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Old 06-24-2020, 10:30 AM   #162
Pete F.
Canceled
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: vt
Posts: 13,069
Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch View Post
He jokes a lot. He even said that his remark in question was semi-tongue in cheek. And he has also said that he did not actually tell his staff to slow the testing. So, obviously, his "I never kid," if it referred to his rally remark, was that there was a serious point being made with his semi-tongue in cheek schtick about asking his staff to slow the testing.

The point being made is that media would not give him what he considered proper credit for the massive testing his administration was doing--and his sarcasm (or semi-tongue in cheek) was a way of sarcastically pointing out that we were doing exactly what he would not get credit for.

So in the brief interview where he said he never kids, he took the rare opportunity to use the media, rather than just tweets, to pound on the fact that we are doing a lot of testing--which is exactly what he did by brushing aside the question about his remark and jumping directly and heavily into telling the people about the success that he would not otherwise get credit for in the media that wanted to waste time on an obvious "joke." He would never kid about something that serious and important, but would use sarcasm to illustrate what was not being reported.

It would be incredulous to believe he would seriously broadcast to the nation that he had asked his staff to slow down the testing. That would easily be proved to be true if it were true. He knew that it would easily be proved not to be true. It was obviously some kind of attempt to humorously point out to his rally crowd, and to those watching on some form of internet media or traditional media, how much testing we were really doing in spite of the narrative that he lacked on testing--so much testing that he had to ask his staff to slow it down, chuckle, chuckle
Unfortunately Tweety's claim to have done the most testing in the world is like his saying it depends on which per capita you are using.
Testing is not just how many you test or what you want the results to be, but needs to be part of a comprehensive testing, tracing and control regimen.
The current positivity rate for testing in the US nationwide is over 5% and while that is good, one should note as someone did on here that what is more important is where specific localities are with positivity results.
In Arizona it is over 20%, way over the recommended level to implement social distancing, but they had a rally there
In Florida it is over 13% and rising, rally is coming
Twenty other states have rates over 5%
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas have increases in both new cases and positivity rates.
The first wave is not over, never mind the possibility of a second wave in the fall.
All that has happened so far is that the states that were affected early and implemented measures to control are doing better, states that were not in the initial hit are doing worse and simultaneously removing control requirements.

I have understood you to say previously that we should not expect the president to be a leader, I disagree but have seen that in any case he is incapable of performing that function.

He's not even a good standup comedian.

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Niles: You have met “people”, haven’t you?

Lets Go Darwin
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