ventilator facts

From Jeffrey St Clair at Counterpunch:

+ Trump: “Nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that we’d need tens of thousands of ventilators.”

2015 CDC study: A severe flu pandemic could require 60,000 additional ventilators

+ COVID-19 patients average time on ventilator: 11 – 21 days (vs. 3 – 4 days for non-COVID-19 patients).

+ The government’s secret ventilator stockpile contains just 16,600 ventilators, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, not even close to the number needed to help people affected by a severe pandemic…

+ How much Jeff Bezos makes, measured in ventilator costs:

1 minute: 6 ventilators
1 hour: 258 ventilators
1 day: 8,602 ventilators
1 week: 60,385 ventilators
1 month: 261,667 ventilators
1 year: 3,140,000 ventilators

Hospitals in the U.S. have only 170,000 ventilators. (Source: Public Citizen.)

about that mindset (2)

Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders did nothing to stop the coronavirus bailout bill, which gives top financiers zillions in no-strings money. Pundits say it's almost a certainty these fat cats will use the funds to buy companies distressed by the pandemic, thus increasing their monopoly control over the system. Way to go, progressives!

The bill still has to be voted on by the House but was approved 96-0 in the Senate.

about that mindset

Several commenters have noted the irony that the same people who were screeching about Obama death panels are now saying "let granny die to save the economy."
(No one told them that crowded emergency rooms means people of all ages get killed.)

The sanctity of human life is malleable depending who's in office.

falsehood catalog (biden)

Creepy Joe's lies came so rapidly and furiously in his recent debate with Bernie Sanders it was hard to tally them. Nina Illingworth has covered them here (scroll down to "Debate Fallout"):

"If anything, the debate was most memorable for the simple fact that Joe Biden spent the entire evening demonstrating that while he can’t tell his wife from his sister, he’s still capable of lying his ass off like a champ if the situation requires it. Please understand that I’m not talking about one lie here, or even Palooka Joe’s altogether routine habit of twisting the truth; Joe Biden went on CNN and bald-faced lied over and over while demonstrating the ability to falsify his publicly documented record in government on issues both large and small. Biden lied about his crusade to cut social security, his opposition to abortion rights, his opposition to the New Green Deal and the (late) timing of his conversion from an opponent of gay marriage, to a supporter. Palooka Joe also falsely accused Bernie of having 9 Super PACs (Sanders has zero), he once again lied about his support for the Iraq war; from the Hyde amendment to Medicare for All, Joe Biden falsified not only his current policy positions, but his entire voting record as a government official – at one point, Joe literally said he hated the Bankruptcy Bill he himself f*cking wrote."