I don't like Trump

[C-Mag]

I can’t elect the heads of the various depts and cabinet posts. I can only elect the guy that appoints them.

If he’s not responsible for that, then to whom shall I direct my wroth?

Bureaucracy is the issue here, not the appointer of the bureaucrats. Bureaucracy is a system, not a person.

And who would have the authority to change that beaurocracy?

Dude, Trump fired Comey and the beauracracy appointed Mueller to investigate his ass for almost 3 years.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Bureaucracy is the issue here, not the appointer of the bureaucrats. Bureaucracy is a system, not a person.

And who would have the authority to change that beaurocracy?

No one person. No President, certainly.

Really, the only thing that can change bureaucracy is the vox populi, but good luck getting the public to agree on anything.

They report directly to him. That’s like saying that the employees are responsible for a corporate clusterfuck, and not the CEO.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Bureaucracy is the issue here, not the appointer of the bureaucrats. Bureaucracy is a system, not a person.

And who would have the authority to change that beaurocracy?

Dude, Trump fired Comey and the beauracracy appointed Mueller to investigate his ass for almost 3 years.

The beaurocracy of the Judicial Branch. Not the executive.

[DBTrek]

Those are also serious issues. But they wouldn’t have arisen, had we shut down travel and unnecessary business sooner.

Or not destroyed the national testing initiative with fuck-baggery.

Oh, I see. So the disastrous response by certain states never would've happened if Trump stopped COVID-19 in it's tracks immediately. Of course, none of it would've happened if China stopped it in it's tracks either. Or if every other nation who spread it to America stopped it as well.

But all those guys are off the hook. Everyone in the responsibility chain of this viral spread both above Trump and below Trump can be forgiven for their roles in the disaster.

Well, isn't that shocking?

[Xenophon]

And who would have the authority to change that beaurocracy?

No one person. No President, certainly.

Really, the only thing that can change bureaucracy is the vox populi, but good luck getting the public to agree on anything.

They report directly to him. That’s like saying that the employees are responsible for a corporate clusterfuck, and not the CEO.

The private sector is not the public sector. The private sector has a CEO, and the buck stops with him, or he wont' be CEO for very long. The public sector relies on systems that outlive the current holders of those positions, and so the rules governing what people in those positions can do have to be fairly restrictive, so that the systems can continue to exist. Government bureaucratic systems are like mousetraps. You step on the lever, and it reacts. It doesn't matter what your intentions were when you stepped on the mousetrap.

[Speaker to Animals]

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/18/21226372/ ... ay-testing

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3mk ... virus-test

https://mynorthwest.com/1758762/coronav ... flu-study/?

Ok, thank you for explaining where you're coming from. I see why you feel that Trump is culpable for a less-than-perfect response. However, I think you assign blame too narrowly, and suspect conspiracy where simple ineptitude is the most obvious culprit.

The FDA and CDC have their own (Trump appointed) directors, and are big, slow, monolithic bureaucracies. That's under every president, not just this one. They tried to shut down Dr. Chu's research because she was receiving federal funding to study one virus, but changed her focus to COVID-19. Guess what you're not supposed to do with federal funds - use them for other than their stated purpose. So the government bureaucracy was doing what is was supposed to while Dr. Chu was taking a gamble on trying to do the right thing.

Kind of a nothing-burger story there. Dr. Chu went rogue, thankfully, and misused government funds to the greater good of America. The agencies did what they were supposed to, and instructed her to stop misusing funds. No one was arrested. No labs were raided. If the government was really trying to pull off some grand conspiracy to stop Dr. Chu she would've vanished into a black site long before you ever knew her name.

But how are the states doing? Particularly,that Democrat stronghold - NY?

Cuomo doubles down on ordering nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients
https://nypost.com/2020/04/26https://ny ... ing-homes/

Yikes!

Let's take a look at the top 5 COVID-19 infected states as of today:

Hmm, another veritable who's-who of Democrat strongholds.

So while I agree that Trump appointed the heads of the CDC and FDA, I see nothing indicating he micromanaged their responses to Dr. Chu's work. I do, however, see the governor of NY insisting that nursing homes take COVID-19 positive people, and shoe-horning a bunch of "presumed" deaths into his COVID count.


Doesn't seem like Trump is responsible for all that.

That other people also are responsibility does not absolve Trump of accountability here. I cannot vote the NYC mayoral election, or the New York state gubernatorial election. I can only hold those elected officials accountable for whom I have the power to vote for or against.

The response was so bad across the board, a lot of people need to be removed from both elected and bureaucratic offices. That includes Trump himself.

[C-Mag]

And who would have the authority to change that beaurocracy?

Dude, Trump fired Comey and the beauracracy appointed Mueller to investigate his ass for almost 3 years.

The beaurocracy of the Judicial Branch. Not the executive.

So were agreed. Trump should fire the senior staff of the CDC, NIH, etc.

I've been saying that for awhile

[SuburbanFarmer]

Dude, Trump fired Comey and the beauracracy appointed Mueller to investigate his ass for almost 3 years.

The beaurocracy of the Judicial Branch. Not the executive.

So were agreed. Trump should fire the senior staff of the CDC, NIH, etc.

I've been saying that for awhile

I wouldn’t argue with that idea. But the only thing I can affect is trump himself and congresspeople.

As for the governors, I’d actually vote for DeWine to stay. One of a very few incumbents I would support.

[DBTrek]

It's certainly a legit position to vote against Trump if you disagree with his handling of COVID-19.

I'm simply revealing more of the picture here to add some depth to the discussion. When you look at why certain actors responded as they did (like the CDC and FDA), you have a better understanding of why things went down this particular way. When you look at the state largely responsible for our high death count, you see the governor packing nursing homes with infected patients and padding the state death count with "presumed" virus victims.

This context doesn't absolve Trump for anything he actually did. But it does absolve him from a lot of misdirected blame over things he didn't do.

[pineapplemike]

are we to believe the number of infected is much higher than the "confirmed" infected total? how much does that weigh against the quoted 5% mortality rate? if this has supposedly been in ths US and california since september

Then California is starting to figure out it was already epidemic there at least since Sept.

how was anyone in government supposed to contain it? you can say testing and contact tracing all you want but if this virus is as contagious as i've been told, it was going to get out one way or another