Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

Donald Trump was right.

Germs are scary.

For three decades, I talked to Trump about his fear of germs. When I interviewed him at the Trump Tower restaurant during the 2016 race, the famous germophobe had a big hospital-strength bottle of hand sanitizer on the table, next to my salad, ready to squirt.

He told me about the nightmarish feeling he had when a man emerged from the bathroom in a restaurant with wet hands and shook his hand. He couldn’t eat afterward.

Today, in a stunning twist of fate, germs are infecting his presidency and threatening a bad prognosis for his re-election prospects.

Trump is the first president to use the stock market as a near-daily measure of his success — and his virility — and now the market is slumping. If you want to own it on the way up, you have to own it on the way down.

...

Trump had tweet-shrieked at President Barack Obama about how he should handle Ebola. (“Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!”)

Yet he was so relaxed about the coronavirus threat that he spent 45 minutes Thursday chatting in the Oval with the authors of a little play called “FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers,” inspired by the texts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The play’s leads, Dean Cain of “Superman” fame and the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” actress Kristy Swanson, were also in the meeting. Trump joked that he’d be willing to be Cain’s understudy, the actor said. The president got together the same day with a group that included his social media boosters Diamond and Silk.

...

The reality of the coronavirus spreading will reflect poorly on Trump — his cavalier dismantling of vital government teams for health response and his disdain for experts and science.

Trump tried to make federal agencies complicit on his fabulist hogwash about the size of his inaugural crowd and the path of Hurricane Dorian. It is unlikely that he will be able to keep his insatiable and insecure ego in check long enough to give the nation the facts, reassurance and guidance it needs about the infection.

Trump is already doing his orange clown pufferfish routine, acting as though he knows more about viruses than anyone, just as he has bragged that he knows more about the military, taxes, trade, infrastructure, ISIS, renewables, visas, banking, debt and “the horror of nuclear.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

ICYMI ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[staynattybruh]

Just me checking in again. Now that the newest which hunt has been debunked..... STILL your president. I mean... how does it feel to keep being wrong after 2700 pages of this thread. Why not just get on board? See you in November or whenever the next witch hunt is over. Whichever comes first.

Nothing was “debunked” your lord and savior is still impeached, and it’s more clear than ever the extreme partisan is coming from the right who didn’t even dare to let Bolton testify. Bolton a known pro-war conservative even confessing the truth of trumps moral bankruptcy in his book.


Panicked Trump Hits Back at Bolton Book With Blizzard of Lies

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A top federal scientist sounded the alarm about what he feared was contamination in an Atlanta lab where the government made test kits for the coronavirus, according to sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta.

• The Trump administration has ordered an independent investigation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab, and manufacturing of the virus test kits has been moved, the sources said.

Why it matters: At the time the administration is under scrutiny for its early preparations for the virus, the potential problems at the lab became a top internal priority for some officials. But the Trump administration did not talk publicly about the Food and Drug Administration’s specific concerns about the Atlanta lab.

• Senior officials are still not saying exactly what the FDA regulator found at the Atlanta lab.
• The CDC lab in Atlanta developed the testing formula for the coronavirus test — which the government says works — and was manufacturing relatively small amounts of testing kits for laboratories around the country. This is where the lab ran into problems, per sources familiar with the situation.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change — including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The misleading language appears in at least nine reports, including environmental studies and impact statements on major watersheds in the American West that could be used to justify allocating increasingly scarce water to farmers at the expense of wildlife conservation and fisheries.

The effort was led by Indur M. Goklany, a longtime Interior Department employee who, in 2017 near the start of the Trump administration, was promoted to the office of the deputy secretary with responsibility for reviewing the agency’s climate policies. The Interior Department’s scientific work is the basis for critical decisions about water and mineral rights affecting millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of acres of land.

The wording, known internally as the “Goks uncertainty language” based on Mr. Goklany’s nickname, inaccurately claims that there is a lack of consensus among scientists that the earth is warming. In Interior Department emails to scientists, Mr. Goklany pushed misleading interpretations of climate science, saying it “may be overestimating the rate of global warming, for whatever reason;” climate modeling has largely predicted global warming accurately. The final language states inaccurately that some studies have found the earth to be warming, while others have not.

He also instructed department scientists to add that rising carbon dioxide — the main force driving global warming — is beneficial because it “may increase plant water use efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” Both assertions misrepresent the scientific consensus that, overall, climate change will result in severe disruptions to global agriculture and significant reductions in crop yields.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president.

But the adults’ greatest miscalculation was to overestimate themselves—particularly in believing that other Americans saw them as selfless public servants, their stature derived from a high-minded commitment to the good of the nation.

When Trump came to power, he believed that the regime was his, property he’d rightfully acquired, and that the 2 million civilians working under him, most of them in obscurity, owed him their total loyalty. He harbored a deep suspicion that some of them were plotting in secret to destroy him. He had to bring them to heel before he could be secure in his power. This wouldn’t be easy—the permanent government had defied other leaders and outlasted them. In his inexperience and rashness—the very qualities his supporters loved—he made early mistakes. He placed unreliable or inept commissars in charge of the bureaucracy, and it kept running on its own.

But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.

This is the story of how a great republic went soft in the middle, lost the integrity of its guts and fell in on itself—told through government officials whose names under any other president would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WOKE FOR TRUMP
Woke For Trump

There are mysteries in the world and some things you just can’t explain, like how does Matthew McConaughey have an Oscar? Why? Why? Why? Doesn’t make sense, does it? But you have to understand that not everything fits stereotypes and expectations, like having an Oscar doesn’t really mean you’re a good actor or that a Grammy means you’re a good musician…or even a musician.

But people are not monoliths. Not every European teenager is enlightened and cares about the planet. While Sweden’s Greta Thunberg is out there fighting for climate awareness, there’s Naomi Seibt from Germany, who the Heartland Institute (a right-wing think tank) is using to debunk science while also saying white nationalism is an “inspiration.” I guess the Nazi from Ace of Base was busy.

Donald Trump only got 8 percent of the black vote in 2016. What I wonder is, “why so high?” A Public Religion Research Institute poll taken last December said 83 percent of black Americans don’t approve of Trump. Again, why so low?

And while Donald Trump can have a bunch of black supporters in the Oval Office declaring he’s not a racist, a Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 83 percent (same number as the other poll) of African Americans believe Donald Trump is a racist. That’s the thing Republicans don’t get which proves they are racist. The black friend defense doesn’t work.

Republicans, pay attention and read it slowly: Labeling somebody does not mean you’re not a racist. Having a friend who is black is not a get out of racist jail free card. Even being married to someone of a different race and having children together doesn’t mean you’re not a racist. Strom Thurmond fucked black women. And I know what you’re thinking. Why did anybody fuck Strom Thurmond?

I can tell you Louis Farrakhan doesn’t hate white people, but my whiteness doesn’t make me an authority on it. For every black person you can find wearing a T-Shirt that reads, “Donald Trump is not a racist,” I can give you eight who will tell you, “Yes, he is.” That’s because Donald Trump is a racist. Oh, and for the record: Most people wearing “Blacks for Trump” T-Shirts look like they should be in Ace of Base and probably fucking Strom Thurmond.

Donald Trump’s campaign is opening 15 field offices in cities with large African-American populations, in an attempt to court black voters this November. He may as well be opening CD stores that only sell “Ice, Ice, Baby” or better yet, put Stephen Miller in the middle of Watts handing out copies of La La Land (I’d like to see that). In addition, Trump’s website is now selling T-Shirts with the word “Woke” on them. Trump may as well be selling shirts that read “C2H6 + O2 → 2CO2 + 3H2O” because he doesn’t understand what that means either.

Also, don’t create a monolith about blacks for Trump and say that they must be very stupid. That’s not fair. All Trump supporters are stupid.

While you, I, and surely the majority of black Americans, don’t understand Blacks for Trump, you have to remember that Charlie the Tuna wanted you to eat tuna.

Blacks for Trump is a huge mystery because Donald Trump is a racist who defends Nazis and makes a lot of racist comments like, “shithole countries,” “send them back, “there’s my African American,” “Execute the Central Park Five,” “Fire that sonofabitch,” people from Nigeria who come to this country will never “go back to their huts,” Haitians “all have AIDS,” or the entire birtherism campaign against President Barack Obama. You know Donald Trump doesn’t care about black people. But why should black Trump supporters be any different than white Trump supporters?

Because Donald Trump doesn’t care about them either.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Think you have "Good Health Insurance"? So did I until I needed to use it. I had caught a virus and lost the hydration battle so my husband brought me in for IV fluids and zofran. I have no complaints about my care, but was surprised by my bill for an in-network visit. 1/

Still, I'm privileged enough that I can pay a bill like that without jeopardizing my other immediate needs. So it might have ended there, had I not mentioned it to another doctor friend. They told me that had I been admitted, the ED visit would have been covered. But . . . 2/

After THEIR inpatient experience they got a huge bill for the radiologist who read their imaging tests because despite being at an in-network hospital being cared for by all all in-network doctors, the radiologist who read their scans was not in network. 3/

Then another doctor friend shared their recent experience with an outpatient lab test. After checking to make sure the test was covered, they were surprised to receive an enormous bill. Despite being ordered by an in-network physician and collected at an in -network lab . . . 4/

The test had been PROCESSED at an out-of-network specialty lab. In fact, on further investigation, my friend learned that NONE of the labs in our state that process this test are in-network. Let that sink in: it's a covered test, but can ONLY be processed out of network 5/

All three of us are physicians. All three of us have "Good" insurance through our employers. All three of us attempted to get COVERED IN-NETEORK MEDICAL CARE. All three of us received huge surprise bills that could have been financially devastating for less privileged patients 6/

I share this story because if the three of us can't navigate the system, who can? This is one of many reasons I advocate for #SinglePayer #UniversalHealthcare #MedicareForAll

Thread by @Margaret1473: Think you have "Good Health Insurance"? So did I until I needed to use it. I had caught a virus and lost the hydration battle so my husband…

 

[Michael Scally MD]