Birx changes the tune, a little.

Just now on the tube.

They used to say the especially vulnerable were the elderly with comorbidities.

Then it was those 65 and over and those of any age with comorbidities.

Today it's those 80 and over and those of any age with comorbidities.

Pence is useless and full of shit.

But even the docs, including Fauci, did not balk at Pence's happy-talk.

Fauci was clear but gentle, even rather sweet-talking the young idiots blowing off social distancing and masks.

And very gently and politely attributed our current disaster to them and to states re-opening too far and too soon, against the rules provided by the White House documents.

He did not for a second blame Trump or any GOP person or GOP media for heaping contempt on those documents and those who obey them and telling many different lies to cause people to ignore the danger and party like it's pledge week.

Not Fauci.

Not with that giant yellow streak down his back.

The three docs on stage wore masks except while at the mic, speaking.

Pence at no time went anywhere near a mask.

So, who was undermining the credibility of whose message?

The Guardian live says Bozo says the virus will "go away without a vaccine."

Less than ten minutes ago, talking to Republican legislators.

Apparently this summer, though maybe with "flare-ups" after that.

And neither Fauci nor Birx to stagger, make faces, roll their eyes, or contradict.

The US president said a little earlier at his event with Republican lawmakers in Washington that coronavirus “will go away without a vaccine”.

He didn’t offer any evidence for what he was talking about. He noted that there may be “some flare ups” in the fall, or “next year”.

“[Viruses] die too, like everything else,” he said.

Trump to shut down Coronavirus Task Force tomorrow, says MSNBC

Less flak than just firing Fauci would cost and we knew they would soon do this, anyway.

We will never see more help from Trump.

He's dumping it all on the governors and the ensuing disaster will be their fault, according to him and Fox and the entire Republican chorus.

He will keep Birx and Fauci on ice, very much in the background where they will neither be seen nor heard every day by anywhere near as many Americans, publicly contradicting our fearless leader.

They would do the country much more good dropping out of the government and showing up with lots of other public health authorities for a daily national briefing at Johns Hopkins or some other private venue, perhaps hosted by CNN, MSNBC, the Times, WAPO, the Journal, and others.

Will his next arena rally be within one or as much as two weeks?

By the way, today's numbers now show more than 70,000 American Covid-19 dead.

By refusing to ensure adequate testing and by disbanding the task force and by hiding Fauci and Birx he is denying ammunition to those whose task will be to tell America about the harm done by the Idiot Boy's insisting on rolling back the lockdown, in his heart and probably in reality, for good and all.

We will never see lockdown again while he's in the White House.

More about Birx and my demand that she resign

Update:

It's not just me and a few medicos on TV irate that she defends and covers for Bozo, any more.

Fauci is soft on Trump in the briefings but more (but not entirely) frank when interviewed elsewhere, and that's quite bad enough, thanks.

But Birx is on his team, committed to covering for him and making apologies for his idiocies.

Tapper was actually too easy on her and understated the damage she is doing, and note how she pushed back, attempting to discredit his pointing to the dangerous idiocy of the president and her dangerous covering for him by subtly blaming him for distracting from what, according to her, was clearly his real job and moral responsibility, passing on good medical information to the American people.

White House spokespeople or Fox apologists couldn't have done it better, and certainly would not have seemed to be so authoritative and deserving of deference as she did.

A little more of this and maybe everyone will see she's a White House collaborator hiding in the role of responsible adult in the room.

/Update.

Anyway, Piers Morgan, straw in the wind?

I posted these remarks at Steve M.'s.

Me to Steve.

Dr Birx needs to resign and this is why. 

She has joined the Trump team in the effort to hide his terrifying stupidity that, combined with his lunatic megalomania and delusions of omnicompetence, are killing Americans by the tens of thousands.

Steve to me.

She's more actively engaged in defending Trump than Fauci is. That's not admirable. But it's not as if her departure would suddenly make the scales fall from Trump voters' eyes -- "Dr. Birx said he was a thoughtful man who's very interested in science, but now I see he's nothing but a fraud!" That will never happen -- if it's not happening after Disinfectantgate, then it can't happen under any circumstances. But at least we have reason to believe that Birx, like Fauci, is giving Trump good information, which he absorbs to a limited extent. It got him to take the virus somewhat seriously, eventually, at least for a couple of weeks. It kept him from insisting on a reopening on Easter Sunday. It persuaded him to reject Brian Kemp's reopening of Georgia (although by then the damage was already done). If Birx goes, she'll be replaced by Dr. Oz, or by some other quack Trump saw on Fox, or by some college poker buddy of Jared's. Her replacement will know absolutely nothing relevant to the crisis. The little Birx is able to do is better than the alternative.

Me to Steve

Thank you for engaging. 

If Birx goes and Bozo replaces her with that corrupt airhead and fraud, Oz, or someone else of that ilk, the country will see things more transparently stupid and frightening than even the Duce's Lysol moment. 

And the adversarial press will become much more frank and harsh, and will give stories like the waste of resources and fatal mistreatment of patients that resulted from the Orange Moron's delusions concerning chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine more and harsher coverage. 

And they will hammer home that at least half the virus deaths in the US up to now are completely and only Trump's fault. 

Many of Bozo's GOP supporters in positions of power and influence on GOP public opinion will freak.

That will certainly include GOP federal office holders, White House staff, and cabinet members, none of whom can even now have the tiniest jot of respect for this insane and stupid brat.

Their loyalty to him is thin and entirely opportunist, anyway, based on the fact that vile person and idiot though he is he will sign their legislation, appoint their juges, and give the hard right what they want. 

And we need them to freak, especially if you and others are right that there is a real danger he will postpone or cancel the elections or ignore their results as "fake news". 

We have to ensure that public support, and support among the classe politique, for any of that would be as close to nil as possible, and public opposition would be as fierce as possible. 

So at least half his base has to freak, to go all weak in the knees, if not to desert him outright as soon as possible. 

They haven't and won't abandon him for any other reason. 

They need to see he puts everyone, and themselves and people like them in particular, in deadly danger. 

If Birx and others stay on, shielding him and his public image and pretending his utterly stupid suggestions and actual orders to the medical establishment are not wasting time and resources and causing extra deaths, that will not happen. 

And if his base stays true blue, given the way things are going, our goose is cooked and that terrifying fathead will be reelected in November. 

Anyway I fear this is true. 

And "fear" is exactly the right word. 

Sorry to go on so long.

She needs to quit and this is why

A perfectly good defense of that remark if it came from a five year old.

It didn't.

Followed with ridiculous flattery.

Both together intended to get between Americans and what they are seeing with their own eyes, Trump's terrifying combination of stupidity, megalomania, and delusions of omnicompetence.

She has joined the Trump White House team.

She's on board.

But she is not the only medical professional who needs to quit.

Reportedly, 40,000 health professionals have prescribed chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for the first time ever since Bozo ordered it made available for Coronavirus patients.

Birx says Trump meant no harm

"You didn't believe the president was putting anybody in danger, did you?" Watters asked Birx.

"No, when [he] gets new information, he likes to talk that through out loud and really have that dialogue," Birx said. 

"And so that's what dialogue he was having."

. . . .

Birx on Saturday suggested Trump may have just received the information before the press conference Thursday, saying "he was still digesting that information."

"The president has always put health and safety first," Birx said. 

"I think you can see that in the way that he was supportive of slowing the spread guidelines, knew the impact that would have on the economy."

"Yet he realized that the health and safety of Americans was his number one interest and responsibility," Birx added. 

"And that's what he did first and continues to do as we begin to open up."

Trump wasted lots of money and resources to please a big money donor, says Steve M.

Steve M on the Duce's motives.

Nah. He did it because he's genuinely and honestly stupid.

About which see his latest brilliant medical suggestion, injecting disinfectant into patients' lungs.

I warned weeks ago that Fauci and Birx should have publicly denounced the notion that valuable research time and resources should be wasted on medically baseless - not to mention blatantly stupid - suggestions, and they did not.

I also warned they should have denounced the idea of forcing or even allowing doctors to use anything as a curative therapy not proven according to normal protocols and criteria of medical science to be safe and useful, and they did not.

So Trump ordered researchers to waste time and money on researching the curative value of hydroxychloroquine, which has turned out to be both useless and harmful for Coronavirus patients.

And he ordered that doctors actually use that drug therapeutically in such cases, which some actually did despite their Hippocratic Oath on some patients.

Just maybe it's time for Fauci and Birx to grow a pair and tell Boobie to his face that his ideas are childish and silly and he should just stop talking about serious matters to actual adults.

Update, MSNBC Dr. Kavita Patel agrees Birx should have boldly and frankly shut down the nonsense right then and there, as it came out of the president's mouth.

She says the medical profession is furious resources have been wasted and are still being wasted proving Trump's crackpot remedies are useless and even harmful.

They are not happy Fauci and Birx have not be much braver in resisting his idiocies, as they happen, in public.

The two should be as brave and principled as Dr. Bright, who refused to indulge the Duce's harmful nonsense even at the cost of his job.

The public needs to see how seriously this stupid president is letting them down, how unwilling and unable he is to actually understand and not foolishly sabotage real science.

Update. It is really so odd that he thinks he is entitled to a seat at a table where relevantly trained and expert docs are seriously discussing possible treatments, what might deserve researching, etc.

That he is qualified to offer ideas and even to urge upon them entire research projects devoted to his off-the-cuff thoughts what might work.

How does he not know that he, like the rest of us who are not relevantly prepared researchers, would not have the least idea where to start finding therapeutically effective drugs, what might be a cure, or how to make an effective vaccine?

How does he not know, as we know of ourselves, that he has no place at that table?

Steve Schmidt, on a YouTube clip of Joe S, suggested reconsideration of the 25th Amendment because of exactly this contretemps, though Willie and Joe immediately ran away from that.