Tag: Americans are dying because of Trump mismanagement

WHO chief calls for ‘unity’ after Trump funding threat

“With unity, with solidarity, at a national level and global level, resources will not be a problem,” Tedros said.

The World Health Organization pushed back on Wednesday against growing criticism from the United States and Taiwan, with top officials defending their handling of the coronavirus pandemic against accusations that they were too quick to accept China’s view of the outbreak.

The WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus largely deflected questions about the threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to cut off funding to the U.N.-linked global health body, expressing his hope that American support would continue.

“With unity, with solidarity, at a national level and global level, resources will not be a problem,” Tedros said, going on to thank the United States for its long history of support for global health, which he called “a bipartisan proposition.” Continue reading.

Here’s the poll that proves Republicans are dangerous for your health

AlterNet logoThe latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll highlights how disruptive the COVID-19 crisis has been to people’s daily lives, and how unhappy the populace is becoming with Donald Trump’s response to it. Writing at Axios, Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, highlights the disconnect the American public is experiencing: 60% say that the federal government should be primarily responsible for the response to the crisis, but 52% say it’s their state government that’s leading the response.

The poll also shows the incredible partisan divide created by everything Trump touches. While Trump has publicly stated, again and again, that the states are on their own, they are responsible, and that he’ll just provide back up (when the governors kiss his ass), 53% of Republicans say that Trump is leading the response. A shocking 89% of Republicans say that they trust Trump to provide reliable information on the coronavirus, essentially the same percentage (90%) as trust the CDC. They’re utterly delusional. But they’re also dangerous.

If you want to really hate Republicans, look at their actions: “Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to report sheltering in place (90% vs. 74%) and stocking up on food, supplies, or medications (72% vs. 50%).” If you’re not stocking up on food and supplies and going out to get them, you’re not doing a very good job of sheltering in place. “But at least nine in ten Democrats (95%), independents (91%) and Republicans (91%) now report engaging in some form of social distancing.” Is that like how conservative evangelical churches are practicing “social distancing”? Continue reading.

Economist Robert Reich: Trump is shamelessly ‘exploiting chaos for personal gain’ during the deadly coronavirus crisis

AlterNet logoWords like “incompetent” and “inept” have often been used by President Donald Trump’s critics to describe his response to the coronavirus pandemic. And while economist Robert Reich, a vehement Trump critic, doesn’t necessarily disagree with those adjectives, he has another term to describe Trump’s coronavirus response: power grab. And in an op-ed for The Guardian, Reich (who served as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton the 1990s) lays out why he sees it that way.

“The utter chaos in America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic — shortages of equipment to protect hospital workers, dwindling supplies of ventilators and critical medications, jaw-dropping confusion over how $2.2tn of aid in the recent coronavirus law will be distributed — was perhaps predictable in a nation that prides itself on competitive individualism and hates centralized power,” Reich explains. “But it is also tailor-made for Donald Trump, who has spent a lifetime exploiting chaos for personal gain and blaming others for losses.”

Reich goes on to cite some examples of “chaos” during the pandemic — which, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has killed more than 70,000 people worldwide (as of Monday morning, April 6). Continue reading.