red state Gov

[RiverDog]

The Administration has taken the CDC out of the information collection business. It's a fact that has been reported through multiple sources, including Fox News. Here's the stated purpose:

Michael R. Caputo, a Health and Human Services spokesman, told the New York Times, which first reported the shift, that “the new, faster and complete data system is what our nation needs to defeat the coronavirus, and the CDC, an operating division of HHS, will certainly participate in this streamlined all-of-government response. They will simply no longer control it.”

“Today, the CDC still has at least a week lag in reporting hospital data,” Caputo said in a statement. “America requires it in real time.”

The data will be used to inform decisions at the federal level, including the allocation of personal protective gear, the drug remdesivir, and other supplies, treatments and resources, according to a document on the Health and Human Services website.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/hospital-cor ... n-services

Whether or not you believe their stated reasoning is up to you guys. Personally I'm not that alarmed because they can't change the actual numbers. At least in this state, our hospitals reports their information to the state (in the form of local health districts) and the state forwards that information to the federal government.

Glad you posted this. This is what I'm talking about. The liberal media is reporting this as Trump trying to hide the numbers rather than improved information. Good to know.

I doubt that Trump was trying to "improve the information" by taking the data collection task away from the CDC. He's consistently dismissed the information that's been given to him by saying it's all due to increased testing and as he did yesterday, claims that other countries that have better numbers than we do don't test. That's just the spin his staff is putting on it. I think that it's likely that he feels he can control the discussion better by keeping the CDC out of the loop and moving them off the podium. If the information collection duties was hindering the CDC or if they thought it would improve the information by giving the job to someone else, the initiative would have come from them, not the White House. But the director, with whom he's feuded with in the past, doesn't sound at all alarmed and claims that they will have full access to all the information.

[RiverDog]

By the way, did any of you catch Chris Wallace's interview with Donald Trump on Fox yesterday? Wallace called him out on a number of occasions, said point blank that some of what Trump was claiming was simply not true. Of course, Trump tried to paint Wallace as being sympathetic to Democrats, which is categorically false. I'm not going to use the interview to encourage you all to jump on the Fox bandwagon and say that they are "fair and balanced", but it does show that there are some news contributors and programming on that network that's worth watching.

If anything, that interview hurt Trump more than it helped him as it expose to moderate viewers some of the blatant lies and ridiculous statements he's been saying all along. Indeed, a lot of Trump's Republican allies, including a number of governors and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are starting to put daylight between themselves and Trump over our response to the coronavirus. When asked to what degree of confidence McConnell had in Dr. Anthony Fauci, McConnell replied "Total".

[NorthHawk]

It's coming up to election season and with the polls being as they are, it's a necessary for politicians to put some
daylight between Trump and themselves. It might or might not be what they believe or want to do, but
it's what they need to do to stay in power. If the election results end up the same as it currently is, they will
be subservient to DT until his term ends.

As far as Fox News goes, I think it is slanted a little, but nowhere near as much as their commentaries.
And the problem is that the commentators try to come across as serious news people while pedaling
conspiracy theories, lies, and half truths designed to make DT look better than he is. Currying favor
to those in power is nothing new, but now we have the means for mass and immediate distribution so
more people are influenced than might have been in previous times. Trump said it best in 2016 when
he said he loved the poorly educated. They fall into line easier than well educated people but even those
can be manipulated by a skilled salesman or woman like the commentators we hear on media like Fox News and
MSNBC.

[RiverDog]

It's coming up to election season and with the polls being as they are, it's a necessary for politicians to put some
daylight between Trump and themselves. It might or might not be what they believe or want to do, but it's what they need to do to stay in power. If the election results end up the same as it currently is, they will be subservient to DT until his term ends.

Trump has put a number of R's, particularly in the Senate and Governorships where they have to win statewide elections amongst a much more diverse electorate than those in the House, into a real pickle. They're afraid of alienating his base by breaking with him but they are losing ground in their re-election races because of him. Two of those that come to mind are Senators McSally in Arizona and Gardner in Colorado.

As far as Fox News goes, I think it is slanted a little, but nowhere near as much as their commentaries. And the problem is that the commentators try to come across as serious news people while pedaling conspiracy theories, lies, and half truths designed to make DT look better than he is. Currying favor to those in power is nothing new, but now we have the means for mass and immediate distribution so more people are influenced than might have been in previous times. Trump said it best in 2016 when he said he loved the poorly educated. They fall into line easier than well educated people but even those can be manipulated by a skilled salesman or woman like the commentators we hear on media like Fox News and MSNBC.

If you were to put two newscasts of the types that happen at the top and bottom of each hour, for example, Fox and CNN, and turned off the video and do a blind test, I'd bet anyone a cold tall one that they couldn't tell which one was which. The reporting of facts are almost identical amongst all of the network and cable services. Where they differ are the types of stories they report on and which ones they ignore, and, as you noted, in their commentary.

I have a very low tolerance level when it comes to watching or listing to any commentary.

[NorthHawk]

Unfortunately it seems a lot of people take commentary for news.
I started losing faith in a lot of the printed news when the reporters were largely let go and replaced by
bloggers and the like. I find too much personal interpretation from those writers for me to take it
all seriously, or at least as the unvarnished truth if the topic is serious.

[Aseahawkfan]

I doubt that Trump was trying to "improve the information" by taking the data collection task away from the CDC. He's consistently dismissed the information that's been given to him by saying it's all due to increased testing and as he did yesterday, claims that other countries that have better numbers than we do don't test. That's just the spin his staff is putting on it. I think that it's likely that he feels he can control the discussion better by keeping the CDC out of the loop and moving them off the podium. If the information collection duties was hindering the CDC or if they thought it would improve the information by giving the job to someone else, the initiative would have come from them, not the White House. But the director, with whom he's feuded with in the past, doesn't sound at all alarmed and claims that they will have full access to all the information.

Trump can't much control the information. It's coming from a lot of different sources. The article you linked said the information was going to be reported by both the CDC and this new reporting system which would operate in the real time rather than delayed like the CDC. Is that wrong information?

[Aseahawkfan]

By the way, did any of you catch Chris Wallace's interview with Donald Trump on Fox yesterday? Wallace called him out on a number of occasions, said point blank that some of what Trump was claiming was simply not true. Of course, Trump tried to paint Wallace as being sympathetic to Democrats, which is categorically false. I'm not going to use the interview to encourage you all to jump on the Fox bandwagon and say that they are "fair and balanced", but it does show that there are some news contributors and programming on that network that's worth watching.

If anything, that interview hurt Trump more than it helped him as it expose to moderate viewers some of the blatant lies and ridiculous statements he's been saying all along. Indeed, a lot of Trump's Republican allies, including a number of governors and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are starting to put daylight between themselves and Trump over our response to the coronavirus. When asked to what degree of confidence McConnell had in Dr. Anthony Fauci, McConnell replied "Total".

No. I have heard enough from Trump to know he should be gone. Trump is a guy who lives to cause conflict. He thrives on it. Conflict is the worst thing to have during a global pandemic where people are stuck in their houses, locked down worrying about their jobs and future.

I hope these polls are right and can be maintained. I won't be very confident in these polls until Biden picks his VP candidate. I know you don't think the VP Biden picks is very important, but I believe it is. Very, very important to capture those moderate voters.

Right now a lot of people are very scared of the BLM attacks on many things Americans believe in and the defund the police movement. It may look on the liberal press like a majority of people are in full support of it, but they aren't. They are very scared of it, don't like these riots and protests, and feel like they can't speak out or do much about it publically right now without putting themselves as risk of being labeled a racist or attacked in other ways. If Biden doesn't pick a VP candidate that can assuage those fears for the moderate white voter, male and female, then Trump might get enough support to push him up again out of a general fear. All you need is a VP candidate going full unwavering support for the BLM and Antifa push to drive the fear meter for moderate voters to 100 and back into the arms of Dumb as Dirt. Not to mention the tax plans of Biden and his VP candidate need to be known for business to get onboard.

This isn't close to over regardless of the polls. People are going to need to know what each candidate will do and in the case of 78 year old Joe Biden, who will be in office if he has health problems. Then if the Senate flips Dem along with a Dem president, that decision will be even more important. I really hope Biden doesn't mess it up. It seems to me the Democratic Party understands this and is vetting VP candidates very carefully. I know the Dems have some real smart campaign people who know that walking that line to support measures against police brutality and making sure the people also know this isn't an attack on the police and America in general is very important to make clear from both Biden and his VP candidate.

[RiverDog]

Trump can't much control the information. It's coming from a lot of different sources. The article you linked said the information was going to be reported by both the CDC and this new reporting system which would operate in the real time rather than delayed like the CDC. Is that wrong information?

That's true, he can't control the information. But he can put his own spin on it vs. having it come directly from the CDC. It's an attempt to move the CDC out of the spotlight.

[RiverDog]

No. I have heard enough from Trump to know he should be gone. Trump is a guy who lives to cause conflict. He thrives on it. Conflict is the worst thing to have during a global pandemic where people are stuck in their houses, locked down worrying about their jobs and future.

I agree, I don't like listening to Trump, either. But if you're a Fox critic as you sometimes are, you should have seen how Chris Wallace handled him.

I hope these polls are right and can be maintained. I won't be very confident in these polls until Biden picks his VP candidate. I know you don't think the VP Biden picks is very important, but I believe it is. Very, very important to capture those moderate voters.

I didn't say that his VP pick wasn't important. What I said was that he has to avoid making a bad choice. He doesn't need any electoral help. What he needs is someone that's not going to be an easy target for Trump's people, such as would be the case with Elizabeth Warren, and he can't afford a McGovern-Eagleton disaster (not sure if you're old enough to remember that one) by not doing a good job of vetting them.

This isn't close to over regardless of the polls. People are going to need to know what each candidate will do and in the case of 78 year old Joe Biden, who will be in office if he has health problems. Then if the Senate flips Dem along with a Dem president, that decision will be even more important. I really hope Biden doesn't mess it up. It seems to me the Democratic Party understands this and is vetting VP candidates very carefully. I know the Dems have some real smart campaign people who know that walking that line to support measures against police brutality and making sure the people also know this isn't an attack on the police and America in general is very important to make clear from both Biden and his VP candidate.

A lot can happen in 100 days, so yes, the election is far from in the bag, especially with Biden,'s propensity to stick his foot in his mouth. There's still two conventions to be held, and neither party wants one like the Dems had in Chicago in 1968, something that's a distinct possibility for both parties in this volatile environment. A riot at one of the conventions could have huge implications for either party.

There's been a lot of talk about how Trump was way behind in the polls vs. HRC at this point in 2016, but there's some big differences. First of all, Biden has been getting numbers above 50%. That means that Trump can't just sway undecided voters to his side, he's going to actually have to flip a fair number of Biden voters. As big of a lead that HRC had, she never cracked 50%. The other thing that is different is that, as Jimmy Carter could tell you, it's a lot easier to run as a challenger with no governing history than it is to be forced to defend his record over the past 4 years. He's not going to be able to run as an outsider promising to "drain the swamp." In 2016, a lot of people hadn't formed an opinion of Donald Trump. But now it seems that opinions have been cast in stone as Trump's approval rating has bounced between 40% and 50% for his entire term. That's very unusual. As a rule, job approvals fluctuate a lot more than 10 percent, and it's generally bad news for their re-election for an incumbent POTUS to have a sub 50% job approval rating.

[Hawktawk]

Ok well a lot of action here on this thread since I was last on my computer. So here's my 02 cents on these topics. Coronavirus blame, everyone shares some responsibility for this train wreck but its hardly 50-50. Governors like Cuomo were in a no win situation with their caseloads and made a critical error allowing recovering patients to go to rehab facilities.Newsome in Ca is the weird one. He really had it controlled then he gave in to the beachgoers and partiers and now they are blowing up.

But really that's the whole problem with this. Too many people get sick at once and overwhelm health care,PPE, etc. I've read Texas has begun sending patients determined to too sick to survive home to suffocate.This is in America in 2020 . Inslee has done some strange things with his essential business recommendations but he was the second Governor to lock down and Mike Pence said he "saved lives" before trump finished off eating the rest of his brain. Many health care professionals believe Seattle could have easily been another NYC had he not acted when he did.

No I blame the guy in charge of the whole kit and kaboodle. I read an interview with Rep Gov of Maryland Larry Hogan. He ripped trump and the administration, saying their had been no leadership and no preparation. He said governors had been given a "dire" briefing by Dr Fauci in early Feb that was totally out of touch with the line from the white house.He pointed out that he had purchased half a million test kits from S Korea, was attacked by the administration for going around them and still had to put the tests in a secure location under armed guard to keep the feds from seizing them. Its belarus with Nukes. Testing has failed again with results back to taking a week or more, utterly worthless to slow the spread 6 months into this.And in the richest country on the planet with the most advanced medical care. If Trump can say George W did not protect america because of the 3000 lives lost on 911 then F@#k him.He can kiss me where the sun dont shine #TRUMPVIRUS# And american voters get that which is reflected in his numbers as approval of his handling of this is lower than even his dismal rating.

Trump repeatedly called this a hoax. he spent march 7 and 8 golfing at mar a Lago while the world was shutting down. The week and a half he waited after it was clear we should shutdown coupled with his dismissive derision about the entire pandemic is why there is so much virus here.That week of dithering is estimated to have cost tens of thousands of lives Those in his cult trust him more than science and followed his lead, no masks, mass gatherings, clandestine church services etc. Now in the last couple of weeks he's a mask wearer, came out and called masks "patriotic" a couple of weeks after mocking Biden for wearing one. But then he launched into a tweet storm against Dr Fauci yesterday saying hes spreading misinformation, once again mocking masks he said were patriotic Fauci fired back saying hes misled nobody, just tried to do his job.

Which leads to the media. No president has ever come near to attempting to assassinate the free and adversarial media then this wanna be tyrant. I recall Obama who i did not support taking potshots at Fox's right slant coverage but I dont recall his followers assaulting reporters from faux or a daily whining refrain from Obama.

Its never been this bad, A president who has uttered about 14K provable lies according to politifact says the media is fake and 60 million sheep believe this.

Yes faux has Chris Wallace. they had Shep Smith who resigned over the persecution trying to report the news. Faux hosts who speak the truth get death threats from trumpanzees. Next to Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Vlad Putin Faux is the reason DJT is president because they started riding his pole in the primaries and never got off. I shut it off in mid 2016 and will never turn it back on in its present configuration.

Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Faux and Friends etc got people killed in this pandemic, thousands of them and still are. Now Carlson calls arch conservative Matt Drudge who is my go to news source of being a "tool of the progressive left"for linking stories critical of trump and actually reporting the grim truth in several states with this virus. No Tucker you're the tool, the tool of the worst most incompetent president in history and it's got to hurt to see a guy who sheperded trump through pussygrabbergate etc with slavish devotion has finally seen what little old HT saw years ago. The guy is an existential threat to the planet and must be replaced asap.We are not tools of the left but we understand that this man himself is far more dangerous than any ideological position a democrat would take.

All media has biases but there is everyone else then there is Faux. Foreign countries dont even consider Faux an official news organization They went from being a refreshing equal time channel for conservatives like myself to a grotesque volunteer Pravda for a madman.

And yes Trump looks horrible in the polls. I completely agree with asea that the veep choice matters because with a 77 year old president you might be voting for the president to be soon. I agree warren is very risky and will certainly bring some republicans and independents back to trump. But really nobody recovers from this kind of a deficit 100 days out minus a seismic event, vaccine breakthrough, all out war with someone, Biden or Trump dies. Or Vlad Putin figures out how to change and manufacture votes. Hoping and praying that the nightmare of a leadership vacuum and psychotic president is about over.

[RiverDog]

No I blame the guy in charge of the whole kit and kaboodle (for the coronavirus response).

Of all individuals, Trump is the one that's most responsible, that's for sure. It's inescapable, and a large majority of people know it. I could go back and cite the CDC's decision not to use the WHO's test kits or this or that governor's response, but more so than any one person, Trump has the most to answer for.

Yes faux has Chris Wallace. they had Shep Smith who resigned over the persecution trying to report the news. Faux hosts who speak the truth get death threats from trumpanzees. Next to Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Vlad Putin Faux is the reason DJT is president because they started riding his pole in the primaries and never got off. I shut it off in mid 2016 and will never turn it back on in its present configuration.

All media has biases but there is everyone else then there is Faux.

You're over exaggerating. Yes, Fox has a huge bias in their opinion and commentary, but there are a lot of shows like the one that Chris Wallace hosts, Martha McCallum for example, that do offer a good perspective of both sides of an issue. MSNBC's and CNN's commentary is just as slanted towards the liberal side as Fox is conservative.

And yes Trump looks horrible in the polls. I completely agree with asea that the veep choice matters because with a 77 year old president you might be voting for the president to be soon. I agree warren is very risky and will certainly bring some republicans and independents back to trump. But really nobody recovers from this kind of a deficit 100 days out minus a seismic event, vaccine breakthrough, all out war with someone, Biden or Trump dies. Or Vlad Putin figures out how to change and manufacture votes. Hoping and praying that the nightmare of a leadership vacuum and psychotic president is about over.

There isn't any evidence in past elections that the running mate had a significant, game changing effect on an election. The only one that actually made a difference was when JFK took Johnson as his running mate as it helped put Texas in his column, but half the time VP's don't even carry their own home state. Most people can't name a losing candidate's running mate. Hell, I can't even remember Hillary's running mate. The only time someone remembers a losing candidate's running mate is if they were a big distraction, like McCain's taking Sarah Palin. Without doing a Google, I'll guess that Al Gore's running mate was John Edwards. Or was that Kerry's running mate? People vote for the top name on the ticket, not the back-up QB. That's why Biden needs to take someone that won't be a distraction, as Warren would, or out shine him, like Harris would. Susan Rice, Stacey Abrams, or some other under the radar candidate would be ideal.