 7,100 in Britain (with one-fifth the population); inadequate protection for health-care workers; infighting in the administration; and a president who seems not to know what he’s talking about.

At his briefing Wednesday evening, Trump declared “This is a flu,” and that Americans, like him, should “bail out as much as possible when there’s sneezing.”

A questioner pointed out that the death rate for seasonal flu is 0.1 percent, compared to 2 percent to 3 percent for coronavirus.

“The flu is much higher than that,” Trump replied, incorrectly.

In previous crises of this magnitude, Trump’s predecessors dropped everything else. George W. Bush unified the country after the 9/11 attacks in a bipartisan rethinking of national security. Barack Obama relied on members of Bush’s team, such as Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, to spare the country a second Great Depression.

Now Trump faces his first major crisis. And he’s sitting down with Diamond and Silk, meeting with actors from a “low-budget conservative play” called “FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers,” firing off “caronavirus” tweets attacking Democrats and the media, and holding a political rally where he calls the coronavirus a “hoax.”

But a reckoning has come for Trump’s politics of distraction, deception and blame. The markets see through it. And Americans will hold him responsible if he doesn’t do more, fast, to protect us.

[homersapien 11,449]

12 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

And that is exactly what Dr Drew said to do. Listen to the CDC...<SMDH>

Then apparently - along with you - he ignores his own advice.

[AUDub 11,184]

14 hours ago, AURex said:

Having worked in big academic medical research health science centers for more than 30 years, I can easily separate the IDEOLOGICAL DENIERS, who have zero evidence, zero clue, from the actual research/science based people who look for factual data, real evidence and substantiated facts.

Dr Oz (a TV personality hack akin to Dr Phil) and Dr Drew (ditto) are just TV personalities. Their research cred = zero. ANY politician cred = ZERO! If you want factual information, look to CDC and WHO.

 

Dr. Drew Pinsky is a prime example of what a MAGA following can do to a public persona. Just last year he was claiming the entire west coast could fall victim to the bubonic plague, and he went completely hare brained in 2016 over the "Hillary isn't healthy enough to serve as president!" nonsense.

The "more likely to die of influenza" point he makes is sound though, but that doesn't mean coronavirus isn't serious. Just that we don't treat influenza as seriously as we ought to due to saliency bias. 

 

[DKW 86 7,440]

On 2/29/2020 at 11:00 AM, AUDub said:

The "more likely to die of influenza" point he makes is sound though, but that doesn't mean coronavirus isn't serious. Just that we don't treat influenza as seriously as we ought to due to saliency bias. 

Folks, it is just ALL POLITICS...

Dr Drew tells everyone to listen to the CDC, not journalists.
The point about influenza IS THE WHOLE POINT. We already dont give a damn about real actual medical issues out there now. 
FAKE

Trump was criticized for taking action against the coronavirus earlier by the same people criticizing him now for not doing enough... 
Half of America wouldnt take the damn vaccine if it was ready today. 
 

[DKW 86 7,440]

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-myths-debunked-wuhan-china-2020-2?fbclid=IwAR34UiCqT4vpDjxjrUH3dRoRzCDFg4ZgDZFFv4GanTV84uq1ZErzC1B0q38

 

[DKW 86 7,440]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Then apparently - along with you - he ignores his own advice.

As usual homey, reading is something you just refuse to do...

[alexava 6,973]

I’m all for trying to calm people and getting prepared for the possibility of a pandemic. I’m not for silencing experts. The problem is people don’t trust the administration.  I don’t trust trump on anything. He earned that. 

[augolf1716 21,303]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Folks, it is just ALL POLITICS...

Dr Drew tells everyone to listen to the CDC, not journalists.
The point about influenza IS THE WHOLE POINT. We already dont give a damn about real actual medical issues out there now. 

Trump was criticized for taking action against the coronavirus earlier by the same people criticizing him now for not doing enough... 
Half of America wouldnt take the damn vaccine if it was ready today. 
 

Loved her in Stranger Things............

[homersapien 11,449]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

As usual homey, reading is something you just refuse to do...

What are you talking about?    

Read what exactly- Business Insider?

And if anyone needs to start reading, it's you.  Quit listening to all the garbage  emanating from the cable "infotainment" shows and educate yourself. 

 

 

[homersapien 11,449]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Folks, it is just ALL POLITICS...

Dr Drew tells everyone to listen to the CDC, not journalists.
The point about influenza IS THE WHOLE POINT. We already dont give a damn about real actual medical issues out there now. 

Trump was criticized for taking action against the coronavirus earlier by the same people criticizing him now for not doing enough... 
Half of America wouldnt take the damn vaccine if it was ready today. 
 

Are you projecting?

If it's not the DNC conspiring against Bernie, it's journalists conspiring against the world.

What a hysterical, drama queen conspiracist you are.

 

[DKW 86 7,440]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

Are you projecting?

If it's not the DNC conspiring against Bernie, it's journalists conspiring against the world.

What a hysterical, drama queen conspiracist you are.

Well, At least I actually thinkabout what I post here. You, just take the Talking Points, whatever they are and whatever may be at 100% face value, even when they are indeed silly and spurious. Please homey list another 100 articles portraying something that the rest of the world has moved on from six months ago...

[aubiefifty 16,910]

dailykos.com

 

Trump calls coronavirus 'the new hoax' as he repeats lies about spread within the U.S.

Mark Sumner Daily Kos Staff

On Friday night, Donald Trump called the coronavirus epidemic a “hoax” by Democrats who “failed” to bring him down over his collusion with Russia, or the extortion of Ukraine that led to his impeachment. After weeks of downplaying the threat, of ignoring the spread around the world, and of demonstrating that his concerns begin and end with the stock market, Trump has moved on to the next stage of how he is handling the COVID-19 issue — affixing the blame.

On a rally stage in South Carolina, Trump took his statement that he could kill Americans and get away with it out of the realm of theory and put it into practice. The people that he murdered might not be dead yet, but his words on that stage have killed them as certainly as if he lined them up on Fifth Avenue and opened fire.

Trump has criminally underplayed the importance of emergency preparations of all kinds. His gutted White House has disposed of epidemiologists and emergency response specialists from the National Security Council, CDC, and elsewhere — for reasons that don’t seem to be much more defined than Trump’s lifelong hatred of having people around who know that what is doing is foolish.

During his positively incoherent press event on Thursday, Trump already knew that there were sixty cases of coronavirus within the United States. More importantly, he knew that the CDC had just identified the first case of “community spread” in the country — a case that didn’t come in from overseas, and wasn’t obviously tied to someone who had caught it outside the country. Before his speech in South Carolina, three more cases had been identified, including another case of community spread. However, Trump insisted on telling his rally audience that there were still only “fifteen cases in this huge country.”

Trump took credit for this “pretty amazing” imaginary victory, claiming it was because he “moved early.” But it’s clear that Trump wants to declare the win … won. And everything that happens from now on can’t be blamed on him.

Trump: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that … coronavirus. We did one of the great jobs, you say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They say, ‘Oh, not good. Not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue.  … They tried to beat you on ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ that didn’t work out to well. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried over and over. They been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

The worst thing with Trump’s statement isn’t that it once again treats an infectious disease as a political talking point. It’s not that he’s failing to warn his listeners of the genuine threat they and their families will be facing. It’s not even that he’s dodging the blame for a response that has already proven inadequate. 

The worst thing is that Trump never has a worst thing. There is always more ahead. Because when confronted, he won’t admit a mistake, or apologize, or even try to sidestep. He will double down. 

And where he’s going can already be seen in the way that this story is being handled by right-wing media and by politicians who are racing to get ahead of the issue … the Republican way.

The Corona virus was man-made. Bill Gates is one of the financiers of the Wujan lab where it was being developed. I wouldn’t put it past them and by “them” I mean everyone from Adam Schiff to George Soros, Hillary Clinton and the Pope. #DeepStateCabal #KAG2020 @CIA https://t.co/NYHkEp5UHH

— JoanneWrightForCongress (@JWrightforCA34) February 24, 2020

Joanne Wright is an actual Republican candidate for Congress in the 34th California district currently held by Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez. Gomez won his last race with 72% of the vote … over a Green Party candidate, as Republicans didn’t even field a challenger. Wright doesn’t actually represent a threat to take away a seat in the House.

But she represents a threat all right. Her version of the coronavirus situation, with conspiracy theory ladled on top of conspiracy theory, with a heaping helping of both antisemitism and anti-Catholicism is exactly how this story is circulating in right wing channels. That may seem like the batsh#t fringe of the party. But at this point, the Trumpist party is all fringe.

Trump is already stepping onto this ground with his claim that the coronavirus is a Democratic hoax. With the stock market already in free-fall, and the disease beginning to spread across the nation in earnest, there is no place he will not go. Or at least … no place except responsible behavior and good management.

 

how dangerous is this? trump spewing more lies and hate towards the left because he wants to get re elected. and for the record i fact checked this and it is true. and here is what pisses me off other than the hate he spreads..............

snopes.com

Did Trump Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?

4-5 minutes

Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic involving the U.S., alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump had “fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.”

The claim came from a series of tweets posted by Judd Legum, who runs Popular Information, a newsletter he describes as being about “politics and power.” Legum’s commentary was representative of sharp criticism from Democratic legislators (and some Republicans) that the Trump administration had ill-prepared the country for a pandemic even as one was looming on the horizon.

Legum outlined a series of cost-cutting decisions made by the Trump administration in preceding years that had gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure. The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to news accounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted.

Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.

It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.

Legum stated in a follow-up tweet that “Trump also cut funding for the CDC, forcing the CDC to cancel its efforts to help countries prevent infectious-disease threats from becoming epidemics in 39 of 49 countries in 2018. Among the countries abandoned? China.” That was partly true, according to 2018 news reports stating that funding for the CDC’s global disease outbreak prevention efforts had been reduced by 80%, including funding for the agency’s efforts in China. But that was the result of the anticipated depletion of previously allotted funding, not a direct cut by the Trump administration.

On Feb. 24, 2020, the Trump administration requested $2.5 billion to address the coronavirus outbreak, an outlay critics asserted might not have been necessary if the previous program cuts had not taken place. Fortune reported of the issue that:

The cuts could be especially problematic as COVID-19 continues to spread. Health officials are now warning the U.S. is unlikely to be spared, even though cases are minimal here so far.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press call [on Feb. 25].

The coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China, in the winter of 2019, and cases spread around the globe. The U.S. had 57 confirmed cases as of this writing, while globally, roughly 80,000 patients had been sickened with the virus and 3,000 had died. As of yet, no vaccine or pharmaceutical treatment for the new coronavirus. Data from China suggests the coronavirus has a higher fatality rate than the seasonal flu, although outcomes depend on factors such as the age and underlying health of the patient.

Readers can find the latest coronavirus information from the CDC here.

[homersapien 11,449]

17 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Well, At least I actually thinkabout what I post here. You, just take the Talking Points, whatever they are and whatever may be at 100% face value, even when they are indeed silly and spurious. Please homey list another 100 articles portraying something that the rest of the world has moved on from six months ago...

For example....?

What "talking points" are you referring to?

What is it that the "rest of the world has moved on from six months ago"?

[DKW 86 7,440]

 

[AUDub 11,184]

A good deep dive from John Oliver. 

[homersapien 11,449]

On 3/1/2020 at 11:23 AM, homersapien said:

For example....?

What "talking points" are you referring to?

What is it that the "rest of the world has moved on from six months ago"?

Still waiting David.

[AUDub 11,184]

On 2/29/2020 at 11:24 AM, DKW 86 said:

 

 

In case any missed it, this supposedly deleted tweet is a hoax. 

[alexava 6,973]

On 3/1/2020 at 2:21 PM, DKW 86 said:

 

And white people are more likely to be shot by police. 

[DKW 86 7,440]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

Still waiting David.

Go an look at ANYTHING and I do MEAN ANYTHING you have posted up in the last 6 months.