already going on in other developed countries as well.

4 days ago, UK admits that they hadn't been counting people that die at home: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/covid-19-deaths-outside-hospitals-to-be-included-in-uk-tally-for-first-time
Same deal in one part of Italy: https://thehill.com/policy/international/490754-death-toll-in-italian-province-twice-as-high-as-official-count

This is not a time when journalists have the mobility to keep reports accountable. Common sense tells you that it would be in a country's best interest to define their metric in a way that would lead to the official count being as low as they can get away with. In less developed countries, it's even easier to get away with more extreme under reporting since they can just control the media. It only makes sense that this time of under reporting is widespread to various degrees.

Official death count might be 50k but the real number is probably triple that.

Here's the story:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/387191-trump-official-overseeing-pandemic-response-suddenly-leaves-admin
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487581-bolton-defends-decision-to-shutter-nsc-pandemic-office
https://www.newsweek.com/former-head-white-house-pandemic-office-says-united-states-less-prepared-after-closure-1492337

Assigning responsibility for a move is not a road that leads to any satisfying conclusion. John Bolton ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bolton#Tenure ) was the one directly responsible for dissolving the team.



Whatever extent someone wants to blame Trump for his decision is completely subjective. Ofc the "orange man bad" crowd is going to blame Trump completely.

Articles can word things in a misleading way to support whatever narrative they want. We don't have access to the context of that situation, but there's no doubt that the team was dissolved. It wasn't a matter of "a guy resigning".

This post was edited by Kayeto on Apr 3 2020 03:47am

When you're the President, that's where the buck stops. But we all know Trump's position on taking responsibility.

And Donald Trump is the one directly responsible for appointing John fucking Bolton to such a high-profile position in the first place. Even though everyone knew how "special" and lunatic the guy is. "He travelled the world, but never found a country he didnt want to bomb into the ground."
I still dont get why Trump ever appointed Bolton, and I've been saying for over a year that Bolton was one of his worst personnel decisions.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 3 2020 03:56am

https://forums.d2jsp.org/user.php?i=493212 <--- last seen Sep 4 2019
https://forums.d2jsp.org/user.php?i=212773 <--- last seen Oct 30 2019

Yeah hes trolling facebook more now, he has at least 3 hate groups i know of.
Like "Post here when dusty hodges says something stupid" has like 100 members

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/navy-expected-relieve-captain-who-raised-alarm-about-covid-19-n1175351



His career in the navy is pretty much over, they'll force retire him. Putting your crew above your career and getting fired for it by a seat warmer who recently replaced the guy sacked for complaining about war criminals being pardoned. Crazy times.



The rationale behind the decision from the acting SECNAV.

I'm not saying that I disagree with either of those sentiments. Just that it's a harmful conversation to have because it exacerbates the partisanship that riles people up and distorts our ability to calmly discuss things.

The fact that the discussion has to be reduced to the 2 extremes (either you have to screech "orange man bad" at the top of your lungs OR you are defending him) prevents rational discussion. It causes the debate to get emotional and introduces tribalism where it doesn't belong.

We need to be able to engage in broader conversations than just "orange man bad".

This post was edited by Kayeto on Apr 3 2020 04:08am

Not gonna lie. I understand the rationale. I just think it's bullshit.

It's beyond bullshit.

His final words were "I expect no congratulations for it. Captain Crozier is an incredible man." I mean seriously?

Judging by the letter dated for the 30th and the first cases being on the 24th, talks of people testing negative showing symptoms and only now are there mentions of evacuating everyone,
I'm inclined to believe that he actually did follow the chain of command and was ignored. They sure did seem motivated to act fast after that letter came out.