SpankyMcFarland

I’d be happier with a Freeland-Philpott government right about now.

Words and tone matter in a pandemic. Trump is getting it all wrong. The leader has to demonstrate credibility and optimism simultaneously.

North America has really dropped the ball on COVID-19.

Let me ‘chime in’ on the criminal career of Trump - tax evasion, fraud, serial malicious bankruptcies that ruined many small businesses, deals with the mafia and Russian mafia, sexual assault etc.etc. There’s a reason he turned to a foreign bank for loans. The guy is a pure sociopath and anyone who can’t, or won’t, see 50 years of evidence to that effect that is probably daft or similarly inclined. Get help.

“Frankly, the testing has been going very smooth”. That was Trump TODAY with Leo Varadkar.

On a global scale, we have to think more thoroughly about how such viral pandemics start, testing for them, stopping spread, nursing care, ventilators, vaccines and antiviral therapy etc. The response so far this time has been at best disjointed. The world can do better than this.

Whatever about that, do you really think involving Kushner in any way at all is a good idea here? What expertise or aptitude does he have to assist an already much criticized effort? Another thing: South Korea can now test 20,000 people per day. Why can’t you match that number in a country with a population over six times larger? You should be able to manage much more than that.

My portfolio has already tanked. Please tell me this is fake news.

JT’s announcement was absurd but we are the discussing the US here, yes? Without a rapid test on site, screening is going to miss pre-symptomatic cases. Letting the UK and Ireland away with this makes it useless and is actually a sign of weakness. The China ban had some value early on but the virus is probably in every state now. Local efforts to slow transmission are what really count at this point to prevent an Italian scenario developing.

Take a look at Boris Johnson. The tone has to be upbeat even though the factual content is alarming. Trump doesn’t communicate that positivity and he makes a mess of the facts again and again. He keeps on giving away the fact that he’s mainly concerned about his own political prospects. Just get him to stop shaking hands at least and setting such a dreadful example. The UK is not divorced from Europe in this health crisis and has many, many COVID cases, far more than some of the countries covered by Trump’s weird new ban. Heathrow alone remains one of the busiest airports in the world. From a public health point of view, there’s no sense in exempting the UK (and Ireland). It is mere political theatre.

The Brits have really done well in this crisis. BoJo will pick up an unfair proportion of the Brownie points for a well organized national effort but he does have the knack of speaking in a frank yet upbeat and not too partisan fashion that deserves credit - it’s the tone to strike, unlike Trump’s gloomy, xenophobic and hostile foolishness today. This is one time for big spending and I’m surprised JT isn’t going way bigger. I wish Jane Philpott could be brought back as some sort of COVID czar to run this show, despite the recent unpleasantness. She has all the skills for such a challenge. Tony Clement would be a good guy to tap too in some way, as poor old Freeland has enough things on her plate. Clamping down on community transmission in the first few weeks is vital to avoid a plague and that’s where policy is vital. If things go truly pear-shaped, how many ventilators do we have in our vaunted national stockpile and what is their condition? I’m not sure I’d like to be put on one. Scheduled surgery will have to be cancelled, plus cancer surgery which will be more controversial. A lot of patients will have to be sent back to their nuclear or sub-nuclear families, ready or not. We could end up in an African Ebola situation where ‘self-care at home’ is the default model for COVID pneumonia and neighbours just leave food outside the sick person’s hut until it stops being eaten. I have great neighbours so that’s some comfort - if you’ve been to Newfoundland you know what I mean, best people in the world. However, Canada’s geezers could really get culled here. My concern for them has skyrocketed since entering that demographic. When the dust settles, the global community is going to have to initiate a wee chat with the lads in China about these pandemics and the cost involved. It’s getting to be a habit.

It is not man made. The reality of these Chinese food markets is scary enough.

The virus seems to be taking hold in Congress. There’s talk of televoting. Trump should have given up shaking hands and told everyone else to do the same. Campaign rallies will have to be radically curtailed, if not cancelled altogether.

Well that was a low energy speech, and poorly read too, that did not make much sense. To say the US is the best prepared country to deal with this problem runs into a few problems with facts, e.g. the testing fiasco, and nobody needs to hear about a great economy when an epidemic is sweeping the nation. Why ban travelers from ‘Europe’ but exempt the UK and Ireland? The tone was tired, grumpy and defensive - real old man stuff.

It depends what kind of work you are in. If you can bring it with on your computer then Lisbon is a great city to live in.

Of the three contenders left, Sanders is the only one with a coherent, serious political philosophy, one that he has pursued his entire life and one that I happen to disagree with on many points. Biden is a dreadful candidate but he’s where I am on the political spectrum. He represents a return to the past, never an appetizing prospect. Trump just wants to keep the con going - apart from a few casual prejudices about black people and some silly ideas about trade deficits, his main interest in keeping the job is to get richer and stay out of jail. Having lucked into the winning cause of white ethno-nationalism at a very late stage in life, he will now run with it as long as he can. Voters will have to decide if the price of keeping him on for the laughs is too high.

I sincerely hope this is satire. Biden, if he wins, will face one Donald J. Trump. When it comes to ill-gotten gains, there is zero contest there.

Biden aside, Sanders did poorly with older African Americans partly because they distrusted his agenda of radical change, and he’s not exactly a politician who goes on about being Jewish as the most strident critic of Netanyahu in the entire field. Actually, I’m struck by how many of his spokespeople have Hindu or Muslim names. He was the most secular candidate bar none from day one.

What does that even mean? What year are you dialling In from?

Beto and Pete are not in the same ballpark. Pete isn’t dumb by any stretch, well able to give ten completely different answers, perfectly pitched, to any question. He can do Clinton, Obama, you name it. The problem for him is that the US happens to be in a place where such smooth eloquence is distrusted as we were after Trudeau and Mulroney. In Canada, that turned out to be the perfect moment for Jean Chrétien to slightly uncrumple himself and start making barely intelligible noises. Now JC was a shrewd operator, far more so than Biden, and closer to what we want in Canada from a leader, but this election is about Trump, if Joe can avoid punching a member of the public, and his extraordinary record of destroying norms on rule of law, race relations, corruption, foreign policy and damn near everything else.

There’s a finite limit on how much immigration a country can tolerate, and when one gets down to tiny Greek islands that number is much smaller. Europe and the EU have to recognize this reality before the demagogues take over.

I wouldn’t mind moving from Canada to Portugal right about now if I could bring my loot with me - warm, friendly, great beaches and Lisbon too. It’s a popular choice with European retirees these days.

Here’s an interesting article from the Lancet:

To Newfoundland and Labrador? Unlikely. We desperately need new people at the moment. At this rate, I could be the last man standing here.

In the province I live that’s not a big problem. With a few exceptions, the geezers are local.