Red
Well-Known Member
One Elie Mystal of The Nation pulls no punches...
www.thenation.com
“Trump and his administration should be treated like mass murderers. Vanity Fair reports that Jared Kushner may have decided to scuttle a national testing plan because the deaths were, at the time, heavily skewed towards “blue” states with Democratic governors. If true, that behavior should be viewed as a crime against humanity. No, it is not the killing fields; it is not the Armenian genocide; it’s not the gulag or any number of recent horrors of history. But I would argue that it could meet all three elements required to go before the International Criminal Court: It’s persecution against an identifiable group, as well as an inhumane act “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health”; it’s a systemic “attack” against a civilian population; and it’s done with knowledge of the attack.“
www.vanityfair.com
“But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert..
The Deaths of 150,000 Americans Are on Trump’s Hands
Trump and his lackeys are guilty of criminal negligence, if not far worse. Who will hold them accountable?
www.thenation.com
“Trump and his administration should be treated like mass murderers. Vanity Fair reports that Jared Kushner may have decided to scuttle a national testing plan because the deaths were, at the time, heavily skewed towards “blue” states with Democratic governors. If true, that behavior should be viewed as a crime against humanity. No, it is not the killing fields; it is not the Armenian genocide; it’s not the gulag or any number of recent horrors of history. But I would argue that it could meet all three elements required to go before the International Criminal Court: It’s persecution against an identifiable group, as well as an inhumane act “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health”; it’s a systemic “attack” against a civilian population; and it’s done with knowledge of the attack.“
How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
This spring, a team working under the president’s son-in-law produced a plan for an aggressive, coordinated national COVID-19 response that could have brought the pandemic under control. So why did the White House spike it in favor of a shambolic 50-state response?
“But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert..
