Govs Push Back After Trump Claims They’re Playing ‘Political Game’ With Tests

TPM Article Topics
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A chorus of governors from both parties pushed back hard Monday after President Donald Trump accused Democrats of playing “a very dangerous political game” by insisting there is a shortage of tests for the coronavirus. The governors countered that the White House must do more to help states do the testing that’s needed before they can ease up on stay-at-home orders.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1304959
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Ventilators, ventilators my test for a ventilatory…

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Just today, on Twitter, expressed annoyance with the way Vox, god love 'em, constantly expresses surprise at Trump saying or doing something irrational that is only surprising if you are unaware, in denial, or pretending not to know he has malignant-type Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So I’m not going to do that.

But this, right here, is why, of all the personality disorders in the DSM that are not so crippling that high office is unobtainable, NPD is the worst possible one for a leader to have, worse even than Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Someone who was a mere psychopath or sociopath could reason out the following:

  1. Not being able to reopen is harming me.
  2. I must do what is necessary to get things reopened.
  3. I cannot reopen simply by ordering it (though the psychopath would try that first).
  4. To reopen, we must have vast amounts of testing, huge numbers of kits made and distributed.
  5. To save myself, I must do whatever is necessary to create an order of magnitude increase in test kit production.

But NPD man cannot reason this out. NPD man sees every question about testing as an indictment of his incompetence, a challenge to his believe that he is perfect in every way, a source of psychic injury. NPD man sees more testing uncovering more cases which he fears he will be blamed for which would be very, very unfair. NPD man sees a shortage of test kits as an exploitable opportunity, a chance for him to gather narcissistic supply from people who need something from them, a chance to dominate them, humiliate them, put them into his debt.

God, give me a mere psychopath any day. Christ, I’d take a borderline at this point.

And this is why I was puking on election night. Because, while I didn’t know what the future held, I knew the worst person possible had been elected.

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“A chorus of governors from both parties pushed back hard Monday after President Donald Trump accused Democrats of playing “a very dangerous political game” by insisting there is a shortage of tests for the coronavirus.”

…and being (AP), we will not tell you whether there are or are not a shortage of tests. Here at (AP), when words come out of mouths, even a chorus of mouths, we simply note that sounds come out, we do not verify facts, statements, or claims. That would be too close to the term ‘journalism’ for our comfort.

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And I thought TPM had finally dumped them. Silly me.

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They brought them back just as the quarantining started. Frankly, I’m glad. Nothing pleases my feeble mind like an (AP) parody. Or, as (AP) would say:

(AP) CALIFORNIA - Some people, in some states in the country known popularly as ‘America’ have elected to stay home in order to avoid some mild, flu-like symptoms. During this time (AP) was picked up from syndication by an online group, or news organization, named TPM, to fill their space while their paid reporters investigated facts.
Oranges can be treated with the chemical gas ethyline to improve their color.

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…and well they should. I just watched an interview with Larry Hogan. He is NOW on Donnie’s sht list because he was able to SECURE, actually GET 1/2 million TESTS. REAL tests. Not some mythical BS of MILLIONS of test because ‘I’m the best’ but actual tests from S. Korea because he had an ‘in’. The Feds had send testing SITES and now Maryland has both. Which is good for the PEOPLE of Maryland. What does Donnie do? Insult, smear and berate Larry Hogan. A Republican Governor who DARED to do his job.

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A quick skim of the article, and I came up with 7 governors. Out of 50?

Where’s the rest of the flipping chorus?

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… am surprised that a bunch of federal agents have not already impounded all of this - to exhaustively verify that “proper import procedures” were followed.

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Well, somebody’s playing political games with tests. I wonder who it could be?

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Claiming people are playing politics is the ultimate form of playing politics. It’s what you resort too when politics is all you have. If there are enough tests put them out there and show us. If not then STFU and get some.

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quite possibly Hogan ‘snuck’ them in before Donnie could get to them and ‘announce’ how successful HE was…

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Two questions that need to be asked at todays ShitShow:

  1. Why the run around on the testing? I dont’ expect an honest answer to this but isn’t it becoming increasingly clear that the feds don’t want extensive testing?
  2. Why is the death toll for Covid-19 twice as high here is the U.S. as it is for the second highest mortality rate in Spain? Isn’t a lower death toll the ultimate measure of a successful national response to the pandemic? If so, then our national response has been demonstrably dismal, yet no one ever calls them out on this.
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Project much?

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If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. This is true of everything. If there are not enough tests to quantitate the numbers and places and people with and without COVID you can’t establish a starting place to begin or direction to go in managing COVID. Without testing you don’t know where you or where you need to go.

It painfully obvious Trump and many GOP governors are solely worried about the impact of COVID on their political careers and not the lives of their constituents. As we watch these guys we should ask ourselves…what does that do for him and what does that do for me?

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If you don’t want something seen you hide it. You test to see COVID.

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