Trump and Disinfectants

During one of the White House Press Briefings, a doctor with Homeland Security was discussing the effectiveness of different disinfectants. He went on to discuss what happens "when you inject light into the mix" and talked about how quickly the virus breaks down in sunlight. After he finished talking, President Trump took the podium and began his remarks with a question. He went on to talk about the anti-viral properties of light as a disinfectant and wondered if it could be injected into the human body. The first doctor he asked didn't respond so he repeated the question to Dr. Brix who said no. That should have been that. But it wasn't. A reporter immediately claimed that the President had suggested that people inject themselves with a disinfectant like bleach. That's the story that was picked up by the press which, days later, keeps warning people "not to inject or drink bleach as the President suggested."

Here's Trump's original question:

"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," he said to Bryan. "Then I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"

Here's what he asked Dr. Brix:

"Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I’m not a doctor. I’m like a person who has a good you-know-what," Trump said. "Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?"

Even if you assume that Trump switched gears from talking about light to talking about other disinfectants, there's no way to get around this being a question rather that a suggestion. What's certain is that the words, "What people need to do is inject disinfectant into themselves" did not pass the President's lips.

So how did the press get this so wrong? This is the problem with an adversarial press. The quote all comes from one White House pool reporter's statement about what Trump said. Probably this is someone who was only half-listening because he figures that nothing the President says is worth listening to. He heard the words "inject" and "disinfectant" out of context and jumped to the conclusion that the President was talking about bleach and reported that. The rest of the world's press wants to believe that the President is an idiot whose advice will kill people and repeated the misinformation.

Why keep repeating this misinformation? It's been fact-checked.

Two factors are at work here. The main fact-check was from the Daily Caller. It presented the entire quote in context and made it clear that the President did not suggest injecting bleach. But the Daily-Caller leans right. Many people dismiss their fact-checks and others don't even bother to check them. Snopes failed miserably at fact-checking the President's statement. Politifact accurately represents the exchange but only as a fact-check on using bleach to cure the virus. They completely side-stepped the question of whether the President suggested it or not. So fact-checkers are pretty useless on this.

The other factor is that the news media would have to admit that one of their own made a mistake and that President Trump did not say something dangerous. They would rather drink bleach themselves than do that. And that's the problem with an adversarial press. They won't admit when they made a mistake. Possibly most of them aren't even aware of it since most of them seem to consider listening to the President's daily briefing a waste of time.

Did Michigan Ban Selling Seeds?

For the last few weeks people all over the country have been upset by Governor Gretchen Whitmer's Stay Home, Stay Safe executive order because, among other things, it bans selling plants and seeds. According to Politifact, that's false. But is it?

Politifact is splitting hairs here. Stores larger than 50,000 square feet are required to cordon off sections that the Governor declared non-essential. This specifically includes the garden department. Stores smaller than 50,000 sf are still allowed to keep their garden departments open.

But..., and here's he flaw in Politifact's reasoning, garden centers and nurseries by themselves are not allowed to be open. There's a fairly narrow list of what is allowed and they are not on it.

So, that still leaves stores less than 50,000 sf that are allowed to keep their garden departments open, right? Just try to find one. I was at my local hardware today. It's a small establishment that's been around for decades. They sell a bit of everything. Their garden department consisted of one aisle that's maybe 20 feet long that was all weed killer and fertilizer plus 1/4 of the next aisle that was grass seed. That's all they have room for.

This is a process of elimination. Garden centers are closed. Big box stores that are big enough to have a decent garden center are not allowed to sell anything from them. Smaller stores are too small to carry seeds or plants. So there's no place left to buy them.

Politifact is being obtuse by claiming that there is nothing banning the sale of certain products, just the sections of the stores where those products are kept. How, in heaven's name can you buy seeds if you are not allowed into the garden department where seeds are kept? Do they expect people to buy seeds from the dairy aisle?

I rate Politifact's ruling Pants-on-Fire.

The Biden Allegations and Selective Judgement

A woman has accused former vice president Joe Biden of sexual assault.

In an interview with the AP, she detailed a 1993 encounter that she says occurred when she was asked by a supervisor to bring Biden his gym bag as he was on his way down to the Senate gymnasium. She says Biden pushed her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building, groped her and penetrated her with his fingers.

"He was whispering to me and trying to kiss me at the same time, and he was saying, 'Do you want to go somewhere else?''' she said. "I remember wanting to say stop, but I don't know if I said it out loud or if I just thought it. I was kind of frozen up."

Reade said that she pulled away and Biden looked "shocked and surprised," and replied, "Come on, man, I heard you liked me."

Reade was one of a group of women who complained had at the beginning of the campaign about Biden touching and kissing them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. This was the first time she included details about him penetrating her with his finger.

The story has been dismissed by most mainstream news sources on the basis that no other women have made similar allegations. That's a valid way to determine who to believe in a "he said/she said" situation. A man who imposes himself like this on someone he barely knows normally does the same thing with others.

This is why Bill Clinton's perjury was important in the 1990s. He was being sued by a woman who claimed that he had an employee escort her into his presence where her was waiting with his pants down. This was while he was governor of Arkansas. He did exactly the same thing early in his presidency when he had a White House intern brought into his office. When asked about the White House affair under oath, Clinton lied.

There is no history of Biden fingering other women so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But here's the thing. That still leaves all of his other misconduct. The New York Times alluded to this in their first release of a story exonerating Biden. They had this paragraph:

"No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade's allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."

The story was quickly edited to remove references to Biden's other practices. But these are important.

Consider the two confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh. These took place decades apart but both nominees were almost rejected because a single woman made an accusation. With Kavanaugh the accusation was that he had tried to make out with a girl while drunk in high school. In Thomas's case the accusation was that he made some off-color jokes in front of a woman. There was no touching. In both cases, women who had worked with the nominees came forward and said that they had never seen him act like that. There was no corroborating testimony at all but both men are still plagued by the accusations. A year and a half later, Democrats continue to talk about impeaching Kavanaugh for denying the accusation. (Remember, of the four people who were alleged to have been present, three have denied it and Kavanaugh produced a calendar showing that he was elsewhere nearly every night that Summer.)

Then there's President Trump and the Billy Bush tapes. Shortly before the 2016 election a "hot mic tape" surfaced of Trump saying that he liked to kiss and touch women and they let him because he's rich and famous. Hillary Clinton immediately called on Trump to drop out of the race. Women's groups organized a huge march the day after the inauguration to protest that such a man could be president.

These same women support Joe Biden, even though multiple women have accused him of doing exactly the same thing.

This is selective judgement. If our guy does it, it's just Joe being Joe. If someone from the other side is accused of something, it renders him unfit for office regardless of the lack of proof.

The NYT realized they had been to explicit about forgiving Biden so they swept the proven claims under the rug. Regardless, it's hypocrisy at its worst.