Posts Tagged ‘SURGICAL MASKS’
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN WHITMER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, J.P. MORGAN, JAY INSLEE, JOE BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, N95 RESPIRATORS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY SHOW, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SUPREME COURT, SURGICAL MASKS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS AND JOBS ACT OF 2017, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VENDORS, VENTILATORS, VOLODYMIR ZELENSKY, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 1, 2021 at 8:43 pm
On June 17, CNN ran a headlined story on its website: “Here’s Why Fighting the Affordable Care Act Means So Much to Republicans.”
The story opened: “For the third time in the last nine years — and this time by a convincing 7-2 vote — the Supreme Court knocked out a Republican effort to invalidate” the Act.
The Justices said that the challengers of the law did not have legal “standing” to bring the case.
Opponents of the law were not harmed by the provisions they were challenging, the Justices ruled. The reason: Congressional Republicans had eliminated the penalty for failing to buy health insurance.
Republicans believed that eliminating the penalty would allow them to attack the entire law. They assumed that without the mandate—a pillar of the law when it was passed—the rest of the Act should fall, too.
Thus, the irony: Through their latest effort to destroy the Act by de-funding it, Republicans had unintentionally saved it before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court
The law is now providing access to healthcare for a record 31 million Americans, who would not otherwise be able to afford coverage.
In addition, the Act continues to:
- Eliminate the “pre-existing condition” excuse insurance companies had used to deny coverage to those who most needed it;
- Provide a range of no-cost preventive services;
- Allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance up to age 26;
- Expand the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people access to health insurance markets offering subsidized plans.
“With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it’s here to stay,” President Joe Biden tweeted that same day.
“BFD” referred to his remark, caught on a hot mic when he told then-President Barack Obama in 2010 the law is a “a big fucking deal.”
Why have Republicans pursued its demise so relentlessly? J.P. Morgan once said: “A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.”
The story outlines the reasons that sound good:
“For the GOP base, the ACA is about a view of the country that the government is the answer to all of our problems.
“It’s also tied into their lingering distaste for former President Barack Obama, whose name is literally melded with the law.
“And a belief that the media treated Obama’s ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’ lie and the disastrous rollout (and repeated crashes) of the website allowing people to sign up for a plan with kid gloves because, well, bias.”
Let’s take a quick look at each of these points.
- Millions of Right-wingers hate the Federal Government and openly call for its overthrow. This they vividly demonstrated on January 6 when they tried to illegally retain Donald Trump as President. They hoped to prevent the selection of Joe Biden as the legitimately-elected President of the United States by storming the Capitol Building.
- Racism forms a major component of the GOP’s appeal to older, white, Right-wing voters. So having the name of the first black President unofficially stamped on the law (“Obamacare”) serves as a constant spur to their hatred.
Barack Obama
- Obama’s promise that “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”: The promise backfired because the law stated that those who already had medical insurance could keep their plans—so long as those plans met the requirements of the new healthcare law. If their plans didn’t meet those requirements, they would have to obtain coverage that did.
- The “disastrous rollout (and repeated crashes) of the website”: That happened immediately after the law became effective on March 23, 2010. The sheer rush of uninsured people hoping to finally gain access to medical care proved too much for the website. But over time those bugs got ironed out.
Now for the real reason Republicans have furiously tried to destroy the Act—one that the writer did not mention. It is also one that no Republican dares admit.
And like so much else in the Republican agenda, it is rooted in the methods employed by the Third Reich.
On June 22, 1941, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers smashing into the Soviet Union. During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them.
An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war fell into German hands. The Germans found themselves surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them. But their mandate demanded that they keep marching ever forward.
So they simply imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and wasted no food or medical care on them. Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POW’s
Republicans have learned a valuable lesson from this: If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing, shelter—and medical care—you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads. Or rigged vote-counts.
Most Americans—ignorant of history—cannot accept that their politicians can be as evil as those in other nations. For those needing access to affordable healthcare, voting Republican could turn out to be a fatal mistake.
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACE SHIELDS, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN WHITMER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JAY INSLEE, JOE BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, N95 RESPIRATORS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY SHOW, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SUPREME COURT, SURGICAL MASKS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS AND JOBS ACT OF 2017, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VENDORS, VENTILATORS, VOLODYMIR ZELENSKY, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 23, 2021 at 12:09 am
On June 22, 1941, three million German soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself.
During the first six months of the invasion, the Wehrmacht took an estimated 5.7 million Russian prisoners. The Germans imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and deprived them of food and medical care.
Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POWs
Today’s equally Fascistic Republicans have learned a valuable lesson from this: If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing and shelter, you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads.
And that is why they have fervently tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act since it went into effect in 2010.
Republicans actually have two constituencies:
- The 1% richest; and
- Millions of poor, white, mostly elderly Right-wing men and women.
The richest 1% are too smart to be fobbed off with mere appeals to their hatreds. They demand tangible benefits—such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which became law on December 22, 2017.
This:
- Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent;
- Benefitted overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly-paid executives; and
- Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.
But poor and middle-class Republican voters can be satisfied with appeals to their racism, fear and hatred.
The targets of their hatred include:
- “Uppity” women
- Blacks
- Liberals
- Hispanics
- Democrats
- Asians
- Muslims
- The news media
They see government programs as helping those they most detest—especially blacks and Hispanics.
By cutting off their access to the vital necessities of life—food, housing, medical care—the Republican base expects large numbers of them to die off.
And Republican politicians understand this. Which is why they constantly oppose programs that provide those necessities.
Of course, Republican politicians will never admit this. Their mantra has always been they fear such programs will bankrupt the country.
That claim might have credibility—if they didn’t recklessly plunge into budget-busting wars like the 2003 Iraq war started by President George W. Bush. Not a single Republican opposed this needless, bloody conflict—which has cost the United States more than $1.1 trillion.
But the best evidence of Republicans’ desire to use illness as a weapon against those Americans they hate comes from former President Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump
On March 27, 2020, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—then officially in charge of the White House’s Coronavirus response effort—to not call Democratic Governors Jay Inslee (WA) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts:
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person—I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
Echoing French King Louis X1V’s infamous remark—“I am the State”—Trump added:
“When they’re [governors] not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]. It’s not right.”
Trump said this even as hospitals in Washington and Michigan were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients.
That same day—March 27—Whitmer told a Michigan radio station: “What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts—they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan. It’s really concerning. I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
Gretchen Whitmer
Julia Pickett / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
A March 29, 2020 story in the Washington Monthly sheds light on what lay behind Whitmer’s inability to secure desperately-needed ventilators from her longtime vendors. Its headline ran: “What If Trump Decides to Save Republicans But Not Democrats?”
And it was followed by a sub-headline: “He’s providing vital resources to red states and ignoring blue states.”
Florida submitted a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves—and received a shipment with everything three days later.
It received an identical shipment on March 23, and was soon awaiting a third.
In 2019, Trump demanded a “favor” from the embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—“dirt” on Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden—in return for releasing military aid Ukraine needed to combat an increasingly aggressive Russia.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, he demanded Democratic governors praise him and blame themselves if they waned their citizens to receive desperately-needed medical supplies.
On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, bluntly told governors: “Take the blame when you have to. When you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”
This is precisely the dictatorial arrogance of which Republicans falsely accused President Barack Obama.
The Washington Monthly story concluded on an ominous note: “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN WHITMER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JAY INSLEE, JOE BIDEN, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, N95 RESPIRATORS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY SHOW, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SUPREME COURT, SURGICAL MASKS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TAX CUTS AND JOBS ACT OF 2017, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VENDORS, VENTILATORS, VOLODYMIR ZELENSKY, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 22, 2021 at 12:15 am
On June 17, CNN ran a headlined story on its website: “Here’s Why Fighting the Affordable Care Act Means So Much to Republicans.”
The headline could have been misinterpreted if the reader didn’t know that, for more than 10 years, Republicans had bitterly fought to destroy the Act.
The story opened: “For the third time in the last nine years — and this time by a convincing 7-2 vote — the Supreme Court knocked out a Republican effort to invalidate” the Act.
The Justices said that the challengers of the law did not have legal “standing” to bring the case.
Opponents of the law were not harmed by the provisions they were challenging, the Justices ruled. The reason: Congressional Republicans had eliminated the penalty for failing to buy health insurance.
Republicans believed that eliminating the penalty would allow them to attack the entire law. They assumed that without the mandate—a pillar of the law when it was passed—the rest of the Act should fall, too.
Thus, the irony: Through their latest effort to destroy the Act by de-funding it, Republicans had unintentionally saved it before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court
The law is now providing access to healthcare for a record 31 million Americans, who would not otherwise be able to afford coverage.
In addition, the Act continues to:
- Eliminate the “pre-existing condition” excuse insurance companies had used to deny coverage to those who most needed it;
- Provide a range of no-cost preventive services;
- Allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance up to age 26;
- Expand the Medicaid program that insures lower-income people access to health insurance markets offering subsidized plans.
“With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it’s here to stay,” President Joe Biden tweeted that same day.
“BFD” referred to his remark, caught on a hot mic when he told then-President Barack Obama in 2010 the law is a “a big fucking deal.”
Why have Republicans pursued its demise so relentlessly?
According to the story: “The law represents so much more to Republicans, politically speaking.”
Specifically:
“For the GOP base, the ACA is about a view of the country that the government is the answer to all of our problems.
“It’s also tied into their lingering distaste for former President Barack Obama, whose name is literally melded with the law.
“And a belief that the media treated Obama’s ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’ lie and the disastrous rollout (and repeated crashes) of the website allowing people to sign up for a plan with kid gloves because, well, bias.”
Let’s take a quick look at each of these points.
- Millions of Right-wingers hate the Federal Government and openly call for its overthrow. This they vividly demonstrated on January 6 when they tried to illegally retain Donald Trump as President. They hoped to prevent the selection of Joe Biden as the legitimately-elected President of the United States by storming the Capitol Building.
- Racism forms a major component of the GOP’s appeal to older, white, Right-wing voters. So having the name of the first black President unofficially stamped on the law (“Obamacare”) serves as a constant spur to their hatred.
Barack Obama
- Obama’s promise that “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”: The promise backfired because the law stated that those who already had medical insurance could keep their plans—so long as those plans met the requirements of the new healthcare law. If their plans didn’t meet those requirements, they would have to obtain coverage that did.
- The “disastrous rollout (and repeated crashes) of the website”: That happened immediately after the law became effective on March 23, 2010. The sheer rush of uninsured people hoping to finally gain access to medical care proved too much for the website. But over time those bugs got ironed out.
But there is another reason why Republicans lust to destroy the Act—one that the writer did not mention. It is also one that no Republican dares admit.
And like so much else in the Republican agenda, it is rooted in the methods employed by the Third Reich.
On June 22, 1941, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers smashing into the Soviet Union. During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them.
An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war fell into German hands. The Germans found themselves surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them. But their mandate demanded that they keep marching ever forward.
So they simply imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and wasted no food or medical care on them. Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POW’s
Republicans have learned a serious lesson from this: If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing and shelter, you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads.
And that is why they have fervently tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act since it went into effect in 2010.
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW CUOMO, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACE SHIELDS, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN WHITMER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JAY INSLEE, JOE BIDEN, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, N95 RESPIRATORS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY SHOW, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY, SOVIET UNION, SURGICAL MASKS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VENDORS, VENTILATORS, VOLODYMIR ZELENSKY, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on January 8, 2021 at 12:05 am
On June 22, 1941, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers smashing into the Soviet Union. During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them.
An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war (POWs) fell into German hands. The Germans found themselves surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them. But their mandate demanded that they keep marching forward—ever forward.
So they simply imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and wasted no food or medical care on them. Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POWs
Republicans have learned a serious lesson from this. If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing and shelter, you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads.
That has been their chief reason for opposing Social Security since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law in 1935.
That is why they opposed President Lyndon B. Johnson when he pushed Medicare through Congress in 1965.
And that is why they have fervently tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act—better known as Obamacare—since it went into effect in 2010.
Of course, Republicans will never admit this. Their mantra has always been they fear such programs will bankrupt the country.
That claim might have credibility—if they didn’t recklessly plunge into budget-busting wars like the 2003 Iraq war started by President George W. Bush. Not a single Republican opposed this needless, bloody conflict—which has cost the United States more than $1.1 trillion.
But the best evidence of Republicans’ desire to use illness as a weapon against those Americans they hate comes from President Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump
On March 26, during an interview on Fox News, Trump blamed the failures of his administration’s response to Coronavirus on Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI).
On March 27, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—who’s officially in charge of the White House’s response effort—to not call Inslee and Whitmer because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts.
Trump said this even as hospitals in each of their states were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients.
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person— I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan,’” Trump said. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
Echoing French King Louis X1V’s infamous remark—“I am the State”—Trump added: “When they’re [governors] not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]. It’s not right.”
Trump also attacked Whitmer on Right-wing Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show”: “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government.”
That same day—March 27—Whitmer told a Michigan radio station: “What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts—they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan. It’s really concerning. I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
Gretchen Whitmer
Julia Pickett / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
A March 29 story in the Washington Monthly sheds light on what lay behind Whitmer’s inability to secure desperately-needed ventilators from her longtime vendors. Its headline ran: “What If Trump Decides to Save Republicans But Not Democrats?”
And it was followed by a sub-headline: “He’s providing vital resources to red states and ignoring blue states.”
Florida submitted a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves—and received a shipment with everything three days later.
It received an identical shipment on March 23, and was soon awaiting a third.
In 2019, Trump demanded a “favor” from the embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—“dirt” on Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden—in return for releasing military aid Ukraine needed to combat an increasingly aggressive Russia.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, he demanded Democratic governors praise him and blame themselves if they waned their citizens to receive desperately-needed medical supplies.
On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, bluntly told governors: “Take the blame when you have to. When you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”
This is precisely the dictatorial arrogance of which Republicans falsely accused President Barack Obama.
The Washington Monthly story concluded on an ominous note: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW CUOMO, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CORONAVIRUS, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, FACE SHIELDS, FACEBOOK, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GEORGE W. BUSH, GRETCHEN WHITMER, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, JAY INSLEE, JOE BIDEN, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDIA MATTERS, MEDICARE, MIKE PENCE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, N95 RESPIRATORS, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PRISONERS-OF-WAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN HANNITY SHOW, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCIAL SECURITY, SOVIET UNION, SURGICAL MASKS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VENDORS, VENTILATORS, VOLODYMIR ZELENSKY, WASHINGTON MONTHLY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2020 at 12:21 am
On June 22, 1941, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers smashing into the Soviet Union. During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them.
An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war (POWs) fell into German hands. The Germans found themselves surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them. But their mandate demanded that they keep marching forward—ever forward.
So they simply imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and wasted no food or medical care on them. Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POW’s
Republicans have learned a serious lesson from this. If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing and shelter, you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads.
That has been their chief reason for opposing Social Security since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law in 1935.
That is why they opposed President Lyndon B. Johnson when he pushed Medicare through Congress in 1965.
And that is why they have fervently tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act—better known as Obamacare—since it went into effect in 2010.
Of course, Republicans will never admit this. Their mantra has always been they fear such programs will bankrupt the country.
That claim might have credibility—if they didn’t recklessly plunge into budget-busting wars like the 2003 Iraq war started by President George W. Bush. Not a single Republican opposed this needless, bloody conflict—which has cost the United States more than $1.1 trillion.
But the best evidence of Republicans’ desire to use illness as a weapon against those Americans they hate comes from President Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump
On March 26, during an interview on Fox News, Trump blamed the failures of his administration’s response to Coronavirus on Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo (NY), Jay Inslee (WA), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI).
On March 27, during his press briefing, Trump said he told Vice President Mike Pence—who’s officially in charge of the White House’s response effort—to not call Inslee and Whitmer because they weren’t “appreciative” enough of his efforts.
Trump said this even as hospitals in each of their states were being overwhelmed with Coronavirus patients.
“I tell him—I mean I’m a different type of person— I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan,’” Trump said. “If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”
Trump said that when people criticized him, they were criticizing the federal government: “When they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA. It’s not right.”
Trump also attacked Whitmer on Right-wing Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show”: “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government.”
That same day—March 27—Whitmer told a Michigan radio station: “What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts—they’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan. It’s really concerning. I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”
Gretchen Whitmer
Julia Pickett / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
A March 29 story in the Washington Monthly sheds light on what lay behind Whitmer’s inability to secure desperately-needed ventilators from her longtime vendors. Its headline ran: “What If Trump Decides to Save Republicans But Not Democrats?”
And it was followed by a sub-headline: “He’s providing vital resources to red states and ignoring blue states.”
Florida submitted a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves—and received a shipment with everything three days later.
It received an identical shipment on March 23, and is awaiting a third.
In 2019, Trump demanded a “favor” from the embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—“dirt” on Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden—in return for releasing military aid Ukraine needed to combat an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Now he is apparently demanding Democratic governors praise him and blame themselves if they want their citizens to receive desperately-needed medical supplies.
On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, bluntly told governors: “Take the blame when you have to. When you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources.”
This is precisely the dictatorial arrogance of which Republicans falsely accused President Barack Obama.
The Washington Monthly story concludes on an ominous note: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 11, 2020 at 12:06 am
There’s an Arabian myth that offers a timely commentary on the hysteria surrounding the Coronavirus.
Mohammed is walking along the road from Medina to Mecca when he meets the Genie of Cholera.
“Where are you going, O Cursed One?” asks Mohammed.
“To Mecca, to kill 10,000 of the faithful,” replies the genie.
“All right,” says Mohammed. “See to it that you kill no more than 10,000.”
Six months later the two meet again—and Mohammed is furious: “You are a filthy liar!”
“Why do you say that?” demands the Genie of Cholera.
“Because when I reached Mecca, there were 30,000 dead, not the 10,000 you promised.”
“Oh, I kept by my word and killed only 10,000,” replies the genie. “But 20,000 more died of the fear.”
Fear is stalking the streets of the United States today.
Medical supply companies are rushing to turn out millions of surgical face masks—not for use by doctors but ordinary Americans.
Medical professionals warn that this will prove counter-productive for doctors and ordinary citizens.
Doctors and nurses need those masks when they’re performing surgery—or just coming in contact with patients who might be carrying the Coronavirus. They also wear them when examining patients suffering from routine illnesses.
Standard surgical masks are designed to protect against large, airborne droplets. They cannot protect against viruses. Their loose fit makes it possible for droplets to enter around the edges of the mask.
Standard surgical mask
The N-95 respirator mask is a tight-fitting upgrade that forces inhaled air toward the mask but not its edges. It can filter out 95% of particulates—but not viral particles.
Nor has panic-buying been restricted to face masks. Hand sanitizers, bottled water, toilet paper—even rubbing alcohol—have been snapped off shelves, leaving stores empty of them.
“It’s been nuts,” says Costco’s Chief Financial Officer, Richard A. Galanti.
Businesses that rely on regular patrons—such as restaurants and movie theaters—are especially suffering.
In New York City and San Francisco, businesses in the Chinese community have been hard-hit. It was in Wuhan, China, that the Coronavirus first erupted. Millions of people continue to identify it as a peculiarly Chinese ailment.
The industries most affected are those directly connected to tourism. Cruise ship lines have proven a ready source of contagion, bringing large numbers of people together in what can amount to a floating hothouse for viruses.
Cruise ships have played a major role in the outbreak. More than 700 cases have been linked to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined off the coast of Japan for two weeks. At least 21 more cases were confirmed aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship that docked in Oakland, Calif., on March 9.
Diamond Princess cruise ship
File:Diamond Princess (ship, 2004) and Port of Toba.jpg
The State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have warned elderly and medically vulnerable Americans to avoid cruise ships until the outbreak ends. The CDC recommends that travelers “defer all cruise ship travel worldwide.”
During the 1980s, Kathie Lee Gifford appeared in a series of TV ads for Carnival Cruise Lines, singing an upbeat jingle:
If they could see you now out on a Funship cruise
You’re eating fancy food and doing what you choose.
I’d like your friends back home to get a good look
At the first-rate Carnival cruise that you took.
All I can say is “Wow!” hey look at where you are.
Tonight you’re living life just like a movie star!
What a Funship, holy cow!
They’d never believe it
If your friends could see you now!
This ode to pure hedonism has given way to a climate of sheer panic—among those still aboard cruise liners, those thinking about embarking on cruises and—most especially—among cruise shipping line companies.
A more updated version of Kathie Lee’s song could go:
If they could see you now on a Corona cruise
You’re locked inside your room and someone took your shoes.
I’m sure your friends back home will look on with dread
As the ship docks in port and they haul off the dead.
Hey, look at where you’ll be
You’re turning blue for air
Right there upon the sea!
What a fright ship, holy cow!
They’re sure to believe it
And the doctor’s coming now!
And how is the cruise industry responding to the Coronavirus outbreak? By running more TV ads to sign up more passengers!
Perhaps it’s time for Americans to haul out their DVD players and watch Khartoum—a 1966 movie that offers a timely lesson in courage well-suited to the Coronavirus panic.
It’s based on the true story of British General Charles George Gordon (Charlton Heston) sent to the Sudan in 1884 to evacuate the city of Khartoum before it’s besieged by the army of a dervish fanatic called “The Madhi”—“The Expected One” (Laurence Oliver).
But the siege starts before Gordon can evacuate its 30,000 citizens.
The Madhi orders a bombardment, and frightened townspeople rush into the public square—where Gordon is calmly seated on a camel, holding a Sudanese girl.
As they look up expectedly for guidance, Gordon gently says to the little girl: “I don’t ask you to be unafraid, merely to act unafraid.”
Americans would do well to remember those words—and act on them.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 10, 2020 at 9:52 am
The outbreak of the Coronavirus has terrified Americans in ways not seen since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
For months after that horror, the two most profitable businesses in the country were video rental stores and food delivery services.
People stayed indoors—and at home, as if they believed this was the one place they would be safe. Everyone feared the next big terror attack—and didn’t want to be on hand when it exploded.
Restaurants, nightclubs, amusement parks and the airlines suffered accordingly.
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
In the early 1980s, the AIDS epidemic had truly frightened millions of Americans. At first, no one knew what caused it—or, more importantly, how it was spread.
At first, gays were thought to be the only ones at risk. Then the list of potential victims kept expanding to
- Intravenous drug abusers
- Native Haitians
- Recipients of blood transfusions
- Those with multiple sex partners.
But with the passage of time—and the introduction of AIDS-fighting drugs that allowed victims to generally live ordinary lives—Americans’ fears gradually decreased. AIDS was seen as a disease like tuberculosis—dangerous, but unlikely to strike if you took reasonable precautions.
And now America is facing a new fear—that of the Coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19.
Coronavirus
In December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China. By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that are typically mild, such as the common cold. Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
When the virus surfaced in China, Americans didn’t worry, as it seemed confined to Wuhan. But then it began spreading.
By January 30, 2020, 9,976 cases had been reported in at least 21 countries, including the first case in the United States.
At that time, United States health authorities repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to worry about, that “we’re on it.”
For example: On January 28, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar II stated at a press conference: “We’ve been monitoring this virus and preparing a response since back in December, but it’s more than that. Preparing for these kinds of outbreaks is part of daily life at HHS and for America’s public health professionals.
“Preparedness is a day job around here. We are constantly making investments, training personnel at all levels, carrying out simulations and exercises, and sharing information.
“This commitment goes straight to the top: The President and I have been speaking regularly about this outbreak, and I have been speaking with the senior officials at HHS and the White House multiple times each day since the outbreak began to represent an international threat.”
This was strictly boilerplate rhetoric. What Azar didn’t say was this:
- Upon taking office as President, Donald Trump had gutted the permanent epidemic monitoring and command groups set up inside the White House: The National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
- The reason: Pathologically jealous of President Barack Obama, Trump has tried to destroy every vestige of Obama’s legacy as the first black President of the United States. And these disease-monitoring groups were set up by Obama following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014.
- Also: In the spring of 2018, Trump pushed Congress to cut $15 billion from national health spending—and cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the CDC, National Security Council, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services.
- The Federal $30 million fund for Complex Crises was eliminated as well.
- In April, 2018, National Security Adviser John Bolton forced Tom Bossert, director of the infectious disease unit at DHS, to resign—along with his entire team.
- In May, 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s global health security unit shut down.
- Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, who headed the unit, was reassigned.
- Neither the NSC nor the DHS epidemic team has been replaced.
- The “advice” Trump has offered on the epidemic is misinformation—based on ignorance or willful lying. Example: “I think the [World Health Organization estimate of Coronavirus casualties of] 3.4 percent is really a false number—and this is just my hunch—but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly, they don’t even see a doctor, they don’t even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.”
Above all: Azar didn’t dare say that Trump doesn’t see Coronavirus as a threat to the lives of 300-plus American citizens. Instead, he sees it as a threat to his continued reign as President.
Trump has repeatedly “joked” about how great it would be if the United States—like China—had a “President-for-Life.” And he has accused those Democrats who impeached him for obstructing Congress and abuse of power as guilty of treason.
In the Coronavirus, Trump has met his match in an enemy he cannot bribe or intimidate. The tragedy is that untold numbers of Americans will pay the price for his ignorance and narcissism.
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WHY REPUBLICANS ACTUALLY WANT TO GUT “OBAMACARE”
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 1, 2021 at 8:43 pmOn June 17, CNN ran a headlined story on its website: “Here’s Why Fighting the Affordable Care Act Means So Much to Republicans.”
The story opened: “For the third time in the last nine years — and this time by a convincing 7-2 vote — the Supreme Court knocked out a Republican effort to invalidate” the Act.
The Justices said that the challengers of the law did not have legal “standing” to bring the case.
Opponents of the law were not harmed by the provisions they were challenging, the Justices ruled. The reason: Congressional Republicans had eliminated the penalty for failing to buy health insurance.
Republicans believed that eliminating the penalty would allow them to attack the entire law. They assumed that without the mandate—a pillar of the law when it was passed—the rest of the Act should fall, too.
Thus, the irony: Through their latest effort to destroy the Act by de-funding it, Republicans had unintentionally saved it before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court
The law is now providing access to healthcare for a record 31 million Americans, who would not otherwise be able to afford coverage.
In addition, the Act continues to:
“With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it’s here to stay,” President Joe Biden tweeted that same day.
“BFD” referred to his remark, caught on a hot mic when he told then-President Barack Obama in 2010 the law is a “a big fucking deal.”
Why have Republicans pursued its demise so relentlessly? J.P. Morgan once said: “A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.”
The story outlines the reasons that sound good:
“For the GOP base, the ACA is about a view of the country that the government is the answer to all of our problems.
“It’s also tied into their lingering distaste for former President Barack Obama, whose name is literally melded with the law.
“And a belief that the media treated Obama’s ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’ lie and the disastrous rollout (and repeated crashes) of the website allowing people to sign up for a plan with kid gloves because, well, bias.”
Let’s take a quick look at each of these points.
Barack Obama
Now for the real reason Republicans have furiously tried to destroy the Act—one that the writer did not mention. It is also one that no Republican dares admit.
And like so much else in the Republican agenda, it is rooted in the methods employed by the Third Reich.
On June 22, 1941, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent three million soldiers smashing into the Soviet Union. During the first six months—June to December, 1941—German armies lured huge Soviet forces into gigantic “cauldron battles,” surrounding and exterminating them.
An estimated 5.7 million prisoners of war fell into German hands. The Germans found themselves surprised and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them. But their mandate demanded that they keep marching ever forward.
So they simply imprisoned their captives behind barbed wire and wasted no food or medical care on them. Between starvation, illness and the brutal Russian cold, at least 3.5 million POWs died in custody.
Soviet POW’s
Republicans have learned a valuable lesson from this: If you simply deprive those you detest of food, clothing, shelter—and medical care—you don’t need gas chambers or firing squads. Or rigged vote-counts.
Most Americans—ignorant of history—cannot accept that their politicians can be as evil as those in other nations. For those needing access to affordable healthcare, voting Republican could turn out to be a fatal mistake.
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