Pic Of The Moment: How The Best GOP President Evah Dealt With A Deadly Virus On *His* Watch

[EarlG]

That Time The Reagan White House Press Briefing Erupted With Laughter Over AIDS 13 Times

Reagan's AIDS Legacy / Silence equals death

Follow @demunderground

[unblock]

1. most of the time, republicans are horrible people because they're greedy bastards

but sometimes, they're just horrible people.

[malthaussen]

2. Yep, that's about right.

Those of you who weren't around when AIDS hit never got to enjoy the hilarity that immediately ensued when it was determined that it "only infected blacks and gays." This was a special relief to the goons, because just before AIDS came the Herpes epidemic, and Herpes was color-and-orientation-blind. Seriously, children, you would have been appalled at the reaction.

-- Mal

[riqster]

3. Accurate and succinct. Well written.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. It was not until Rock Hudson, a closeted popular actor, died

that the right wing paid attention.
Even before his death, there was a lot of news about AIDS contaminated blood supply,
so white straight people were getting infected,because donor blood was not checked for the virus.
Still, *crickets* from the gov.

[Liberalagogo]

36. Not really.....

Last edited Wed Oct 22, 2014, 10:55 AM - Edit history (1)

It wasn't until a "straight" sports athlete became HIV positive: "Magic" Johnson. Rock Hudson, they didn't give a shit about.

[Ampersand Unicode]

52. Nothing was really done until Ryan White

Reagan did zilch during his administration. It wasn't until 1990 when HW Bush signed the Ryan White Act that the U.S. did anything about AIDS. GOP didn't care about AIDS until a straight, white teenager from rural Indiana died of the illness from a blood transfusion.

No offense to Ryan or his family, but the GOP (= "Middle America&quot wouldn't have cared if he had gotten AIDS because of "sinful behavior." They would have pulled a Westboro and pissed on his grave.

[Liberalagogo]

55. All I remember

Is that when Magic Johnson announced his HIV status, Congress went nuts saying that "Magic Johnson" shouldn't die. Whether they actually DID anything about it was another matter. But they certainly didn't give a crap about Rock Hudson.

[calimary]

23. Yep. Exactly. That's certainly how it went down as I remember it. It was agonizing!!!

The big brakes - applied straight from the top. reagan diddled and fiddled while afflicted victims and sufferers farther down the food chain burned. It was another demonstration of the politics of "The OTHER." It's THEM what has this. Not nice (read: white) people like us! Who gives a rat's ass. It isn't coming into OUR neighborhood. Why the hell should WE care?

And then, indeed, "OTHERS" started getting it. This nice white lady who was married to a successful actor (Paul Michael Glaser), Elizabeth Glaser, got it from a blood transfusion during a difficult birthing. She sickened and died, but not before trying to help some Americans start to wake up about the threat if HIV. There was also this nice little white Midwestern boy named Ryan White (ironic surname!). Innocent as can be and not even old enough to start pointing toward his sexual orientation yet (or making insinuations about it). Got it from a blood transfusion.

VERRRRRRRY S-L-O-W-L-Y, America started to wake up and come around. And then reagan and his little coven couldn't avoid it anymore. FINALLY, in the last months of his reign of terror, he FINALLY started coming around. But so much precious time had been lost. reagan was the very embodiment of the argument we hear now from the CDC and NIH - that if they hadn't been hit by such relentless, voracious, and short-sighted budget cuts - FOR A WHOLE DAMN DECADE - they might actually have been able to work up some sort of vaccine in that time, with time for clinical trials, even! reagan was the very embodiment of this. In effect, he was a "patient zero" of that HORRIBLE and utterly SINFUL willful neglect. It was WILLFUL neglect because it was considered a gay disease, and they brought it on themselves with their sinful sexual behavior and blah-blah-blah... and the blacks. Yeah. Them TOO! Aberrant behavior. Explains it away nice 'n' clean and short 'n' sweet so it can fit on a bumper sticker and the ill-informed and dumbed-down can absorb and embrace the simplified and sanitized concept much more easily.

Just one more reason why I STILL hate ronald reagan. And I still love riffing off of the late great Bette Davis, who uttered that memorable quote about the passing of her enemy, Joan Crawford. "One should never say bad things about the dead, one should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good." Substitute Joan Crawford's name for ronald reagan's, and you have my sentiments in their most accurate representation. The only good thing about ronald reagan is that he's dead. And his cockeyed policies and slickie-boy Madison Avenue ways of promoting and selling them - can't hurt anybody anymore. It's harder for his remaining acolytes to further his message when their "great leader" and figurehead is no longer there catapulting the propaganda for them with his slick, photogenic, "adorable" and winsome, falsely-harmless, "aw-shucks" nice-old-dude schtick. They don't have another like him who can sell it like that anymore. They sure wish they did, but their Salesman #1 is GONE. He could spoon feed you rat poison and you'd like it and ask for more because he could make it SOUND SOOOOOOOO good, and SOOOOOO wonderful and SOOOOOOOOO red-white-&-blue all-American win-one-for-the-ol'-Gipper super-patriotic good. Nobody can do that anymore the way he did. All they've got now is also-rans and wannabes who just can't do it the way he did, and just don't have it the way he did. And for that I thank Almighty God, every day!!!!

[malthaussen]

24. The thing that bugs me about Reagan, though...

... and all of that "moral majority" crap the GOP started spewing in the '70s, was that it did reflect the real thinking of a lot of Americans. The reaction to AIDS demonstrates this: I knew even supposed liberals who were not all too worried about it until it started spreading to Us Straight White Folk. As much of a scum as Reagan was, he was still only a figurehead for the scum suppurating in the country. He gave it voice and validation, and it's been downhill ever since. But he didn't create it. If there had been no Ronald Reagan, would the USA have had to invent him?

-- Mal

[calimary]

34. "If there had been no ronald reagan, would the USA have had to invent him?"

I dunno. Probably. This was a gift straight from Satan's bowels. The CON-wing prayed for something like him. A spokesman/salesman who could effectively sell their putrid, anti-social, anti-Christian gospel of greed and gluttony and selfishness. They didn't have much of that before reagan. Then, reagan arrived on the scene in California after the ground had been left fertile and plowed and ready to accept the seed-planting of the Joys of the Mercenary Class. And he silver-tongued and sweet-talked the message straight into people's lizard brains. All that's left, after the damage he did and the destruction he begat and led and inspired, is a sense of nearly-futile and half-hearted relief that we won't see someone like him again. His kind of impactful figure happens once in a generation, or maybe once in a lifetime. And it'll probably TAKE a lifetime, or a generation or more, to reverse the horrors he set in motion. Particularly when I don't see ANYBODY but a small handful onstage now who can champion the opposite message to roll back the reagan disaster. People like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders - and that's only two. There AREN'T all that many more.

[niyad]

5. amoung the many things for which I will never forgive that bastard is his refusal to deal with the

AIDS crisis for so many years. there is so much blood on his hands.

[Botany]

6. Summer 2014 President Obama was working on Ebola

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — President Barack Obama warns the Ebola virus could mutate if it is not controlled.
Speaking to NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Obama said that the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,500 people in West Africa is a national security policy and that the United States has a responsibility to help contain it.

snip

“If we don’t make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there’s the prospect then that the virus mutates,” Obama told NBC News. “It becomes more easily transmittable. And then it could be a serious danger to the United States.”

snip

An earlier $58 million request for the Centers for Disease Control would help the agency ramp up production and testing of the experimental drug ZMapp, which has shown promise in fighting the Ebola epidemic in western Africa. It would also help keep the development and manufacturing of two Ebola vaccines on track. The White House request seeks to use $10 million in unused balances at the Department of Health and Human Services to help with the Ebola outbreak in Africa.


http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/09/07/obama-warns-ebola-virus-could-mutate-if-outbreak-is-not-controlled/

[niyad]

7. reagan's surgeon general kept out of all AIDS discussions for five years

(of course, one wonders why he allowed himself to be kept out)

. . .

Reagan could have chosen to end the homophobic rhetoric that flowed from so many in his administration. Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan's surgeon general, has said that because of "intradepartmental politics" he was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.' "

How profoundly different might have been the outcome if his leadership had generated compassion rather than hostility. "In the history of the AIDS epidemic, President Reagan's legacy is one of silence," Michael Cover, former associate executive director for public affairs at Whitman-Walker Clinic, the groundbreaking AIDS health-care organization in Washington. in 2003. "It is the silence of tens of thousands who died alone and unacknowledged, stigmatized by our government under his administration."

Revisionist history about Reagan must be rejected. Researchers, historians and AIDS experts who know the truth must not remain silent. Too many have died for that.

[turbinetree]

8. What can you say

This right wing hypocrite was making secret deals with the Iranians prior to his walking into the oval office in 1981, that is treason and the right wants to put him up on Mount Rushmore, lets ask the Native Americans what they think about this.
This right wing hypocrite attacked the students in California in 1967 and onward and said that the protests against his policies where treasonous, so he decimated the education system in California and fired the Board of Regents. I know I was there.
The Teamsters organization endorsed this right wing hypocrite and then good old Ronnie placed National guard troops in the control towers and broke PATCO and now look at the unions in this country, 7% membership and falling, got to thank those supporters.
This right wing hypocrite and an presently sitting U.S. Supreme court justice by the name of Anthony Kennedy go way back together, he (Kennedy) was the "lawyer" right along with three other hypocrites in California to put a ceiling on state taxes and spending, while at the same time gutting the education program in California, ever wonder why.
Why we are becoming a third state country, look at the history of who nominated this justice of hypocrisy to the bench and others, and now look at Texas and around the country when it comes to voting, equal pay, taxes? The list goes on and on.
Ginsburg had it right when she submitted her descent on the Texas ruling by this right wing Roberts court.
To show what kind of a darling this hypocrite (Reagan) was back in those days he was put on the air over 50 times, to extol his wise summations of hypocrisy and to blame everything on liberals, just like today, attack the left by going right.
Reagan always injected himself as the third person, who was the savior in everything he did, and he was the only one that tooted this horn along with his corruption and that he was the only one that foresaw the event and he was the cowboy riding on the white horse, the life guard to defeat evil while at the same time "his" morality was killing people, what a hypocrite.
The black panther leader Eldridge Cleaver had it right about Reagan ( he was a punk).

[Lochloosa]

10. Welcome to DU turbinetree

[turbinetree]

50. Thanks

Democracy begins with you tag your it

[belzabubba333]

11. tag

[Enthusiast]

14. +1. I do not understand why any Democrat would admire Reagan.

Reagan was transformative, alright. He transformed the nation into a third world country.

[MisterP]

25. heck, most Pubs were against him '89

they just rewrote history to make him "the most popular ever" (Americans actually moved left considerably 1981-2 because of his policies--just not enough)

[mountain grammy]

9. as if any of us need reminding of that sick bastard that allowed thousands to die..

I know no one who didn't lose someone they loved. I'll believe in hell if Reagan is rotting there.

[Rozlee]

12. He's got so much blood on his hands.

From enabling the slaughter of indigenous peoples in Central America to allowing the deaths of thousands of Americans from AIDS, he was a heartless, cold bastard who hid a heart of ice behind a grandfatherly facade.

Rest in peace, Ken.

[Enthusiast]

15. +1 an entire shit load.

[DallasNE]

13. This Has Always Been THE Reagan Legacy

And why I give him low marks overall as President -- indeed in the bottom 10 all time. "The Whitehouse looks on this as a great joke" says all you need to hear.

[Rozlee]

16. The only thing that even got Reagan to address the AIDS crisis was when Ryan White got

national attention. Otherwise, he probably would never have said a word about it. Once it became apparent that children and heterosexuals were at risk, Reagan had to bow to pressure and put on his 'compassionate' face. He was a true sociopath. Someone who knew how to mimic human emotion, but not feel it.

[RoccoR5955]

17. The #1 reason why Reagan is on my permanent fecal register

My brother was one of those who died early on. I will never ever forgive him for the rest of my life.
Not to mention the other things he screwed up, which were many! We only got him because John Wayne was dead.

[mrdmk]

18. I worked at a hospital in 1985 - 88, and people came there to die of AIDS, it was horrible

The President of the United States made a joke of our health system more than the 'Gay Plague' did!

Reagan also gutted Medicare with a formula with 'race to the bottom.' The formula was simple, take all of the HMO's of the time, see how much was charged for each procedure, then Medicare would pay the lowest amount for that procedure. Of course it did not matter if the price made sense or not.

Between the blowout of the California public education and the hatchet job on the hospitals in the nation, the nerve of some people to name a hospital on a California college campus after the bastard. (Check the link below)

http://www.uclahealth.org/homepage_med.cfm?id=264

[bigwillq]

19. K and R

[Iliyah]

20. K & R

Hypocrites - GOP is thy name, and they have no shame.

[KingCharlemagne]

21. Reagan and the Bush Family were a plague on mankind. - nt

[AZ Progressive]

22. Idiocy / Right Wing Politics Kills

A vote for the right wing is a vote for evil and death.

[Kali]

26. I knew he didn't do anything but had no idea of the callousness of that press conference.

disgusting.

[colsohlibgal]

27. On The Other Hand

Had this disease been a disease that hit pasty republicans Ronnie would have been right on it. But gays, Haitians. druggies - not so much.

[Bluenorthwest]

28. They laughed about it, did nothing and people voted for him a second time

They looked at the bigoted laughter, the growing list of the dead and said 'We want more of that, I endorse this with my vote and loyalty'.
What they did was unforgivable and must never be forgotten.

Obama's response to Ebola has been so much better, faster, and kinder. It took America years and years to start helping Africa with HIV because the Republicans would not even help Americans with HIV. Currently about 1.2 million Africans die of AIDS each year, and sadly that represents a major improvement.....global death toll is about 35 million people. That number would have been millions lower if not for Ronald Wilson Reagan and those who empowered him.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. Silence = Death

Knowledge = Life

[Kalidurga]

30. Ronald Reagan killed my uncle who was a hemophiliac

he got an infected transfusion and this was a few years after AIDS was known to kill people. If testing the blood supplies would have happened sooner my uncle would very likely have lived longer. He might not be alive, but if he was alive he would have been 72 years old. He died in 1988.

[Hissyspit]

31. He was lying.

I first heard about it in 1979, and I was a teen-ager.

1982.

[Johonny]

33. There is an old Bill Maher

With Bob Dornan talking about him trying to get the Reagan's white house to respond to the Aids crisis. It is one of those surreal conversations that the old comedy central Bill Maher would have on his show. When B-1 Bob is not on your side who the * side was Reagan taking? Yet when even Republicans of his time told him to act, Ronald Reagan did nothing. It is hard to imagine that today and yet it happened.

[hedgehog]

44. I was a dumb ass young mother who didn't knowingly

know anybody in the LGBT community, and i knew about aids in 1980. I still recall what I was doing when I heard the report on Morning Edition.

Later on, when I knew my cousin was gay, i prayed every night that if he had sex with men, at least he'd put on a condom and be safe.

As I said, it was 1980 and I was still pretty much a dumb ass because all I knew about the LGBT community then was what was n the wind.

I was physically ill when I saw him and knew he had AIDS, and I screamed when he died.

I owe everyone in the LGBT community for making me a better human.

[Jefferson23]

32. President Destruction, that's what he was. K&R

[salib]

35. I think "The Best GOP President Evah" leaves out a few better ones

e.g., Lincoln, Roosevelt, and maybe Eisenhauer

[Major Hogwash]

37. Reagan is the one that the current Republicans refer to as their best evah.

Last edited Tue Oct 21, 2014, 10:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Because most of them disavowed Roosevelt after he enforced the anti-trust laws, and they don't like talking about Lincoln because he freed the slaves.

[YoungDemCA]

42. They love Reagan because his administration made it fashionable to hate the Other

Whether that other was gay, black, female, poor, or simply someone who wasn't a rabid right-wing asshole like Reagan and his ilk.

[SoapBox]

38. I remember well...

And I will never forget.

Reagan...POS.

[JDDavis]

39. It may take 100 years after Ronny's death but..

Ronald Reagan was the biggest shit stain on American history, until

George W. Bush, the ultimate effluent ever to come out of a Republican's vagina.

[raven mad]

40. I hope you don't mind that I stole your graphic.

2 weeks pre-election and I'm fighting with a winger in another forum about Ebola? I mean, shit, Ebola? Granted, it's a horrendous disease and needs to be watched; but as a fucking ELECTION issue?

Lump it under human rights; we've lost so many of them since November 2000.

[Solly Mack]

41. I remember.

[hedgehog]

43. It is shocking to read how everyone in the room was laughing

about "the gays". I've tried to explain to my children how it was to be black when I was a kid; I myself never realized how much other attitudes have changed!

[blkmusclmachine]

46. Reagan was an associate of "THE FAMILY"/"THE FELLOWSHIP," a shadowy rightwing pseudo-religious Cult

located in Alexandria VA and Washington DC, and "THE FAMILY" helped author Uganda's 2009 gay Genocide bill dubbed the KILL THE GAYS bill.

[blkmusclmachine]

45. Some believe to this day that HIV is a bio warfare germ.

AIDS and the Doctors of Death

Alan Cantwell, M.D.


http://www.amazon.com/AIDS-And-Doctors-Death-Epidemic/dp/0917211251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413949570&sr=8-1&keywords=alan+cantwell

[Quixote1818]

47. Is there a way to get a video of that press conference?

That would be devastating to show the laughter and then show images of people who were dying from AIDS. Really bring home what ass holes they were.

[Ampersand Unicode]

53. I hope MoJo will get on it

Although even if they did, the Middle Amuricans in the Faux News audience still wouldn't care. They'd probably laugh right along with the guy.

Right-wing ideology is a mental disorder.

[customerserviceguy]

48. Yes, Ronald Reagan was a bad person

And relatively speaking, Barack Obama is not nearly like him, at least with regard to infectious diseases.

But--Reagan did not have to deal with two things:

1) Three 24/7 'news' channels desperate to fill up a lot of time with crap.

2) The Internet, at which nonsense can travel around the world in the blink of an eye.

Our current President has not lived up to the challenge of those things. He's fighting a losing battle right now because hysteria can become way more widespread than anyone dreamed of thirty years ago.

[left-of-center2012]

49. Too many have died

I've known 13 people - friends, coworkers, acquaintances - who died of HIV/AIDS. I know others who today are "living with AIDS".

[d_r]

51. It was just as bad two years later

Absolutely disgusting.

From: http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/times-the-reagan-white-house-press-briefing-erupted-with


White House Press Briefing — Dec. 11, 1984

MR. SPEAKES: Lester’s beginning to circle now. He’s moving in front. (Laughter.) Go ahead.
Q: Since the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta—(laughter)—reports—
MR. SPEAKES: This is going to be an AIDS question.
Q: —that an estimated—
MR. SPEAKES: You were close.
Q: Well, look, could I ask the question, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: You were close.
Q: An estimated 300,000 people have been exposed to AIDS, which can be transmitted through saliva. Will the President, as Commander-in-Chief, take steps to protect Armed Forces food and medical services from AIDS patients or those who run the risk of spreading AIDS in the same manner that they forbid typhoid fever people from being involved in the health or food services?
MR. SPEAKES: I don’t know.
Q: Could you—Is the President concerned about this subject, Larry—
MR. SPEAKES: I haven’t heard him express—
Q: —that seems to have evoked so much jocular—
MR. SPEAKES:—concern.
Q: —reaction here? I—you know—
Q: It isn’t only the jocks, Lester.
Q: Has he sworn off water faucets—
Q: No, but, I mean, is he going to do anything, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: Lester, I have not heard him express anything on it. Sorry.
Q: You mean he has no—expressed no opinion about this epidemic?
MR. SPEAKES: No, but I must confess I haven’t asked him about it. (Laughter.)
Q: Would you ask him Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: Have you been checked? (Laughter.)

[LeftinOH]

54. The acronym "AIDS" was announced one month earlier - Sept 1982.

NOT to excuse the flippant, unconcerned response from Larry Speakes ...but the term "AIDS" was quite new at the time of this press conference.

And, yes - the administration should have been on top of this. But I remember the era well, and if it wasn't about the Soviet "Evil Empire" it wasn't going to get lots of attention from that administration. As for people who claim to have 'known about' AIDS as early as 1979 or 1980 ..were you working at he CDC? The general public knew little or nothing about the illness which prior to Sept 1982 was known as "GIRD".