Assassination? Character assassination? How big is the difference? Once a man’s character is destroyed, isn’t he still dead to us? Can resurrect him? Perhaps, but few men overcome such a challenge. We do so love an excuse to hate someone.
Listen to the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates carefully. They thrive on identity politics and promoting division. Their favorite word is racist. They even call each other racists. What is their main issue in 2020? Defeating President Donald Trump. Why? Listen to them. Trump is a “racist”, “white supremacist”, a “liar”, and so forth. Nothing else much matters to Democrats except calling Trump names. Well, I suppose that is not entirely true.
- They want to abort babies. Exaggeration? Then why do they want to fund Planned Parenthood?
- They want to protect illegal alien criminals. Exaggeration? What do you think their illegal alien sanctuaries do in practice?
- They want tear down our borders, flood our country with diseases from who knows where. Exaggeration? When illegal aliens come into our country, how do we check these people for infections if no one knows they are here?
- They want to destroy our culture by opening our borders to anyone from anywhere. Exaggeration? If tens of millions of people come into our country, enough to swing our elections, won’t that change the trajectory of nation, especially when our government runs our schools?
- Instead of teaching our children the 3 R’s, they want to teach them “safe sex” so they can abort more babies and infect our children with every kind of STD. Exaggeration? What do you think Planned Parenthood is doing in California’s public schools? How long do you think it will take other blue states to adopt that idea?
- Instead of encouraging economic activity by punishing those who steal and engage in fraud, they want to run everything. They want Socialism. Exaggeration? Then what is the difference between Bernie Sanders and the other candidates for the Democrat’s presidential candidates? What they call themselves?
- Instead of balancing the budget, they want to initiate more government programs. Exaggeration? Then ask them to explain who is suppose to pay for all the stuff they want, and remember that the Democrats are the party of the filthy rich.
- Instead of communicating with us, they want to destroy our language. Exaggeration? Is the party of abortion actually Pro-Choice for babies? Is a same-sex marriage really a marriage? Is allowing the government to decided what discrimination is appropriate actually desirable or just a licence for indiscriminate behavior? Would Socialism actually protect our rights or just give our leaders ownership of us?
Ignore the criticism of Donald Trump. He has a record. Given the challenges he has had, are you happy that he done his job well? Then consider the Democratic Party’s candidates. Are they offering us a better alternative, or are they just promoting an irrational hatred for Donald Trump?
Citizen Tom 
Tom, Doug
If you work in private industry, and sit in a problem-solving meeting and all you do is criticize and never offer solutions, you won’t last long in the company.
The problem Trump has is he is not running a private company and he has to deal with a system of checks and balances to prevent him from having the same power as in private industry.
What bothers me about the Trump haters is all I hear is negative criticism instead of positive criticism or their plans to accomplish the problems Trump campaigned and won the election.
For example, what should Trump do to solve the illegal immigration problem. Granting amnesty did not solve the problem in the past, so what should he do to uphold the law and accomplish the promises he campaigned on and won.
Why voters criticize and complain about him doing what he promised is a mystery to me.
Doug, I seem to remember that your recommendation was to have immigrants stay in Mexico and apply instead of illegally crossing the border. Isn’t that the same thing Trump accomplished? If so, why would you want to criticize him for doing something you suggested?
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Actually… (nice of you to remember, by the way, albeit a bit skewed).. my suggestion was to, with the support of Mexico, is establish a kind of consular diplomatic mission near Mexico’s southern border, involving sufficient land area that is U.S. sovereign soil from which the mass of refugees could find basic refuge “on U.S. soil” until such time as their individual disposition might offer further review and transport to the States to proper areas that could continue to handle their case and provide temp housing and humanitarian care. What this facility does is ease border congestion at the southern U.S. border, saves refugee lives and enhances the health and well-being by not having them have to travel a thousand miles north through Mexico and facing victimization and/or starvation along the way. It helps Mexico by not having to provide for the thousands making the trek northward. This facility could be just a huge tent camp, as long as there is ample security and humanitarian care.
Keep in mind.. this kind of facility exists as long as there is a mass refugee flow from Central American countries. If kept active perhaps it might have some value as a base to assure a measure of presence in Central America for diplomatic and intel gathering reasons that would not be subject to the same threats facing our embassies in some of these countries who seem to consistently attract local dictators who spawn civil unrest.
I’ve not been hearing about the numbers currently languishing on the Mexico side to know if this idea is still relevant.
Doug,
I don’t think believe there is or ever will be a solution for people who are oppressed in the world or the USA even though we all wish it would..
We do know if we feed them, they will keep coming. If it is only food they need, we can all help by sending food.
As for solving oppression, if we want to help, we can go into their country same as Bush did in Iraq. How did that work out in cost of lives and treasure to solve anything?
King Solomon’s advice was to feed your enemies and they may be less likely to want to kill you?
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
I like Trump. I approve of Trump. I’m grateful for Trump. Orange man good! That is all. 🙂
@IB
It would be funny if it were not so serious. There was no disputing of the examples I gave, just a litany of accusations against Trump and me just because I asked people to consider Trump’s record.
Trump’s crime is that he stands for something, and that something is not what those who seem to worship government want. What do they think government can give them without taking more away from them?
It is weird. Obama lied shamelessly. He made promises he could not keep and did not keep, but he was “cool”. Are we to excuse Obama because his endless platitudes were reassuring.
Under Obama things were getting worse. The economy was stagnant, and Obama deliberately pitted us against each other. Still, they hate Trump, not Obama. Some of the silly people even credit Obama with the Trump economy, even thought Obama said the good times were over.
It is tragic, Tom, and crazy making.
President Trump has actually now reversed the decline in life expectancy. Due to suicides and the opioid epidemic, the life expectancy of Americans has had to be reduced several years in a row. A combination of corruption, despair, unemployment, and drugs, just decimated entire communities. There’s been some major strides made in the economy, in stemming the flow of drugs, in rooting out some corruption.
I guess one person’s “accusations” are another person’s facts, depending upon whether they supposedly “worship government” (whatever that “accusation” means) or they, like Trump, worship self interest and vice.
Trump’s whole MO has always been to lie about his opponents (often his own jaded former lieutenants), inflate himself constantly, falsely claim about everyone else what he is guilty of himself, and then blame everyone else for his victimhood. This is the Trumpublican Party these days and all his followers are now on the bandwagon. Too bad a virus doesn’t take sides or this might actually go on indefinitely.
@tsalmon
More unsupported assertions.
The man has been investigated and investigated. Schiff could not even summarize Trump’s conversation so the the leader of Ukraine without lying about it. Yet here you are stringing together one accusation after another.
Bearing false witness is a sin. The bareface lies made the impeachment charges a joke. The Democrats just embarrassed themselves, and you are still at it. Pathetic!
When we sin, we don’t behave sanely. Sinning is not a sane activity. The lusts that drive sinners are not sane. Ultimately, sinning is self destructive. That is why sinners prey upon the weak and appeal to the gullibility of the strong. Those who sin end up eating themselves up.
“Bearing false witness is a sin. The bareface lies made the impeachment charges a joke. The Democrats just embarrassed themselves, and you are still at it. Pathetic!“
Tom,
I think you may have theologically confused double standard about “false witness” my good brother. Pointing out facts is not a sin even if the facts are inconveniently condemning to your dear leader. The facts of Trump’s extortion of Ukraine for his own political gain are not substantially in question. Calling a thief who you see rob a bank a thief is not “bearing false witness”. On the other hand falsely or negligently accusing a mere witness of being a liar may be a sin – I think intent and accuracy of information may matter a good deal, but that’s God’s call to judge souls for their sinfulness, not mine (or yours). All we can do is just judge facts and honestly either agree or disagree on the perpetrator’s guilt, not his soul.
Given this, have you considered that you may wish to look to your own sins before constantly asserting mine?
There is no such thing as “promoting” hatred for Trump. It’s a cognitive lesson fed entirely because the man himself presents and conducts himself with abhorrent behavior.
Given the recent polls have given a gift to Trump of 48-49% perforrnance rating (until the virus)… let’s assume for the sake of argument the split between Trump supporters and anti-Trumpers as being a 50/50 split. That means…. the list you slapped together above, for as inaccurate and only-part-of-the-story at best, suggests that 50% of the public either are Democrat and favor all that, and/or part of that 50% includes folks willing to accept the Dem’s list you present simply to get Trump outta there. You’ve never bothered to try and understand the “why” 50% of Americans don’t like Trump. You are only concerned about the 50% that think he walks on water… and dismissing anti-Trumpers as sour grapes for 2016… and/ior assigning some sort of “brainwashing” as a result of the media.. which only Conservatives are insulated from. Simplistic opinion, which Trump feeds you. I’ll listen to an alleged Liberal media any day of the week to the ramblings of a biased, deceitful, and incoherent Trump. Consider this… a virus threatens America and 50% of the American public think Trump’s a liar and has no credibility. Turns out it’s true.
@Doug
Then what was your anti-Trump website all about? Why do news outfits like CNN routinely run almost 100 percent negative stories about Trump? He is obviously not that awful.
Listen to you. You say you hate the man, but really cannot say why.
Is 50 percent of the public Democrat? 50 percent Republican. No, but I have no idea why that is relevant to my post. When November comes we will compare the candidates vote for one of them. Odds are Trump will be the most popular (or least disliked).
Do I think Trump walks on water? No. I think you are creating a straw man. I think Trump is doing a relatively good job, much better than Obama. It is a bit early to say what historians will think of him, but considering how many Liberal Democrat professors we have….. The victors don’t always write history. I think that is why Churchill decided to write his own history books. Good reading, BTW.
Really is a waste of time to judge other people. We judge others relative to our self. None of us are good enough to provide a decent standard. Only God is good enough.
So, we compare candidates for office by considering each man’s record, and we listen to their position on the issues.
What is wrong with Trump’s record?
I defer to your brother to list that. I’ve indicated my dislike for him being president from day one because I see him as an an incompetent in all areas and having behavioral issues that have been the bane of his presidency and a clear and present danger to the country. His record the last three years has illustrated that without a doubt.
I told you long ago that things with him would get far worse… and here we are in his first real crisis.. and.. he’s gonna get worse. Hunker down, Tom. The time he has for honoring himself is coming to an end soon enough.
@Doug
Defer all you want. He cannot make a list either.
The most dangerous thing about the coronavirus “crisis” came from news media generated panic. Given that the stock market is a good panic indicator, I think people are starting to calm. The only thing we can do is to do the things we can do that might help keep people from getting the disease. Panicking just makes things worse by creating more problems.
Oh I totally agree on the avoiding panic thing. It’s just that the Dear Leader inspires no confidence in any government effort given at least 50% doesn’t believe a word he is saying… and the other 50% will follow him over the edge blindly.
I told you long ago that things with him would get far worse… and here we are in his first real crisis
This is his first real crisis.
Doug, you’ve been screaming about Trump continuously for almost four years, every action he made domestically, foreign policy wise, et al was terribly important and terribly dire….
To the point you’d think crisis was his actual brand.
But now this is his “first crisis”, eh.
Okay.
Let’s call it.. the first crisis not of his making of which he is forced to address as the wise and sage leader he has proven to be for the last three years [cough]. I feel feverish.
Trump has a lifelong record of continuous lying, cheating and demagoguing in all things, bigly and small. But you want the majority of Americans who don’t worship at Trump’s feet to give Trump some kind of blind fidelity and confidence that Trump never affords anyone else, nor has he earned. Look at Trump’s unfounded criticism of Obama during the Ebola outbreak, and Obama actually handled that crisis well and according to how the experts advised. That compared to Trump who’s administration has dismantled our preparedness, bungled to time he has been given and appears more worried about what this means to his own businesses and his re-election than in saving lives. You are essentially asking the American public not to act like Trump constantly acts. I have not met a poor leader yet who can con his way out of a real crisis.
However, compared to his miserable first press conference on this issue, Trump’s most recent one was better. This was because, despite every other sentence out of Pence’s mouth having to contain some smarmy and obsequious praise of Trump so as to assuage Trump’s all consuming ego (I’m not exaggerating – check it out), Trump mostly got out of the way to let the experts talk and didn’t get too petty and defensive and he only told a couple lies.
The best that we can hope from Trump therefore is that he continues to put experts and real leaders first and not constantly trip over his own narcissism. That’s a pretty low bar for leadership in a crisis, but that’s what we may be stuck with until the next election.
If you think you are hearing anger or hatred from me here, then you are mistaking a sanguine pragmatism for your own emotions. In other words, you may be projecting your own feelings about the opposition on to me. I’m just being pragmatic about the limitations of our current ideologically divided government and Trump’s inherent nature of stoking those divisions – it’s Trump’s only superpower. Expecting Trump to wake up in a crisis and start uniting us in a common cause like a real leader is like expecting pigs to grow wings and fly.
It was nice talking with you the other day brother. Love to you and your family. My only wish is that you keep yourself and them safe.
@tsalmon
I enjoyed chatting with you too.
Here is what I asked people to do.
Here is what you said I said.
If that is a sign of objectivity and discernment that comes with sanguine pragmatism, I would rather not have that problem.
We don’t have any business judging other people, not even politicians. We most certainly should not use news media gossip to judge anyone. We should find out what we can (primary source material is best) and determine which candidate is most fit for public office, admitting to ourselves that we are just making our best guess.
What happens is ordained by God.
Am I sanguine? Perhaps, but I should be joyful! He has already overcome the world. We just have to do what we can to love our neighbors and to share the Gospel.
Hope you are enjoying the recovery of the stock market.
Love you brother.
When I call Trump a factually provable and habitual liar and can refer you to endless examples, you say I’m “judging”, but when you call Obama a liar and give none, you are not judging? I think that you have a double standard that has more to do with ideological biases than factual reality.
The difference between us, good brother, is that neither Doug nor I have your absolute party fealty. We don’t like Trump because he is inherently corrupt and incompetent in his current position (the ultimate illustration of
The Peter Principle).
In my life, I have voted for more Republicans than Democrats. That said, I find all this Party tribalism and inconsistent idealism more destructive than meaningful. I know that I would not vote for Trump even if he were still a supposed Democrat or a fake Republican or even a pretend Catholic. I find Trump’s open promotion of immorality and vice detestable in any disguise he demagogues in the moment.
I’m constantly amazed that following this puffed up, preening, openly greedy, orange clown doesn’t make you puke, but I guess being a so-called Christian conservative these days means stifling one’s fag reflex. 🤮
Things are starting to calm down because Trump got out of the way and started letting do their jobs the “deep state” “elite” experts in those government institutions that you hate so much. That really is about the size of it.
Talk about a Freudian slip: I meant “gag reflex”.😆
From Vox about Trump:
“In the summer and fall of 2014 — less than a year before he officially launched his presidential bid — Donald Trump posted about 100 mostly panicked tweets about the Ebola virus. Many of them attacked then-President Obama for his handling of the outbreak, and some of them went as far as to accuse the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of lying about what was going on.“
Trump tweet:
“If this doctor, who so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa,has Ebola,then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!”
Unlike COVID 19, Ebola didn’t spread in the US during Obama’s administration and largely did not spread in Africa giving scientists time to make a vaccine. The heroic American doctor who Trump maligned Obama about bringing to the US was saved, largely do to new aggressive treatments that were developed for him.
Compare this to the Trump administration’s dithering in the months old COVID 19 outbreak. So why don’t you just hold Trump to the same punishment of incompetence he falsely put on Obama? According to every standard per Trump, shouldn’t Trump just apologize to America and resign?
At a meeting in the White House with his COVID 19 team, it appeared that Trump had never even been briefed on the crisis and was asking questions that my grade school grand girls might ask. Lord help us.
You can’t be serious.
Really, you can’t be.
We had no travel restrictions during the ebola outbreak…and we sent our military over there to clean up ebola effluvium. We dodged a very large bullet.
After our military was forced to serve in an ebola emporium, they were quarantined for weeks after, before they were allowed to return home. This they never did for healthcare providers…they simply sent them home immediately after.
I could go on a long while about Obama’s ebola madness.
By stopping travel Trump was more responsible by far.
I know exactly what Obama would do in this case, just judging by what he did during the ebola outbreak. He’d have our military on an Island out by China treating and cleaning up Chinese infected with the Wu-zles. But they’d all be free to come and go into the US. Hillary would just sent them all to China and not bother about the Island.
Liz,
Do you remember the Ebola pandemic during Obama’s administration? Do you remember how Obama fired American experts around the world who could have assessed that outbreak early on? Do you remember how he failed to send medical personnel and even the military to contain and slow the disease abroad so that it did not spread to here? Do you remember how Obama failed to keep Ebola from undetected community spreading until it had already infected to hundreds of unknown citizens, mainly because the Obama administration screwed the pooch on getting out widespread testing quickly enough? How about all those thousands of American citizens in the US who died from Ebola, tragic right? How about how Obama lied so much and so often about everything that, when he told us that there was no need to panic, that is of course what we did?
Don’t remember all those things or Obama (as Trump demanded) resigning because of them, it’s because they never happened.
Ask your husband how many bullets he dodged in the course of doing his job effectively, and whether he was blamed for that or praised for accomplishing the mission in spite of the risks? Gave you thought about the possibility that you are so politically biased against Obama and for Trump that you are incapable of objectively measuring their successes and failures on even close to the same scale?
On a lighter note Liz. I saw a photo going around the interweb of a coronavirus preventative and cure. It was a picture of a Jack Daniels bottle with spray top, and the prescription label said “spray in mouth twice per hour”. To misquote the movie “Airplane”, “I picked a hellofa Lent to give up cough medicine”.
Do you remember the Ebola pandemic during Obama’s administration? I remember the ebola outbreak, and how Obama handled it. I summarized it in very few words above.
You realize the WHO still doesn’t call this a pandemic?
They are the experts, so it must not be a pandemic! [/sarcasm]
The WHO advises AGAINST travel restrictions even now.
Do you remember how Obama fired American experts around the world who could have assessed that outbreak early on? Do you remember how he failed to send medical personnel and even the military to contain and slow the disease abroad so that it did not spread to here?
You read what I said about using the military. I have no words for the stupidity of that decision. Well, I do, but I’d rather keep it clean here.
But let me NOT mince words:
We need to stay the hell out of China.
Our military is currently in the ROK.
They and their families are getting sick. And it makes me sick.
Little known fact: A month and a half or so ago, ROK military left a military exercise in China due to the wu flu breakout.
If the ROK is having military exercises with China why exactly are we there and who is the enemy in these exercises?
Here’s a question:
WHY did ALL our military have to undergo quarantine after serving in the ebola zone? There are only a couple of answers to that one, and none of them look good for Obama.
Either they had to be quarantined to protect the public and his failure to quarantine medical personnel in the same way put us at risk, or they didn’t need to be quarantined and he kept them locked up and away from their families for weeks for no good reason.
How about all those thousands of American citizens in the US who died from Ebola, tragic right?
See above. We dodged a bullet. And I watched it. I would be livid if Washington sent our son to clean up corona in China. And I think we know that wouldn’t happen. I also think we know that there wouldn’t be travel restrictions until the WHO advised it, since there weren’t any for ebola.
Funny about the Jack Daniels though. 😆 Stay safe.
I do think we should start calling it the wu-zles.
It’s cute…and it comes from Winnie the Pooh (outlawed in China).
That’ll learn ’em to put their food court 300 meters from the biohazard lab.
A link to the outbreak map for those who track this stuff like I do (it’s become an OCD, I look at it about 20 times a day). You can select the country and see the number of recovered or dead. Some of my family is in northern italy. Non bene.
China’s numbers cannot be trusted of course…but we have the cruise
experimentquarantine that’s kind of informative. Not sure how the death rate is estimated at this time.https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
@Liz
This got me curious, do you have a link where I can read up on this? Was this a joint exercise or were these simply ROK observers, just as we have Russian military officers observe NATO exercises and vice versa?
@tsalmon
https://citizentom.com/2020/03/04/what-could-be-worst-than-what-they-say-they-believe/
@marmoewp,
Unfortunately, I don’t speak or read Hangul and only the headline is translated.
“124 ROK military quarantined after returning from a field training in China”
Included all branches of service.
Just to add, our spring exercises (we have a yearly scheduled deployment) have been canceled as have new PCS assignments to the ROK. For now. Which is a good idea. School in the ROK has been suspended until late March.
Liz,
It’s not that I don’t trust youR facts or the consistency of your political fealty, it’s just that they are often so selectively portrayed that they don’t do much to actually counter the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s selfishness or incompetence. For example, you don’t like that, out of an over abundance of safety precautions for the American public, Obama quarantined our troops. I’ve spent months of my military career stuck on Adak, AK for far less of a national security reason. If that is the worst thing that you can say about Obama’s handling of the Ebola outbreak then you are desperate in coming up with whataboutisms to deflect from Trump’s actual mismanagement.
Anyway, here is an article one of my nieces sent me that you and Tom might find interesting:
https://apple.news/AXhbG9r-qSxGPNvm-uxGDTw
For example, you don’t like that, out of an over abundance of safety precautions for the American public, Obama quarantined our troops.
You have 100 percent missed the point.
I haven’t stated my opinion on the quarantine.
I only stated my opinion about the deployment of our troops to ebolaland.
I’ll state now that I agree 100 percent with quarantining troops stationed in ebolaland.
The point you missed:
There was no quarantine for anyone else working in ebolaland
I thought this was clear, I’ve said it twice.
It went like this:
“Okay, we’ll send troops to clean up ebola. Next, we will prudently keep them in quarantine for several weeks to make sure they don’t spread this to the US population.”
OTOH…
“We’ll allow everyone else who has worked in ebolaland direct flights back with lots of people immediately after. They’ll be encouraged to ride the subways and go about their daily business. If and when they come down with ebola symptoms we’ll treat them as heroes and pretend there’s no problem letting them run around taking mass transportation.”
How are these facts selective?
This is what actually happened. It would make a good Monty Python skit if it wasn’t real.
side note: Thanks for the link, I will read it after my run.
Liz,
Apologies. You seemed to be so hung up on the inconvenience to the troops that I missed the fact that, despite the obvious positive outcome in containing Ebola, you thought more aggressive travel restrictions for EVERYONE should have been used to do what? Make the successful 0 spread of Ebola in the US into some negative number of cases?
I once read that an auditor is someone who comes in after we won the battle and shoots all the cripples. I’m sure that there are lessons to be learned, but Obama won his battle against Ebola and that’s where the over-inflation your criticisms makes them seem rather humorously selective, like the destructive effect of “the knights who say ‘neek’”. I love Monty Python.
Enjoy your run. I hope the weather is better than it is here, or maybe that is just my excuse for wimping out today.
you thought more aggressive travel restrictions for EVERYONE should have been used to do what? Make the successful 0 spread of Ebola in the US into some negative number of cases?
At the time we had no way of knowing were would be no cases. Unrestricted travel for people who just finished a tour treating ebola patients was a great risk (you are aware how germs are spread?). Apparently Obama agreed….because he made our soldiers sit in quarantine (or was that unnecessary?).
You’re the one who brought this up. Either free travel from infected zones is prudent, or imprudent. I think it’s imprudent myself. Hindsight 20/20 is great…hey whoever bought bit coin when it came out is a genius. But without the benefit of hindsight, it was a big gamble that Trump didn’t make. And the more the WHO praises China regarding the way they’ve handled this epidemic, the lower my estimation of their value (we are their largest contributor).
The countries that put travel restrictions in place early (Australia I think was earliest) are having the best immediate results. Since we are a global economy, and the wu very virulent, this is likely to be a very difficult one to contain.
Per the writeup, I guess it was interesting? I’m not sure the years before we discovered what germs were are very informative. Yeah, TB was once a “beautiful” disease…okay? TB is a close relative to leprosy which was never considered beautiful. They’re both very slow growing ailments. Then there was the slam on Trump at the end. His health care folks don’t know science….but he quoted the guy from the WHO would claimed if he got the corona he wanted to be treated in China. Wait..What?!?!
@tsalmon
@Liz
Don’t have anything to add on the write-up. Been reading a book that relates to the subject that I guess I will review.
Enjoy your run
Thanks! It is a beautiful day. Ran a couple of miles and then took a five mile hike. Life is good. I am thankful. 🙂
Truly, saying Obama did a great job at disease containment even though he had no travel restrictions and no quarantines on anyone but our military members…is a bit like saying someone did an excellent job at driving even though they were drunk, because there wasn’t an accident.
@Liz
@tsalmon
Not certain why ebola did not spread, but my guess is that that disease is just too lethal to human beings. A disease that immediately kills its host has trouble spreading.
@Liz
Thanks for the link. 🙂 I put it through google translate, but the translated text reads odd enough that I do not really trust the machine translation. I searched about a bit and came across this article in the Daily Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/18/china-signs-defence-agreement-south-korea-us-angers-seoul-demand/
From that one I have learned, that China and South Korea have signed a defence agreement. This seems to come after Trump raised the fee for keeping American troops in South Korea by a factor of five to $5 billion annually. So yes, there may have been joint excercises or meetings among higher up military personell of South Koreans with military inside China.
Another take on the American and South Korean alliance by Bruce Klingner, Heritage Foundation, (quoted in the Telegraph article) on the state of the alliance:
https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/trump-shakedowns-are-threatening-two-key-us-alliances-asia
https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/dont-break-alliances-over-money
Liz,
You may know more about this than I, but modern epidemiologists seem to look unfavorably on draconian travel restrictions for the reasons that they don’t work and that they ultimately cause distrust and moral hatred of the government at just the time that governmental integrity and trust are most needed. The article that I reposted reflects this current epidemiological thinking – I’m surprised you missed that. However, it was the moral and other more deep societal implications that come from such plagues that I thought a critical thinker like you might find most interesting.
As for why Ebola and SARS and MERS didn’t spread whereas COVID 19 will no matter what we do, I think Tom hit the nail on the head, their own inherent lethality and crippling symptoms naturally quarantines the victims and inhibits rapid contagion spread of those pathogens.
I would image that we will be analyzing the efficacy of the initial Chinese response for years to come, but it is interesting how quickly they scrapped their more mid-evil measures for more modern science based ones.
I don’t think Trump can be saddled for much blame or praise for his border closing efforts – we are too big and too open a country to simply close down and the virus has a way of slipping through such nets or going around them. Your husband is an airline pilot – why do you think all the new community cases are appearing at major airline hubs?
No, lying and praising himself about containment and his administration’s failure to be more proactive early on is where unnecessary lives will be lost. He can close all the borders tomorrow but that cat is out of the bag and always was going to be. Trump is to be blamed for dithering in magical thinking while real measures could have been enacted.
You may know more about this than I, but modern epidemiologists seem to look unfavorably on draconian travel restrictions for the reasons that they don’t work and that they ultimately cause distrust and moral hatred of the government at just the time that governmental integrity and trust are most needed. The article that I reposted reflects this current epidemiological thinking – I’m surprised you missed that.
I think we will look back at this line of reasoning much like we look back at recommendations fo “freshies cigarettes” for fresh breath, and radium for shiny hair and teeth. We have a direct example in the ROK right now, and we can contrast that with what is happening in other areas that shut travel down. No, it’s not a panacea but restricting travel helps for the same reasons quarantine helps. The WHO is strangely praising the extreme travel restrictions within China while criticizing countries that took equivalent measures by closing their borders to travelers from infected areas. It is odd.
@marmoewp, the ceasefire agreement that ended the Korean war was signed between China, the DPRK, and the US (the US was the UN representative). If the ROK wants a defensive alliance with China, it defeats the whole purpose of our being there.
The average military base in the US brings about 500 million to the local economy every year…our last base was closer to 2 billion. This is through construction contracts, employment, housing and so forth. We don’t take the bases with us when we leave so any money we put into them is going to be a loss to us when we leave and they will have it (and we had left several in the past few years).
Good luck to them, we should leave. Trump attempted to get our military dependents out a couple of years ago but Mattis talked him out of it. I understand Mattis’ reasoning as he is an institutional thinker, but I wish it had happened. Maybe the wu will be the incentive to remove military families, make the ROK short tour only and work on removing our forces completely.
There really is not much advantage to the USA when we have a base in a foreign country. If the host country is not involved in the conflict, they won’t let use the base. If they are involved, it is not likely they will charge us fees. Instead, they will do whatever it takes to help us get our forces to the front.
Having our troops in a host nation just demonstrates our commitment to aid the host nation in a conflict. Kind of odd we should have to pay for that “privilege”.
Just a point of order here:
This seems to come after Trump raised the fee for keeping American troops in South Korea by a factor of five to $5 billion annually.
“Raised the fee” would imply we are getting this fee. That isn’t the case. In all Trump’s negotiations he asks for far more than he expects to get. This is no exception.
@Liz
Kind of what anybody would expect from a business man.
One thing the write up was definitely right about (though it was more implied) is: hygiene matters.
Back in the days before sewers, cities were population sinks.
I spend some time in Asia, and I think the culture is going to change a bit after this.
Not sure about Italy, the population there is probably too old to change (killing with kisses?)
-done rambling, hope ya all have a great day
Having our troops in a host nation just demonstrates our commitment to aid the host nation in a conflict. Kind of odd we should have to pay for that “privilege”.
Agreed, Citizen Tom. And it’s always used for propaganda purposes. See marmoewp’s linked articles above. For example, the article states that South Korea “absorbs costs not covered in the cost-sharing agreement, including paying $10 billion, or 93 percent, of the cost of constructing Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. base on foreign soil.”
We, too, absorb costs not covered in that agreement. They have to expand Humphreys to hold the assets from the much larger base we have been kicked out of (a place we’ve spent a metric crapton of money on) Yongsan. It is extremely expensive to move all that military kit, at the behest of their government.
And there really isn’t anywhere to train, so they have to commute for most of the larger live fire exercises.
Furthermore, the Camp Humphreys construction project isn’t ready and has been plagued by corruption and mismanagement. Some of the individual prices tell the story, for example the hospital they just opened, with 68 beds, cost 275 million dollars. We’d be insane to fund even a third of these corrupt construction projects. In the abandoned bases (which are not guarded), businesses are sneaking in and dumping chemicals. WE are then assessed the blame and fined for “leaving toxic chemicals” years after. I could go on a long while about the mess that is our “relationship” with the ROK.
But, few really know. And as usual, selective information is worse than ignorance.
@tsalmon
Working as an election officer today. Will respond when I have time tomorrow.
Thank you for your public service Tom. No hurry, Liz is always a formidable debater – smarter and wittier than both of us. 😊
Destruction has been the obvious name of the game!
You need to read my post from yesterday- I thought of you when I read the article I referenced
@Julie
Will check out your post