The truckers protest in Ottawa is out of hand

I don't have any "beliefs" about that one way or the other. I know that testing of the virus as it mutates have shown none of the markers consistent with manmade or modified viruses.

tnc.news/2022/02/07/no-evidence-truckers-involved-with-arson-but-mayor-blames-convoy-anyway/

I guess they tried but I couldn't find anything past 2/7/22.  But the mayor blamed the convoy anyway....

Italy wold have given you a pretty good clue.

But Italy didn't use morse code or smoke signals. Interpretative dance is a risky form of communication in pandemic times, jussayin'. 

Feb. 2, 2020



“We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

I remember Trump being called xenophobic because he was stopping travel from china into the US. 

Or that they actually did have something to do with it.

As usual, the truth is more nuanced than Fox led you to believe. Biden called him xenophobic because of his history of xenophobic words (you know - rapists, murderers, not sending their best people, shithole countries, etc.), not specifically because of the China policy.

www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/27/donald-trump/fact-checking-whether-biden-called-trump-xenophobi/

You're right that you make racist comments and play dumb about them when called out.

It's not a debate. The verifiable FACTS:
LINK from USA Today  "In May 2018, former national security adviser John Bolton restructured Trump's National Security Council and disbanded the global health unit. Its former head, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, resigned from the administration and was not replaced.

Tim Morrison, a former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the NSC, wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post that he "inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate" when he joined in July 2018.

"This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020," he wrote.

He also said that the reorganization of the NSC was necessary after the "bloat that occurred" under Obama, when the staff quadrupled to nearly 400 – a figure that even members of the Obama administration agreed was too large."




Your timeline writer was outright deceptive with his claim. "May 2018 The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team."
It wasn't even misinformation, it was outright DISinformation. Meant to deceive. He wanted people to think there was no one left to handle a pandemic.

No need to google item by item. If the very first item is so intentionally deceptive, no need waste time assuming any credibility to the rest of his timeline. 

Call it what you want but Trump disbanded the NSC pandemic unit created under President Obama and left the country less prepared for a pandemic.

apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a

WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health and national security experts shake their heads when President Donald Trump says the coronavirus “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world.”
They’ve been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticized the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.

“It would be nice if the office was still there,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, told Congress this week. “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake (to eliminate the unit). I would say we worked very well with that office.”

The NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defense survived the transition from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2017.

Trump’s elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see the threat of pandemics in the same way that many experts in the field did.

“One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed Friday in The Washington Post.

She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”

It’s impossible to assess the impact of the 2018 decision to disband the unit, she said. Cameron noted that biological experts remain at the White House, but she says it’s clear that eliminating the office contributed to what she called a “sluggish domestic response.” She said that shortly before Trump took office, the unit was watching a rising number of cases in China of a deadly strain of the flu and a yellow fever outbreak in Angola.

“It’s unclear whether the decision to disband the directorate, which was made in May 2018, after John Bolton became national security adviser, was a tactical move to downgrade the issue or whether it was part of the White House’s interest in simplifying and shrinking the National Security Council staff,” Cameron says.

The NSC during the Obama administration grew to about 250 professionals, according to Trump’s current national security adviser, Robert O’Brien. The staff has been cut to about 110 or 115 staffers, he said.

When Trump was asked on Friday whether closing the NSC global health unit slowed the U.S. response, the president called it a “nasty” question because his administration had acted quickly and saved lives.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said.

Earlier, when asked about it, he said: “This is something that you can never really think is going to happen.”

On Saturday, John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser, dismissed claims that “streamlining NSC structures impaired our nation’s bio defense are false.″ In a tweet, he said global health “remained a top NSC priority, and its expert team was critical to effectively handling the 2018-19 Africa Ebola crisis. The angry Left just can’t stop attacking, even in a crisis.″

For many years, the national intelligence director’s worldwide threat assessment has warned that a flu pandemic or other large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease could lead to massive rates of death and disability that would severely affect the world economy. Public health experts have been blowing whistles too.

Back in mid-2018, Fauci told Congress: “When you have a respiratory virus that can be spread by droplets and aerosol and ... there’s a degree of morbidity associated with that, you can have a catastrophe. ... The one that we always talk about is the 1918 pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people. ... Influenza first, or something like influenza, is the one that keeps me up at night.”

The White House says the NSC remains involved in responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

A senior administration official said Friday that the NSC’s global health security directorate was absorbed into another division where similar responsibilities still exist, but under different titles. The work of coordinating policy and making sure that decisions made by Trump’s coronavirus task force are implemented is still the job of the NSC.

Some lawmakers aren’t convinced.

Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., and Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, have introduced a bill that would require future administrations to have experts always in place to prepare for new pandemics.

“Two years ago, the administration dismantled the apparatus that had been put in place five years before in the face of the Ebola crisis,” Connolly said. “I think, in retrospect, that was an unwise move. This bill would restore that and institutionalize it.”

Connolly said the bill is not meant to be critical of the Trump administration. He said it’s a recognition that Trump had to name a coronavirus responder just like Obama had to name one for Ebola in 2014. “We can’t go from pandemic to pandemic,” Connolly said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 4 passed the measure, which is co-sponsored by 37 Democrats and five Republicans. The full House has not yet voted on the bill.

Chabot said one of the bill’s main goals is to would require personnel to be permanently in place preparing for pandemics.

“Specifically, we need someone, preferable at the NSC, to quarterback the U.S. government’s response since that response inevitably involves several agencies across the government,” Chabot said. “Our bill would make this position permanent.”

Former Obama administration officials insist that the Trump White House would have been able to act more quickly had the office still been intact.

“I think if we’d had a unit and dedicated professionals looking at this issue, gaming out scenarios well before ... we might have identified some of these testing issues,” says Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s homeland security adviser, said at a recent forum on coronavirus. “There would have been folks sounding the alarm in December when we saw this coming out of China, saying ’Hey, what do we need to be doing here in this country to address it?”

Ron Klain, who managed the government response to contain and mitigate the spread of Ebola in 2014, agreed.

“If I were back in my old job at the White House ... I’d be pushing to have us do 30 million tests — to test people in nursing homes, to test people with unexplained respiratory ailments, to test the people who regularly visit nursing homes, to test healthcare workers,” Klain said recently at the event hosted by the Center for American Progress in Washington.

you guys... I don't know whether I admire you or if I should shake my head.

Don't your heads hurt from beating them against those brick walls? lol. Actually it's more admiration of your patience and persistence, I guess... something I don't have, that's for sure.

apologies again for derailing the thread. back to the truckers blockade. They really are just having a big frat party

www.reuters.com/world/americas/saunas-fire-pits-ottawas-truck-protesters-it-long-haul-2022-02-09/

OTTAWA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Sleeping in trucks and staying warm at fire pits and portable saunas, protesters camped out in the frigid Canadian capital of Ottawa are digging in for a long stay, convinced they have momentum and right on their side.

The number of protesters in the "Freedom Convoy" – initially an opposition to vaccine mandates for cross-border drivers that has morphed into a wider protest against COVID restrictions and the Canadian government – has thinned since it arrived in Ottawa 13 days ago.

"We want freedom for our kids," said Jean-Pierre Lapointe, who came from Quebec with his small children, their strollers strung with small Canadian flags. His daughter had a cardboard sign around her neck: "My future is in your hands.”

He said they would stay "until we get out freedom back. ... I want all the mandates to end."

Several protesters told Reuters they had lost jobs or had trouble finding work because they were not vaccinated. Others cited objections to government policy beyond the vaccine mandates such as a federal carbon tax and housing unaffordability. Virtually all of them spoke about losing their right to autonomy.

Trucks and other vehicles in the area were emblazoned with variations on "FREEDOM" and exhortations against vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other measures. Some protesters wore Canadian flags as capes or baseball caps reading "Make Canada Great Again," a play on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s slogan.

The protest, congregated around the Canadian Parliament and central bank, has shut down the city’s downtown core and frayed residents’ nerves due to blaring trunk horns. A court granted an injunction against using horns on Monday, but police have been unable to shift the protesters, some of whom are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Clustered around metal drum fire pits, protesters traded debunked talking points on how Trudeau profited from buying vaccine patents or from contracts that went to a private company charged with administering COVID-19 tests.

Multiple protesters said they were convinced vaccines could kill people. Data show post-vaccination adverse events are extremely rare.

A well-organized supply chain has kept the protesters stocked with fuel, food and everything from diapers to bouncy castles for children. Open-sided tents piled high with food and water fed the protesters, who were largely peaceful. The group has raised millions in funding, some of which came from U.S. supporters, Canadian police said.

About a quarter of the 418 protest trucks have children in them, Ottawa Deputy Police Chief Steve Bell said. Citing concern for their welfare in relation to cold, noise, carbon monoxide risks and access to sanitation, police are in touch with child welfare authorities, Bell said.

"We’re not at the stage where we're looking to do any sort of enforcement activity around that," he said.

Police have made 23 arrests, issued about 1,300 tickets issued and have 79 criminal investigations open as of Tuesday.

Canada's right-wing Rebel News has said it would cover protesters' legal fees.

"I'm a very wealthy man,” said Kenny McKean, a domestic trucker from Huntsville, Ontario, who said his fuel costs are running at C$200 a day. "I can stay to the end."

(This story corrects length of protest to 13 days, not 12, in second paragraph)

Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Mark Porter

Sorry, I know I just apologized for derailing the thread.  I'm just tired of this nonsense.

Nice try at deflecting.  I think you're using the death toll for all of 2021, neglecting the fact that Trump was president for the first 20 days.  Many of the covid deaths early in Biden's presidency are a result of the Trump administration inaction.  


Even Trump's Covid 19 response coordinator said lives could have been saved if Trump had acted on recommendations

thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/578667-trump-could-have-saved-130000-people-from

Birx, claiming the Trump White House failed to listen to the science, believes more than 130,000 lives could have been saved during the beginning of the pandemic had the measures instructed by experts been implemented.

"I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30% less to 40% less range," Birx said.


www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/30/biden-trump-compare-covid-deaths/

By Aaron Blake
Staff writer
November 30, 2021 at 11:29 a.m. EST

The United States passed yet another grim coronavirus milestone in November: We have now seen more deaths from the virus in 2021 than we did in all of 2020 — despite the advent of vaccines.

Naturally, this has led to plenty of partisan politicking, with conservatives and Republicans using it to argue that President Biden has failed in his promise to get the virus under control. Some have gone so far as to say this stat proves Biden’s handling of the virus is worse than President Donald Trump’s was.

As with all coronavirus stats, such comparisons can easily be manipulated depending upon when waves occur, etc., and stripped of context. And that context is less damning for Biden vis-a-vis Trump.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board got the ball rolling last week. In an editorial titled, “Biden’s Covid Death Milestone,” it noted the 2021-vs.-2020 comparison.

“It would seem that Mr. Biden has done no better than Donald Trump in defeating covid despite the benefit of vaccines, better therapies and more clinical experience,” argued the editorial, which Trump himself went on to promote.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has echoed the point: “I took [Biden] at his word when he said he was going to get covid under control. Unfortunately, more Americans have died this year than last year under covid.”

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson intoned Monday night, while arguing against Biden’s tenure as president: “More Americans have died from covid in 2021 than died in 2020 before there was a shot.”

And Breitbart said: “The U.S. death toll … under Joe Biden’s administration will soon surpass the death toll recorded during Donald Trump’s administration, and in less time.”

As the Wall Street Journal’s editorial noted, Biden has set himself up for such comparisons. As a candidate in 2020, he commented on what were then 220,000 deaths, saying that “anyone that is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”
From there, it’s a question of just how many deaths the president is actually responsible for. Too often, criticisms of Trump devolved into suggesting (explicitly or implicitly, as Biden did) that a president could have prevented all those deaths. The worldwide experience with the virus proves otherwise. They also often ignored per capita numbers.

The comparison between 2020 and 2021 is also inapt in that Trump was still president in early 2021, and the effects of choices made before Biden took over (such as Trump not really encouraging people to get vaccinated) lingered into Biden’s early presidency. The biggest wave of the coronavirus in this country, in fact, peaked around the exact time Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20. Inheriting a trendline that showed 3,000 deaths per day, as Biden did, is a recipe for inflating your numbers.

(To a significant degree, that wave was outside Trump’s control, of course; most places in the world were experiencing the worst wave of the virus at the time.)
Even if we assumed all things were equal, though, the comparison still struggles.
Both presidents presided over about 10 months of the pandemic. The World Health Organization declared that label on March 11, meaning Trump was president for a little more than 10 months of the formally declared pandemic. Biden has now passed a little more than 10 months in office as well.
Thus far, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Biden has presided over about 353,000 deaths in a little over 10 months, compared to about 425,000 for Trump in his final 10-plus months. So there have still been fewer deaths under Biden than under Trump, in a similar time period.

The best comparison to my mind, though, is not the raw numbers — which depend upon how bad things are, when waves occur, emerging variants, etc. — but how we compare to the rest of the world. Just as the best comparisons for Trump’s numbers worldwide were per capita and relative, so, too, are Biden’s.

What we can say: Under Biden, we have accounted for a significantly smaller share of worldwide deaths than under Trump.
The 425,000 deaths we saw in Trump’s 10-plus months accounted for nearly 20 percent of all worldwide deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Since Biden took over, the world as a whole has seen more deaths in his 10 months (3.07 million) than the preceding 10 months (2.14 million), but the United States has seen fewer. In Biden’s 10-plus months, the United States has accounted for less than 12 percent of worldwide deaths, which is down from 19.9 percent under Trump. That’s a decline of more than 40 percent in our proportion of the worldwide death rate.

Again, no comparisons are perfect. But if you look at how the virus has spread in similar countries between the two 10-month periods, the United States is generally doing better than it was, relatively speaking. Before Jan. 20, Europe accounted for more than 30 percent of coronavirus deaths; after that date, Europe has accounted for 25.2 percent of deaths. That’s a smaller drop — about 16.5 percent — than we have seen in the United States, even as Europe’s continentwide vaccination rate is similar.

Within Europe, you can cherry-pick your comparisons, but let’s focus on a couple of countries. The United Kingdom, with its very high vaccination rates, has gone from 4.4 percent of worldwide deaths pre-Jan. 20 to 1.7 percent afterward — a bigger relative drop than the United States. Germany has gone from 2.3 percent to 1.7 percent, a smaller drop than the United States.

The question from there is how you factor in the vaccines and other variables. We have a superior health system to most countries and widely available vaccines, which should put us in a better position even as the worldwide death rate has increased during Biden’s tenure. But the most pronounced vaccine reluctance comes from those who have little regard for Biden’s public health advice. On the one hand, Biden as president is responsible for persuading Americans to get vaccinated; on the other hand, those people who are very disproportionately accounting for coronavirus deaths right now — the unvaccinated — are in large number those who won’t listen to him.

It’s a tricky question, but the straight Biden-vs.-Trump death comparison isn’t as friendly to Trump’s administration as these oversimplified talking points suggest. Biden hasn’t been able to get the virus as under control as he promised, but almost nobody has. And to say he “has done no better than Donald Trump in defeating covid” based upon the 2021-to-2020 comparison is to vastly oversimplify things.

Of course not. The fact that they ARE facts and verifiable, makes them facts.




True, I don't like to mind read.
Although, thinking critically, I'm assuming he researched the facts for the timeline before he wrote it. If he researched about the pandemic response team, then he knows the other facts about it and chose to write that entry in such a way that didn't even hint at the nuances of that entry. So I AM guessing that he did not want people to think anything but- there was no one left to handle a pandemic, for that entry, or he would have at least alluded to it.