President Trump has Covid19

[DocJones]

The electoral college serves no actual function but to complicate the process and maybe rarely create a disaster; its only remaining function is to give greater weight to small states.

Not true. One additional function of the electoral college is to make recounts easier. The 2000 election, for instance, came down to a few hundred votes. But they only had to do recounts in 4 Florida counties, because the results in all the other states and counties were either settled, or irrelevant. If it was a straight popular national election and two candidates came within 537 votes, then you'd have to recount every vote cast in every county and in every state, because a discrepancy anywhere could swing the entire election. That would add a huge amount of overhead, and encourage lots of fraud.

This is not true at all.  Only in Maine and Nebraska are electors picked by Congressional districts (and not counties regardless). All other States pick electors by the total popular vote.   Read Bush v. Gore.  The court ruled that the use of different standards of counting in different counties violated the Equal Protection Clause.

[DocJones]

Trump has apparently "dominated" the Wuhan flu and totally kicked its ass.
Proving face diapers are for pussies.

[DocJones]

The only person I remember actually saying "inject bleach" was Nancy Pelosi. And so even if warning against it, she's the one who put the idea in people's heads.

It's blatantly obvious to me that Trump was ASKING Bill Bryan if it were feasible to use UV and disinfectants internally:

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting.  So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that too.  It sounds interesting.

ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN:  We'll get to the right folks who could.

THE PRESIDENT:  Right.  And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.  One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.  So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with.  But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.

[Delete_me]

If you think that's bad, imagine how much fun it is to try and enforce it within a org where the pressure is to -close- cases. Not necessarily to 'win', but to just close them.

We had a similar problem in the Department of Defense, where the pressure was to do X when the sensible thing was to do Y. Perverse incentives abound.

[Delete_me]

Anyone dumb enough to drink bleach (or eat Tide Pods) won't be missed.
The gene pool is already murky enough.

...you didn't answer the question.

[Delete_me]

This is not true at all.  Only in Maine and Nebraska are electors picked by Congressional districts (and not counties regardless). All other States pick electors by the total popular vote.   Read Bush v. Gore.  The court ruled that the use of different standards of counting in different counties violated the Equal Protection Clause.

I don't agree with rawma's interpretation, but you've also committed a nonsequitor here. Having to only recount a few counties is not the same thing as having different standards of counting.

I can have a rule, and it stands under Bush v. Gore, where only counties where the tally was within 5% have to be recounted. As long as they all follow the same standard for what is a legitimate vote and what is cast aside on a technically, I don't violate the standard set in Bush v. Gore.

[VisionStorm]

Such tax breaks have existed for decades, and were used by Trump before Obama was president; so you are going with the time travel thing. 

This is one of those things that both sides are using when it's advantageous to their argument at the expense of truth.

The simple fact is that yes, Obama did sign into law several tax breaks that the current President has used (despite how, for 8 years, we Conservatives liked to beat the drum about how Obama was raising our taxes). However, the other side of that is who made that tax law? A Republican Congress and the bill was authored by a Michigan Republican.

So, as with most things in politics, both sides are to blame and nobody's really driving the car.

The question is: How is this Trump's fault? Because both-side-isms aside, the entire reason why this is even being discussed is because ONE side that's frothing at the mouth to hang Trump with anything that sticks is bringing it up to pretend that Trump using tax exceptions that existed years before he even ran for president is both, a nefarious and unthinkable act, as well as squarely on Trump's shoulders, like he wrote the laws just to give himself tax breaks.

And yes, both sides are garbage, and the two political parties have been corrupt and screwing over the American public for decades. But in the current political climate there are two sides that transcend political affiliation. One is normal regular people with varying degrees of understanding and investment on the political process, but at least a modicum of common sense to see through some of the bullshit or at least get a sense that something is "off", and the other one is frothing at the mouth lunatics obsessed with Trump.

[Delete_me]

A witch hunt.

Or it's a sign that his taxes are that incredibly complicated since when it started was well before he entered the political stage. But hey, if you want to engage in conspiracy theories that somehow the IRS knew he'd be the President and thus was witch hunting him back in 2010... go ahead.

Imagine the news if Saint Obama was under the same scrutiny!

Well... actually... 33 people in his administration DID come under scrutiny for much the same thing. Does no one remember Timothy Geithner? Or is it just that when he said, "my taxes are  complicated, I forgot to pay that part. I've paid it now," it was wrong, but when Trump says something similar it's true?

So, thanks to decades of convoluted nonsense shoved into the tax code BY BOTH PARTIES, we have a situation where the MSM can easily do a partisan hit job by simply interpreting the code as they like because the code's intricacies have gone so far beyond the 6th grade reading level of the average citizen.

I agree. It's a shame that happened to Geithner... wait... oh, did you mean JUST Trump?

[Delete_me]

The question is: How is this Trump's fault?

Outside of potentially misleading (note the word choice, BOTH words) claim that it was just Obama's tax provision, I didn't say anything was or was not his fault. But as a rhetorical question, I take your point.

And yes, both sides are garbage, and the two political parties have been corrupt and screwing over the American public for decades. But in the current political climate there are two sides that transcend political affiliation. One is normal regular people with varying degrees of understanding and investment on the political process, but at least a modicum of common sense to see through some of the bullshit or at least get a sense that something is "off", and the other one is frothing at the mouth lunatics obsessed with Trump.

Then be the change you want to see: start with the assumption that there COULD be something nefarious hidden in there and that's why he doesn't want you to see his tax returns. That is a plausible explanation (more plausible than the explanations the President has given). THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT'S TRUE.

Have a modicum of common sense and see that if you don't hold our own side accountable, who is more likely to get away with lying to you? The person you suspect of lying to you (the MSM, in your case) all the time, or the person whispering what you want to hear in your ear all the time?

Nothing in that statement should be read as saying the President did this or that. It's a warning that should hold true no matter who you are. Have the common sense you're asking for others to and be at peace rather than frothing in obsession over those who froth in obsession over the President.

[Pat]

The electoral college serves no actual function but to complicate the process and maybe rarely create a disaster; its only remaining function is to give greater weight to small states.

Not true. One additional function of the electoral college is to make recounts easier. The 2000 election, for instance, came down to a few hundred votes. But they only had to do recounts in 4 Florida counties, because the results in all the other states and counties were either settled, or irrelevant. If it was a straight popular national election and two candidates came within 537 votes, then you'd have to recount every vote cast in every county and in every state, because a discrepancy anywhere could swing the entire election. That would add a huge amount of overhead, and encourage lots of fraud.

This is not true at all.  Only in Maine and Nebraska are electors picked by Congressional districts (and not counties regardless). All other States pick electors by the total popular vote.   Read Bush v. Gore.  The court ruled that the use of different standards of counting in different counties violated the Equal Protection Clause.

I wasn't familiar with that ruling, so I'm clearly out of date. But you're also wrong. Nobody except you mentioned districts. I only referred to the 4 counties in Florida where Gore requested a recount during the 2000 election.

And the more general principle still stands. With a close national popular vote, you might need to recount 130 million ballots. If only Florida is in dispute, that's reduced to 9 million ballots, and from a practical standpoint could be much less (cf. the 4 counties). There's a real practical advantage to blocking votes, though statewide groupings are a grosser than ideal division.

[Ratman_tf]

The only person I remember actually saying "inject bleach" was Nancy Pelosi. And so even if warning against it, she's the one who put the idea in people's heads.

It's blatantly obvious to me that Trump was ASKING Bill Bryan if it were feasible to use UV and disinfectants internally:

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting.  So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that too.  It sounds interesting.

ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN:  We'll get to the right folks who could.

THE PRESIDENT:  Right.  And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.  One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.  So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with.  But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.

Quite right. Thanks for posting the actual discussion. He sounds like a layman, which he is on this subject. Hell, if someone told me that doctors were using UV light and some kind of disinfectant interally, to treat an infection, I'd have just gone, "Well, neat!"
As usual, the media spin against Trump is built on a rickety scaffold of misinterpretations.

[Pat]

Quite right. Thanks for posting the actual discussion. He sounds like a layman, which he is on this subject. Hell, if someone told me that doctors were using UV light and some kind of disinfectant interally, to treat an infection, I'd have just gone, "Well, neat!"
As usual, the media spin against Trump is built on a rickety scaffold of misinterpretations.

Trump rambles. He brainstorms out loud. He speaks off the cuff. He talks about shit he doesn't know anything about.

And the media treats every off-the cuff rambling brainstorm on a random topic as a serious policy proposal.

[Delete_me]

Quite right. Thanks for posting the actual discussion. He sounds like a layman, which he is on this subject. Hell, if someone told me that doctors were using UV light and some kind of disinfectant interally, to treat an infection, I'd have just gone, "Well, neat!"
As usual, the media spin against Trump is built on a rickety scaffold of misinterpretations.

Go watch the whole news conference again. It was off the cuff, but he wasn't talking about UV light as the injection. He even then tried to walk it back the next day by saying he was being sarcastic about injecting disinfectants. Claiming that he meant the UV light (or irradiated light treatment, which is not what the doctors were talking about there at all, and that is obvious even to the layman) was to be injected shows a lack of knowledge of the incident. Not even the President claimed that's what he was saying.

Watch the whole thing, body language and all, not just the text that carries no tone or context.

Did he say the two words "inject bleach" together? No. Did he suggest injecting disinfectants (which the layperson would reasonably believe to be cleaning agents like Lysol or Clorox)? Yes. Was he being sarcastic? Maybe, but if so he was bad at it because he sure sounded serious and hopeful and the doctor looked very confused.

[Delete_me]

(Double post)

[Ratman_tf]

Quite right. Thanks for posting the actual discussion. He sounds like a layman, which he is on this subject. Hell, if someone told me that doctors were using UV light and some kind of disinfectant interally, to treat an infection, I'd have just gone, "Well, neat!"
As usual, the media spin against Trump is built on a rickety scaffold of misinterpretations.

Go watch the whole news conference again. It was off the cuff, but he wasn't talking about UV light as the injection. He even then tried to walk it back the next day by saying he was being sarcastic about injecting disinfectants. Claiming that he meant the UV light (or irradiated light treatment, which is not what the doctors were talking about there at all, and that is obvious even to the layman) was to be injected shows a lack of knowledge of the incident. Not even the President claimed that's what he was saying.

Watch the whole thing, body language and all, not just the text that carries no tone or context.

Did he say the two words "inject bleach" together? No. Did he suggest injecting disinfectants (which the layperson would reasonably believe to be cleaning agents like Lysol or Clorox)? Yes. Was he being sarcastic? Maybe, but if so he was bad at it because he sure sounded serious and hopeful and the doctor looked very confused.

If you're basing your medical decisions on the President's body language and not the expert opinion of your doctor, you've got lots more problems than I can address here.

Trump made some incorrect speculations and then clumsily walked them back. He didn't tell people to "Inject Bleach" or "drink bleach", which was the headline afterwards.

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200713/fact-check-did-trump-tell-people-to-drink-bleach-to-kill-coronavirus
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/24/trump-disinfectant-bleach-coronavirus-claims-reaction