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Msg ID: 2695580 It’s been exactly one year since Trump suggested injecting bleach. We’ve ne +2/-0     
Author:TheCrow
7/8/2021 10:20:57 AM

 Note that the Very Stable Genius Donald Trump did not take his own advice, was hospitalized with covid 19 later in the year.

POLITICS

It’s been exactly one year since Trump suggested injecting bleach. We’ve never been the same.

It was wild in the moment. In time, it came to symbolize the chaotic nature of the presidency and the early Covid fight.

Then-President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus at the White House on April 23, 2020.
 

One year ago today, President Donald Trump took to the White House briefing room and encouraged his top health officials to study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting Covid. It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history.

Some ex-Trump aides say they don’t even think about that day as the wildest they experienced — with the conceit that there were simply too many others. But for those there, it was instantly shocking, even by Trump standards. It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic. Twelve months later, with the pandemic still lingering and a U.S. death toll nearing 570,000, it still does.

"For me, it was the craziest and most surreal moment I had ever witnessed in a presidential press conference,” said ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl, who was the first reporter at the briefing to question Trump’s musings about bleach. 

For weeks, Trump had been giving winding, stream-of-consciousness updates on the state of the Covid fight as it clearly worsened. So when he got up from the Oval Office to brief reporters gathered in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on April 23, there was no expectation that the day’s proceedings would be any different than usual.

 Privately, however, some of his aides were worried. The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press.

“A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,” said one former senior Trump White House official. “I actually argued that President Trump wouldn't have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.”

Trump started his press conference that day by doing something he’d come to loathe: pushing basic public safety measures. He called for the “voluntary use of face coverings” and said of his administration, “continued diligence is an essential part of our strategy.”

Quickly, however, came a hint at how loose the guardrails were that day. Trump introduced Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security. “He’s going to be talking about how the virus reacts in sunlight,” the president said. “Wait ‘til you hear the numbers.”

As Bryan spoke, charts were displayed behind him about surface temperatures and virus half-lives. He preached, rather presciently, for people to “move activities outside” and then detailed ongoing studies involving disinfectants. “We tested bleach,” he said at one point. “I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes.”

Standing off to the side, Trump clasped his hands in front of his stomach, nodded and looked out into the room of gathered reporters. When Bryan was done, he strode slowly back to the lectern.

“A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world,” Trump began, clearly thinking the question himself, “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. It sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”

Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump’s former coronavirus response coordinator, sat silently off to the side as the president made these suggestions to her. Later, she would tell ABC, “I didn’t know how to handle that episode,” adding, “I still think about it every day.”

Inside the Biden campaign, aides were shocked as well. They were working remotely at that juncture, communicating largely over Signal. But the import of what had happened became quickly evident to them.

“Even for him,” said one former Biden campaign aide, “this was stratospherically insane and dangerous. It cemented the case we had been making about his derelict covid response.”

In short order, the infamous bleach press conference became a literal rallying cry for Trump’s opponents, with Biden supporters dotting their yards with “He Won’t Put Bleach In You” signs. For Trump, it was a scourge. He would go on to insist that he was merely being sarcastic — a claim at odds with the excited curiosity he had posing those questions to Birx. His former team concedes that real damage was done.

“People joked about it inside the White House like, ‘Are you drinking bleach and injecting sunlight?’ People were mocking it and saying, ‘Oh let me go stand out in the sun, and I’ll be safe from Covid,” said one former administration official. “It honestly hurt. It was a credibility issue. … It was hurting us even from an international standpoint, the credibility at the White House.”

That Trump was even at the lectern that day was head-scratching for many. For weeks, he and his team had downplayed the severity of the Covid crisis even as the president privately acknowledged to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that it had the potential to be catastrophic. But as it became clearer that the public was not buying the rosy assessments, Trump had decided to take his fate into his own hands — assembling the press on a daily basis to spin his way through the crisis.

He loved it. The former administration official said Trump was elated with the free airtime he was getting on television day after day. “He was asking how much money that was worth,” the aide recalled. The coverage was so ubiquitous that, at one point, Fox News’ Bret Baier attended the briefing and peppered the president with questions because his own show was being routinely interrupted.

The bleach episode changed all that.

Aides immediately understood what a public health quagmire Trump’s remarks had created. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted he was being taken out of context.

“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” McEnany said in a statement issued the next day. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”

But behind the scenes, Trump’s remarks were used as evidence by senior aides for why they needed to crack down on unvetted information being put in front of the president. “Either they didn't know what he was going to say — which isn't ideal — or they didn't push back before he went out to the briefing,” said a former senior communications official in the Trump administration. “It was a huge unforced error that could have been prevented."

By then, White House aides were already debating the efficacy of having Trump relay health information to the public and having to answer whatever question a reporter might throw his way. Some aides — along with Republican allies on Capitol Hill — were pushing to get the president to take a back seat to his health experts at the podium.

“It became like a presser for the sake of having a presser. We didn’t have anything to announce or real policy plans,” a former White House official said. “If you’re just coming out and talking, a Q&A [with reporters] wasn’t going to be helpful.”

Trump would end up doing only a handful more press conferences after the bleach episode before picking them back up again in July. A year later, the episode is still considered a defining point in the Covid fight and a prime exhibit of what can go wrong when an over-confident president believes he can message his way through a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic.

“Undoubtedly [it was] a seminal moment in presidential communications, and while it is easy to laugh it off, I hope it educates leaders and communicators for decades,” said former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “But this was the moment where we knew without any doubt that the government was in way over its head, and its ability to both respond effectively and educate Americans about what to do was not going to be anywhere close to meeting the moment.”

 
 


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Msg ID: 2695623 That’s Another lib Lie That libz Tried To … +1/-2     
Author:obumazombie
7/8/2021 2:24:49 PM

Reply to: 2695580

Reshape into a Trump lie, and thoroughly discredited subsequently.

A veritable ant hill that libz tried to make into a mountain.

Fast forward to today, where Biden is not just spitballing, but setting into motion a door to door campaign, that is very reminiscent of a similar tactic used not that many years ago...

 

What should you do when federal agents arrive at your door with questions about your personal health decisions? Joe Biden announced this week he has commissioned “surge response teams” from the federal government to enter communities and neighborhoods with “low vaccination rates,” to the point of “knocking on doors” and pressuring people to get vaccinated.

His press secretary, Jen Psaki, said these federal agents are only coming to our doors because they “care” deeply about us and don’t want to see us die from the CCP virus. “We have the information they need on how safe and accessible the vaccine is,” Psaki said in her daily press briefing Tuesday, July 6. Is this why roughly half of America refuses to get this injection?

Because it’s not accessible? Surely it has nothing to do with the dismal safety record, with record numbers of reported deaths and injuries. And the seemingly limitless pressure to get the shots, with multinational corporations leveraging all their power against us, threatening our jobs and livelihoods, surely this wouldn’t set off any red flags in people’s minds, would it?

Why, for instance, is the military considering mandating the vaccine as early as September when only about 20 U.S. service members have died from COVID? Why are children being encouraged to get the shot when so few have fallen ill or died from COVID? This is not the first virus to come along, nor is it the most deadly. But never has there been this level of pressure on people to accept a specific medical treatment, let alone one that lacks full FDA approval and was rushed to market at “warp speed.”

They think if they repeat the hypnotic mantra “safe and effective” enough times, people will believe it. But when it’s all said and done there is going to be at least 35 to 40 percent of America that simply doesn’t buy the talking points. Why? Because they read the reports, ignored or downplayed by mainstream “news” outlets, about the thousands of deaths and injuries it is causing.
 
The most recent tragedy was a healthy 13-year-old boy in Michigan, Jacob Clynick, who died in his sleep after getting the second Pfizer shot. If you are among the millions who fear the vax more than the virus, which is your right, what is the best way to deal with a federal agent who arrives at your door trying to persuade you otherwise? I am tempted to hold up a picture of Jacob Clynick in silent protest.

I sought the advice of several constitutional attorneys and here’s what they had to say. John Whitehead is founder and president of the Charlottesville, Virginia-based Rutherford Institute and has been litigating civil rights cases against the government for more than 45 years. He said the first thing to remember is that these agents are coming to your home with one purpose in mind.

“They’re there for one reason, to collect information on you,” he said. “That can’t be good for you.” They could get that information by questioning you directly, or by asking your neighbors to snitch on you. “Data collection is out of control. Google, Amazon, Facebook are all collecting personal information on their users and they are working with the governments of the world in this,” Whitehead said.

“So we have to be really careful here, because the government doesn’t have a good record on how they use the data they collect.” Whitehead advises people to place “No Trespassing” signs at all entry points to their property. “You simply ask them to leave,” said Whitehead. “You are under no obligation to answer any of their questions. “At the point you ask them to leave your property they are trespassing.

I am telling people to put up no trespassing signs because that makes it easier but even if you don’t have a sign, they are trespassing once you tell them to leave.” ‘A form of intimidation’ Many people, when confronted by a government agent, feel intimidated. The government knows this. “It’s a form of intimidation,” Whitehead said. “Most people are fearful and so they will say ‘okay what do you need to know?’

I wouldn’t answer any questions you are uncomfortable in answering about your vaccine history or anything else. The more information you give them the more it can be used against you.” He said it’s a waste of time trying to convince them of why you don’t want the vaccine, because they’re standing at your door to get you to take it. “I advocate not saying anything to them. Just ask them [politely but firmly] to leave.

“I think the problem in America is people, most people, have no idea what their rights are,” he added. “Under the First Amendment you don’t have to speak to government officials, you have a right against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment and the right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. Anyone can knock on your door unless you have a no trespassing sign, but if you look out the window and see government officials and you see them looking around, peering through windows, in my opinion you have a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

They can ring the doorbell but once you put them on notice it’s time for them to leave, they can’t stay on your property.” He advises people to immediately call the local police and report a trespasser on their property. “It’s clear that if you own property and you have these people coming up and saying you have to answer these questions, that’s not true.

“That in itself is a propaganda effort, and they’re going to be asking pretty detailed questions. If these agents for example should see any guns in your house, this opens the door to other problems. The first thing I would say is I will call the police if you don’t leave my property immediately.” Whitehead said it’s important to be as clear as possible. And you may wish to video your encounter with the government agent.

“Just say, ‘sir I’m calling the police at this point in time,’ but you have to make it clear you want them to leave and they’re violating the law. They’re trespassing. Your health is nobody’s business.” Parallels to Nazi Germany Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Orlando, Florida-based Liberty Counsel, sees parallels to 1930s Germany.
“This is a reminder of what happened in Nazi Germany when Hitler tried to target the Jews by using a census to get personal information,” Staver told me.

The Nazis used the German subsidiary of an American company, IBM, to data-mine citizens and identify their targets. “Hitler actually hired IBM and IBM hired thousands of employees to execute a racial census to identify the Jews and once Hitler had that data, IBM created a system to cross-reference the data against employment records and also financial institutions’ records to help Hitler ultimately pulverize the Jews,” Staver said.

“That’s when they used the mass transfer of Jews to ghettos and ultimately prison camps. So we’ve been down this road before where a government tries to coerce people by going door to door and gathering personal information on people.” For more on this tragic history, see the 2012 book IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, by Edwin Black.

When Hitler started consolidating his power in 1933, a primary goal was to exterminate Germany’s 600,000 Jews, but first they had to be identified.  Below is an excerpt from a review of Black’s book by the Alliance for Human Research Protection.

“A question that had eluded historians for decades was how did the Nazis obtain lists of Jews – not only in Germany but throughout Europe—whom they rapidly rounded up for deportation and ultimately for extermination? 

Black pursued this question until he found the answer: IBM and its German subsidiary which custom-designed, named after Herman Hollerith, who founded IBM in 1896 as a census tabulating company.

“But when IBM Germany formed its philosophical and technologic alliance with Nazi Germany, census and registration took on a new mission. IBM Germany invented the racial census—listing not just religious affiliation, but bloodline going back generations. This was the Nazi data lust. Not just to count the Jews—but to identify them.

“People and asset registration was only one of the many uses Nazi Germany found for high-speed data sorters. Food allocation was organized around databases, allowing Germany to starve the Jews. Slave labor was identified, tracked, and managed largely through [IBM] punch cards.”

LeoHohmann


Would I put it past libz, no, not at all.

The libz are always good for a...

 

 Good job Goodlibs!



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Msg ID: 2695637 I watched the press conference. Here it is for you +5/-3     
Author:TheCrow
7/8/2021 4:48:54 PM

Reply to: 2695623

 I watched the press conference. Here it is for you.

 P.S. About exposing the body to ultraviolet... Sunburn, huh? Heard of it?



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