As to Fauci and truth telling. It seems a “heads up” was issued (by Fauci) in 2017 regarding a surprise outbreak.in the near future.
Why would this have been ignored ?
Dr. Fauci Warned In 2017 Of ‘Surprise Outbreak’ During Trump Administration
“In chaos there is Profit”.
Crozier ²?
It would spoil the surprise?
If POTUS45* is supporting his science adviser, why is he retweeting messages from people who want to axe him? From NYT, today:
Mr. Trump reposted a Twitter message that said “Time to #FireFauci” as he rejected criticism of his slow initial response to the pandemic that has now killed more than 22,000 people in the United States. The president privately has been irritated at times with Dr. Fauci, but the Twitter message was the most explicit he has been in letting that show publicly.
Mr. Trump retweeted a message from a former Republican congressional candidate. “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives,” said the tweet by DeAnna Lorraine, who got less than 2 percent of the vote in an open primary against Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month. “Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US at large. Time to #Fire Fauci.”
President Trump will blame the science folks for a bad economy in November. (He’ll blame everyone else, too.) As Dr. Fauci is the face of that team he will bear the brunt of that blame when the time comes.
To be fair, the media keeps asking Fauci loaded questions where a straight answer would put him at odds with the President. (I watch way too much news while stuck at home alone.) He’s always deflecting or offering careful answers to avoid the traps. Given enough time he’s bound to slip up on an answer and spawn a conflict.
“If we had, right from the beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different,” Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN.
I’m not sure I get the media’s obsession with leading Dr. Fauci into saying something that will piss off his boss. I get that it makes for a day’s titillation and sound bites but at what cost? It will only drive the President away from his science folks which will cost American lives. The press needs to cut that shit out.
Very well said, sir.
I think one needs to step back and look at the big picture. We can ask ourselves some simple questions:
How much truth is coming from this president?
Is it the press’s job to placate the occupant of the White House? (Isn’t that the job of Faux News and RT?)
If we were talking about anyone other than DJT in the White House, would we be asking any of these questions?
What kind of “new normal” are you willing to settle for? What would be the cost of not asking these questions?
Having said that, the press struggles sometimes to be on top of the next big story and that can lead to the kinds of aggressive questioning mentioned above. Personally, I’d rather see the pressure turned up 5x directly on this president. The press should be supporting one another and “gang tackling”. Whenever this president weasles out of an answer, the next questioner should repeat the same question and so on.
This is not directly on point. But it is related. And helpful.
The Senate and House seem to be blameless in all this if you read the news and see all the emphasis on Trump. True he has not been an example of forward thinking, inspired and honest leadership during this time but Congress also has failed miserably in preparing the country for responding to a pandemic over last 12 years+. They currently sit at home pondering how to get re elected and telling everyone what a great job they have done…
This pandemic is like a stress test a cardiologist gives to check a person’s ability to handle stress and overall health. The USA collectively failed this national stress test . For the most “powerful nation on earth” which claims to be the richest nation that should cause changes to be made, top to bottom. But that’s not likely to happen until things get much worse. Odds are things will get much worse.
If you look at congressional favorability ratings, you’ll see that congress is not held in very high regard. With respect to the pandemic, they’re definitely in the background – lost in the sea clutter as it were.
As to what congress should have done, I’ve not seen a history on pandemic preparedness. We are in purely reactionary mode here and slow to react. I’m reasonably certain that there will be congessional hearings and reports down the line.
Mind numbing partisanship as been the “norm” for many years now. A sad fact of life that needs to change. With the current administration, there is a bottle-neck at the top between the Senate and WH. The senate is reluctant to advance anything that does not have the WH’s blessing in advance. Nor is there any real appetite for veto overrides.
IMHO a viable third-party is needed to break this logjam. Term limits should be implemented as well. With 2 year terms, the House members are fundraising and running constantly. Even with these constraints however some 400+ bills are awaiting action in the Senate.
Another view from media critic Jay Rosen; the way it’s being done currently the media is just playing their role in the Donald Trump Show. Asking more questions just creates more lies. Being more aggressive lends more credence to the idea that the media just has TDS.
Rosen:
If I ran a newsroom I would not broadcast Trump’s Covid-19 briefings live. I would not send reporters so he can waste their time and use them as his hate objects. I would instruct them to watch it on CSPAN, and report any news that emerges. If he makes a factual claim it has to be verified or no go.
Mind numbing partisanship is extremely prevalent on both sides. Ain’t gonna go away anytime soon, or never. I vote for who will benefit me the most. Most Americans do the same.Yep, that’s the personal partisanship to self,guilty as hell.
20% of Americans are raging conservatives, 20% are raging liberals, and the remaining 60% wish both sides would just STFU and find something else to fixate on.
I can’t rubber stamp the numbers, but the sentiment seems valid. My concept of a center-right third party happily occupies the 60% in the middle. 
As an outsider it is curious to see how Trump resembles a old fashioned European monarch who silences anybody that dare to contradict him or has a different opinion. Here the King is decoration only and has no political or any other power for that matter, the prime minister is in fact the head of state comparable to your president who are both politically accountable. However there are big differences apart from the size of the countries. One is how our ‘president’ is going to work and meetings… 
Another one is that also in this crisis congress is out of the picture it seems to me, Trump is questioned by the press and not by the for instance the House of Representative. Here every Tuesday afternoon the PM has to appear before our HoP and is asked all kind of critical questions as he is accountable for anything of importance that is going on at that moment in the country. Most of his ministers are also present at that time and will also answer questions. Democracy at work. Maybe I missed something but I donot see that happening in your system, but it could be that I am uninformed, please enlighten me then. It looks like the US is managed by tweets, daily press conferences, denial of accountability, insults and character assassination at the moment.
What you’ve described is a parliamentary monarchy. Similar to what is to be found in the U.K. The U.S. is governed by a constitutional republic grounded in a system of federalism.
What you see is what you get. That describes the current incarnation.
You didn’t miss anything, you got it right.
I wish we had a way to dump the 2 party system here and replace it with a parliament of local or regionally elected members who are prohibited from accepting campaign contributions (in cash or in kind) from any person not entitled to cast a vote for that person.
The US is witnessing the end of a 250 year experiment in democracy. We are suffering a rebirth of the bastard philosophy of 1930s Germany and Italy.
Now it’s Fauci who will get the blame for everything…and be Trump’s next “fall guy”.
No wonder we see medical professionals committing suicide.
Coronavirus conspiracy theories make Fauci the villain, because someone has to be
Fauci is already a couple of days out of sight in the media and that is strange. This seems to confirm the rumors.
