Trump declares national emergency at news conference; Dow rises
Here’s the news conference. I’ve queued it up for when Trump starts speaking:
It was long, it was comprehensive, and apparently it was reassuring.
I have only watched a little bit of it, but Trump seemed very knowledgeable and in charge, and the forces brought to bear on fighting this are impressive. He appeared “presidential,” which always hurt the left. That won’t stop a lot of people from trashing him, of course, but perhaps less effectively than before.
[NOTE: On the Dow rise and some press reaction.]
The Progs are all in on the narrative that Trump is incompetent. Obama Administration alums are especially vocal with the traitor Ben Rhodes leading the way.
What is so laughable is that these clowns apparently think Americans have forgotten how badly Obama handled the swine flu. 12k Americans died.
This is a commendable effort to correct a serious problem (the testing issue). Pence and the coronavirus task force assembled a coalition of large companies, including rivals, to work together on an issue of national significance. Trump’s demeanor was good, but what I’m looking at is leadership. The link at Ace of Spades makes it clear that the NY Times and other MSM types are not on the side of the American population; they’re merely DNC hacks.
I don’t want to give Trump too much credit. He has been a shoot-from-the-lip guy his whole public life. But I wonder if THIS Trump isn’t closer to what we’d have gotten if the political/media establishment hadn’t spent every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month for the last 3+ years trying to destroy him.
Mike
The MSM take-away from the entire news conference is (drum roll):
“Trump announces that he will take a corona virus test”
Jackasses!
I am impressed by the American public hysteria, high and low. Media-driven to a highly sensitized audience.
I went into my local Albertsons for just a few items, where manager and I, whom I’ve known for 20 years, crossed paths. He said, “I’ve worked here since 1971, thru 9/11, thru Hurricanes Andrew and more, and I have never seen anything like this…Those effing communist Chinese!”
The store was mobbed. All green produce was gone, apparently because the ignorati think it will “boost” their immune systems, based on what I see online. Melons, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and citrus remain unsold.
The stock markets cratered yesterday. Today POTUS declares a state of National Emergency at 3:30 pm and in the final half hour the markets soar. Would they cheer on the Titanic if the captain declared “Abandon ship”?
Meanwhile Dummkopf Biden badmouths Trump and then offers as his remedies only what Trump has effected days and weeks ago. The Idiot Plagiarist.
Here in Washington where everything is rapidly shutting down I heard more people complaining today than ever. It’s getting ridiculous now all schools in the state are shutting down until April 24. Even those in rural eastern Washington. 6 flippin’ weeks! The state wide cases went up like a 100 today to 500 something. The amount of displacement in state is going to extreme.
Don’t agree with all of this but a lot of it is right on.
University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass (also a very reasonable climate change guy on many issues):
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
I agree it’s mostly panic but a decision has been made. We’ll never know if/how bad it would’ve been without mass shutdowns.
Cicero: “Meanwhile Dummkopf Biden badmouths Trump and then offers as his remedies only what Trump has effected days and weeks ago.”
Two thumbs up
One thing mentioned in that Cliff Mass link I provided above was what he called ‘questionable online learning’ which is something I have thought about lately. One of the biggest cons going in this is the online learning and in many cases the ‘working from home/telecommuting’ which I strongly suspect has a greatly diminished productivity level.
I saw some comment a few days ago that many people support these shutdowns because it’s a good excuse to not do things that they don’t want to do anyways. And have the added benefit of virtue signally to the extreme.
buying off cheap oil is the main reason for the spike i think, i suspect since wed that he would do just that, preventing china from getting them while propping up the price to help our own oil industry and have more strategic reverse in case of a crisis
Griffin:
I think one of the main reasons for the extent of the shutdowns is increased fear of lawsuits if anyone gets COVID-19 and can trace it to going to a certain event or place. They’d rather shut down for a while and see what happens. There’s a cost either way, of course.
‘working from home/telecommuting’ which I strongly suspect has a greatly diminished productivity level.
I worked a fair amount at home before retirement. It wasn’t company policy, but nobody hassled me about it and I got quite a lot of work done sitting at my computer in my home office. Face time is wonderful for exchanging information because of its high bandwidth but there is a lot of work that is done alone and, if you have sufficient facilities at home, home is a good place to do it.
Chuck,
Yeah, no doubt for some people and some jobs it’s probably at least neutral but for a wide ranging workforce or for students I have my doubts. Been in enough offices where people waste time and get little done to know it can’t be better when those same slackers are at home.
neo,
Yep, lawsuits. Look at the cascading suspension of sports leagues. That one guy (Rudy Gobert) may have had more economic impact on the sports industry than anyone in history. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars affected. So fear of lawsuits probably has a similar impact.
Have a niece who lives in a rural part of Washington that has zero cases but now has to make arrangements for two elementary age kids for the next six weeks.
‘Better safe than sorry’ and ‘if it saves one life’ are the most overused cliches out there right now. I mean why isn’t the speed limit 5 mph? If it saves one life it’s worth it, right?
Think of the movie Office Space. Where’d the building come from?
Think of the many millions of the other workers like the next-door-neighbor (who happens to hang sheetrock). These people fixing electrical grids, pouring and finishing concrete, operating heavy machinery, fitting underground pipe, framing houses, laying roofs, repairing broken hotwater heaters and a million other such tasks aren’t working at home. If then they’ll be sent home, productivity is going to be screwed royal.
Oh, and Yamiche Alcindor is an asshole. That is all.
I am inundated with emails from utility companies, restaurant chains, banks, …, virtually every business that has my email.
Each of them has a CEO who cares a great deal about the health of their employees and customers.
So they are monitoring closely.
Yawn. What a waste of pixels …
I just talked to my DIL who works for a firm that does meeting and marketing. They have told her that their cash flow is down so badly that they may have trouble meeting payroll. Her income is well into six figures.
I felt reassured by what I saw of Trump’s address. It was careful, articulate, and thoughtful.
Lawsuits encourage everyone in charge to act on worse case scenarios; the cranks who complain and sue over every little thing hold a lot of power. When this is all over, I expect a lot of criticism for people overreacting; but it needs to be said that overreacting is a great way to reduce the damage.
trump looks extremely tired i hope he gets tested for corona he did come into contact with that brazilian official who was tested positive for corona so he should be tested.
Think of the many millions of the other workers like the next-door-neighbor (who happens to hang sheetrock).
True, true. I was thinking of the cheese factory where I used to work. The cows didn’t take vacations and the milk came in everyday. Triple pay on Christmas, but the work still needed to be done.
Look what a lady in politics has decided to do with power
“The executive order allows the city to be flexible to properly respond to the emergency needs of our community.
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/wandtv.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/51/551ced24-6535-11ea-9826-4f4fd396dacb/5e6b960454b21.pdf.pdf
freaking scary…
where does she get the idea that her office has THAT much power?
After the declaration of an emergency, the Mayor may in the interest of public safety and welfare make any or all of the following orders and provide the following direction:
(1) Issue such other orders as are imminently necessary for the protection of life and property.
(7) Order the control, restriction and regulation within the City by rationing, issuing quotas, fixing or freezing prices, allocating the use, sale or distribution of food, fuel, clothing and other commodities, materials, goods or services or the necessities of life;
(8) (a) Order City employees or agents, on behalf of the City, to take possession of any real or personal property of any person, or to acquire full title or such lesser interest as may be necessary to deal with a disaster or emergency, and to take possession of and for a limited time, occupy and use any real estate to accomplish alleviation of the disaster, or the effects thereof;
(b) In the event any real or personal property is utilized by the City, the City shall be liable to the owner thereof for the reasonable value of the use or for just compensation as the case may be.
[but screw due process… ]
(9) Order restrictions on ingress or egress to parts of the City to limit the occupancy of any premises;
(13) Prohibit the sale or distribution within the City of any products which could be employed in a manner which would constitute a danger to public safety.
[you can kill with a lawn chair]
(15) Temporarily suspend or modify, for not more than sixty (60) days, any regulation or ordinance of the City, including, but not limited to, those regarding health, safety, and zoning. This period may be extended upon approval of the City Council.
(16) Suspend or limit the use of the water resources or other infrastructure.
(17) Control, restrict, allocate, or regulate the use, sale, production, or distribution of food, water, fuel, clothing, and/or other commodities, materials, goods, services and resources.
(19) Direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from any stricken or threatened areas within the City if the mayor deems this action is necessary for the preservation of life, property, or other disaster or emergency mitigation, response or recovery and to prescribe routes, modes of transportation and destination in connection with an evacuation.
(25) Accept services, gifts, grants, loans, equipment, supplies, and/or materials whether from private, nonprofit, or governmental sources.
(26) Require the continuation, termination, disconnection, or suspension of natural gas, electrical power, water, sewer, communication or other public utilities or infrastructure.
here is my favorite
(29) Exercise such powers and functions in light of the exigencies of emergency or disaster including the waiving of compliance with any time consuming procedures and formalities, including notices, as may be prescribed by law.
Welcome to Champaign, Illinois!!!
where does this power come from?
Thanks for the link to Cliff Mass, Griffin. He makes some sensible points. Why not quarantine the most vulnerable (Elderly and immune suppressed folks) and let the healthy get on with normal activities except with much more attention to personal hygiene.
This has a terrible effect on the airlines, but it may improve their appreciation of their customers. They assure us that they are doing a much better job of cleaning their planes. That’s a good thing. We can only hope that lasts. I have reservations to fly in late May to my 70th high school reunion. At this point it’s looking like the reunion will be postponed, but the airline, that normally charges bigly to change a reservation has contacted me and offered to let me change it until Feb of 2021 at no charge. They want me to fly with them…..whenever I’m ready. I feel valued by an airline for the first time in many a moon. 🙂
This sudden collapse of air travel has happened before. In 1974 when OPEC raised prices there was a precipitous recession and air travel really went down the tubes. I flew many trips with just a few passengers on board. The airline I worked for shrunk its schedule and began flying charters to Las Vegas and Hawaii to sell some tickets. That situation lasted throughout the 1970s. A bad decade for the airlines.
Anyway, I hope warm weather will bring this to a halt, but if it doesn’t, maybe the idea of quarantining the vulnerable will be the ultimate answer to getting back to normal.
Correct me if I am wrong, but did not Pence already suspend the constitution over 2 weeks ago? This lady is apparently a retired judge who worked for FEMA. I don’t know if she is correct or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmDrKpWc79Y
Griffin…”One of the biggest cons going in this is the online learning and in many cases the ‘working from home/telecommuting’ which I strongly suspect has a greatly diminished productivity level.” Depends on the job, the situation, and the people involved. In some situations, it will *increase* productivity, even ignoring the vast reduction in time wasted in commuting. For example, a lot of people are in jobs requiring extreme concentration…programmers, financial analysts…and the environment of the typical open-office layout isn’t exactly conducive to this.
OTOH, this isn’t true of *all* programmers and *all* financial analysts at all times; some jobs, and some phases of the same job, require or at least benefit from direct in-person human interaction. I have a discussion thread on this whole topic at Chicago Boyz: Crisis Remote Working: What will be the long-term effects?
Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D., Human Events (emphasis added — sdferr):
Testing for Coronavirus Is Testing Our Mettle.
“[…] Reliable knowledge about the penetration of COVID-19 in our communities is critical and depends on the availability of two kinds of laboratory tests. Unfortunately, getting those tests up and running has been a fiasco.
[…]
The test kits in use in the United States detect viral genetic material—RNA, in the case of coronaviruses—which can be intact infectious material or non-infectious fragments. Once the patient has recovered, and the RNA has been cleared, the tests will yield a negative result. Thus, if we’re trying to ascertain what proportion of the population has experienced any degree of infection (asymptomatic, mild, or more serious), such post-recovery testing yields ‘false negatives.’
Additionally, essential information about the true incidence of COVID-19 will need to come from ‘serological tests‘ that measure anti-coronavirus antibodies in the blood, which will tell us whether a person has been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and recovered. (Note, however, that the antibodies take about 10-14 days from exposure to the virus to appear). Serological tests are currently being used in Singapore and China, and two, which are apparently at an advanced stage of development, are being developed at the U.S. CDC. Their availability and application to large numbers of the population will provide critical data on how widespread in the U.S. COVID-19 infections have been, and when we might expect the epidemic to subside (vide infra).”
rtwt
I’m very glad I was wrong in my prediction that the stock market would go lower after the Trump announcement, but the panic among the public continues and locally got worse after the announcement. Thursday, the local Stop&Shop was well stocked, after yesterday afternoon it was stripped bare. My SIL reports a near riot in Pittsburgh at the local Costco. My best student in 37 years of teaching was to defend her PhD thesis (civil engineering) in late May, and I was going to attend, but Princeton, in their infinite wisdom, cancelled all such events even for late May!…..the insanity continues. How does one stop mass hysteria?
How does one stop mass hysteria?
I think there’s nothing for it but to wait for it to receive its just deserts, a la Mencken’s aphorism: “Good and hard”
From Mollie Hemingway, a link to a Trevor Bedford thread “about how to interpret the seemingly sudden appearance of #COVID19 across the much of the US in the past week”: Treadreader app
*** I could easily be off 2-fold in either direction, but my best guess is that we’re currently in the 10,000 to 40,000 range nationally.
Again, there are a bunch of assumptions here, and the main point is not the ~20k number, but instead that what we’re seeing now are not new introductions, but small outbreaks that have been growing locally over the past ~8 weeks and now getting big enough to be noticed.
Sequencing #SARSCoV2 / #HCoV19 viruses from across the US will help to determine the relative number and size of these different transmission clusters. ***
“They have told her that their cash flow is down so badly that they may have trouble meeting payroll. Her income is well into six figures.“
One of the things that might come out of this is a come-to-Jesus moment for the elites. As bad as the 2008 financial crisis could have been, it was resolved fairly quickly and the pain of recovery seemed to be largely pushed down the economic ladder. But if the economy grinds to a halt for three or four months, plenty of people with six and even seven figure incomes will start to feel that bite.
And, in the aftermath, a lot of people who climbed into bed with a totalitarian tyranny may find themselves crosswise with a public that wants nothing to do with China.
Mike
if trump tested position for corona and eventually die from it prepare for a complete democrat control of the government for the next 100 years, they will take this as a proof that every crisis they have warned us such as climate change is also true and use it to seize complete control of the government because they are the only one who is serious and capable about fighting the incoming crisis.
Get a grip, Dave.
On the outside chance (as Bob Uecker would put it “just a bit outside”) that Dave jests, I’d suggest a simple modification to his thesis, thus:
“. . . and eventually die from it prepare for a
complete democrat control of the governmentJared Kushner declaration of Monarchy in the name of the Trump family for rest of eternity. Coronation of King Barron will be performed immediately, with sister Ivanka formally invested Regent in the name of her brother King Barron until such time as he reaches his majority. After which, of course, there will follow a month long period of national mourning for the late great Donald President-for-Life Trump. Queen Mother Melania will not be receiving visitors at this time.stderr, yours is clearly satire however I think that Dave may have been serious. Maybe he can elaborate.
Yes, well, haply granted Brian, though one might say that supposing Dave serious would make him laughable, which when we think about that kinda looks like a dog chasing after his tail, catching it and yelping as he toothily crunches down, so . . . yeah, satire.
I’m new here so I’m not familiar with the usual cast of characters.
“Get a grip, Dave.”
I’d be happy if he would just get a basic grammar and punctuation textbook.
Dave is of Chinese extraction and not a native english-speaker or writer IIRC.
I don’t think we should dismiss Dave’s hypothetical too quickly, based on past performance of the Democrat leadership.
They will lie about whatever they need to in regard to their past pronouncements — we saw that just this week on several fronts — and the media will aid and abet them (where they are not leading the charge).
Dave, the alliance has more than enough tech to keep Trum alive and functioning.
You need to read more Q Anon and other briefs.
I’d be happy if he would just get a basic grammar and punctuation textbook.
I and the divine would be happy if you humans stopped judging yourselves based on the flimsiest of justifications and knee jerk reflex emotions.
12 k Americans died from Hussein’s swine flu? First time I heard about that. I was too busy prepping and stocking up, I guess.