And as you define those who have biases as those being against your position, the only ones you will trust are those who give you data that reinforces your opinion?
No, only not from the proven liar or the system he is setting up to justify his lies.
At a cabinet meeting I envision that some Trumper said that they really need a Baghdad Bob, and Trump snapped out of a daydream, wiped the drool off of his chin and yelled “I’ll do it!”
Then he overworked himself. Since when does he need to suppress data in order to lie? He’s been doing it in the face of objective evidence for this entire time.
When he saw his reelection poll numbers. He needs a really Bigglie Lie now.
Then, again, he overworked himself; all he has to do is lie about the poll numbers.
Wait… Didn’t I read something that said that his staff is doing exactly that to him right now?
(Yes, I know lying about the poll numbers could be detrimental to his re-election chances, but c’mon, this is an ego thing here; that wouldn’t stop him.)
Lying to his supporters about the poll numbers will not get him reelected. He can’t lie to himself and he know the polls are bad. So in his mind the way to counteract it is to come out with the biggest lie of his life. A Lie for the Ages so to speak. A Lie that will make history books 200 years from now. For that he needs data manipulation as he believes that will be seen as a stroke of Lying genius. It will put him on par with Putin which I think is who he really wants to be like.
And when we say Trump, we are not saying that Trump is the one doing the scheming and plotting, only that he enables schemers and plotters to scheme and plot in his interests.
In a meeting at some point, someone said, “Well, we can’t exactly hide the numbers.” and someone else said, “Actually we can!”
Right. He does not have the brainpower.
Traitorous shit is probably trying to figure out a way to ‘sell’ an aircraft carrier to Russia to help forgive his debt to them.
Sadly, I’m only half kidding.
The Navy could have a bake sale.
A citation is needed for this claim. Just find any reputable source that said this disease was going to kill between 10 million and 15 million Americans.
Oh I see where the miscommunication is, I make no judgement about Trump or any of the political bullshit going on. I agree, the dissolution of data is bad but I tune the people doing the something out. I know, on this board that is a no no, but it’s just me.
And your paragraph about sifting through the data to come to my own conclusions is exactly what I do when I care about something enough to go find out myself.
But you may not be able to do that if hospitals are not allowed to send their data to the CDC.
The collection and dissemination of public health data is a core function of the CDC. They are being cut out of the loop by this new policy.
There is already less data available to the public per the article in the OP.
The handoff had an immediate effect. Wednesday afternoon one of the important CDC pages that tracked changes over time in how many hospital beds in the nation are occupied by COVID-19 patients ceased working. The CDC confirmed the page’s disappearance was a consequence of the switch.
How can you do that without original sources??
As others have already pointed out, you’re prevented from doing that if reliable sources are not available. Furthermore, and equally important, is that while I agree about the importance of using critical thinking skills to reach conclusions, the first and most fundamental aspect of critical thinking is being able to distinguish reliable sources from self-interested bullshit sources.
Back in the days when there was still a lot of climate change denial, for example, I remember seeing a post from someone to the effect that the poster “had done a lot of reading” on the subject, and was now persuaded that claims of global warming were all bullshit. This was clearly someone who had failed at the #1 fundamental step of critical thinking: recognize science-based independent sources of information as opposed to politically-driven and agenda-driven self-interested sources.
Many of these issues are also very complex and not reducible to simplistic conclusions by armchair amateurs, so it’s all the more important to develop trust in the interpretations of eminent scientists and medical practitioners and the institutions they are associated with. For COVID, that includes places like the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and many universities like Johns Hopkins. It does NOT include the orange buffoon who currently occupies the White House nor any of his political sycophants, who has told us, among other things, that COVID-19 will magically go away in a few days, and then later casually suggested that maybe we inject ourselves with bleach. Nor does it include the likes of Fox News.
The fact is that bypassing the CDC is a deliberate obstructionist act to create an information vacuum on the subject of a life-threatening pandemic, and allow the orange buffoon to spin a pack of lies to his own advantage in the upcoming election, and cut trusted sources of medical and statistical information out of the loop. This is not an environment where you can easily reach your own valid conclusions, and that’s the deliberate intent. It is literally the propagandizing style of a totalitarian banana republic, or North Korea.