Pence lies about curve flattening and Trumpists are so enamored of IMPOTUS* that they might sacrifice themselves without voting. Dick Cheney’s cardiologist calls Trump’s Tulsa rally “criminal endangerment”.
We looked at the raw data for Oklahoma from the Covid Tracking Project. The following chart shows both the daily number of new, confirmed cases in Oklahoma and the seven-day rolling average, which smooths out day-to-day variations in the data. (For instance, weekends often show artificially low totals because offices are closed.)
"Tulsa is still dealing with the challenges created by a pandemic," reads an editorial published Monday in the Tulsa World. "The city and state have authorized reopening, but that doesn't make a mass indoor gathering of people pressed closely together and cheering a good idea. There is no treatment for Covid-19 and no vaccine. It will be our healthcare system that will have to deal with whatever effects follow."
www.salon.com/…
The Oklahoma Dept. of Health has issued a statement recommending people get tested for COVID-19 before and after attending the Tulsa rally on Saturday for Pres. Trump.
Oklahoma coronavirus rate surges as Trump rally nears
On Monday Bruce Dart, Tulsa’s chief public health officer, told the World: “I want people to be safe, and it hurts my heart to think that there’s a potential that we’re going to have something here where people become exposed to an illness. We’ve seen how devastating it’s been across the board in this country, and I don’t want it to happen to anybody here.”
Trump, meanwhile, claimed “Almost One Million people request tickets”. The BOK Center venue holds 19,000. A convention center nearby will extend capacity to around 62,000. Brad Parscale, campaign manager, perhaps indicated the true purpose of the promotional effort when he heralded the “biggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10x”.
www.theguardian.com/…
Honestly, do they care about the lives of their supporters? It’s a legitimate question, since they are doing everything possible to put people at high risk. And for what, a rally in a safe state? Trump’s narcissism prevents him from considering the interests of others, even if the damage to them is grave and the benefit to him is minimal. In fact, holding the rally in the worst possible conditions is consistent with Trump’s record of discrediting experts; inducing people to go back to work prematurely; pretending the virus is a “hoax” (or at least overblown); and turning a health emergency into a culture war that allows him to whip up his base. (Pence apparently goes along with this because he is too spineless to risk offending his boss, even if fellow Americans may get sick and some will die.)
Republicans lamely make the false equivalence that this is no different from the rallies in protest of George Floyd’s killing (protests during which the police reportedly used tear gas, an irritant that increases coughing and therefore the risk of infection). No, it’s not the same. The rallies were outside, and many protesters wore masks; the cause was to spur action to save other lives (i.e., African Americans who are too often killed by police). Trump’s indoor, mask-less event in service to his own ego is not that.
Trump’s monstrously selfish conduct is in keeping with his overall election strategy, which is to convince Americans the virus isn’t so bad and drive people back to work, thereby sacrificing the lives of many of our most vulnerable Americans (e.g., the elderly, those with preexisting conditions and nonwhites, who have much higher fatality rates). And you wonder why he is losing support among older voters?
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Losing swing states one by one...