Republican Politics

In fighting the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. is going to live and die by its decentralized public health system.

CNN’s Daniel Dale and Dr. Sanjay Gupta fact-check President Trump’s claim that a scarf may be a better option than face masks because they are “thicker.”

Diamond and Silk are more interested in grifting from gullible white people than in telling truth that might save lives.
Here they are promoting the lie told often on Fox in the past two months, that the pandemic is being inflated by mainstream media to hurt Donald Trump.
They don’t believe the numbers because numbers don’t grow that way. (Diamond and Silk don’t understand the term, “exponentially.”) Transcript via Media Matters:

SILK: In a matter of two weeks, over 1,000 people supposedly died from the coronavirus. In a two weeks time period, over 1,000 people after being tested positive have died from the coronavirus. But it took 39 days, from January all the way up to February the 29th I believe —
DIAMOND: For the first person.
SILK: For the first person to die. Here’s another thing —
DIAMOND: Come on.
SILK: Here’s another thing. My president said on March the 24th, Tuesday this past week, my president said that he would love for America to be back up and running.
DIAMOND: I knew this was going to happen. I knew after he said this this was going to happen. Go ahead.
SILK: At the time he said it there was 25,489 cases with 307 deaths. Instantaneously, you had the media calling President Trump out, he wanted open by Easter, he want this open by Easter – me and you was talking, I said now watch the number of deaths go up —

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In service of his masters, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Koch) is trying to force representatives to come back to Washington, DC in order to have a roll call vote on a measure that passed the Senate 96-0.
While the rest of us are hunkering down in our homes, venturing out only for groceries and finding creative ways to connect on Zoom and other virtual tools, Rep. Massie is demanding that Representatives fly back to Washington, D.C. in order to vote on the stimulus bill in person.
Why?
“If it were just about helping people to get more unemployment (benefits) to get through this calamity that, frankly, the governors have wrought on the people, then I could be for it,” Massie said in an interview with KRC Radio earlier this week.
“But this is $2 trillion,” he continued. “Divide $2 trillion by 350 million people — it’s almost $6,000 for every man, woman and child. I’m talking about spending. This won’t go to the men, women and children. So if you have a family of five, this spending bill represents $30,000 of additional U.S. national debt because there is no plan to pay for it.”
Apparently Mr. Massie has never had a loved one fall ill and had to deal with the fact that one “spends” what one has to do because it’s a life-or-death situation. In this case, the ENTIRE NATION is at risk of falling ill and a good number are dying.

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Commenting on the growing number of Republicans saying we’ll have to let people die in order to save the economy, Joe Scarborough says it looks like Republicans are willing to let people did in order to keep taking in corporate campaign contributions.
“So this — I don’t know what — I grew up in a baptist church and I heard a lot about abortion on the front end of life and euthanizing seniors on the other side of life. Let me just be clear: if we have scientists and doctors and medical professionals who have spent their lives using their God-given skills to save lives and you have the ability to help them save lives and you are telling the president not to do that, that is killing,” Scarborough said.
“In fact, that’s — there’s no way that you can say, well, abortion’s bad but killing a senior citizen, and by the way, it’s now — the nurse that died in the hospital was 48 years old and healthy. Got bad news for you, a lot of 30 and 40-year-olds are getting this and dying of it. So this argument that we’re going to just let senior citizens die because they’re no longer productive, that’s the argument that is taking hold in the Republican party.”
“The president’s a senior citizen, Mitch McConnell’s a senior citizen,” Mika said.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sarcastically attacks Republicans for not supporting more money for unemployment insurance in a speech delivered Wednesday night on the Senate floor. The Democratic presidential candidate’s amendment eventually passed and the bill passed unanimously 96-0.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): And now I find that some of my Republican colleagues are very distressed they’re very upset that somebody is making $10-$12 bucks an hour might end up with a paycheck for four months more than they received last week. Oh my God. The universe is collapsing. Imagine that…

But some of my Republican friends still have not given up on the need to punish the poor and working people, you haven’t raised the minimum wage in 10 years. Minimum wage should be at least 15 bucks an hour, you haven’t done that, you’ve cut program after program after program and now horror of horrors for four months, workers might be earning a few bucks more.

Full speech:

A new ad from the “Priorities USA Action” super PAC is attacking President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. It will reportedly run to the tune of $6 million in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida.

It’s a rare day at Crooks and Liars when we start a post agreeing with Charlie Sykes, but these are rare times:

I’ve known this guy for years. He’s lost his f**king mind …. pic.twitter.com/8yX78lGg6h
— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) March 16, 2020

Yep, David Clarke HAS lost his effing mind.

GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW!If government doesn’t stop this foolishness…STAY IN THE STREETS.END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN?THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS.
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) March 15, 2020

I expect he’s been taken off of Fox and has to get his attention fix any way he can — yep, definite anger at “Fox Management.”

Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar threw cold water on President Donald Trump’s proposal to close the Mexico border as a measure against the coronavirus.
In an interview on CBS News, host Margaret Brennan asked Azar about the president’s statement that he’s “strongly considering” a closure of the southern border.
“That’s not one of the highest priority areas,” Azar admitted. “Mexico only has a couple of cases.”
“What the president is making clear, though, is we’ll always be looking at travel restrictions, border protections,” he continued. “We will take whatever measures are appropriate and necessary to protext the American people.”
“We don’t forecast doing that anytime soon,” the HHS secretary added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday over his response to the Coronavirus.
While speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, Pelosi slammed the president after he promised the epidemic “is going to go away.”
“This is shameful,” Pelosi said. “He puts forth a proposal now that is meager, anemic in terms of addressing this. Ebola, we did $5 billion. And now they’re trying to take the ebola money and spend it here.”
“What he’s doing is late, too late, anemic,” she added. “Hopefully we came make up for the loss of time but we have to have professionals in place, resources that are adequate and not use scare tactics about people coming back to our country.”
Pelosi remarks come as some health professional are questioning the Trump administration’s competency.