Donald Trump says he feels ‘much better’ in COVID-19 fight
A reader comments: “I have always thought Trump is who America needs, but I have also thought he is not a very pleasant man. …. However, through the years of his first term, reading his tweets and following his accomplishments, and his dealings with others, I have come to more clearly see his humanity, humour, strength of character, leadership, intelligence, sincerity, his love for individual freedom,… and whether he wins or loses the November election, I think he will be remembered as one of the greatest US presidents.”
Donald Trump has spoken out from hospital in a lengthy address after being diagnosed with coronavirus on Friday.
Mr Trump started by thanking the medical staff at Walter Reed Medical Centre, before talking about “miracle” treatments of the future.
“I came here, I wasn’t feeling so well, I feel much better now, we’re working hard to get me all the way back,” the US President said on Saturday night, local time. It is not clear when the video was recorded.
“I have to be back because we still have to make America great again. “I’ll be back, I think I’ll be back soon,” he said.
“We’re going to beat this coronavirus or whatever you want to call it.”
Mr Trump also went on to say he “just didn’t want to stay in the White House” for quarantine. “Stay in the White House, lock yourself in, don’t ever leave, don’t even go the Oval Office, just stay upstairs and enjoy it. “Don’t see people, don’t talk to people and just be done with it, and I can’t do that,” he said.
“This is America, this is the United States, this is greatest country in the world, this is the most powerful country in the world and I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs completely safe and just say hey, ‘whatever happens happens’.”
Mr Trump thanked leaders from around the world for their well wishes, and that Melania is also doing well – making a joke about how because she is younger than him is not as ill.
The President’s doctor released an update on Mr Trump’s condition on Saturday night, local time. He is said to be “fever free and off supplemental oxygen”. The medical team remains cautiously optimistic, Mr Trump’s doctor Sean P. Conley said in the update.
The latest from Sweden: Cases up but no deaths
It’s been three months since Sweden recorded just over 800 new coronavirus cases.
But after months with no dramatic increases and low hospitalisation rates, cases of COVID-19 have surged again.
While the Scandinavian country was panned for its controversial approach to coronavirus, it has been recording fewer deaths per day than most other nations — including Australia.
Sweden chose to ignore calls for heavy lockdowns and has kept most schools, bars and restaurants open throughout the pandemic.
Even as cases surged with 752 people testing positive on Thursday – the highest daily rise since June 30 – there was not a single fatality.
Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, the man behind Sweden’s controversial strategy, said the uptick was mostly in young people and workplace outbreaks. “It’s very unevenly spread across Sweden, hitting different parts of the country to varying degree,” he said. “Stockholm once again accounts for a very large part of the new cases in Sweden.”
Mr Tegnell recently pointed out while Sweden went from being one of the countries in Europe with the most virus spread, to one that had some of the fewest cases in Europe, the numbers could always go up.
Its per capita death rate is several times higher than other Scandavian countries, but lower than the likes of Spain, Italy and the UK despite their lockdowns.
It’s marked a turnaround for the country, which saw one of the highest death tolls in the world per capita during its spring, recording 5893 deaths.
Just days ago media outlets reported how Sweden seemed to have the virus scourge controlled with the country having one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Experts were proclaiming the pandemic there was essentially over.
Kim Sneppen, from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, said the country had beaten the virus with herd immunity.
“There is some evidence that the Swedes have built up a degree of immunity to the virus which, along with what else they are doing to stop the spread, is enough to control the disease,” he told the Politiken newspaper.
It’s an idea Mr Tegnell has repeatedly denied, although he had indicated immunity is being evidenced.
“We are happy that the number of cases is going down rapidly and we do believe immunity in the population has something to do with that,” he said. “And we hope that the immunity in the population will help us get thought this fall with cases at a low level.”
“Today, all of the European countries are more or less following the Swedish model, combined with the testing, tracing and quarantine procedures the Germans have introduced, but none will admit it,” Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health, told The New York Times. “Instead, they made a caricature out of the Swedish strategy. Almost everyone has called it inhumane and a failure.”
Mr Flahault warned there was a major flaw in the Swedish approach – not wearing masks. “That can be a big drawback in the Swedish strategy if masks prove effective and key in fighting the pandemic,” he said.
Allan Randrup Thomsen, professor of virology at Aarhus University, recently said it could not be ruled out that Sweden would have a flare up. Still, its voluntary social distancing is something it’s sticking to.
Because of it, Sweden’s economy shrank by 9 per cent in the first months of the pandemic, compared with 20 per cent in Britain.
‘No evidence’ Melbourne’s draconian curfew keeps coronavirus cases down – admits the senior bureaucrat who extended the policy
Melbourne’s night-time curfew was extended despite there being no evidence the measure would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own, according to the senior health official who renewed the draconian rule.
The city’s five million residents were on August 2 banned from leaving their homes between the hours of 8pm to 5am except for work, medical or care-giving reasons.
Health officials extended the curfew on September 14 but with shortened hours from 9pm to 5am.
The curfew – which was only removed on Monday evening amid a rapid decline in daily case totals – was one of a range of sweeping coronavirus restrictions brought in as part of Victoria’s state of emergency powers.
Department of Health and Human Services senior medical adviser Michelle Giles admitted at a Supreme Court hearing on Thursday there was no physical evidence the policy alone reduced transmission.
Bourke Street is pictured deserted after a citywide curfew was introduced in Melbourne on August 2. The bureaucrat who signed off on the measure has admitted there was no evidence it would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own +4
Bourke Street is pictured deserted after a citywide curfew was introduced in Melbourne on August 2. The bureaucrat who signed off on the measure has admitted there was no evidence it would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own
‘What I say is the curfew is part of a package of directions that aim at reducing movement and interactions between people and there is evidence that reduces transmissions,’ she said.
But Associate Professor Giles – who had final say on the extension while standing in as Victoria’s Deputy Public Health Commander – told the court there was no proof the policy by itself would be effective.
Professor Giles also said she disagreed with the premier’s assertion when the curfew was announced it would help Victoria Police enforce the lockdown.
‘I actually considered the curfew in relation to public health,’ she said, according to The Australian.
‘I don’t agree with those comments, particularly the law enforcement one.’
The Supreme Court case has been brought by Mornington Peninsula cafe owner Michelle Loielo – who is suing the government claiming COVID-19 restrictions have caused a 99 per cent drop in her revenue.
‘Every time I see the premier, Daniel Andrews, on the television and every time I hear the premier speak, I feel a sense of dread and anxiety,’ she said.
Last month, Mr Andrews said he decided to bring in the unprecedented 8pm curfew even though it was not recommended by scientists.
‘That’s a decision that I’ve made,’ he said on 10 September, adding governments are ‘free to go beyond’ advice given to them by doctors.
The previous day Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said he did not recommend the curfew.
Ms Loielo, a Liberal Party supporter, claims the curfew violates her rights to freedom.
She says her business in Capel Sound used to bring in up to $20,000 a week in earnings.
So Much for Income Tax Privacy
How many times have we been told that the information we send to the Internal Revenue Service in our federal income tax returns is guaranteed to be kept confidential?
So much for that myth, as President Trump can now attest. The New York Times somehow secured a copy of Trump’s income tax returns and is excitedly telling the world what they contain.
One thing is for sure: If the president of the United States can’t keep his income tax returns private, no one else can either.
From the very start of Trump’s quest for the presidency, the mainstream press has been obsessed with getting its hands on his tax returns. And from the very start, Trump refused to disclose them, which he has every right to do.
Trump took the position that his tax returns were none of anyone’s business. And he was right. HIs tax returns fell within his right of personal privacy. If people chose not to vote for him because of his refusal to disclose his tax returns, so be it. That would be their right. But that possibility didn’t abrogate Trump’s right of privacy.
Obviously, Trump’s position did not prevent him from winning the presidency. HIs tax returns were just not that important to millions of people who voted for him.
The New York Times’ decision to disclose Trump’s income tax returns reminds us of what a horrific disaster the adoption of the federal income tax was. Just think: For more than 125 years, Americans lived without a federal income tax. Everyone was free to keep everything he earned and decide for himself what to do with it.
During that time, the editorial board and reporters for the New York Times and other mainstream papers were not having conniption fits over the refusal of presidential candidates to reveal their income tax returns because, well, there were no income tax returns, given that there was no federal income tax.
One of the big reasons the Framers favored indirect taxes over direct taxes was that indirect taxes didn’t have the enormous intrusiveness into privacy that comes with direct taxes. If the Framers had proposed a federal income tax in the Constitution, there is no possibility that our American ancestors would have approved the Constitution and the federal government. Don’t forget, after all, that under the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution, the federal government had not been given the power to tax at all.
The Times and other mainstream papers are making a big deal out of Trump’s use of tax deductions and other tax-avoidance provisions of the massively thick IRS Code to avoid paying taxes. They are implying that he’s unpatriotic for not helping fund the welfare-warfare state that the income tax funds.
That’s ridiculous. It might be hypocritical given Trump’s ardent support for the welfare-welfare state but it’s certainly not unpatriotic to employ every tax avoidance provision in the book. After all, I’ll bet that the members of the Times’ editorial board and its big team of reporters and columnists do the same thing. They are just upset that they don’t do it as well as Trump.
I must say that I do find it ironic that while the mainstream press is celebrating the disclosure of Trump’s private tax returns, it is also failing to come to the defense of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the men who disclosed the truth about the U.S. national security state to the world. In today’s topsy turvy world, it’s considered okay to violate the privacy of American citizens by publicly disclosing their income tax returns to the world. At the same time, it’s considered a grave crime to disclose the truth about the dark and sordid activities of the national security state that the income tax funds.
The best thing the American people could ever do is restore America’s founding principle of an income-tax free society and to repeal the dark and sordid warfare-welfare things that it funds.
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