Minster goes all Trump on reporter for questioning Chinese data

[Argus]

Our health minister - not a doctor, but appointed because it's 2020 and we have to have women in 50% of roles - flipped out on a reporter the other day for having the gall to question Chinese data on the virus. In something reminiscent of Donald Trump she accused the reporter of feeding into conspiracy theories, despite the CIA coming out with a report saying China was fabricating data, and despite China admitting it hadn't been including asymptomatic cases. I think it's an indication of just how desperate the Trudeau Liberals remain to tow the party line - the Communist party line from China. Not that at no time have the Liberals criticized China for ANYTHING. Not for the nasty things they've said about us. Not for violating treaties. Not for cutting our imports or arresting Canadians on trumped up charges, not for putting people in concentration camps, and not for causing yet another world epidemic and then lying about it.

Maybe a global pandemic will eventually shake Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the philosophy that Canada can afford to be the “first post-nationalist state,” as he expressed to the New York Times a few years ago. But so far it appears his government still prefers to imagine there are no countries, which seems as out of touch as celebrities singing John Lennon lyrics to us on Instagram. On Thursday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu channelled the worst excesses of Lennon and Yoko Ono as she scolded a CTV reporter for “feeding into conspiracy theories” for questioning whether Ottawa should trust China’s data in its efforts to beat COVID-19 now that U.S. intelligence officials have reportedly concluded that Beijing has been issuing fake infection statistics.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kevin-libin-ottawa-wont-admit-canadas-plan-is-based-on-counterfeit-chinese-data?video_autoplay=true

[eyeball]

Earthlings will never get around to doing anything about the ass-backwards relationship the governed maintain with their governments because politics is always first in line. The same way the economy is.

Curious that we spell it socioeconomic instead of economicsocio.

[Shady]

At this point, anyone that takes China’s data at face value should be fired or resign.  They’ve lied from the very beginning, and it’s cost tens of thousands of lives.

It won’t be long before Canada passes China on confirmed number of cases.  And it is a complete fraud.

[bush_cheney2004]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

Our health minister - not a doctor, but appointed because it's 2020 and we have to have women in 50% of roles - flipped out on a reporter the other day for having the gall to question Chinese data on the virus. In something reminiscent of Donald Trump she accused the reporter of feeding into conspiracy theories, ....

 

Well, the health minister, like many other Canadians, has seen a lot more of Trump than Trudeau lately, especially when it comes to engaging the press.

Trump flippantly calls it the Wuhan Flu....Trudeau is afraid to even think that let alone say it.

[OftenWrong]

The government’s genuflecting before the Chinese is exactly why many young liberals have become brainwashed to accept communism, and why the Liberal government must go. 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

An Iranian official briefly expresses scepticism of the Chinese figures:

Quote

Iranian health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur on Sunday criticized Chinese government statistics on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, appearing to blame those statistics for other countries’ slow response to the emerging pandemic.

“It seems statistics from China [were] a bitter joke, because many in the world thought this is just like influenza, with fewer deaths,” Jahanpur said during a video conference in remarks translated by Radio Farda. “This [impression] were based on reports from China and now it seems China made a bitter joke with the rest of the world.”

Jahanpur added, “If in China they say an epidemic was controlled in two months, one should really think about it.”
 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/iranian-health-official-calls-chinese-120540924.html

 

Quote

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/iranian-official-backtracks-after-calling-chinese-covid-19-figures-a-joke

Iran’s health ministry spokesman has backtracked after he described China’s official figures on the coronavirus outbreak as a “joke”.

Kianoush Jahanpour made the remarks at a press conference and a tweet on Sunday, adding that China had given the impression that coronavirus was like influenza but with fewer deaths.

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by SpankyMcFarland

[Right To Left]

7 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Well, the health minister, like many other Canadians, has seen a lot more of Trump than Trudeau lately, especially when it comes to engaging the press.

Trump flippantly calls it the Wuhan Flu....Trudeau is afraid to even think that let alone say it.

Well first off, the original source of Covid-19 has not been determined yet! Reports of some guy getting the disease started by making a soup out of bats and "wet markets" ...more correctly translated as fresh food markets, is speculation and hasn't been determined yet by the people who study disease flow and transfer. 

What we do know is that China got the pandemic under control in their country in a matter of weeks by 'tracing' and quarantining likely carriers along with using the social distancing techniques we're all becoming familiar with now. 

Canada's handling of the pandemic has been better than most....certainly far better than clusterfuck central to the south!  The US has become the disaster zone of this story because of domestic reasons: 

-lack of proper healthcare for a growing number of people forced to pay exorbitant insurance fees for mediocre health insurance coverage, while 30 million Americans have no health insurance at all! 

-underfunded and closing of public hospitals that cater to people with low incomes and no insurance (this is a bipartisan failure btw, as noted in a post I did re. Andrew Cuomo yesterday).     No surprise that America now leads the world in Covid-19 fatalities and that New York is no. one on this list of infamy.  

So, if you're running a military empire that devotes the largest portion of its tax revenues to military spending, what are you going to do? Go to war! Trump has been scheming for ways to try to start a war with China...even though they've tried to send medical equipment to the US in spite of US foreign policy. 

If Trump's re-election goes down the toilet and the Democrats take over, the only difference is they'll flip the script and try to start up a hot war with Russia...their main priority!

[eyeball]

2 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

What we do know is that China got the pandemic under control in their country in a matter of weeks by 'tracing' and quarantining likely carriers along with using the social distancing techniques we're all becoming familiar with now. 

We also know that China's government played politics with the virus which helped it spread and they didn't really act until after the government was caught.  We're becoming more familiar ourselves with the way this virus exploits humanity's weakness for sloppy governance.

How much farther might this have spread if China's dictators had managed to keep news of the outbreak under wraps longer?

[Moonlight Graham]

9 minutes ago, eyeball said:

We also know that China's government played politics with the virus which helped it spread and they didn't really act until after the government was caught.  We're becoming more familiar ourselves with the way this virus exploits humanity's weakness for sloppy governance.

How much farther might this have spread if China's dictators had managed to keep news of the outbreak under wraps longer?

#1 lesson from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic:  tell the truth:  https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/3/20/21184887/coronavirus-covid-19-spanish-flu-pandemic-john-barry

Governments that lie put people in danger.

[eyeball]

26 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

#1 lesson from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic:  tell the truth:  https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/3/20/21184887/coronavirus-covid-19-spanish-flu-pandemic-john-barry

Governments that lie put people in danger.

People that put up with it when they don't have to deserve what they get. By that token people who don't have a choice need the help of people who do.

That's why we should call it Xi Jinping's Disease

Edited April 7, 2020 by eyeball

[Tdot]

12 hours ago, Argus said:

Our health minister - not a doctor, but appointed because it's 2020 and we have to have women in 50% of roles - flipped out on a reporter the other day for having the gall to question Chinese data on the virus. In something reminiscent of Donald Trump she accused the reporter of feeding into conspiracy theories, despite the CIA coming out with a report saying China was fabricating data, and despite China admitting it hadn't been including asymptomatic cases. I think it's an indication of just how desperate the Trudeau Liberals remain to tow the party line - the Communist party line from China. Not that at no time have the Liberals criticized China for ANYTHING. Not for the nasty things they've said about us. Not for violating treaties. Not for cutting our imports or arresting Canadians on trumped up charges, not for putting people in concentration camps, and not for causing yet another world epidemic and then lying about it.

Maybe a global pandemic will eventually shake Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the philosophy that Canada can afford to be the “first post-nationalist state,” as he expressed to the New York Times a few years ago. But so far it appears his government still prefers to imagine there are no countries, which seems as out of touch as celebrities singing John Lennon lyrics to us on Instagram. On Thursday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu channelled the worst excesses of Lennon and Yoko Ono as she scolded a CTV reporter for “feeding into conspiracy theories” for questioning whether Ottawa should trust China’s data in its efforts to beat COVID-19 now that U.S. intelligence officials have reportedly concluded that Beijing has been issuing fake infection statistics.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kevin-libin-ottawa-wont-admit-canadas-plan-is-based-on-counterfeit-chinese-data?video_autoplay=true

lol @ how a wicked evil Dem "goes all Trump" whenever they flip out.  Pretty absurd.

 

Trump gets mad when Dems tell lies, whereas Dems get mad when lies are not being told. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Tdot

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, Right To Left said:

So, if you're running a military empire that devotes the largest portion of its tax revenues to military spending, what are you going to do? Go to war! Trump has been scheming for ways to try to start a war with China...

 

This is patently false....the U.S. federal budget is an open book, not your conspiracy theory

Trump is the only recent U.S. president who has not started another shooting war.

 

 

[Tdot]

3 hours ago, Right To Left said:

Well first off, the original source of Covid-19 has not been determined yet! 

 

Yes, it has been determined.

And it turns out that the COVID 19 bat was never sold at the Wuhan wet market.  But the COVID 19 bat was housed in a Chinese GOVT lab located very close to the Wuhan wet mkt's locale.

 

Quote

... running a military empire that devotes the largest portion of its tax revenues to military spending, what are you going to do? Go to war! Trump has been scheming for ways to try to start a war with China...

This statement might not be based in, logic, when you consider how much Reagan allocated to military spending and how much Bush41 allocated to military spending and how much Clinton allocated to military spending and how much Bush43 allocated to military spending and how much Obama allocated to military spending, equates to how they each allocated nearly the same % as Trump allocates to military spending ---plus they all hated China too, but none of them started a war with China. 

Obama even came off of the campaign trail, in August 2008, to write a letter/asking Bush43 to start a trade war with China. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Tdot

[Right To Left]

3 hours ago, eyeball said:

We also know that China's government played politics with the virus which helped it spread and they didn't really act until after the government was caught.  We're becoming more familiar ourselves with the way this virus exploits humanity's weakness for sloppy governance.

How much farther might this have spread if China's dictators had managed to keep news of the outbreak under wraps longer?

And what do you have to say about America's slow reaction to the threat? Donald Trump knew about it in early March; yet he was calling it 'just another flu or cold virus, and not something that should put economic growth at risk'!  

The Chinese Government officials likely thought that it would be easy enough to deal with because they've been down this road before...many times! If the viral threat could have been contained in Wuhan Province, then it wouldn't have mattered. But rightwing clowns in the US, who are trying to breathe new life into the cold war right now, are full of it when they claim they had no way of knowing! With all the crap they're pulling in Hong Kong, they didn't have any agents in China who could have given them a heads-up about what was happening there! 

America's failure now is the failure of a military-focused empire that provides little to help its own citizens on the homefront.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

America's failure now is the failure of a military-focused empire that provides little to help its own citizens on the homefront.

 

More nonsense.... U.S. National Guard troops, Army Corps of Engineers, military airlift, etc. are helping on the "homefront".

It was Trump that evacuated Canadians from Wuhan before Trudeau.

[eyeball]

2 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

And what do you have to say about America's slow reaction to the threat?

That this virus is really good at exploiting humanity's greatest weakness, politics.

It was clear to me back in early January that if authoritarian communism found it hard contain this virus that libertarian capitalism would find it just about impossible.

 

[Right To Left]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

This is patently false....the U.S. federal budget is an open book, not your conspiracy theory

Trump is the only recent U.S. president who has not started another shooting war.

 

 

 

I wish you included the link, so I could enlarge your colorful pie chart and read the fine print!  And it is a conspiracy theory...or a shell game ... take your pick! 

Total spending on the Defense Dept. and adjacent agencies that should be included as part of military spending is almost one trillion today:

Myth #2: Defense spending should be increased, even if other programs must be cut.

 

Fact: Total U.S. military spending for FY 2021 is $989 billion. It includes more than the Department of Defense budget of $636 billion. You must also count the $69 billion which pays for the War on Terror, including military operations in Iraq, Syria, and the War in Afghanistan. There are five other agencies that support defense that should also be included. They are the FBI and Cybersecurity, under the Justice Department budget; the National Nuclear Security Administration, under the Energy Department budget; Homeland Security; the Department of Veterans Affairs; and the State Department. They add $228 billion to the base budget. This huge expense must be reduced if the deficit is to be cut in any meaningful way.

https://www.thebalance.com/current-us-discretionary-federal-budget-and-spending-3306308

 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Right To Left said:

I wish you included the link, so I could enlarge your colorful pie chart and read the fine print!  And it is a conspiracy theory...or a shell game ... take your pick! 

Total spending on the Defense Dept. and adjacent agencies that should be included as part of military spending is almost one trillion today:

 

In other words...you are wrong.   

Trying to define American spending on education, health, and human services as "Defense Dept." is just desperation.

Trump is right to call out such conspiracy theorists in the media.

[Right To Left]

16 minutes ago, eyeball said:

That this virus is really good at exploiting humanity's greatest weakness, politics.

It was clear to me back in early January that if authoritarian communism found it hard contain this virus that libertarian capitalism would find it just about impossible.

 

I'll agree with you on that one, because the evidence on how nations around the world are dealing with the crisis would indicate those nations that are able to rely on central planning and control, and have a proper number of hospitals to meet people's needs during normal times, have much greater success than capitalist nations that have mostly privately owned hospitals, private insurance and are unable to provide a coordinated response early on. 

The social democrat nations in the middle can swing one of two ways: 

1. If they're gutting and selling off parts of their universal public healthcare system like England and Southern European countries, that puts them behind the 8-ball!

2. If they're still providing quality public healthcare, they're miles ahead.

And the public policy response is most important...as mentioned elsewhere, comparing Norway and Sweden side by side; now that it's been a few weeks in to handling the Covid-19 crisis, Norway's infection and hospitalization rates are falling as they closed everything down except for essential services, while Sweden's more open response of allowing business to remain open along with public gatherings is causing a sudden spike in rates of infection. 

So, even two nations that are almost alike -- both northern white European nations with public healthcare, can look very different in a crisis when one of them is being extremely stupid!

[Right To Left]

7 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

In other words...you are wrong.   

Trying to define American spending on education, health, and human services as "Defense Dept." is just desperation.

Trump is right to call out such conspiracy theorists in the media.

NO, mandatory spending priorities can't be changed, and when it comes to discretionary spending over half goes to military department budgets....add Veterans Affairs to Defense (as it should be!), and it turns out to be about 60% of the discretionary spending budget....so you're wrong!

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

NO, mandatory spending priorities can't be changed, and when it comes to discretionary spending over half goes to military department budgets....add Veterans Affairs to Defense (as it should be!), and it turns out to be about 60% of the discretionary spending budget....so you're wrong!

 

The U.S. federal budget is more than discretionary spending...far more....you do not get to define the allocations just to match your conspiracy theories.

 

[Right To Left]

2 hours ago, Tdot said:

Yes, it has been determined.

And it turns out that the COVID 19 bat was never sold at the Wuhan wet market.  But the COVID 19 bat was housed in a Chinese GOVT lab located very close to the Wuhan wet mkt's locale.

Not likely, according to scientists who've studied this virus and mapped out its progression:  

The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2

Conclusions In the midst of the global COVID-19 public-health emergency, it is reasonable to wonder why the origins of the pandemic matter. Detailed understanding of how an animal virus jumped species boundaries to infect humans so productively will help in the prevention of future zoonotic events. For example, if SARS-CoV-2 pre-adapted in another animal species, then there is the risk of future re-emergence events. In contrast, if the adaptive process occurred in humans, then even if repeated zoonotic transfers occur, they are unlikely to take off without the same series of mutations. In addition, identifying the closest viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in animals will greatly assist studies of viral function. Indeed, the availability of the RaTG13 bat sequence helped reveal key RBD mutations and the polybasic cleavage site.

The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARSCoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratorybased scenario is plausible. More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another.

Obtaining related viral sequences from animal sources would be the most definitive way of revealing viral origins. For example, a future observation of an intermediate or fully formed polybasic cleavage site in a SARS-CoV-2-like virus from animals would lend even further support to the natural-selection hypotheses. It would also be helpful to obtain more genetic and functional data about SARSCoV-2, including animal studies. The identification of a potential intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2, as well as sequencing of the virus from very early cases, would similarly be highly informative. Irrespective of the exact mechanisms by which SARSCoV-2 originated via natural selection, the ongoing surveillance of pneumonia in humans and other animals is clearly of utmost importance. ❐ Kristian G. Andersen1,2 ✉, Andrew Rambaut   3, W. Ian Lipkin4, Edward C. Holmes   5 and Robert F. Garry6,7 

http:// https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9

[Right To Left]

6 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

The U.S. federal budget is more than discretionary spending...far more....you do not get to define the allocations just to match your conspiracy theories.

 

Talk to Barry Oh about how hard it is to get a "grand bargain" and try to cut some of those mandatory 'entitlement' programs! But, unless the US Government plans to default, paying interest snowballing on the national debt cannot be negotiated with...even if interest rates go higher! Something to consider as Trump hands out 2.2 Trillion for Covid relief...the lion's share of it going to Wall Street and Trump's favorite corporate allies.  

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Right To Left said:

Talk to Barry Oh about how hard it is to get a "grand bargain" and try to cut some of those mandatory 'entitlement' programs! But, unless the US Government plans to default, paying interest snowballing on the national debt cannot be negotiated with...even if interest rates go higher! Something to consider as Trump hands out 2.2 Trillion for Covid relief...the lion's share of it going to Wall Street and Trump's favorite corporate allies.  

 

"Barry Oh" was no different than Trump in that regard.

The U.S. Congress hands out the candy, not presidents.

Canada's dollar is falling...U.S. dollar is rising....flight to quality.

[Right To Left]

7 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

"Barry Oh" was no different than Trump in that regard.

The U.S. Congress hands out the candy, not presidents.

Canada's dollar is falling...U.S. dollar is rising....flight to quality.

NO, it's the flight to the (for now) global reserve currency that is creating trillions of new dollars out of thin air and using them to buy bonds and other crap to artificially inflate stock market values today!  Even if it's just a dead-cat bounce, how else does two days of 5 and 7% increasing stock index averages make any sense?

But, the more America forces the world to invest in their inflationary devaluing currency, the more serious they are getting about applying workaround strategies to bypass the Dollar.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Right To Left