Buffalo_Gal

Never gonna happen. My goodness, he does like the sound of his own voice. Spewing a pack of lies, I cannot believe no one in his administration thought this was not going to come out at some point. This interview was after Trump was elected President. You'd think the words "plausible deniability" would have been whispered in Obama's ear, and someone would have told him to STFU. You talked about this with the comedian Trevor Noah the other day. And you said a number of things in a row. You observed that there had been contacts between members of Mr. Trump's staff and Russian officials. You noted that Trump benefited from the hacks. Your spokesman, Josh Earnest, has gone on to say this week that it's obvious that Trump knew what was going on. To what extent are you suggesting some kind of cooperation between the president-elect and Russian officials here? Well, I'm, I'm not suggesting cooperation at all. Keep in mind that those statements were in the context of everyone now acting surprised by the CIA assessment that this was done purposely to improve Trump's chances. And my only point was that shouldn't be treated as a blockbuster because that was the worst kept secret in this town. Everybody understood that. It was reported on. Steve, if you go back and look at your stories, if you read any mainstream publication, you would see that if you have a hack of the DNC and a hack of Hillary Clinton's most senior advisers' e-mails, and those things are then released in drip-drip-drip fashion over the course of months, and that seem to generate consistently negative coverage despite the fact that there's nothing in there that's particularly controversial, that it's mostly just, as I said, political gossip or routine emails between folks who are working in a campaign environment, then it's a pretty clear inference that people would draw, and did draw, that this was helping the Trump campaign and it was hurting the Hillary campaign. That doesn't mean that the Trump campaign was coordinating. It just means that they understood what everybody else understood, which was that this was not good for Hillary Clinton's campaign. And when you combine that with the fact that the president-elect has been very honest about his admiration for Putin and that he hopes to forge a more cooperative relationship with him and focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism, then my only point was we shouldn't now suddenly act as if this is a huge revelation. In October, we said, after being very careful about it because we had no interest in appearing as if we were putting our thumbs on the scales, we did what was almost unprecedented which was, every intelligence agency in the federal government arrived at a consensus, that the Russians had hacked the DNC. And the information that was now being released was as a consequence of a decision by Russian intelligence and Russian officials at the highest levels. So what the CIA is now assessing, which was it was done purposefully to tilt the election in the direction of a particular candidate, shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. And in fact isn't a surprise to anybody. And as I said before, the issue now is not relitigating the election. The issue now is for us to learn lessons so that we don't have an ongoing situation in every election cycle where you have substantial foreign influence in our campaigns. </snip>

A little bit like forecasting the weather... well, that explains the original crap forecast. Influential COVID-19 model predicts US deaths will stop by Summer Apr. 16, 2020 - 2:26 - Dr. Christopher Murray, IHME director, breaks down a coronavirus model that projects deaths could completely stop by June 21st. Link to interview

Hiding Biden may well be their plan. That is the Hillary playbook all over again. The problem with this plan comes in when we see Biden again in a month, or two months... and he is cognitively much worse. What is the play then? (I will allow he may not be much worse, let's face it his today is bad enough, but odds are good he's not going to come out of lock down cognitively in better shape.)

Cuomo is locking us down until May 15th. Link

You don't think so? I think it is a sock.

When the 50th state went to a declared national disaster (Wyoming on Saturday), things changed. Money from Uncle Sam Sugar comes with strings. Sometimes long strings. Trump seems to like making a declarative line in the sand, makes conciliatory noises to bring people in so they are (or at least feel they are) part of the decisions, and then he negotiates from there. Push-pull. Do I think he is going to do any of these things? No idea. I sincerely hope not. Does he have the legal authority to do them? Apparently so.

Oh, that one? I posted it the other day: National Emergencies Act. Stafford Act. Presidential Emergency Actions Documents. Look them up... well, as far as you can. Apparently, some powers are classified. (Isn't that scary?) What the president has the ability to do, and what he eventually does may well be two different things. But, there is no question that these acts give him the final say when a disaster is national.

US Constitution: He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

As evidenced by the COVID-19 thread, you are not going to get a non-emotional response from some people. I fall on the side of honest data. That is how models can more accurately be built. It is how people can be informed who is most at risk. I laid out my opinion in that thread pretty well - honest data is necessary to make informed decisions.

The ridiculous gotchya press members.

They asked questions. I do not think the #######s were called on, however.

I thought he might sell the extra ventilators. and then he said we will sell to Russia (!!!) because Moscow will be in trouble. Now talking about NYC adding COVID-19 people due to other reasons (like heart attacks). Does anyone REALLY believe numbers from some of these countries? Press: the lab in Wuhan - a person got infected, infected her boyfriend, and then went to the wet markets Trump: well, I don't want to say Will not discuss what he and Xi said about that laboratory. Not appropriate. He was all for WHO at the start, and then you see all their mistakes... and how they are so pro-China> Mentioned Pelosi's Chinatown excursion.

He's going on about the Democrats delaying confirmations (100 people still waiting for confirmations). He's "warning" Congress now, and he will take it to court.

What? My Cliff notes aren't good enough for you? ?

Press: Someone asked about his adjuring Congress Trump: We don't want to do it, but we will (no details)

Pence: Half the states in America have less than 2,500 COVID-19 cases. 629K Americans have tested positive for COVID-19. Mayo clinic is working with the Red Cross for convalescent COVID-19 plasma treatment. Facial masks average daily delivery is 22M

Department of Agriculture Sonny Perdue: guidance for essential food workers if you are exposed to COVID-19. He's explaining more on that. Impacting food processing facilities. American food supply is strong, resilient, and safe. Shifting when necessary. CDC has guidelines if a facility has a positive case. We have plenty of food for people. We have a demand issue, not a supply issue. They are realigning institutional settings with grocery settings. Trump: distribute the billions of dollars in money from China in tariffs to the farmers (it made sense when he said it). Pence: 3,324,000 test have been completed. Listing the recovery stats. 27K people have died in the US. New coronavirus team guidelines tomorrow.

Dr. Brix: declines in cases across the country. Deaths continue. She's talking about social distancing again. There are nine states with less than 1K cases. The west coast states never had a peak. They are being studied specifically. She is suggesting you do not do larger get togethers just yet (she said 20+)... yet... Follow social distancing. The Governors and Mayors will have to make decisions based on their communities needs.

There will be opening information tomorrow after speaking with the Governors.

Talking to the Governors tomorrow (with Pence). Hoping for some states to open before May 1. Not all states are the same. Spoke to all those leaders he named yesterday today. He's going on about opening the sports league. They gave some great ideas on how to get things open again.

He said that there are 2.5 years of backlog because the Democrats are drawing out the process, and some of those positions are needed for funding/finance for the COVID-19. And undersecretary for food has been stuck for years so they can work on food production during the crisis. Senate is gone through May 4th. He's talking about recess appointments, and there is gaveling so he cannot do that. The Senate should do its duty or formal adjourn. Every week there are roadblocks against the administration. (This is true) He's going to adjourn both houses of congress!!! If they don't do it themselves.