SCIENCE MAG-TRUMP LIED: This may be the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy.

[kpete]

Trump lied about science
H. Holden Thorp
Science 11 Sep 2020:


When President Donald Trump began talking to the public about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in February and March, scientists were stunned at his seeming lack of understanding of the threat. We assumed that he either refused to listen to the White House briefings that must have been occurring or that he was being deliberately sheltered from information to create plausible deniability for federal inaction. Now, because famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward recorded him, we can hear Trump’s own voice saying that he understood precisely that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was deadly and spread through the air. As he was playing down the virus to the public, Trump was not confused or inadequately briefed: He flat-out lied, repeatedly, about science to the American people. These lies demoralized the scientific community and cost countless lives in the United States.

Over the years, this page has commented on the scientific foibles of U.S. presidents. Inadequate action on climate change and environmental degradation during both Republican and Democratic administrations have been criticized frequently. Editorials have bemoaned endorsements by presidents on teaching intelligent design, creationism, and other antiscience in public schools. These matters are still important. But now, a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

Trump also knew that the virus could be deadly for young people. “It’s not just old, older,” he told Woodward on 19 March. “Young people, too, plenty of young people.” Yet, he has insisted that schools and universities reopen and that college football should resume. He recently added to his advisory team Scott Atlas—a neuroradiologist with no expertise in epidemiology—who has advocated for a risky and misguided course: somehow isolating the older and more vulnerable while allowing the virus free rein among young people. The opening of colleges and schools has accelerated the spread of the virus and will mean untold suffering among both students and the people to whom they are now spreading the virus.

...........

the rest:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391?rss=1

[Hugin]

1. Lock him up. n/t

[dhill926]

2. Watergate seems quaint compared to this...

[Rhiannon12866]

35. My thought, too...

[malaise]

3. THIS

And that fucking LIAR is being allowed to run for office again

But now, a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

[riversedge]

4. It is the silence from Republicans that is just as horrible.They too,are responsible for the Deaths

[malaise]

6. There should be much more noise about their silence

How is the Con allowed to run for office after having him on tape admitting to knowing about the deadly virus and lying to the population

[Illumination]

14. Agree. It's all very disturbing. Also agree that very little is being said from Republicans except

Susan Collins who's as worthless as a sunken boat on Lake Travis!

[malaise]

16. And LIEberman

endorsed her - telling!

[Pepsidog]

25. Rs not jumping ship worries the hell out of me. What do they know?

[Illumination]

29. They know PLENTY! Maybe too much! Right now they're probably wondering what's

happened to their campaign $...Much of it has disappeared...

[Grokenstein]

15. Unfortunately, this is the nation that accepted "teach the controversy."

And signaled to one and all that America was anti-fact.

[Skittles]

30. yes

it is so very clear he has NOT upheld the oath of office

[malaise]

31. What exactly is the penalty for lying to Congress and lying to the people

Lock him up!

[dalton99a]

5. "Trump was not clueless, and he was not ignoring the briefings"

Monuments in Washington, D.C., have chiseled into them words spoken by real leaders during crises. “Confidence,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance.”

We can be thankful that science has embraced these words. Researchers are tirelessly developing vaccines and investigating the origins of the virus so that future pandemics may be prevented. Health care workers have braved exposure to treat COVID-19 patients and reduce the death rate; many of these frontline workers have become infected, and some have died in these acts of courage. These individuals embody Roosevelt’s call to faithful protection and unselfish performance.

They have seen neither quality exhibited by their president and his coconspirators. Trump was not clueless, and he was not ignoring the briefings. Listen to his own words. Trump lied, plain and simple.

[malaise]

7. He should be locked up

This is murder most foul

[NCjack]

8. He is a mass murderer. Lock-him-up!

[SamKnause]

9. How many newspapers across the U.S. are calling for his resignation ??? None.

Have our Senators, Congressmen, and Congresswomen called emergency hearings

to address Trump's lies that have caused the deaths of U.S. citizens ??? No.

It is apparent that Trump has total control of this country !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is literally the cause of 10's of thousands of deaths and no one can or will stop him.

This country is lost.

[LymphocyteLover]

27. Yeah, the fact that so few people in power have asked ofr his resignation is utterly

maddening... don't know if it's because they know it's a waste of time with this shameless monster

but we're not quite lost yet... just too many people with fucked up priorities

[LymphocyteLover]

10. Wow-- blistering!

Good! This evil motherfucker needs to go... to jail

[Bubs55]

24. Some State, NY?, California?, should take the lead and issue

a warrant for his arrest for mass murder of their citizens. I'm waiting.

[LymphocyteLover]

28. NY seems to be trying

don't know if CA has jurisdiction... the law is complex here

[Tommymac]

11. He is Evil Incarnate. Seriously.

I do not believe in a devil or Satan or evil spirits...

I DO believe in the Evil that lies in the heart of men and women.

Trump is the evilest Human Being to ever live.

His heart is as rotten as the willow tree's in the old forest.

He is a killer clown.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. He's a psychopath. That should be enough to explain this but no...

If he told the truth he'd lose votes. His success is dependent upon a brainwashed constituency.

The rest of us are too good natured and too naive to understand the twisted psychopath mind.

It's likely that many of his followers are psychopaths themselves.

❤ lmsp

[gristy]

18. Somehow it has become the common refrain that he does this or that to win votes.

He does what he does because he is a psychopath. And there are enough broken people in this country that either cannot recognize or are attracted to psychopaths that he won an election.

[Blecht]

20. This is also what needs to be amplified.

It's what Dr. Bandy Lee has been shouting about for the past few years.

https://www.dcreport.org/2020/09/11/indictments-of-a-killer/

She must feel like Cassandra.

[gristy]

22. wow. This

[malaise]

32. Yep - WaterMan has interviewed her and posted

the interviews on DU - he needs to be in prison

[gristy]

13. There just has to be a reckoning come January

Charges, trial, conviction, sentence. Never to see the light of day again.
When in history has anything close to the events of the past 4 years and past week for that matter happened before?
Never?

[Stuart G]

17. Thank You for this post...K and R........OUTSTANDING...!!!!!

[Blecht]

19. This is a big deal

The parts of the article that the OP put in bold are enough to impeach this daughterfucker, have him arrested, put on trial for crimes against humanity, and executed. That is not hyperbole.

This needs to be spread far and wide:

As he was playing down the virus to the public, Trump was not confused or inadequately briefed: He flat-out lied, repeatedly, about science to the American people. These lies demoralized the scientific community and cost countless lives in the United States.

[A] U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

[McKim]

21. Good for Them!

Good for them!!!! This is huge in the Science community! In the past scientists have been apolitical not realizing that Everything is Political!!!!!

[Solly Mack]

23. He should be imprisoned.

For what he did to families at the border. For every law he has broken since in office. For his Covid-19 response.

All of it.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

26. Trump and the GOP only serve corporate and personal interests. Period.

It's in their DNA and always instinctive to react to keep the economy running at full steam no matter what the circumstances. Pandemics, crazy weather changes, wars are just inconveniences that must somehow be profited from.

These attitudes create a ravenous hunger for power that consumes and makes amoral the best of mankind.


History has proven this assertion many times......

[spanone]

33. He's incapable of performing his Duties.

[Blue Owl]

34. Shameful indeed