By adamg on Wed., 3/25/2020 - 12:26 pm
Update: Moulton and his wife are now self quarantining with symptoms.
Poor Seth Moulton doesn't have enough to do with his time: He's cosponsoring a resolution with a Republican from Indiana to officially blame China for coronavirus. A Moulton mouthpiece says the failed presidential candidate's logic is that blaming China would help stop President Trump from becoming more xenophobic.
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Cover Up?
By BostonDog
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:46pm
China publicly disclosed the virus back in November 2019 and there where thousands of article printed about it and their efforts to save their own people.
Meanwhile, Trump does nothing to prepare America and claims it's not any worse than the flu.
Come March 2020 it becomes obvious that Trump's lack of preparation -- or even willingness to admit it's a serious illness -- is going to cost America trillions and tens of thousands of lives.
And yet you claim it's China that is covering things up?
Turn off Fox News and learn to read a fucking newspaper, you dope. The only cover up is the one the GOP is trying to pull to hide the fact they were completely unprepared for something hundreds of experts had been predicting was a possibility since December. Countries that prepared (South Korea, Norway) have been in much, much better shape.
In another six months, I'd
By Scratchie
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:14pm
In another six months, I'd say there's a good chance we'll be looking back and wishing that our government had behaved a lot more like the Communist Chinese government in terms of their reaction to this virus.
They did try to cover it up
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:38pm
Remember Li Wenliang? The doctor who was silenced for alerting people to the virus?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/08/opinions/coronaviru...
That said, no reason for Moulton to introduce this bill.
You're an idiot
By lbb
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:19pm
You're a barking racist idiot. NO ONE manufactured this virus. NO ONE deliberately spread it. The Chinese government mishandled the crisis, like many governments, notably including your own idol the Bumbler in Chief Trump.
Getting through this is going to be hard enough. We will need every bit of community spirit we have. You are antithetical to that. You've never seen a dogwhistle that you didn't want to blow. You are the worst kind of muckraking intellectually dishonest shitposter. You are actively harmful to the common good. You are long past your sell-by date. Self-isolate and shut the fuck up.
Curious about Spanish flu origin
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:32pm
What I've read is that there really is no consensus where it originated, but that it spread rapidly, to a large extent due to WW1.
deliberate or not the are at least
By bostondriver
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 11:22pm
negligent!
PAY UP CHINA! We want Hong Kong back and we are taking Taiwan.
That's asshole tax bitches.
Where is Judge Judy?
Labs
By BostonDog
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:15pm
The suggestion that the virus was created in a biolab is a 100% lie and bullshit.
Wut?
By BostonDog
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:16pm
So to stop informally blaming China we should formally blame China?
Speaking as a Medford resident (the birthplace of Gypsy Moths and Mike Bloomberg) it's probably best we don't go around blaming other countries for the destructive things that inadvertently originated there.
And "Jingle Bells".
By jmeltzer
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:11pm
But at least Medford isn't responsible for "Little Drummer Boy". I think.
If anything, the resolution should blame US too
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:23pm
The resolution states it
"condemns China for making “multiple, serious mistakes†in its response to the new coronavirus, including the government downplaying the risks of the virus, censoring medical professionals and expelling journalists."
Trump expelled Chinese journalists, downplayed the risks, has and continues to make serious mistakes and has been censoring scientists during his whole presidency.
And nothing will make Trump less xenophobic, he's been getting caught making xenophobic and racist statements since him and pa got in trouble in the 70s and never stopped.
Hey, as a dill weed user
By jmeltzer
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:28pm
(it makes homemade rye bread tasty) I resent it being compared to Moulton.
I am really happy that
By WTC
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:50pm
I am really happy that "dillweed" may be coming back into the vernacular as a derogatory term.
Here are Moulton's own words
By adamg
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:44pm
In which he somehow thinks he can't blame Trump for anything without first blaming China.
So he's implying..
By bshep
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 5:12pm
.. that if the Chinese government had handled things differently on their end, Trump *wouldn't* have blamed the Democrats, attacked journalists, silenced experts and lied about the severity? When this has been his go-to response for just about every situation for the past four years? Honestly, this makes no sense at all.
Come on man...
By jorf
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:03pm
Look, I dislike Trump as much as most people on this blog but this whole post is just a massive stretch. I don't see how the first blame for all this falls to anyone BUT the CCP.
Yes, the Trump administration is grossly incompetent. It doesn't change the facts that the Chinese Communist Party completely screwed the globe by trying to cover it up in the first place.
Calling that reality out is not racist, even if some of the unfortunate reactions to CHINESE PEOPLE might be. And yes, Trump is obviously baiting people all over by injecting "China" into everything to distract from his own faults… but it's still entirely reasonable to place the majority of blame here on the Chinese Government, and then our own.
Moulton seems pretty reasonable here in calling out both.
I am not defending China but
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:03pm
I am not defending China but if they were so bad at keeping this virus under control then how come we now seem to have more people dying outside of China then inside a country with over a billion people in it?
I do not see the use in this resolution at this moment in time. It is like Mom and Dad bickering about who forgot to buy house insurance in the middle of the living room while the house burns down. I got news for you kiddos, grab the kids and get out of the damn house already. Plenty of time to bicker when the smoke clears.
Lets make sure in all of this
By Milwaukee Mike
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:05pm
Lets make sure in all of this to clarify what we mean by the words "China" and "Chinese." If you use these words in such a way that you're somehow blaming an ethnicity for the virus, you're an irredeemable asshole. If, on the other hand you are using these words as shorthand for the government of the People's Republic of China, fire away. The PRC is a bad actor on a global scale. They put religious minorities in camps, sell dissidents' organs, etc.--no love lost there. That government is, for want of a better word, creepy. Like, East-Germany-level creepy. They deserve all the bad PR they get and more. I don't judge the people of China for their bad government any more than I, as an American, wish to be judged for our own [cough, cough].
Besides, PRC media outlets (and at least some government officials from what I've read) have been busy spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that the virus was intentionally introduced/spread by the U.S. military. I have a hunch that sticks in Mr. Moulton's craw given his service record.
The PRC is totalitarian
By Daan
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:09pm
Just the former Soviet Union, possibly the new Soviet Union, aka Putin's Russia and for that matter the fascist states.
Absolute control and absolute power in a small number of hands is an evil no matter what the label.
Bad actor, but
By lbb
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:25pm
...this virus didn't come out of a lab. And to counter their bullshit by saying, "No, YOUR lab!" is harmful and stupid.
Agreed on that point. There
By Milwaukee Mike
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:51pm
Agreed on that point. There's enough for which to blame the PRC regime without having to resort to dog whistle conspiracy theories.
If you can't
By Luke Warmer
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:06pm
keep your mind on the fact that THIS country was totally unprepared for anything like this, then you are a bigoted charlatan moron, though I hate to lump additional disparagement on bigoted charlatan morons.
Not if, but when we see on the nightly news totally disturbing evidence of the total failure of the for-profit medical system, and whatever negative and economic social outcomes appear from that, we will unfortunately have nobody else to blame but cavedwelling dipshits like this Moulton fool.
It's apparently not a choice to evolve or die, but that's the dichotomy we face
Lowers my opinion of him
By Daan
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:07pm
Is there a material purpose to this resolution? What is the useful or productive purpose of this resolution.
If he can't justify this on the basis of some kind of positive goal then it implicitly borders on playing the blame game. While Mr. Trump loves to blame everyone (except for himself of course) this sort of blaming is unproductive.
Worse, this is exactly being a dog whistle for sending the Trump dogs to attack anyone who looks Chinese (at least to the non-east Asians who think all east Asians look alike).
This kind of blame game is exactly what is needed to stoke the fires of racist bigotry.
Moulton shames himself.
We'd better hope
By WalkingTheDog
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:34pm
We'd better hope if China develops a vaccine that they don't withhold it from the U.S. (along with everything else in the supply chain that we are dependent on them for).
I guess you missed the recent news cycles
By tenguix
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:29pm
where western manufacturers were afraid of China distributing proprietary vaccines for free.
Moulton and wife now self-quarantining
By adamg
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 2:54pm
There should be a way for
By RoseMai
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 3:44pm
There should be a way for congress members to vote remotely while all this is going on. The rest of us are figuring out how to do everything remotely- why can't they?
Because it’s hackable. And
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 8:15pm
Because it’s hackable. And Republicans will pay anyone, especially Russians, to do it.
So have them join from an
By RoseMai
Thu, 03/26/2020 - 12:29pm
So have them join from an approved number to a secure Skype video call? There are ways to do it. Other companies that need security already have these capabilities.
Seth's one regret
By Friartuck
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 3:43pm
Is that being born in '78, he was simply too young to author an anti-Congo resolution for the spread of HIV
Moulton stuck on a Fence Rail
By Nowy Liberté
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 4:00pm
Cong. Moulton exhibited some leadership skills by rightly condemning the Chinese Communist Party and their lackies in the WHO for withholding critical data concerning the rapid [exponentiating phase] of COVID-19.
During December the number of cases in Wuhan and the rest of Hubei was manageable through quarantine and tracing. By the time China let the rest of the world know what was beginning to happen and began to crack-down on internal transport -- many hundreds if not thousands of Chinese and others from Hubei had left the immediate area -- many probably unaware of the symptoms or even asymptomatic*1
They seeded the rest of the World. As soon as we learned Pres. Trump put the clamps on travel to/from China which spared us from becoming another Italy.
Had China allowed US CDC and NIH to join the WHO team which was finally allowed to investigate what was happening -- a lot of the death and devastation to the economies of the rest of the world could still have been averted.
Unfortunately -- because of some ill-justified loyalty to Speaker Pelosi or the Democrat Party -- Cong. Moulton then cranked-in the standard fake Demo-Media talking points
Moral of the story:
Cong Moulton was right about the fact China [as a government] lied about the COVID-19 at the time when Millions of People around the world who today are living in fear of either the disease or the economic-collapse could have been saved. They need to compensate the rest of the world for their actions.
*1
From Axios
https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-c...
*2
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-1...
More bullshit.
By lbb
Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:48am
I'll confine myself to just three points.
Chinese People ≠the Chinese Government
By Lily
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 4:34pm
Chinese people are not responsible for this pandemic. Quite the opposite, in fact: many citizens living in Wuhan tried to warn the world in the early days. Just as we Americans live under a government we do not always agree with or trust, the same may be said for people living in China. And the tRUmp administration certainly made decisions that may have mitigated the effect of this pandemic.
However, China is not only hostile to their own citizens; they can often be a hostile player on the world stage as well. After trying to cover up the novel coronavirus/COVID-19, and reportedly further restricting their citizens freedom, China is now trying to spread malicious weaponized propaganda about this virus just as the rest of the world ramps up efforts to combat it. Americans should expect malicious actors to attack us while we're weak & distracted; that seems to be what the country of China is attempting to do, so I am glad our government is paying attention and acting.
AGAIN - THIS IS NOT ANYBODY'S FAULT. DO NOT BE RACIST!!!
I think reading the actual text of the non-binding resolution shows that it includes language that condemns the Chinese government for its treatment of "non ethnic minorities," removal of Western journalists from the country, and calls for "end all forced labor programs." Does America need introspection now? Yes. Does that mean we should ignore everything else? No.
Here is the actual text of the non-binding resolution, linked to the Bill's progress tracker on Congress.gov with the emphasis mostly mine below:
H.Res.907 - Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People's Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak that heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which include the Chinese Government's intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
H.Res.907 — 116th Congress (2019-2020)
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which include the Chinese Government’s intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 24, 2020
Mr. Banks (for himself, Mr. Moulton, Mr. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mr. Bucshon, Mr. Rogers of Alabama, Mr. Loudermilk, Mr. Kelly of Mississippi, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Kinzinger, Mr. Smith of Missouri, Mr. Abraham, Mr. Waltz, Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio, Mr. Riggleman, Mr. Hagedorn, Mr. Norman, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Johnson of Ohio, Ms. Stefanik, and Mr. Weber of Texas) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity and spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which include the Chinese Government’s intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
Whereas Chinese Government records suggest that the first human became infected with COVID–19 on November 17, 2019, in China’s Hubei Province;
Whereas, on December 27, 2019, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Chinese and Western Medicine alerted China’s health authorities that several individuals exhibiting mysterious, flu-like symptoms, were infected with a novel strain of coronavirus;
Whereas Dr. Yu Wenbin and a team of researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden reported that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market greatly contributed to the spread of COVID–19 throughout the city of Wuhan;
Whereas the Chinese Government waited five days after being informed of cases of a dangerous new strain of coronavirus concentrated around Wuhan’s open-air market to shut down of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan;
Whereas Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan, stated that 5,000,000 of Wuhan’s 14,000,000 residents left the city before the Chinese Government imposed a lockdown;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Ai Fen, director of Wuhan Central Hospital’s emergency department, shared a diagnostic report on the then unknown COVID–19 virus with a group of doctors through the social media application WeChat;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang, warned his medical school classmates of an outbreak of an unknown SARS-like virus over WeChat;
Whereas, on December 31, 2019, Wuhan Central Hospital authorities formally reprimanded Fei for “spreading rumors†about the virus;
Whereas, on January 1, 2020, an official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission ordered at least one private genomics testing company to cease testing samples of a SARS-like virus from Wuhan and to destroy all existing samples of the virus;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, Wuhan’s Public Security Bureau detained, questioned and forced Dr. Li Wenliang and seven other doctors to sign a letter confessing he had made “false comments†that “severely disturbed the social orderâ€;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, the leading public health authority in China, the National Health Commission, directed all Chinese research institutions to cease publicly publishing any information related to a then unknown SARS-like virus, and ordered them to destroy existing samples of the virus or transfer them to approved testing sites;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control first asked permission to study COVID–19 within China on January 6, 2020, but was barred by the Chinese Government from entering the country until mid-February;
Whereas Chinese authorities first publicly confirmed the existence of COVID–19 on January 9, 2020, 14 days after the presence of a novel strain of coronavirus was internally confirmed;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission publicly denied COVID–19 was person-to-person transmissible until January 15, 2020, despite having uncovered contrary evidence in late December and being alerted of the transmissibility of COVID–19 on January 1, 2020;
Whereas, on January 18, 2020, over 10,000 families attended the city of Wuhan’s annual Lunar New Year Banquet, which was organized and sponsored by the Wuhan city government;
Whereas the People’s Daily, the largest newspaper in China, first reported on the coronavirus on January 21, 2020, nearly a month after the virus was internally confirmed;
Whereas, on February 7, 2020, one month after checking into Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr. Li Wenliang died of a severe case of COVID–19;
Whereas the COVID–19 outbreak has disproportionately harmed China’s persecuted Uyghur Muslim minority as a result of the following actions taken by the Chinese Government—
(1) the detention of over 1,000,000 Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in “re-education campsâ€, whose crowded and unsanitary conditions makes the camps hotspots for viral disease and leave prisoners at an elevated risk of contracting COVID–19;
(2) as reported by Uyghur Human Rights Project, and corroborated by video evidence and Radio Free Asia, an unannounced and strictly enforced quarantine of millions of residents in its predominantly Uyghur Muslim Xinjiang Province around January 24, 2020, resulted in mass starvation and shortages of basic medical supplies; and
(3) on February 25, 2020, Xinhua News Service reported that China had “re-located†30,000 Uyghur laborers to temporarily shuttered factories in the Hotan prefecture, exposing them to health risks the Chinese Government deemed unacceptable for the ethnically Han majority;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control, being the premier infectious disease research institution in the world, was well situated at the beginning of the COVID–19 outbreak to both assist China’s response and prepare the United States to handle the virus should it spread internationally;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission failed to include individuals who tested positive for COVID–19 but remained asymptomatic in its daily tally of confirmed COVID–19 cases, hampering American public health authorities’ ability to accurately account for the health risks of infection and spread rate of the virus;
Whereas Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Zhao Lijian, claimed that COVID–19 originated in the United States and that the United States Army brought the virus to Wuhan to wage biological warfare on China;
Whereas other Chinese Government officials including scientists working on China’s COVID–19 response, China’s Ambassador to South Africa and China’s Ambassador to Australia have claimed that there is no evidence that COVID–19 originated in China;
Whereas, on March 4, 2020, Xinhua News Agency, an official mouthpiece of the Chinese Government, published an article threatening to cut off medical supply exports to the United States and “plunge [the United States] into the mighty sea of coronavirusâ€;
Whereas, on March 17, 2020, China expelled American nationals working at the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times, reducing the spread of reliable information on the COVID–19 outbreak in China; and
Whereas a study by the University of Southampton found that if China had taken action 3 weeks earlier, the spread of coronavirus would be reduced by 95 percent globally: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) calls on the Chinese Government to—
(A) publicly state that there’s no evidence that COVID–19 originated anywhere else but China;
(B) denounce the baseless conspiracy that the United States Army placed COVID–19 in Wuhan;
(C) revoke its expulsion of American journalists;
(D) end its detainment of Uyghur Muslims and other persecuted ethnic minorities; and
(E) end all forced labor programs;
(2) condemns—
(A) the Chinese Government’s censorship of doctors and journalists during the early days of the outbreak and particularly its treatment of the deceased Dr. Li Wenliang;
(B) the Chinese Government’s refusal to allow scientists from the Centers for Disease Control to assist its response to COVID–19 for over a month after cooperation was offered, needlessly endangering the lives of its own citizens and hampering the United States early attempts to learn more about COVID–19; and
(C) China’s National Health Commissions’ duplicitous denial of the person-to-person transmissibility of COVID–19; and
(3) calls for the World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to retract highly misleading statements of support for the Chinese Government’s response to COVID–19, especially his praise for the “commitment from [China’s] top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstratedâ€.
FINAL COMMENT FROM THE OP:
I'm a little disappointed that I saw this story on UHub with so little context, Adam, because I really trust you. Is there a reason you didn't link to the bill on Congress.gov originally? I hope you're OK. I know you are usually more nuanced, and rest assured that I continue to trust & recommend you widely. Be safe.
Has anyone actually read the
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:02pm
Has anyone actually read the resolution?
It's criticizing the Chinese government for, among other things--
Punishing Dr. Li Wenliang and others for publicizing the existence of the virus;
Censoring information about the virus and ordering scientific data be destroyed;
Blocking the CDC from investigating;
Expelling American journalists reporting on the virus;
Their ongoing oppression of the Uyghurs, which is exacerbating the COVID-19 risk among them; and
Spreading numerous stories that would be best described as "fake news" and "conspiracy theories".
This is now considered "racist" attacks on "Chinese"? Criticizing an authoritarian, illiberal government for all manner of oppressive behavior? Every single one of these examples above are things that people who call themselves liberals should be condemning. Yet because Trump in his typical stupidity keeps calling this thing a "Chinese" virus, now anyone supporting condemning the above is labeled racist?
Imagine thinking
By tenguix
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:27pm
that with all of the bullshit people are going through right now, this has to be a legislative priority. This dude straight up sucks. Not even enough substance here to precipitate the usual discourse around whether it's incompetence or willful malice.
What's the point?
By anon
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:37pm
The only legitimate part of this "resolution" is the demand (or whatever it is) to:
(C) revoke its expulsion of American journalists;
(D) end its detainment of Uyghur Muslims and other persecuted ethnic minorities; and
(E) end all forced labor programs;
The rest is just bluster and BS. This should be beneath us, but that bar has dropped out a long time ago.
Double Standard
By Don't Panic
Wed, 03/25/2020 - 11:58pm
"Their measure condemns China for making “multiple, serious mistakes†in its response to the new coronavirus, including the government downplaying the risks of the virus, censoring medical professionals and expelling journalists."
So where's the House Resolution blaming President Trump for the spread in the US. He downplayed the risks, ignored medical experts and stopped having White House Press briefings.
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