WTF ? Rachel Maddow is reporting that american companies

[drray23]

Making masks are exporting them . There is a shipment of 280 million n95 masks about to leave the country. Apparently the feds have not asked companies to not do so and sell to Fema instead in order to supply our hospitals.

[Freethinker65]

1. Profits over American lives!!! Trump patriots!!!

[mitch96]

14. Capitalism at it's finest.. Money over people. Just like the brits and the potato famin... nt

[TryLogic]

17. It's the Republican Plague.

[tazkcmo]

2. America last! n/t

[Guilded Lilly]

3. I just caught that. The disgust was dripping from the screen...

and I wholeheartedly agree with her assessment that we need a new federal government.
Now.

[Mersky]

4. Also reported that the national PPE stockpile is nearly gone

WaPo: Protective gear in national stockpile is nearly depleted, DHS officials say
by Nick Miroff

-snip-

Two DHS officials said the stores kept in the Department of Health and Human Service’s Strategic National Stockpile are nearly gone, despite assurances from the White House that there is availability.

“The stockpile was designed to respond to handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic,” said a DHS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the stockpile. “This is not only a U.S. government problem. The supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down, and there is a lot of price-gouging happening.”

-snip-

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/protective-gear-in-national-stockpile-is-nearly-depleted-dhs-officials-say/ar-BB122cFl?li=BBnb7Kz

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

16. And Trump blames Obama

You've been President for 3 years dotard. Time to stop making excuses.

[Mersky]

34. tRump is insane

Backed himself into a corner long ago of doing the opposite of Obama. His brand is anti-Obama at all costs, which is as dumb and wasteful as it is dangerous.

tRump shouldn’t have dismantled the NSC pandemic response team in 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html

And, good grief, Obama had nothing to do with tRump not learning a damn thing from his own administration officials in October 2019:

The October 2019 report in particular documents that officials at the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, and even at the White House’s National Security Council, were aware of the potential for a respiratory virus outbreak originating in China to spread quickly to the United States and overwhelm the nation.

“Nobody ever thought of numbers like this,’’ Mr. Trump said on Wednesday, at a news conference.

In fact, they had.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html

And that’s just two points, but, there’s more, like the weekend of March 14-15. Extraordinarily long lines of international travelers waiting for hours to go through customs was an unmitigated disease-spreading disaster totally caused by tRump’s decision to abruptly announce closing travel from 26 European countries. He owns the ballooning numbers of those infected and dying:

Link to tweet

?s=20

No more excuses from tRump, cuz this is all on him.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. This group of Republicans are useless!

[LisaL]

6. What in the world?

Medical professionals need masks. General population needs them too. And they exporting them out of the country?

[2naSalit]

7. Sold to the highest bidder?

I missed most of the show, was on a family call.

Did you know it's Rachel's birthday today?

Unfortunately, she doesn't look like she's having a good day.

[whathehell]

8. Out-Fucking-Rageous!

I swear, wherever those masks are leaving from, the "point of departure" should be SURROUNDED by outraged fucking citizenry refusing to let it ship!!..

[Amaryllis]

9. Wonder if congress can step in and stop this. If Turtle would even let the senate do it.

[NightWatcher]

10. Money. Trumps. Life. Sometimes.

[uponit7771]

11. THIS IS ON PURPOSE !!!

[keithbvadu2]

12. Follow the money to find the Trump family grift. I mean 'commission.

Follow the money to find the Trump family grift. I mean 'commission.

[Cal Carpenter]

13. Seizing the factories, or the product, in the interest of the public good

would be socialism. Trump won't do that. I'm not even sure many Dems in office would.

Yay capitalism.

[Takket]

15. It's true. Reported here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213214898

[kimbutgar]

18. You can bet it's Georgia pacific a koch owned company profiting off our government.

[pnwmom]

19. That shipment already happened and it was just ONE DAY's WORTH of exported masks.

The article from Forbes said millions of masks were being exported every day.

[BigmanPigman]

20. Aren't we getting a BIG shipment from Putin too?

We sell ours than import them from elsewhere?!?!?! I don't get this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-coronavirus-aid-us-putin/2020/04/01/39d52cb2-7411-11ea-ad9b-254ec99993bc_story.html

[MontanaMama]

33. I wouldn't trust those masks for a second.

We ship masks from our national stockpile out of the country but accept masks from Putin? WTAF?

[TryLogic]

21. Watch Trump and his cache of fascists. He is evil enough to prolong the pandemic

until close to the election at which time he would try to cancel the election. Or seriously damage turnout.

[Flaleftist]

22. I want to see some governor confiscate any PPE at such a company and send it to hospitals.

Where are these companies located? Do they have warehouses of stock?

We can deal with the legal BS later, but I suspect public opinion will be on the side of that governor.

[SheltieLover]

31. THIS!

[subterranean]

23. This was reported by Forbes a couple of days ago.

It seems the foreign buyers are able to show immediate "proof of funds," which the U.S. hospitals are unable to do, so they get the masks.

You would think the Federal government could have included a provision for purchasing some of these masks in the recent stimulus package.

[H2O Man]

25. Right.

I saw that, too.

[AllyCat]

24. Yup. Read this on Forbes yesterday

And we cannot get what we need in the hospital.

[Hoyt]

26. We are but 5% of the world, and foreign masks are being imported here.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

27. I'm not surprised.

Other than when I worked at a university as a grad research assistant, every company where I’ve worked has been a mini-tyranny with corporate profits as the main priority. They’d give “lip service” to patriotic notions, but then showed disregard for the safety and well-being of their employees (who were all American citizens too) if profits might be affected. Their actions spoke far louder than words.

The middle managers and supervisors were like vassals in a feudal system, exchanging their loyalty for a few extra perks from the lords, even if it meant more suffering for the serfs.

[Flaleftist]

28. The CEOs of these companies need to be named and shamed. ASAP

Are there more shipments planned that can be used here?

[Dopers_Greed]

29. Any company that does this should be charged with treason, and their assets seized

[RB TexLa]

30. There is a world wide need for masks. Other countries lives are just as valuable as American lives.

[Hoyt]

37. Exactly.

[lagomorph777]

40. We are the epicenter now. If we would deal with the crisis appropriately, we could protect others.

[MasonDreams]

32. The trump cult is probably trying to make us so angry to provoke violence.

When they have provoked violence they'll dump gas on the fire. Owning the libs is not as satisfying as they thought, so now they want to kill us.

[MerryBlooms]

35. You know what? I've stopped caring. All these news channels

report their 'outrage' and you know what, they can fuck off. Nothing changes, it's all a game. The media companies make money, trump gets his ratings from people watching and being 'outraged'. The 'outraged' people run to social media and discussion boards (DU, etc) and post how horrible this administration is, fuck this broadcaster, fuck that broadcaster, but they still watch, day after day, raising his ratings and can't wait to run here to post that shit... almost like a realty show? Day after day, 'he's horrible, hope he gets the virus' blah de blah'. I'm done, been done for a while. I don't watch any of their shit anymore. This shit has been going on for years and will continue. States against states, states against fed, states against other countries. You know, this is all designed and playing out exactly how it's supposed to? I watch my local stuff to see what directly impacts my family, other than that, the rest can go fuck themselves.

[Quixote1818]

36. This is fucking disgraceful! Infuriating!

Trump's greed, lack of empathy and kindness has no bounds.

[KewlKat]

38. Does anyone really think they not been doing this all along?

[lagomorph777]

39. This needs to be stopped IMMEDIATELY.

[Recursion]

41. Good Lord, people: there is a worldwide shortage of masks

Honestly some of the responses here are frightening.